​As a new member of the Grantham Garden Club, I have been asked to introduce myself. My husband and I moved to Grantham from the Albany NY area and have lived in NH for 15 years (doesn’t time fly…).  I have recently retired from GE Aviation Engineering, amid this pandemic and although it is not the retirement envisioned, I have been happily enjoying the many recreational and educational opportunities available in our community. For many years, I have been engaged in a very technical career, and have countered all that time in front of computers by puttering around outside. Mostly planting, watering and mowing around the house, in my book, this sure beats cooking or cleaning!

After retiring in May of 2020, I looked for an opportunity to volunteer in a way that would support a deep love of nature and a belief that education is the best path to positive change.  Fortunately, I could combine these two values by volunteering at Vermont Institute of Natural Science (VINS) in Quechee, VT.

VINS mission is to motivate individuals and communities to care for the environment through education, research, and avian wildlife rehabilitation. Their programs engage and instill in people of all backgrounds a desire to care for the wildlife and diverse natural habitats they encounter in their daily lives. It is probably not very interesting to repeat the information available at vinsweb.org  But here is a little of the behind the scenes information. Currently I am doing a job called “scraping” for the exhibit birds. This involves clearing away the leftover food from the previous day, recording what was not eaten, and a bit of cleaning. VINS has 17 display enclosures with 28 individual exhibit birds. Although many of the birds have been residents for years, they are still wild animals that require caution and respect.  If you happen see me in an enclosure, I will probably be singing or talking softly to the birds, so they can track where I am and hopefully not become startled or agitated.

Two of my favorite birds are the snow owls, partly because they are so beautiful and partly for their character. The pure white male, named LaGuardia is very shy and gentle. I love the feathers running down to his feet. He looks comical the way he lifts his feet high to run from one location to the next. The female “Snowy” is white with gray stripes, which is just a variant, similar to how some people have brown hair and some have blond. She was once an education bird and is much more comfortable around people. Snowy always moves close to the back door when she hears me coming, puffs up her feathers to look formidable and watches intently my every move. She is probably hoping for someone to bring fresh food, but I do think she enjoys a little company too.

The raven are our love birds; they were housed together just recently and seem to have truly hit it off. They have been seen preening each other and sharing food. The male will puff up the feathers on his head and make a lovely cooing sound. This week it looked like they are building a nest in one of the higher perches. The ornithologist say these are some of the most intelligent birds. They can open containers and enjoy playing with toys. Every day, in addition to meat, we hide some fruit and vegetables in their enclosure to keep them busy and stimulated. There are several wild ravens in the area which perch on top of the enclosure to visit and beg for freebies. I could have sworn we had four birds there the other day!

Of particular interest, right now are the bald eagles. They built a nest of loose sticks, and there is an egg! The larger bird is the female “Elmwood.” She is always a bit loud and cantankerous, but now she is a force to be reckoned with. On Monday, the male was sitting on the egg and Elmwood was on patrol; charging any intruder with talons outstretched, beak open, fierce eyes and loud screeching. Even with an additional person in the enclosure to try and keep her at a distance, we had to just back out without scrapping. I don’t blame them for being protective, unfortunately in a few weeks the staff will replace the real egg with a decoy. This pair would not be able to raise a young eagle and teach it to hunt or survive on its own.
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On a happier note, one of the prime activities at VINS will be gaining steam very soon. Every spring they provide baby bird feeding services for hundreds of birds that have been separated from their parents. Additionally, there is an active wild bird rehabilitation hospital on site, and many birds of all varieties are successfully treated and released back into the wild.
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If you are looking for a fun place to explore with children and adult guests, consider VINS which has a variety of exhibits and activities, and is open seven days a week.
I look forward to meeting many of my fellow garden club members in the future, but until then…wishing you safety and abundant growth. 

​Last Friday I posted Audubon’s origin story. Now I want to write about one of the many programs that Audubon runs today. This a story about diamondback terrapins. These critters too were hunted and killed at the turn of the 20th century but not because they were pretty but because they tasted good. Terrapin soup was the haute cuisine for the upper crust. This food fad lasted until prohibition when chefs couldn’t buy sherry, a necessary ingredient for their soup.
 
But the turtles’ troubles were far from over. These terrapins live in a very narrow strip of coastal habitats from Cape Code to the Florida Keys and around the Gulf of Mexico to Texas. This is of course where people built  zillions of seaside homes. When the female terrapins come out of the water to lay their eggs each summer, they often have to cross busy roadways.  Many don’t make it.  For those eggs that are successfully laid, another threat appears in the form of raccoons and foxes and other animals that like to dig them up for dinner. It became obvious that, if this species was to survive, intervention was needed. 
 
