When it comes to appreciating the natural world, getting out and seeing it is how it’s most often done. We go on vacations or road trips to see beautiful things like forests, mountains, rivers, oceans, and canyons. This makes sense, as we are wired to perceive the world mostly through the sense of sight. 30% of the neurons in our brain’s cortex is devoted to vision. For comparison, 8% is used for smell, and only 2% is used for hearing. One could conclude that sounds in our surroundings are not important, but I beg to differ.

Elm trees have been appreciated by humans for many generations, primarily as a stoic large urban tree lining streets and shading landscapes. During the 18th and 19th centuries it was one of the most popular landscape trees in Europe and America. Native Americans also revered the tree for its medicinal qualities. We have several native species.

A peaceful form of summer entertainment is sitting out in the yard watching fireflies do their light show at dusk. And who hasn’t as a child stalked and captured “lightnin bugs” in a jar? Fireflies are real standouts of the insect world, so let me illuminate you (yes, humor).

Light is something we don’t think about much, but almost everything that’s alive on the planet needs light for sight and energy. Human eats cow, cow eats grass, grass grows on light… you get the picture. Scientists have studied light for centuries, but still don’t fully understand it.

Since I enjoy an occasional fishing trip and dabble with a garden, I thought I knew a fair bit about worms. Little did I realize what amazingly beneficial little guys they are. The two most common worms we have in our area are the nightcrawler and the redworm. The nightcrawler is the larger of the two and can be 11 inches long and thick as a pencil.

With living “green” becoming a thing these days, you’ve probably heard the benefits of composting yard and kitchen waste. It’s good fertilizer, adds organic matter, improves soil moisture, and the environmental upshot is you’re sending less stuff to landfills and septic systems. But despite the positives, few people compost for various perceived negatives: no room, maintenance hassles, too complicated, bad smell, etc. As a composter I would be considered a passive one, bordering on lazy. I don’t worry about any of the above and my waste still rots down without smelling.

As a wildflower enthusiast and more recently a student of medicinal plants, I keep running across plants with recurring name components. The terms balm, bane, and wort come up often, so I decided to see why. Prepare to delve into the world of ethnobotany, the study of plants used by humans.

Mountains seem to be a universal attraction to people no matter where they come from. To we who were born and raised in them, they are especially endearing because they were the constant backdrop of our lives: their beauty, their challenges, and their molding of the culture of our ancestors that was passed on to us. Mountains are special, but what is it about them that everybody falls in love with? This will sound over-simplistic, but the answer is their 3-dimensional terrain. Let me explain.

My fun and my work have for many decades involved walking over rough terrain, so finding practical but comfortable shoes or boots has been critical. They’re so important to me that I end up emotional attached to them and mourn when they finally wear out and I must let them go to shoe heaven. I’m teary eyed right now just thinking about it. So, today's article is advice on choosing footwear that will be your friend.

One of Spring’s pleasures after a winter of subdued color is the flowering of the dogwoods, which are universally enjoyed and mega-popular as yard trees. We are blessed to have them growing wild in our forests and are very common. Virginia is particularly big on dogwood, as it’s their state tree.