Hubris
A friend sent me this article from the LA Times, and I am appalled. Especially the last sentence...as if giving your kids daycare and Lunch-ables and living on a busy street is bad parenting. Hello, you TWAT, not giving your child needed medical care is beyond bad parenting, it is murder. To hell with your philosophical or religious values. I haven't read the bible in a year, but I can't recall reading anywhere "if your kid gets sick, let it die."
This woman is a promoter of the idea that HIV does not cause AIDS, even in the face of over-whelming scientific evidence that it does. Rather like the "global warming is not happening, or if it is, it's not caused by humans" crowd. GRRRRR.
Today I did some volunteer work at Moraine Hills State Park(MHSP). It has cooled off enough that I can now go outside and do stuff. All we did was weed out Foxtail Grass, an obnoxious non-native annual. It looks cool, but it doesn't belong so buh-bye. It was good weather for weeding...the ground was wet(it's been raining, YAY!)and it was a bit humid, but with a real nice breeze.
The really nice volunteer group at MHSP is falling apart. The man in charge of the park is dismissive of and has a venomous disdain for us volunteers...his idea of useful volunteering is that we should be painting picnic benches and picking up trash, instead of painting new bluebird nest boxes and doing restoration work. MHSP hasn't advertised for new volunteers in years. The state laid off 1 ranger, and demoted the other one who were very suppportive of us. Hence, the head of the volunteers, Dave, has fled to Glacial Park, which is a Lake County Forest Preserve. He gets lots of support there. Losing Dave was like losing a free biologist. Way to go, governor
I call MHSP the Nature Store. If I need some native plant seeds.....I'm permitted to take some. Today I got Large Flowered Penstemon, Prairie Clover, and Whorled Milkweed. I go seed shopping right up through November. It's not legal, actually. A person is allowed to collect on federal lands, not state or county. We are allowed to do it because we put in a lot of hours there, and restore that which is degraded, and there aren't that many of us anymore. We never take the rare stuff. Today I saw a clump of Silene Regia, which is a plant I love, but I didn't take any seed because it is endangered in this area.
Last year, in late October, I went to the nature store to collect some compass plant seeds...and every single plant had been stripped..the seedheads torn right off. That is how NOT to collect. You never, ever take everything. In the case of these compass plants, an entire generation was wiped out. This is a plant which can live more that 70 years, and takes 7 years to bloom from seed. I'll go earlier next year, and I'll collect 1 seedhead. In the next couple of years, I won't have to do it at all because my plants (bought from reputable sources) should bloom.
I no longer collect Big Bluestem, Little Bluestem, and Indian Grass because my plants provide me with all the seed I care to have. Other seeds I no longer collect are: gentian, asters, goldenrod, pale purple coneflower(echinacea pallida), side oats grama, verbena stricta, boneset, rattlesnake master, culver's root, cardinal flower, alum plant, pussytoes. All these plants that are giving me seed now are plants that I bought at native plant sales, which are numerous in the spring.
This woman is a promoter of the idea that HIV does not cause AIDS, even in the face of over-whelming scientific evidence that it does. Rather like the "global warming is not happening, or if it is, it's not caused by humans" crowd. GRRRRR.
Today I did some volunteer work at Moraine Hills State Park(MHSP). It has cooled off enough that I can now go outside and do stuff. All we did was weed out Foxtail Grass, an obnoxious non-native annual. It looks cool, but it doesn't belong so buh-bye. It was good weather for weeding...the ground was wet(it's been raining, YAY!)and it was a bit humid, but with a real nice breeze.
The really nice volunteer group at MHSP is falling apart. The man in charge of the park is dismissive of and has a venomous disdain for us volunteers...his idea of useful volunteering is that we should be painting picnic benches and picking up trash, instead of painting new bluebird nest boxes and doing restoration work. MHSP hasn't advertised for new volunteers in years. The state laid off 1 ranger, and demoted the other one who were very suppportive of us. Hence, the head of the volunteers, Dave, has fled to Glacial Park, which is a Lake County Forest Preserve. He gets lots of support there. Losing Dave was like losing a free biologist. Way to go, governor
I call MHSP the Nature Store. If I need some native plant seeds.....I'm permitted to take some. Today I got Large Flowered Penstemon, Prairie Clover, and Whorled Milkweed. I go seed shopping right up through November. It's not legal, actually. A person is allowed to collect on federal lands, not state or county. We are allowed to do it because we put in a lot of hours there, and restore that which is degraded, and there aren't that many of us anymore. We never take the rare stuff. Today I saw a clump of Silene Regia, which is a plant I love, but I didn't take any seed because it is endangered in this area.
Last year, in late October, I went to the nature store to collect some compass plant seeds...and every single plant had been stripped..the seedheads torn right off. That is how NOT to collect. You never, ever take everything. In the case of these compass plants, an entire generation was wiped out. This is a plant which can live more that 70 years, and takes 7 years to bloom from seed. I'll go earlier next year, and I'll collect 1 seedhead. In the next couple of years, I won't have to do it at all because my plants (bought from reputable sources) should bloom.
I no longer collect Big Bluestem, Little Bluestem, and Indian Grass because my plants provide me with all the seed I care to have. Other seeds I no longer collect are: gentian, asters, goldenrod, pale purple coneflower(echinacea pallida), side oats grama, verbena stricta, boneset, rattlesnake master, culver's root, cardinal flower, alum plant, pussytoes. All these plants that are giving me seed now are plants that I bought at native plant sales, which are numerous in the spring.
posted by April at 3:42 PM
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