Green is the Color of My Life – Page 2 – Get in Touch with Nature and an Environmentally Sustainable Lifestyle

Rain Barrels, Bigger is Better

My husband is forever the reluctant environmentalist. I wanted to put rain barrels in for years. For every hair-brained idea I come up with, Jake thinks that for all of the effort to be crunchy granola, it will be a hassle and cost more money. He may be right about the hassle, but not the money. Especially when you take advantage of an opportunity to get materials for free. Remember that one of the three R’s is REUSE! (You know, as in the environmental trifecta: reduce, reuse, recycle.)

For my job as an environmental consultant, back in 2014, I was working on the environmental management of a demolition project. The three old brick and steel buildings slated for demo were built in 1911. For over 100 years, the buildings housed the manufacturing operations of heavy equipment. Throughout the years the buildings had been used for a number of purposes: assembly line, welding, chrome plating, research and development testing, storage, etc. As newer buildings were built to replace the old ones, the buildings were increasingly used for storage. The last user was R&D, once they moved into their newly built building, the old brick buildings were planned to come down.

Anything that could not be recycled was going down with the buildings and ultimately to the landfill. Many workers jumped at the chance to take old relics from the 100 year old buildings. One very nice 1960’s era hardwood conference room table was snatched up immediately. While unnoticed in the corner, a big deionized water system which had not been used for years was hidden back by the restrooms. The two large fiberglass tanks which had been used to store the DI water were there, sitting empty. I had need to go back in that area each month for inspections, so I knew they were there and asked if I could have them. No one else wanted them and they were all mine.

The larger of the two rain barrels sits on the southeast corner of the garage. This barrel has a 500-gallon capacity.

To me these were golden! Most tanks around a manufacturing facility would not be suitable for salvage. Generally, they would have been used for antifreeze, oil, diesel, or waste liquids, but not these tanks. They were untouched by anything but water. And not just any water, super pure clean water that was used for R&D testing. The fiberglass tanks were two different sizes: one was a 500 gallon tank and the other was a 300 gallon tank. I borrowed my husband’s work truck, an F-350, to haul the tanks home.

My mother-in-law got rain barrels a few years before we did. This was probably part of Jake’s lack of excitement over me bringing these tanks home. He installed his mom’s rain barrels and was often problem shooting when she called saying it was full but nothing is coming out, or it is overflowing because there is too much rain and the barrel is full. Her rain barrel is more typical for what you see installed at a person’s home, a 55-gallon blue plastic drum. I can not remember if she got it for free or if she paid for it as a new drum. But I do know that 55-gallons does not get you very far when it comes to watering plants. If you had a crystal ball and knew when it was going to rain next, it would be easy to manage. During the long dry spells, she always runs out.

When it comes to rain barrels bigger is better. You see, the thing about rain barrels is that they are full just after it rains, when you do not need them, and empty when you really need them, after a long period without rain. So the more water you can collect the longer it will last between rains. In the mid-west, it rains fairly often throughout the year. The average precipitation per month is just over 2 inches in the winter and not quite five inches in the spring and summer. The average rainfall per year in our part of the world is 40 inches.

At the end of May and early June this year, we had an 18 day stretch without rain. Our rain barrels get pretty low when we go that long without. Much longer than that would be a serious drought for the region and we might run out of rain water, but this does not happen very often. After the three week dry spell, we made up for it with 1.6 inches of rain over 10 days.

The 500-gallon barrel sits in the vegetable garden on the back side of the garage.

So how much water can you collect during a rain? It depends on the size of your roof, the amount of rain, and the capacity of your rain barrel. Our rain barrels collect water from our detached garage; one on each side. The garage is 20 feet wide by 30 feet long. I do not know the exact pitch of the roof, but let us just assume that it is a 30 degree angle. Using our 30-60-90 triangle formula (dust off those brain cells) the hypotenuse of the triangle is 11.5 feet; this is the width of one side of the roof. Each rain barrel is fed from one side of the garage roof which has an area of 11.5 feet wide by 30 feet long, or 354 square feet.

Here is a cool rain barrel calculator to calculate the amount of water you can collect in your barrel. When we get one inch of rain, we collect 216 gallons of water in each rain barrel, for a total of 432 for both barrels combined. As you can see, we have the capacity of 300 and 500 gallons in our barrels, so we can collect every drop. If your rain barrel is only 55 gallons, you are not reaching your full rain collecting capacity. For the entire year in the mid-west, we average 40 inches of rain. If we collect all of this in our barrels throughout the year, we will have collected 17,250 gallons of water! Water in the mid-west is cheap at $.585 per 100 gallons. For our efforts, this saves us just over $100 per year in water costs. Generally our monthly water bill is around $50 per month, so by collecting rain water we are saving 14% on our annual water costs. Not too shabby for a couple of freebies!

