Go West, Greenmomsters!

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Our family just returned from a fantastic trip to visit some of our nation’s most beautiful national parks.  First stop – Bryce National Park!  With its beautiful red canyons and Dr. Seuss-esque landscape covered with “hoodoos”, this park became my favorite of the trip.  Hikes into the canyons are not overly strenuous (assuming you brought lots of water), but they’re extremely rewarding with unbelievable views in every direction.  Bryce gets chilly in the winter, but if you’re from the humid east, you’ll find the summer weather in Bryce to be very comfortable (as everyone says, “it’s hot, but it’s a dry heat”).  Until you can visit on your own, enjoy a few of our shots: 

 

Moth Week–Way better than Shark Week!

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It’s National Moth Week!  It’s the perfect chance to learn more about those beautiful and fascinating creatures that flock to our porch lights at night.  Most of us are familiar with silk moths, creating the raw material for one of our favorite fabrics.  My son tried to raise silk moths in our house once, but somehow (I honestly have no idea how), the silkworms escaped their enclosure (despite a lid weighed down by a brick) and disappeared in my house (singing “Born Free”, I’m sure).  I usually see the best moths on the walls in the ladies’ room bathroom at night when we’re camping at a Virginia State Park – I’ve seen some real beauties!  But you can see moths in the most common places.  I saw this beautiful Luna Moth in the Safeway parking lot!    Here are some fun facts about moths and butterflies:

• Moths and butterflies are members of the the order Lepidoptera, loosely meaning “scaly wings”
• Butterflies fly during the day; most moths fly at night.
• A butterfly changes from caterpillar to adult in a chrysalis; a moth does the same in a cocoon. 
• Butterflies and moths basically liquify as they change from caterpillar to adult (so cool!)
• Butterfly antennae look like little clubs, while moths have various styles of antennae including the fringed type seen on the Luna moth (above)

If you’d like to learn more about moths and celebrate National Moth Week, check out this great interview on Science Friday. 

Peachy Keen!

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If you’re a gazpacho lover, here’s a fun twist using the fruit that seems to be everywhere this time of year – peaches!


Peach Gazpacho

Ingredients
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes
3 lbs fresh peaches, pitted and chopped
1 cup water
1 small onion, chopped
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons white vinegar
2 tablespoons tarragon, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions
1)  In a blender, puree the tomatoes, half of the peaches, 1/2 cup water, 1/2 of the onion, 2 tblsp olive oil, 1 tblsp vinegar, 1 tblsp tarragon, salt and pepper.  Make sure the mixture is very smooth.
2)  Add remaining peaches, water (you may need to add a little more), olive oil, vinegar, onion, and tarragon.  Refrigerate for at least two hours.
Enjoy with some bread and a side of your favorite veggies!

We adopted a stream–and it’s alive!

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About a year ago, our family adopted a local stream, Difficult Run.  We’ve been monitoring and blogging about the stream for the past year.  Unfortunately, many sections of the stream have very little invertebrate life (due to pollutant runoff, siltation/erosion, etc).  But this weekend, we surveyed our newest section of the stream and good news – it’s alive!  It’s not healthy, but it’s alive!  Yay! 

It was a toasty summer afternoon, and we headed off to survey the stream in a county area near Great Falls National Park and the Potomac River.  We headed out into the stream with our net and conducted the first of our one-minute “stream dances” – twisting in the stream in order to stir up and catch invertebrates.  When we headed back to the bank with our catch, we found invertebrates!   Netspinners, scuds, clams, beetles, even a few mayflies!    The fact that we found invertebrates was great!  Despite finding invertebrates, we know the stream isn’t totally healthy due to the type of invertebrates we found.  Some invertebrates can live with quite a bit of water quality deterioration (think of them as the rats, crows, and pigeons of the stream world), while others demand cleaner water.  The majority of our species were pretty tolerant of polluted conditions.

Our stream isn’t perfect, but we’re counting this one as a “win” – with the proper attention, our stream may someday be in the healthy range! 

Maned Wolf Update!

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I’m a big fan of maned wolves – in fact, they were once Greenmomster’s endangered species of the week.  There’s good news on the maned wolf front!  The Friends of the National Zoo facebook page reports: 

“These maned wolf pups are part of the recent baby boom at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Virginia. Keepers have nicknamed the pups “Bold” and “Shy” for their distinctive personalities.
Only 85 maned wolves are part of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Species Survival Plan, and these pups account for 40 percent of successful maned wolf births in the United States this year. A leader in maned wolf conservation, SCBI has had 74 pups born there since 1975—more than any other institution.
Photo Credit: Janice Sveda”

Next time you’re in DC, be sure to check out the maned wolves at the National Zoo.  If you’re not going to be in DC, you can get the latest news via their facebook page.

Got Figs? (a re-post)

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If you’re lucky, like I am, and have a fig tree in your backyard, then this is the recipe for you – so simple, so tasty, and such a short time for fresh figs!  Photo from anotherperfumeblog.com.

Arugula and Fig Salad


Ingredients
Arugula
Figs, stems off, cut in half
shredded parmesan cheese
italian dressing, optional

Instructions
1)  Combine all ingredients in a salad bowl.  I never use the dressing, so test it before adding any dressing to your salad.  Enjoy!

So you slept through science class, part 7–healthy streams…..

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Many of you have been following our family’s stream monitoring adventures and know that the streams in our area are not particularly healthy.  Several readers have been asking me why the streams are in the shape they’re in.  Urban streams are often “sick” for a number of reasons, including nitrogen and phosphorous runoff, the speed of the water moving through the streams (which increases erosion and decreases the soil’s natural filtering of pollutants), temperature changes in the water, and various toxic pollutants.  Here’s a  short, informative video from a division of NBC that does a nice job of explaining some of the threats to our local urban and suburban waterways: