The BioPark

It's been a long day at the BioPark Botanic Garden.  First, we made our usual Nature's Notebook observations.  We've had to add a new cottonwood after that windstorm that severely damage the tree in Site #1.   Here's a photo of Sandy taking a diameter measurement of the replacement sapling in  Site #3. 

Then after a quick bite for lunch, Sheila and I prepped for the last herbarium workshop of the summer.  We had 5 high school students plus one councilor and they all enjoyed the session.  They worked their way through 25 specimens, mounting and labeling them for us.  Sometime in the next couple days, I'll have to move the dried pages out of the Atrium and back to the herbarium.  

Herbaria

Despite my disgust at the way the New York Times is leading the charge to dismiss President Biden, I haven't dropped my subscription.  That's because sometimes they do right.  This time it's a guest opinion piece on the value of herbaria.  

At the Botanic Garden, we host a handful of herbarium workshops every summer to high school students involved in Camp BioPark.  Typically, a workshop runs 2-3 hours and has a small group of interested students learn about pressing plants, mounting specimens, and labeling the collection.  

As the number of specimens in our collection grows, we are way behind in digitization.  We had lined up Jerry Goffe's studio for use in doing a mass digitization day, but unfortunately he passed away unexpectedly before we could begin the work.  

Also, it's time we held another herbarium workshop for the other docents.  With my upcoming travel in September, that will likely have to wait until October.

Sheila Conneen and herbarium students

Plastic Free July

Once again I'm taking the plastic free eco-challenge.   So far it's going fairly well.  We've replaced a huge number of plastic food storage containers with Corning glassware.  The years (decades?!) old plastic is being upcycled to a friend for storage of materials for her home business, soap manufacture.  

In other plastic-free news, Marc Gunn over at http://www.celticmusicpodcast.com/ announced that he is involved this month.  Normally, his podcast is just Celtic and Irish music, but today's e-mail blast  from him encouraged others to join the eco-challenge.  

In other recycling news, the ABQ Bonsai Club is trying to increase the utility of its library collection.  The book checkout process is being streamlined and the old collection of periodicals will be cataloged and either auctioned off or sold online.  

Burt Pendleton, club librarian