Flutter of feathers, a blur of color – the birds in the valley this Spring are amazing. Orioles, rose breasted grosbeaks, scarlet tanagers, indigo buntings, a huge suite of warblers, and so many more! Maybe the photography workshop with Gordon Dietzman on Saturday May 18th will give me some tips on how to get them in focus! Maybe he could help you too?! (hint, hint – spots still open!)
Spring rushes by so fast, and there is so much to do and so much to enjoy! I keep heading out to the woods to pull garlic mustard and look for morels. I always come back with a full load… of garlic mustard. I haven’t found many morels. I think my “seek and destroy” instinct may be stronger than my “hunt and gather” instinct! I’ve seen many little pink ladybugs on the garlic mustard flowers this Spring. My resident entomologist tells me they are the native 12-spotted (AKA pink spotted) ladybug. Apparently they eat pollen, as well as aphids. I also saw them on other flowers, so I’m not in the least bit concerned that I’m going to destroy their only food source by taking away the garlic mustard! Note the cute little pink ladybugs in my blurry photo!
Time too has been a blur these past 2 weeks. Thanks to a glowing Facebook post by Sam Thayer, I have a lot of new subscribers to the mailing list! I’ve also been busy lining up workshops. Sam’s August foraging workshop was full, and the waitlist was overflowing, so we looked at our calendars and added another workshop date: June 1st. That’s coming up quickly! We also added a July 27 workshop on Wild Food Prep with Chris Gavin and an October 12 workshop on Mushroom ID and Foraging with Andi Reisdorf. I am grateful for these experts who are willing to come to help us share knowledge and share Iowisota. We are getting a wonderful blend of local and more distant participants. It is moving fast, but it is good.
The final blur to mention is the northern lights this weekend. My photos just look like a smear of green on a dark sky, so I’m not going to share them; others have already widely shared much better images! But it was a treat to get to see the sky pulsating with energy, even way down here in Iowa.
I always try to keep these blogs short, so I must stop. Check out the events page, check out the accommodations page… make your plan to come see us at Iowisota! Until next time…
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