Nature Archives - Page 4 of 11

Got a Garden? Get It Enrolled

January 22, 2016 / My Garden / Recipes, Nature / By Karen Shanley / Leave a Comment

If you’re into gardening, you know about the pollination crisis. If you have a garden that attracts pollinators, please consider registering your garden at http://millionpollinatorgardens.org/.

The effort is to create a contiguous web of pollinator habitat across the country to save our native pollinators.

Nutrition ( lots of pollen and nectar sources) is very important to help pollinators withstand the diseases, mites and pesticides they are exposed to in the environment.

Having habitat for native pollinators is important too. … Read More

In Case You Missed It–Blood Moon Eclipse

September 28, 2015 / Nature, spirituality / By Karen Shanley / Leave a Comment

Last night, I had a front row seat for a spectacular display, where three separate lunar events converged— the first of its kind since 1982, and the last we’ll see until 2033. The total eclipse coincided with the full moon nearest the fall equinox, known as the Harvest Moon. And the moon was at its closest approach to Earth for the year, making it also a supermoon or perigee moon. The ‘Blood Moon’ eclipse gets its name from the reddish … Read More

Traffic Jam in the Country

September 17, 2015 / Life, My Dogs and Me, Nature / By Karen Shanley / Leave a Comment

Lots of animal families live on our little corner of the wild kingdom. This family of wild turkeys is the most recent to take up residence. I find them particularly interesting in light of my recent viewing of PBS’ My Life as a Turkey.

When they’re all together, there’s quite a traffic jam as they try to make it from one end of the property to the other. That is until our traffic cops tell them to move it … Read More

Different Perspectives on Fireworks

July 5, 2015 / Life, Nature / By Karen Shanley / 2 Comments

Fireworks—classic component of the July 4th holiday weekend. Large crowds gather to watch the night sky turn technicolor. Often spectacular. Always noisy.

If there were any extra-terrestrials flying over, they got their own version of a fireworks display.

Both of the above examples unsettle me for different reasons. All you dog people know what’s wrong with the first example. And all you star gazers know what’s wrong with the second example.

These are the only fireworks that get me excited … Read More

Reality Check: How Many Leaves Can You Name?

November 9, 2014 / Life, Nature, spirituality / By Karen Shanley / 2 Comments

Perhaps you’ve seen a variation of this floating around the web. For me, this pretty much sums up one of the major ways in which the modern world has lost its balance.

Is there anyone left in the western world who doesn’t instantly recognize all of the logos? If you want to see how you did with the names of the leaves (okay, I did throw in one trick leaf) click to see the answers.… Read More

One Big Happy Family

September 29, 2013 / Nature / By Karen Shanley / 4 Comments

A white tail deer, half hidden in the tall grass behind our second pond, is munching on an early morning breakfast.

This mama has two kids and they live back behind those trees. They’re part of our wildlife family that shares this land. I’ve gotten to know their schedule and routes through the property as well as I know my own. As I have with the foxes, coyotes, rabbits, herons, geese, ducks, turtles, and sundry other 4-footeds. Even the dogs … Read More

It’s All What You’re Used To

September 8, 2013 / Nature, spirituality / By Karen Shanley / 4 Comments

I had a couple of friends visiting from New York City. After two nights of being kept awake by the nightly symphony of our frogs, crickets, cicadas and other orchestra members, my friends said they couldn’t wait to get back home to the “Quiet” of the city. Mind you, they live on the same block as a hospital AND a police station!

Guess it’s all what you’re used to… : ) Click to listen to Night Sounds in the Northeast … Read More

Changes in the Neighborhood

July 28, 2013 / Cait and Me, Life, Nature / By Karen Shanley / 3 Comments

We’ve lived on our sweet little country road for more than two decades—which is more than twice as long as I’ve lived anywhere else. People who live on this road tend not to move once they get here. And their animals tend to live to ripe old ages. And the wild animals, because they’re left in peace, also live long and have become part of the finely knit fabric of this little community. I often joke that it must be … Read More