Audubon Societies and others (such as the Wetlands Institute in Stone Harbor, NJ) started programs dedicated to saving the diamondback terrapin. I had a fantastic experience at Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary. The highlight of the program was going to see and hold newborn terrapins. Volunteers patrol the protected nesting areas each day in August and September. The nests were covered with metal mesh to keep predators out but it also keeps the babies in where they would soon die in the hot sun.  When the volunteers see signs of baby turtles emerging from the nests, they alert the Audubon folks. That’s where my fellow nature school folks and I came in. We were given the honor of gently digging into the soft sand and lifting out baby terrapins. These little guys and gals are about the size of a quarter. There were usually at least 10 turtles per nest, and I saw 85 babies over the two days I was there. After counting them and checking them out, we were each given a turtle or two to release into the bracken near the shore.  There they will live for a few years until their shells are hard enough for them to survive in the nearby brackish water and not be eaten like potato chips by voracious gulls. 
 
We even got to use nets to catch some adult terrapins in the shallow wetlands for the scientists to install microchips in their legs for later identification.  The more they know about terrapins, the better they can help them.  We got to release these adult terrapins too which was yet another thrill for me.
 
Take a look at these pictures and you will see what amazing little creatures they are.   

I came across this story shortly after hearing Sheridan Brown's Zoom* presentation to our garden club last Friday. Sheridan's message about best practices in gardens to protect and help birds is in direct contrast to what milliners and their customers did at the turn of the last century.  Here's the story:
 
In the late 1800s and early 1900s birds all over the world were hunted down and slaughtered for their feathers to be used to adorn ladies' hats. In 1896, Boston high society woman Harriet Hemenway read an article that described in graphic detail the effects of  plume hunting— millions of dead birds and starving chicks left to die in the nests. Harriet was shocked by the horror caused because of a society-imposed fashion. She took the article and marched across the street to the home of her cousin, another member of Boston’s elite, Minna B. Hall.
 
The two women began to develop a strategy to put a halt to killing birds for the fashion industry. Harriet and Minna held tea parties and invited women wearing feathered hats and explain the back story of where those feathers came from. Harriet and Minna must have used a lot of tact. Not only would many of these women eschew wearing feathered hats but would hold their own tea parties to encourage other women to protect the birds. Eventually the group grew to over 900 women who vowed to discourage the buying and wearing of feathers. They boycotted milliners who used feathers to make hats—first in Massachusetts which later spread across the country. That year Harriet and Minna began the Massachusetts Audubon Society.  By 1897 there were 111 local Audubon chapters in Massachusetts, 105 of which were founded and led by women. Societies sprang up across the country and many were eventually incorporated into the National Audubon Society in 1905.
 
Surely woman would have eventually realized how ridiculous they looked wearing birds on their heads and stopped at some point. But because of Harriet and Minna, that practice was stopped sooner and saved countless birds and probably even some species. 

My (featherless) hat goes off to these amazing women. 

*Here is Sheridan Brown's presentation Gardening for the Birds and Other Wildlife

What do GGC members do when the land is covered with snow and they can no longer work in their gardens?  There is one intrepid band who has hiked together every Friday morning (unless there is a GGC presentation).  Kathy Houghton is our leader. She picks out the trails, checks to make sure there’s ample parking at the trailhead, carries emergency supplies in her backpack, and is a wealth of information about forests and woodlands. 
 
Kathy leads the way and can often be seen checking the end of the line to make sure everyone is accounted for.  When we hiked into Sherwood Forest, the trail started out well packed so we all wore crampons. The further in we hiked, the deeper snow became.  Kathy anticipated the problem and donned the snowshoes she had carried in and blazed a trail for us to follow.  
 
We have learned so much about the land and the impact of the glacier that covered it 10,000 years ago. We walked on top of an esker on Great Brook Trail in New London.  We learned that eskers are gravel ridges that were formed when a stream flowed though tunnels beneath the glacial ice and left sediment when it melted--lots of sediment.  We get very excited when we find another esker. 
 
We see tons of glacial erratics which are boulders that were picked up by the flowing ice and carried, often hundreds of miles, and ended up far from where they were formed.  
 
