A stroll through Westport Park
I hate to admit this publicly, but I had not been to Dickinson County Conservation’s Westport Park until yesterday. We are always a little surprised when people come into the nature center and have lived in the area for years without ever visiting before. However, it’s the same way with Read More »
A stroll through Judd Wildlife Area
At the end of summer, Snapchat had a feed where users from Iowa could post videos to share with the rest of the world. My husband and I took our dog on a walk through the Dickinson County Conservation Board’s Judd Wildlife Area south of Milford, and we took a Read More »
A stroll through the Little Sioux Savanna
The Dickinson County Conservation Board has two new parcels of land on 195th Avenue, south of County Road A-34 in Milford. We worked hard this summer at the Little Foote Forest parcel, attempting to eradicate some of the invasive garlic mustard on the plot, but I had yet to walk through Read More »
A stroll through Kenue Park
The scent of fall is in the air. To me the scent of fall means dry leaves, wood smoke and a hint of chill to the air. Take a breath and it awakens the spirit. My eyes open wider and search for the beautiful change of colors. My lungs take Read More »
Save the bees, save the honey
With all the reasons out there to work to save our bees, one reason is definitely delicious — honey. (Honeybees and their native relatives) Not only is it scrumptious, but it also has many other appealing qualities: 1. Honey doesn’t spoil. The oldest honey was found in the country of Read More »
Save the Bees, Save the World… From Bombs?
In this next part of our Save the Bees, Save the World series, we explore a different reason why bees are such incredible creatures. (Without native bees, we wouldn’t have blueberries.)
Save the Bees, save the world: Part II
We’ve all seen a movie about the future that shows a picture of a desolate world. That world is usually dark, dusty and barren. In “The Matrix,” the real world has almost no natural light. Everything is rocky, and there is not a flower to be seen. “The Book of Read More »
Save the Bees, Save the World
Save the bees, save the world. That seems like quite a stretch, but really, bees do so much more than people think. As our bee populations slowly decrease thanks to disease, loss of habitat, pesticide use and more, the nation and the world are starting to see the ramifications of Read More »
Monarch tagging — what now?
During the Bee & Butterfly Festival, almost 300 monarch butterflies were tagged through the University of Kansas’ Monarch Watch program. What happens now? The butterflies were released into the Kenue Park prairie and are now making their ways south to certain forests in Mexico where monarchs overwinter each year. In Read More »
What’s going on with the bees?
A federal survey found that beekeepers in the United States lost more than 40 percent of their colonies last year. That is huge. And the Dickinson County Nature Center was not exempt. If you visited the nature center May-June, you might have noticed the sparse number of bees in the Read More »
Will the mama bird take her baby back if you touch it?
We are planning on redoing our landscaping, and a volunteer bush on the corner of the house needs to come out. However, my husband Snapchatted a picture to me of a robin, and she decided to make her nest right in the bush. Needless to say, that bush will not Read More »
Grant supports garden improvements
The Dickinson County Conservation Board received a $6,200 grant from the Dickinson County Endowment Fund to expand the native gardens outside the nature center’s Butterfly House within Kenue Park in Okoboji. This grant funding will be used toward three specific additions in and around the existing gardens. “The goal of Read More »