Information about this year’s rain fall was obtained from www.wunderground.com/history/ You can search the rainfall history for your location!

Oh Deer! Bambi in Real Life

Can you spot the fawn? While walking in a cemetery, one does not expect to see a brand new life, recently born. On a lovely June day, my two daughters and I were taking a walk with the dog during the first week of summer vacation. I almost missed it. The girls and I were chatting and the dog never did see or smell it. If it had not been for the shining sun reflecting on the wet nose of the fawn, placed in care between two rows of headstones, I probably would have walked past without noticing.

I have seen pictures of fawns hiding out after birth, but I had never seen one myself in real life. I can not explain to you how precious it was. The photos do not do the experience justice. To see a babe of nature, alone, big brown eyes, wet black nose, the amber fur sprinkled with white spots, my human motherly instinct wanted to grab up this creature and care for it like my own. Or at the very least just pet it! However, I am an educated person and I resisted the temptation. I know that mother does do not abandon their fawns. This is part of their motherly instincts and I respected that, of course.

See the fawn nestled in between the headstones?

A doe generally isolates herself from the herd to birth, usually laying down to do so. Fawns are either born singly or as twins, each taking fifteen minutes to half an hour to be born. Triplets are possible but rare. Before moving her babies, the mother will clean her young of the amniotic fluid and membranes. She will also consume the afterbirth including the placenta and any blood stained leaves and vegetation. Consuming and cleaning all traces of the birth clears the area of the scent that might attract predators and also gives the mother needed nutrients and energy after birth.

Fawns begin nursing immediately after birth to drink the colostrum rich milk. A fawn can walk twenty minutes after birth and the mother moves her babies within three hours of giving birth. Twin fawns are moved to separate locations. After birth, fawns spend their first few weeks alone under cover and motionless to avoid predation. In other words, a wobbly baby deer is easy prey for a hungry predator. It is better for the fawn to stay hidden by itself than to be unable to keep up with its herd. Although they can walk shortly after birth fawns spend 90 percent of the first few weeks bedded. In May and June, 80 percent of the fawns for the year are born and in hiding on the ground.

Here is the fawn from another angle.

A mother doe does not spend much time with her fawns in these first few weeks. Although you can not see her, she is nearby. A doe is usually about 100 yards from her fawns. Fawns nurse two to three times per day as newborns, increasing to six to eight times as they get older, usually only feeding at dawn and dusk. When fawns are found alone in strange places, many people assume incorrectly that they are orphaned. Unless the fawn has been placed in a dangerous location, leave the fawn be. People may need to change your habits to avoid bothering the fawn. For example, if I had a fawn in my backyard, I would not let my dog out back until the fawn had moved along. Mama isalways watching. Another good reason not to feed, pet, or take a fawn is that does can be very protective of their young.

It is illegal to keep a fawn without a permit in Illinois. Even if people know not to pet or keep the fawn, when well intentioned people see a scrawny little fawn, they may think feeding it is a good idea. Teaching deer to associate humans with food is dangerous to the deer. It is a disservice to teach a deer to approach humans. Remember that humans hunt deer. Furthermore, a deer that has no fear of humans may become a nuisance and even aggressive and may need to be euthanized. Even if you do not see the mother, rest assured that she is feeding her babies at dawn and dusk. At three weeks old, fawns start to eat vegetation. They are also reunited with their twin at this time. At three weeks of age, they can outrun most predators.

The fawn that I came across was not in anyone’s way. Hopefully the mother moved her fawn before the groundskeepers came to mow the grass and trim the weeds. I am curious to know how old the fawn was. I suppose it could have even been born that very day. I did see a doe earlier on my walk and after I spotted the fawn, I was pretty sure that she was the mother. I remember thinking it was odd when I saw the doe for two reasons. One is because of the time of day. I usually only see deer at dusk, (I probably would see them at dawn too if I were a morning person!) however this doe was out at 1:00 in the afternoon. Also, I usually see deer in small or large groups, but this doe was alone.

Here is a video I found on YouTube of twin fawns being born. I would love to see this in my woods and capture it on video!

Doe gives birth to two fawns right outside our window Published on Jun 21, 2016 by jenalynnkessem

Information about whitetail deer birth and early life found on the University of Illinois Extension, www.outdoorlife.com and www.tinks.com

Art & Science in the Woods

Every year for the past 44 years, the Sun Foundation has hosted a camp called Art & Science in the Woods for 200+ kids the second full week of June. I was fortunate enough to have the time to volunteer as a Teacher’s Assistant this summer for the first time. My daughters, ages 8 and 11, also attended camp for the second time.