Last week we hiked the White Pine and Webb Trails in New London and Wilmot and came upon the Wolf Tree Trail.  Kathy told us that wolf trees were large trees that farmers left standing when they clear cut their land for farming and grazing. Their livestock benefited from the shade and sometimes acorns or nuts that the trees provided.  Without having to compete with other trees for light and nutrients, these wolf trees grew to enormous sizes. Two hundred years ago many farmers left their lands* which were gradually reclaimed and became the forests we enjoy today.  Wolf trees are distinct because they are hundreds of years older and much larger than the surrounding trees. 

We came across an interesting phenomenon recently--raised footprints. Some folks had snowshoed near Beaver Pond in the Sawyer Brook Headwaters, probably weeks ago. After they compacted the snow, it hardened.  The wind blew loose snow away and left the once sunken footprints standing three inches above the adjoining snow.  After plunging knee deep into snow with every other step, we soon learned that walking on these strong protruding footprints kept us on top of the snow.  I learn something new every day.
 
Each hike brings new delights and has its own special charm. Our hardy band hasn't let snow or freezing temperatures stop us as we enjoy the warmth and camaraderie in the safely distanced great outdoors. The garden club members in our hiking group include Kathy and her followers: Carol Currotto, Marcia Hanke, Leslie Keeling, Terri Munson (me), Sharon Parker, and Penny Willoughby.  

​*Why did so many farmers abandon their farms?  Here's a compelling reason:
The most destructive explosion in the past 10,000 years was the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia in 1815. The resulting ash cloud caused periods of heavy snow and killing frost in June, July and August in 1816 in eastern North America. The cold weather led to crop failures and starvation during what became known as the Year Without a Summer.  This was the breaking point for many hardy farmers who then headed west to New York, Ohio, and beyond.

​After reading Liz’s Meet the Member story, I did some research about allotments.  It’s difficult to grasp that more than 20,000 bombs fell on London destroying 60% of houses in the city during World War II.  Resilient folks, like Liz’s father, grew vegetables for their families in the very place where a bomb had exploded.
 
Allotment gardens began in World War I, and after only 21 years of peace, were called into action again. The Atlantic was patrolled by enemy u-boats to stop importation to the island nation of Great Britain which relied  on imports for more than half of the country's food.  Rationing and food shortages once again became the norm.  People throughout the country were urged to plant vegetables in bombed out areas, school yards, roof tops, and empty lots. Both Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle had vegetable gardens planted at the instigation of King George VI to assist with food production. Hyde Park was plowed and allotments growing onions in the shadow of the Albert Memorial Hall showed that people from all walks of life were aiding in the national struggle. By 1943, a million and an a half allotments were created in urban and suburban plots. 
 
In our country, Victory Gardens were planted during both world wars as well.   Before social networking, the gardening movement was spread by word of mouth through numerous garden clubs, civic associations and chambers of commerce. Commercial crops were diverted to the military overseas while transportation was redirected towards moving troops and munitions instead of food. At its peak, there were 20 million gardens – one for every seven citizens. By 1944, 40% of all the vegetables grown in the U.S. came from home gardens.  Imagine how that changed the landscape. 
 
Communal gardens were planted in parks and vacant lots and baseball fields. Sites for these gardens included the White House lawn, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, the Portland Zoo, and Boston’s Fenway Victory Gardens. The Fenway location is still active today and one that I have visited.  The gardens cover an impressive seven acres in the heart of Boston’s Fenway neighborhood and have 500 individual garden plots.  There is a long wait list for those plots.  It’s worth a visit if you’re ever going to a Red Sox game.  Arrive early and check out the Fenway Victory Gardens. 
 
Another resurgence of Victory Gardens began last Spring. It only took one trip to the grocery store to face never-before-seen empty shelves to give folks the idea to grow their own vegetables. The previous month, in March, 2020, Burpee sold more seeds than in any other time in its 144-year history.  It didn’t take GGC President Elise Kendall and President Emeritus Kristina Burgard long to recognize the need and put together a tutorial on “Starting a Victory Garden.”  They presented it on April 16th via that new fangled meeting software called Zoom.  Their presentation packed with great information and can still be accessed at: https://www.granthamgardenclub.org/starting-a-victory-garden.html
 
The whole idea of allotments and victory gardens makes so much sense to keep people going in times of war and disease.  In addition to the practical aspect of providing people with nutritious food, there is also the spiritual connection with the land.  Digging in dirt and helping plants grow is good for the soul. 

I want to share a secret with you.  I know a place where chickadees eat right out of your hand.  Not only do the chickadees land on your hand but sometimes nuthatches and tufted titmice join in on the feast.
For the past 18 years, I’ve made an annual visit in the dead of winter when the snow covered ground prevents the birds from finding enough sustenance. Black oil sunflower seeds are their favorite cuisine.    

