Photo of the Week – April 18, 2013

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I love that my kids enjoy nature.  My two sons, in particular, are really enthusiastic about insects and spiders at the moment.  So enthusiastic, in fact, that every spider in our house gets picked up and presented to me.

“Dad!  Look at this cool spider!  Take a picture of it!!”

These are the two they found in our basement last week.

This is John's contribution.

This is John’s contribution.  I have no idea what kind it is, but it was very pretty.

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Daniel's contribution

Daniel’s contribution.  A wolf spider, I believe?  …with only seven legs.  Not sure if it had 7 legs before Daniel saw it or not…

Here’s the thing.  I’m thrilled that my kids are excited about invertebrates and nature, and I want to encourage that as much as I can, but it actually takes quite a bit of time to get a decent photo of a spider or insect.  …Especially when it’s been trapped for a while in a cup or between two hands and is antsy to find cover.  Fortunately, it’s still cold outside, and the number of critters crawling around inside and outside our house is still pretty small.  But summer is coming…

If you don’t hear from me for a while, it’ll be because I’m too busy taking pictures of every insect and spider within a block of our house!

The Annual Grassland Restoration Network Workshop – Coming to A Prairie Near You (If You’re Near Columbia, Missouri)

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The Grassland Restoration Network is a loose affiliation of those of us trying to use prairie restoration (reconstruction) as a way to rebuild, conserve and sustain grassland ecosystems.  Each year, we put on a workshop to share ideas, techniques, research results, and stories with other.  Workshops are hosted by a different site each year, giving us the opportunity to visit a range of projects over the years. 

Kicking the dirt together helps us better understand challenges and strategies being employed at each others’ sites, but also stimulates better discussions than when we’re sitting in a sterile hotel conference room.  The workshops tend to minimize lectures and maximize both formal and informal discussion time.  I missed the 2012 workshop, but you can read my posts about the 2011 workshop in Indiana by clicking here.

A field discussion at the 2009 Grassland Restoration Network in Nebraska.

Bill Whitney, of Prairie Plains Resource Institute, leads a field discussion during the 2009 Grassland Restoration Network in Nebraska.

This year’s workshop will be hosted by the Missouri Department of Conservation in Columbia, Missouri from July 16-18.  If you are interested in attending, you can download the preliminary agenda and registration information by clicking here. 

In addition, you can follow the activities of the Grassland Restoration Network on our new blog/website, initiated by Bill Kleiman, at Nachusa Grasslands.  That link is here.