Mount Holly Newsflash - Friday, January 22, 2021 - Morning edition The weather today in Mount Holly - Snow showers. Cloudy, with a high near 30. West wind 6 to 12 mph, with gusts as high as 23 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 2 inches possible. Archived Newsflash emails can be read at: https://mthollynewsflash.blogspot.com
Vermont Home Gardener
Winter Garden Tips
This is really a traditional winter in Vermont with plenty of beautiful snow, cold nighttime temperatures, and little to do for the garden except dream and plan. Not exactly! There's plenty to keep a good gardener busy. If you haven't ordered your garden seeds yet, that is your #1 priority! This week I offer a collection of short winter tips and easy-to-do ideas that will prove useful and make the coming garden season a little more productive. If you really want to grow something in mid-winter, consider micro-greens or sprouts to have freshly grown greens all winter.
New Project to Identify the Plants & Animals of Mount Holly is launched and Invites Community Participation.
Have you ever wished you could identify the wildflowers, birds, bugs, or trees that you see? Do you search through a field guide hoping to figure it out? Now there's a much better and easier way to identify any living thing. A Free app, called iNaturalist that works on your smart phone and computer and identifies almost everything for you. All you have to do is take a photo on your smart phone, submit it to iNaturalist, and the program gives you the probable identification!
Ready to give it a try? Just download the Free app to your smart phone from the Google Play Store or Apple App Store. Once downloaded, navigate to Help in the drop-down menu and follow the illustrated instructions for Getting Started or watch the video tutorial. Your smart phone is now your easiest tool to learn the names of the plants & animals that you find.
But wait, there's more. Mount Holly now has its own project site on iNaturalist to record all the plants, animals, and fungi found in Mount Holly. Nearly every species that you observe and submit to iNaturalist gets identified for you plus your observations contribute to our town's inventory of the ecology of Mount Holly. We are looking for more people to participate and this is your invitation to join with the Mount Holly Conservation Trust in contributing as many observations as you can. We need common and uncommon sightings, all living things including trees, wildflowers, birds, insects, mammals (non-domesticated), fish, amphibians, reptiles, garden weeds, etc. Spring is coming so now is a great time to join the Mount Holly Biodiversity project on iNaturalist and start observing. Again, it's Free and you get to build your own personal record of everything you see in nature.
How can I join? Once you have the app on your smart phone then you can join the Mount Holly Biodiversity project on your smart phone or computer. When you go to our project webpage on your computer (https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/mount-holly-biodiversity) click on "Join Project" just above the green "About" square of text describing the project. Once you have joined the project your observations will automatically be submitted to our town's ecological inventory plus you will receive occasional news and updates about the project. The project webpage also shows you the list of who has the most species, how many species have been found (we have over 500 as of Jan. 2021!), lists the most frequently seen species (can you guess what it is?), and provides an interactive map showing where all the observations have been recorded!
This is "citizen science" at its best, we hope you will enjoy using iNaturalist yourself and join us in knowing more about the amazing natural biodiversity of Mount Holly. This is a great outdoor family activity and a wonderful way to teach children about nature. If you would like some assistance getting started or have questions, call Jim at 802-259-2311.