The perfect time to go is on a sunny cold morning after a snowstorm.  Trudge in on snowshoes and carry lots of seeds in your pockets.  They are ravenous, and you become a human bird feeder as a steady procession of birds land on your hand.  It’s like Logan during the commuter rush on a Friday afternoon.  My nephew Mark lives nearby and visits often.  He once fed 105 birds in two hours.  

Despite the cold, I always take off my gloves so I can feel their little feet on my hands. The nuthatches and titmice feel heavy after a slew of chickadees. Birds, like people, have their own personalities.  Some are bolder than others and will sift through the seeds in my hand to find the perfect one.  Others have to make several flights near me before daring to quickly land, grab a seed, and dart off. I have been taking my grandchildren hereto feed the birds since they were toddlers. Even as tweens, they still love the experience. When the cold seeps in and icicles start to form on our noses, I suggest it’s time to go and get some hot chocolate.  I love it when they plead “Just one more bird.” 
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I’m sure there are other places where people can feed wild birds by hand but the only one I know of is in Topsfield, Massachusetts, at the Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary. It is about a 2-hour drive from Grantham so requires some time and commitment.  The sanctuary itself is beautiful and offers twelve miles of trails.  The land was molded by glaciers and includes a drumlin and an enormous esker that is fun to hike. A huge rockery sits near the beaver pond. The rockery was built in 1950 and has narrow passages and a cave.  Very cool.  
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To find info on sanctuary, go to
https://www.massaudubon.org/get-outdoors/wildlife-sanctuaries/ipswich-river/about   
 
This blog seems to have a life of its own and has gone off in many directions.  If you know of a special place, please send me a write up to share.  

​I think I have always known that digging in the dirt is good for your soul, but my soul limped along until I finally let gardening into my life. 

I too was exposed to gardens as a child. I grew up in a suburb of New York City in an old house with a lovely rose garden out back, tended by my mother.  But I never thought it was very interesting – not a place where you could play tag, and the thorns were a deterrent in hide and seek.   I did, however, play the role of a flower in my kindergarten class play. 

Through my adult years while I was going to school and then juggling a career at the National Institutes of Health and parenting two active boys, I can’t remember doing much of anything that would come close to establishing a relationship with plants – unless you count picking up lettuce and broccoli at the grocery store.  At one point, I did try to grow tomatoes in my back yard.  The problem was, we had chosen a back yard filled with trees.  The tomatoes didn’t like that very much.

When we moved to a new house (also with nothing but trees in the back yard) I hired someone to do the landscaping.  I had no confidence in my own ability to know what to plant or how to make plants thrive.  
Maybe we all become our parents when we get old.  While I was struggling to keep the occasional houseplant alive, my parents’ thumbs were green as could be.  Both were affiliated with Dartmouth-Hitchcock and lived in Etna, where they tended gardens with passion and skill. My mother spent hours in a greenhouse attached to her dining room. My father grew veggies and sweet peas.  When my parents moved to Kendal, my mother lovingly nurtured an orchid collection that she ultimately donated to Dartmouth (with one of her orchids displayed in the President’s office). (The picture below is of an orchid I sent her from Hawaii – one of those shoots they sell to tourists.  We were both amazed that it grew!)

I wish I had a picture to illustrate this next story about my mother, but it’s gone missing.  When my husband George and I were courting in our last years of college, he brought me a small geranium plant.  I kept it in my room where it was much admired by visitors until its leaves started to yellow and the original blooms disappeared never to return.  Desperate not to kill George’s gift, I took it to my mother.  Not surprisingly, it thrived under her care.  The problem was, the geranium soon had a companion.  It turned out that one of my visitors had planted a marijuana seed in the pot, and that had also thrived under my mother’s care.  She promptly dispatched the hitchhiker and over the years transformed the tiny geranium into a tree 5 feet tall and covered with blooms.
I think it was my mother’s plant prowess that kept the embers of gardening interest alive for me.  It took moving to Grantham to fan those embers into life. When we established our summer home on Winter Hill in 2010, I started growing things in containers.  Five years later, as a 65th birthday present, we  built a raised garden bed next to our driveway to accommodate the flowers, herbs, and veggies I wanted to grow.  After ignoring the landscaping at our house for many years, I finally began to experiment with new plants in other spaces around our property.
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Currently, I’m retired but still working (unpaid) on issues that captured me during my professional life.  I’m a senior advisor to a scientific organization focused on understanding how the conditions in which people live, work and play affect their health and longevity, and how this helps us understand, and address, the massive differences in health among different groups in our county.  I’ve been running a mentoring program for young scientists, helping with strategic planning, and doing odd jobs for the organization. All this has helped to keep me engaged during the Pandemic, but it also gives me the flexibility to attend to my soul by digging in the dirt.  Joining the Garden Club last summer was inspired by admiration for my wonderful Grantham gardening friends, and an act of faith in myself, that maybe I am a gardener after all.