Despite the humid 95 degree weather, despite using port-a-potties for a week, despite the half-hour drive there and back each day, despite the lush poison ivy and mosquitoes, I was in heaven. I got to go to summer camp! It brought back all of the memories of every summer and every camp I ever attended. Going to camp as a kid was an opportunity to discover, and grow, and get dirty, and have fun!

Art & Science In The Woods, as you can probably guess by the name, gets kids out into nature to explore their creative side while learning about the science of the natural world. Each kid get’s to choose their own adventure, so to speak, from a list of “Majors” and “Minors.” The Major class is from 9:00 A.M. to noon each day. My daughters chose Imagination Nation (A) and Comedy in the Woods (G) as their majors. The Minor classes change each day in the afternoon from noon to 3:00 P.M. I can’t remember each of the minors since each girl had five, but some of the classes include: Watercolor in the Woods, etc.

Cabin Camping at Lake Ouachita

In April my husband, the landscaper, is just kicking into high gear. Everyone starts calling in March waiting for the good weather to break and celebrate spring with new landscaping. My girls had their school spring break in mid-April this year, so we had to chose between staying home or adventuring on our own, without Jake. Life is short, so I will always chose vacation!

My usual fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants-self had to do a little more pre-planning to go on a trip as the solo adult. Normally, when our family leaves to go on a vacation, Jake starts driving in a general direction, but the exact destination is not determined until I, the navigator, google the weather forecasts, compare locations, and find the cheapest nicest quaintest spot to stay. Traveling without Jake meant that I was both captain and navigator, so any work that I could pre-plan would take a lot of stress off of me while in transit.

I decided on Hot Springs, Arkansas as our spring get-a-way destination. I had never been to Arkansas before so I decided we should check that one off the list. To break up the 10 hour drive, I decided to stop in St. Louis for a night on the way there and a night in Memphis on the way back. The majority of the trip was in Arkansas; one night in Little Rock and three nights cabin camping at Lake Ouachita in the Arkansas State Park just out side of Hot Springs National Park and Hot Springs the town.

I really wanted to go tent camping, but again, as the solo adult with two children, that did not seem like a great plan. Maybe if my girls were older, but at age 7 and age 10, they still want Mommy to walk them to the bathroom each and every time. Instead I found a great compromise between going camping and staying in a hotel: cabin camping. Or as I like to call it: glamping. I had never been cabin camping before and it was just fabulous!

The cabins were a new addition to the campground we were staying at.

Alligator Snapping Turtles in Illinois

Last winter my girl scout troops had a visit from the local wildlife rescue, an event held during a half day off school in the basement of a neighborhood church. The two women from the wildlife rescue brought an impressive assortment of animals to show the girls, who range from second grade to fifth grade. There was a frog, a toad, a snake, a skunk, a barn owl, and an alligator snapping turtle. The alligator snapping turtle, they explained, is an endangered species in Illinois and a threatened species in the United States. No one was allowed to get too close for fear of a quick chomp! They explained to the girls that the Department of Natural Resources releases snapping turtles into the wild each spring to re-establish the population in Illinois.

This spring I had a pleasantly unexpected encounter with the alligator snapping turtle myself. If it had not been for the girl scout event I probably would not have realized the significance of it. I live in the city, but my property backs on to a huge cemetery that also happens to be bordered on the north and south with two huge parks which form part of a contiguous system of woodlands along the Illinois River bluff for many miles. To have this bounty of nature in my backyard is a gift; much of Illinois is flat farmland for corn and soybeans. Nightly, I hear the barred owls hooting “who cooks for you” starting around 4:00 PM in the summertime. Just beyond my backyard, the cemetery property is woods, ravines, and creeks for at least half a mile; I can not see any graves from my backyard. It is the one of the oldest cemeteries in Illinois. Besides its primary purpose as a final resting place, it is enjoyed by the community as a park for walking, biking, and running. There is a midnight marathon in the cemetery around Halloween each year. And my personal favorite, the historical cemetery tours are a series of monologues by local actors reenacting the part of past local residents now buried in the cemetery. It is a thoroughly enjoyable and educational event. But back to the turtles…

Can you see it? There is an alligator snapping turtle (circled in yellow) in the creek behind my house – very hard to see in this photo.

