It’s a chilly, gray October Sunday — perfect beach weather!
Chatted with USA Today about leaving fallen leaves for wildlife instead of raking and bagging them. The story is on their homepage today. Yes, leaves will smother your lawn. That’s a good thing. Reduce the size of your lawn and create more beds for beautiful native wildflowers, shrubs and trees and use fallen leaves as natural mulch there instead of sending them to the landfill then turning around and paying for mulch. Many wildlife species depend on the fallen leaf layer for habitat. With bees, butterflies, amphibians and songbirds all in steep decline—in part because of lawns (zero habitat) and how we maintain them (chemical pesticides and fertilizers and massive amounts of water)—it’s time to start gardening a little more naturally. I go into all of this and more in my book “Attracting Birds, Butterflies and Other Backyard Wildlife.” Link to get it in bio.
October is the best time to go to the beach (if you hate the sun, and sand, like me). Made our annual trip to Rehoboth Beach—for me for two speaking/book signing events (one Saturday and one Monday) and Justin tagged along.
Let the jousting begin! Our annual pilgrimage to the Maryland Renaissance Festival yesterday was fun as always — we got a new Green Man for the garden, ate Scotch eggs and fried mac n cheese on a stick, found a master artisan who is going to custom-carve a stone with runes for us, and almost spent hundreds of dollars on a set of handmade wooden tankards but thought better of it (which we do every time). Got several compliments on my ElfQuest t-shirt too.
Last day of summer, last day at the beach.
Yaaaaas! The B-52s rite-of-summer show (it’s still summer!) at the newly legendary Anthem on the DC Wharf Waterfront. About to #DanceThisMessAround! #EverybodysMovinEverybodysGroovin
Thanks for all the birthday love, everyone! Had to work and travel this weekend but was able to take one day off for a side-trip to Tahoe to celebrate with Mary. As per usual we are having wine and enjoying the views on the lake. She’s going to make her coconut milk braised chicken with aromatics and cilantro lime rice for my birthday dinner then we got cupcakes and candles to celebrate for dessert. Head home tomorrow for 36 hours to celebrate with Justin before hitting the road to NYC for work on Weds. Here’s to 44!
Took Mary to her first geek con and she’s only partially traumatized.
So awesome seeing Patagonia in Portland feature the National Wildlife Federation’s Garden for Wildlife program “Certified Wildlife Habitat” sign. Love seeing our program show up in unexpected places like this as I travel the country on my book tour. If you are in Oregon you can get your wildlife-friendly yard or garden space co-certified by NWF and our state affiliate Northwest Steelheaders, who work to protect and restore salmon and their habitat, and post this awesome yard sign to spread the word about the importance of natural gardening to your whole neighborhood.
Beautiful day on the Mall!
The anise hyssop is hopping in my wildlife habitat garden! Which also happens to be a @nationalwildlife Certified Wildlife Habitat. Covered in buckeye butterflies and bees! Get my book “Attracting Birds, Butterflies and Other Backyard Wildlife” to learn how to make your yard or garden look like mine. Link in Bio.
Here’s the latest butterfly to emerge in our wildlife habitat garden. This one is a black swallowtail, which will use ordinary garden herbs parsley or dill as its caterpillar host plant. We’ve got at least three more caterpillars munching away on this parsley plant, but this one emerged from its chrysalis yesterday. So beautiful! My book “Attracting Birds, Butterflies and Other Backyard Wildlife” will show you how to have a garden filled with butterflies like this. Link to order in bio.