The final episode in this saga has been my major retirement project. In Wales, the cottage has expanded over the years and in 2003 I took advantage of having builders with machines around to clear out much of the vegetation that had appeared over thirty years of neglect. Now I could design a garden. My plan used the old vegetable garden area which is sunken below the surrounding hillside, and so protected from the constant wind. Shrubs and flowers fill the banks and a lawn is broken up by curved stone walls and a semi-circular vegetable garden. The climate is fairly wet and windy but very mild so that I can grow plants from many different parts of the world, from agapanthus and watsonia, to huge euphorbias – and all my old favorites from gardening in New England. Plants that thrive in Zone 4… or even up to Zone 9 … will grow for me there. Vegetables on the other hand, can be more tricky. Summers are cool and so many squash, eggplant, and even tomatoes, won’t grow fast enough to ripen by the time I leave in the fall. (I do grow tomatoes in a greenhouse.) But reliable and boring brassicas will grow right through the winter.

A final note on gardening on two sides of the Atlantic during a pandemic… This past year, our son and daughter who live in London rushed their families down to the Welsh cottage as soon as a lockdown was threatened.  Four adults and four small girls, aged from 11 to 2.  The “lockdown commune” was very busy, handling virtual schooling, juggling work and children,… and of course, looking after Granny Liz’s garden! There were many gardening projects for the little girls and our son was particularly proud of his seedlings. When we finally made it to Wales in July, we found a few things looked a little different from usual. The lawn was a beautiful wild-flower meadow – and the vegetable garden had been much tended. Their great pride was the crop of lettuces, ready to eat.  Hundreds of seeds had been sown. Dozens of seedlings had germinated.  And every single one had been cherished and planted out – at the same time!  So we arrived to find at least 75 perfect lettuce plants, ready to be eaten immediately!
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​One thing I’ve learned from my various garden moves is a kind of acceptance. Gardens have an ephemeral life of their own.  We can encourage them to cooperate with us for as long as we are there to pay attention to them, but no garden is forever.  Just as our gardens evolve with us, they will evolve after us.  So let’s accept the vagaries of nature and simply enjoy each garden day.

​Meanwhile, we had moved back east, and back to where my American life had begun, to the Upper Valley where Tim was now Headmaster at Kimball Union Academy.  Once again, we were living in a beautiful school-owned house, this time at the top of the hill in Meriden, in a lovely Greek-revival building.  The children were now older (our youngest was 8 when we arrived in 1989) and I was working full-time as Communications Director, as well as doing the standard head’s wife business of entertaining.   My gardening time was very early in the mornings or at weekends.  But with a lovely old stone wall leading up to the front of the house, there were such opportunities for a long perennial border.  How could I resist?  It was a chance to try color patterns, to create a long bed with bloom throughout the seasons.  As our house was again a place for entertaining, I focused flowering times especially on graduation in the spring and the return of students in late summer.  Receptions took place by my garden and I learned to grit my teeth and say nothing when photographers told the graduates and their families to stand in the middle of a flower bed for that perfect picture!

The son of a friend had learned stone-wall building in Scotland, and he created herb beds in a semi-circle by the house.  With an urn in the middle of the radiating beds, I coated the stones with thyme, lined the edges with chives and filled the centers with taller herbs like oregano, parsley and tarragon.  Silver foliage herbs like the curry plant gave variety and the effect was somehow a raised version of a 17th century kitchen garden.  My second New Hampshire garden was definitely more ambitious than my first!
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Fourteen years later we retired to Grantham, where we planned to spend our fall and winter months.  Our plan was to go to Wales for the spring and summer. But somehow there still had to be some garden around our Eastman house – there were so many plants in Meriden that could be divided and brought with us.  A sunny strip down by Mill Pond below the house was the perfect place, so another bed took shape.  And, of course, since then areas nearer the house itself have needed some planting…  Luckily I had found a friend in Cindy Heath who promised to spend a day or two keeping the worst of the weeds at bay when I was abroad.  So I have now become an expert at knowing which plants will thrive in this area, but not take over completely when they are seriously neglected for much of the growing season!