I often walk with my dog in the cemetery. I get my fill of nature, most commonly seeing deer, coyote, and turkey. Occasionally, I spot an eagle flying above me. One day this spring, I stopped to look at the creek and I spotted a turtle. I do not recall ever seeing a turtle in the creek before. The photo I took is a little grainy because I was standing on a bridge zooming in to get a closer look. But I do believe it was an alligator snapping turtle. The shell of the turtle looks ridged and horny, not smooth like the common snapping turtle. Also in my research, the alligator snapping turtle lives in slow moving rivers and creeks like the one in the cemetery. Whereas the common snapping turtle prefers ponds and lakes. They are the largest freshwater turtle in North America with males reaching up to 31 inches in carapace (shell) length and a weight of up to 200 lbs. They have large heads, hooked beaks, long tails and a worm-like tongue, used as a lure to attract prey. Alligator snapping turtles can live up to 200 years! The one I saw had about a seven inch carapace which would be about a ten year old turtle.

As a protected species in Illinois, it is illegal to possess, capture or take an alligator snapping turtle. The turtle spends most of its time in the deep water and mud of slow moving rivers. They are most active at night and prefer to move by walking rather than swimming. Female turtles lay their eggs along the banks of rivers. Sexual maturity in the species occurs between ages eleven and thirteen. Courtship happens in late spring, and ten to sixty eggs are laid in late May or early June. Eggs hatch in 90 days. The alligator snapping turtle rarely leaves the water to bask in the sun as other turtles often do. However, the females leave the water to find a place to lay eggs. So if you see an alligator snapping turtle out of the water DO NOT DISTURB, it is probably a female laying eggs. If you disturb her, you may cause her to not lay her eggs and even to die because of the unlaid eggs in her body which need to come out.

Here is a close up of the turtle in the creek – still grainy but definitely looks like an alligator snapping turtle!

So what is going on with the alligator snapping turtle in Illinois? Why is it a threatened species? Changes and alterations to major waterways, which are the habitat and breeding ground for the turtles, created barriers to the natural turtle migration. Removal of log jams disturbs places for turtles to hide and hunt for food. At one time smaller alligator snapping turtle hatchlings were caught and sold as pets and the larger turtles were captured for meat. Over time, the collection and over-harvesting of the species eliminated the turtles from certain areas. By the 1960’s, alligator snapping turtles were extremely rare in Illinois. The major waterways associated with the Illinois population of the turtles are the Gulf of Mexico drainages of the United States: the Mississippi River, the Illinois River, the Ohio River, and the Wabash River. Historically, all of these rivers were primary habitat to the alligator snapping turtle.

The effort to bring back the turtle to this region is funded through a multi-state competitive State Wildlife Grant by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to Illinois, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. The grant covers long term monitoring and tracking of the released turtles. The turtles that were released in Illinois this spring were raise by the Tishomingo National Fish Hatchery in Oklahoma and paid for by the Illinois Wildlife Preservation Fund. Ninety-seven turtles were released in Illinois. The Illinois Natural History Survey recorded data for each turtle and affixed the transmitters and iButton dataloggers. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources and the Illinois Natural History Survey worked with a number of local organizations including our local zoo. The local zoo is just to the south of the cemetery creek where I saw the alligator snapping turtle. I wonder if he (or she) was one of the ninety-seven that was released? I did not get close enough – as you can see from my grainy pictures – to see if there was any transmitting or datalogging devices attached. Believe me, I wanted to get a closer picture, but the poison ivy made that nearly impossible, especially while walking the dog. Hopefully this is the first of many alligator snapping turtles I will see during my walks.

All information about the alligator snapping turtle was found on the Illinois Department of Natural Resources website. Enjoy this video by the IDNR for more information about the release this past spring.

Video published on Oct 6, 2016 by the IDNR – The alligator snapping turtle was all but gone from Illinois until efforts to re-establish populations started in southern Illinois, part of the turtle’s historic range. Recovery of threatened and endangered species requires cooperation and partnerships among many agencies, organizations, schools and volunteers.

By Kate | June 6, 2017 | Nurture Your Nature, Stewardship | 0 Comments | Like

Starting Out At Beekeeping

It all started at the local nature center’s Earth Day Celebration. I stopped by the local beekeepers association display table and was asked the fateful question, “Would you like to keep bees?” Me? Yes! I said, “Yes,” and that was that. I knew that the city I lived in had just passed an ordinance allowing beekeeping in the city, so I jumped on the bandwagon. The gentleman who asked also offered to help me obtain the bees and get me set up with two hives.

