Weekend in Denver

Loretto Center entrance

Our volunteer coordinator Katie Jones has gathered us all together in Denver for a retreat this weekend, so I’ll try to get a few posts up about all the happenings. We are staying at the Loretto Spirituality Center, a bit southwest of Denver.The Loretto Center shares the same building with the Havern School.  The setting is just beautiful, with views of a lake, park-like grounds, and of course the mountains. More pictures to come…

Havern School ball court with mountains in the distance...

Got Weeds?

New post over at the Loretto Volunteers Blog!

Loretto Volunteers – New Blog!

The ever-awesome Loretto Volunteer Coordinator Katie Jones has created a new blog -  Loretto Volunteers. Stop by and visit!

Working on the Riparian Buffer

Riparian buffer at the Loretto Motherhouse

So, if you’re like me, you said, “What the heck’s a riparian buffer?” Stay tuned…

Ok, I’m back. Well, a riparian buffer is the land which borders both sides of a stream. It has a great effect on the stream’s water quality, the wildlife both in and out of the stream, and the nearby land. The buffer also acts as a filter–removing sediments and contaminants from agricultural fields before they enter the stream. A good riparian buffer contains native grasses, flowers, shrubs, and deep-rooted trees; in other words, both woody and non-woody plants.

Below, you see a picture of a degraded riparian buffer–not good! The stream bank is eroding, causing a loss of usable land and a build-up of sediment in the stream bed. The stream bed shallows and wildlife habitats are lost.

The picture below shows a well-managed riparian buffer–very good! The forested area on either side of the stream provides a valuable wildlife corridor, keeps the stream bank from eroding, and cleans the water.

The Loretto Motherhouse riparian buffers help to keep the waste runoff from the cow pastures and the cropped areas from entering the streams. The cattle are not allowed to graze the buffers, and hardwood trees are being encouraged to grow by removing the cedars. The buffers need to be maintained, and this requires some hard labor! Fortunately, a hardy troop of volunteers from the SIUE CNSU recently visited the Motherhouse to wrestle with the cedars! Yay–volunteers!

Animal Tracks

As we move into spring, I realize it’s time to catch up on some blog entries… especially this one, since it partially involves snow.  After the last snowfall (whenever that was), we had some beautiful sets of animal tracks–many from deer and many that I couldn’t identify. It’s amazing how much “coming and going” there is in the animal world when you’re not looking. Two sets were particularly interesting. The first set of tracks is pictured above. A fine coating of snow had blown in to the screened-in porch at the back of the cabin. Note the Chap Stick included for scale… very scientific! I think it was a field mouse or vole… but I just couldn’t see how he could’ve gotten into the porch. They find a way.

The second set of “tracks” did not involve feet and is pictured below.  It was made by a furry, milk-loving animal, often heard to give a “baby meow,” and goes by–but does not answer to–the name of Samson.

And now, on to spring!

Naturalist-in-Training at Bernheim Arboretum

As part of my volunteer experience here, I get to participate in the “Naturalist-in-Training” program at Bernheim Arboretum. The program was designed by and is taught by Loretto Co-member Wren Smith. Both Wren and her program have won many awards, so I am really excited to be involved!  The first session (last Saturday afternoon) was the orientation, and there were about 20 interested people in attendance at the Education Center. The snow was beautiful and the roads were clear. The training will take place on many Saturdays, but is flexible, and some of the topics include the history of Bernheim, presentation skills for interpreters, trees and flowers (of course!), and birds/wildlife. It should be an amazing education!

Bernheim's Visitor Center

Bernheim's Education Center

Weekend Snow (II)

View out the back window of my cabin

Well, another weekend, another round of snow. This time, we didn’t have a lot of it–just enough to give the trees and ground a beautiful white covering.  The birds continue to visit the bird feeders: I’ve seen the tufted titmouse, chickadee, cardinal, downy woodpecker, red-bellied woodpecker, Carolina wren, fox (?) sparrow, junco, and nuthatch. I even spotted the massive pileated woodpecker high up in a tree. As the bird book says, he is a shy bird who keeps to the larger forests, so I don’t think I’ll see him down at the feeders. There were also a few non-bird visitors to the feeders…

White-tailed deer

Grey squirrel

Weekend Snow

Mary's Lake, Nerinx

Nerinx (and most of northern Kentucky) got 2-3 inches of snow last Friday night. The best thing about it was all the amazing animal tracks–deer, squirrel, rabbit, bird, some type of mouse or vole, and cat! It’s fun to try to decipher how many of which animal are going where and why…

It was a very beautiful snow, and the cedars have a wonderful way of holding on to it.

Snowy cedars along the Mary's Lake path

Forest Math: (1) Ream of Paper = (0.06) Tree

Fall foliage, Nerinx, KY

How many trees are destroyed to make a ream of paper?

This seemingly simple question is not easy to answer. A ream of paper is 500 sheets.  But what type of paper is it?  How is it made?

One type of papermaking process is “mechanical” or “groundwood.” This process breaks down the pulp mechanically (without chemicals) and the plant lignin (a chemical compound found in the cell walls of plants) is not removed so the paper will yellow with age.  This process is used to make less-expensive paper products like newsprint, telephone directories, and base sheet for low-cost coated magazine and catalog papers.

A second process is called “kraft” or “freesheet.”  This process chemically removes the lignin from the pulp and produces better-quality paper such as office and printing papers, letterhead, business cards, copy paper, and base sheet for higher-quality coated magazine and catalog papers.  This process is only half as efficient as the mechanical process.

Then we ask a silly-sounding question:  What is a tree? For the statements below, an average tree is considered to be a mixture of softwoods and hardwoods 40 feet tall and 6-8 inches in diameter.

So, now we can say that on average….

1 ton of uncoated non-recycled printing and office paper uses 24 trees

1 carton (10 reams) of non-recycled copier paper uses 0.6 tree

1 ream (500 sheets) uses 0.06 or 6% of a tree

1 tree makes 16.67 reams of copy paper or 8,333.3 sheets

24 trees make a ton of printing and writing paper

Source:  Claudia Thompson, in her book Recycled Papers: The Essential Guide (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992), reports on an estimate calculated by Tom Soder, then a graduate student in the Pulp and Paper Technology Program at the University of Maine

FROM

Conservatree.org, http://www.conservatree.com/learn/EnviroIssues/TreeStats.shtml

Hello Kentucky!

Just settling in to my cabin, Namaste, with 2 cats, no internet, and no cell phone service!