Ringing Out 2020 -- Ringing In a New Year

 Whew!  The last year (and the 3 before that) has been exhausting.  It definitely shows in my total lack of blog posts in 2020.  All my energies were focused on the political side of things and running the NW Abq Political Action Group's Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/NWABQPoliticalActionGroup.  At least because it's a closed, private group, we didn't have any issues with trolls.  Over at the Native Plants of NM FB page (https://www.facebook.com/groups/847285882110574), there's a never-ending series of bots and trolls trying to gain membership.  I suppose by joining ordinary FB groups, these bots and trolls avoid being flagged as such.

Back to why the year has been exhausting, at the top of the list has been the political malfeasance at the national level, especially the out-going administration's unmatched disregard for environmental protections.  We've lost so much--endangered species, the Paris Accords, clean air regs, mileage standards for automobiles, Bears Ears, environmental science; the list goes on and on.  Conveniently, the NY Times kept track of the environmental regulations that Trump reversed:  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks.html.

Running close second, and in so many ways exacerbated by the political dysfunction in Washington, has been the pandemic.  COVID-19 has us hunkering down.  The BioPark essentially closed for the year.  True, they've had timed ticketing and strictly limited visitor quotas since July, but it's been a crippled, ineffective sort of year from my perspective.  Considering that the volunteers are overwhelmingly retired and over 65, the BioPark volunteers have been particularly impacted.  At least everyone is being granted full status for the year, no matter what their level of participation was.  

As for me, it started out normal enough with the usual Nature's Notebook phenology data collection.  But by St. Patrick's Day, it was obvious that the virus had other ideas.  

I've been able to continue with a low level of effort with plant labeling.  That's thanks to the Botanic Garden being closed to visitors on Mondays.  I can go in on a Monday afternoon and work completely alone for a few hours, mapping beds, taking inventories, picking up damaged and broken labels.  

I've also been able to do a certain amount of work from home:  proposals for a grant in support of the herbarium, label databases, and prepping for the eventual arrival of Iris-BG, the new garden inventory software system.  

Tomorrow I'll settle in with my 2021 project:  a year in the garden.  Hopefully I'll be able to get posts out every single day for a full year.  We'll see if I can manage that pace.  I suspect some daily posts will be quite short ;-)

Onward!