I had purchased the Beekeeper’s Bible years ago on Amazon and had dreamt about having the sweet little honey makers, but had never planned out actually acquiring them in real life. I am a planner. I love planning. In the normal progression of doing something as daring as beekeeping, I would have researched the equipment, compared prices for different set ups and different companies. I would have estimated the amount of honey produced each season and the price per pound I could expect to sell it for. I would have figured out the ROI (return on investment) for getting the bees and all of the equipment and how much I could get from selling the honey.

But not this time. A door unexpectedly opened for me and it took me less that five seconds to process the question and jump in with both feet. I had to decide then and there or wait another year because there is a particular time of year for purchasing packaged bees and getting them set up in a hive so that they can gather enough honey stores to make it through winter. In Illinois, that time of year is April. It was April 22nd and I did not have much time to think about it.

While Mr. G kept his side of the bargain: purchasing the bees and picking them up for me. I had not even started thinking about how I was going to get the equipment when I got the email from him saying that my bees were in on April 29th. The last week of April had sped by and then May exploded with busyness. I was way behind schedule. I originally planned to get the starter kit by mail order from a beekeeping supply store, but then decided since the headquarters was within a short driving distance I would go pick everything up and save $70 in shipping costs. In the meantime, Mr. G hived my bees for me.

I drove the two hour drive to the beekeeping supply store on May 8th. While there, I took the time to ask 10,000 questions and go over all of the options. In the end, I decided not to get the starter kit because I could get discounts for buying bulk packages of unassembled boxes and frames. It would be cheaper overall since I was getting enough for two hives, plus I would have an extra of the brood box, the super, and the frames to go with each. The downside was that I was purchasing everything unassembled, but again it saved me money.

What I saved in money, I spent in time. Not just for the drive; it took me a while to get my hive boxes nailed together, primed and painted. Then for the frames, it was nearly impossible for me to nail them and keep the frames square. After attempting the first two, I stopped and asked Mr. G for help. He sent me the instructions for a frame jig. It took me a little more time to get that built, but after I had the jig to hold everything in place while I nailed with a nail gun, everything went much faster.

The other consideration was where to put the hives on our property. I read the city ordinance over a few more times and determined the best spot was inside our wrought-iron fence, 10 feet from the southern property line, with the entrance pointing toward our back field to the south. The hives would be sitting on an area of stones which act as a dry creek for rain water to travel down the slope and out to the woods. We are at the low point in our neighborhood so the amount of rain water can be intense during long heavy rains. Because of this we needed the stands for the hives to be very sturdy and up a little higher than I have seen in photos. My husband found scraps of treated lumber and built the perfect stands.

We situated the stands and the hives near a tall pine tree which I hope can give them cover from the elements, yet allow plenty of sun to shine through. I was finally ready by the last week of May and Mr. G came to transfer the bees on Memorial Day at 5:00 PM. He brought two cardboard nuc boxes which hold five frames each. As he carried the nuc boxes into our backyard the reality of what I had done started to sink in. Inwardly I was freaking out a little bit. And the realization that I had never in my life been around a live occupied bee hive.

I had seen bees through the cool glass hive at the nature center. I was not skittish about encountering bees and wasps in my garden. I had a neighbor in college who had the remains of a hive that had collapsed. My friend and I took one of the boxes from the vacant hive and did the messy job of extracting honey in our kitchen. It was good dark honey. We had no idea what we were doing, but it was fun! And delicious!

Outwardly, I was keeping my cool, despite sweltering in my full bee suit. My nice neighbor, who had inquired about the mysterious boxes I was building, came out to watch over the fence as Mr. G helped me move the frames into my hives. Five frames full of bees and a queen into the first hive, and five frames full of bees and a queen in the second hive. It is recommended for new beekeepers to start out with two hives to compare one with the other. One of the hives was slightly more robust than the other and actually had drawn out three additional frames that Mr. G had left behind. He said he would bring them later and I said that as a thank you he could keep them. He would be able to take these three frames and requeen the bees to start a new hive of his own.

What was the grand total to begin beekeeping? Purchased fro the beekeeping supply store: 5 brood boxes, 50 brood frames, 50 foundations, 5 supers, 50 super frames, 50 wax sheets, 2 feeders, a full beekeeping suit, a smoker, cotton fuel, a bee brush, a hive tool, a frame grabber, and 2 beekeeping books. All of this cost me a grand total of $8xx.xx and a 4-hour round trip drive. The two bee colonies: $250.XX? For a grand total of $1,000.XX? Maybe it is a good thing I did not have time to plan this time around because I was expecting the start up cost to be about half of what it was. However, I do not regret it a bit and although I will not likely have any honey this year, I cannot wait to harvest my liquid gold!

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