Living In The Avon Hills

I don't live in the Avon Hills but after Saturday I wish I did.  I went to the "Living In The Avon Hills" conference at St. John's University and met some fascinating people who do live in the Avon Hills.  I spent some time talking to a couple who farm near Longville when they are not busy birdwatching.  The man was born on his farm and is quite proud that he has 2 American chestnut trees growing that do not show signs of disease yet.  He hopes to harvest a chestnut or two before he dies.  Our keynote speaker was a former master naturalist instructor of mine from the Wildlife Science Center.  She spoke about raptors.  I didn't learn anything new about raptors during her speech but I enjoyed it because she presented the information in a different style and was very engaging.  I chose 3 sessions.  My first one was on designing and maintaining small prairies.  The speaker was a landscape architect and he had an enthusiastic delivery.  He made me feel much better about my yard which to some might look untidy but to me is looking better every year.  Lunch was awesome.  St. John's puts on a great bag lunch with excellent bread on their vegie sandwiches and cookies that are to die for.  I don't eat many cookies these days but I'm not passing up a chance to eat a St. John's cookie.  After lunch I went to a session on "When to help wildlife."  This session wasn't quite what I expected and I wished I had gone to the session about Minnesota Indians instead.  The woman who spoke was a wildlife rehabilitator who spends hours and hours and much of her own money nursing squirrels, rabbits and baby deer.  That alone made me question the value of this session.  She was quite proud of the fact that she is a master wildlife rehabiltator, has seven permits, and has to fill out reams of paperwork to keep her seven permits.  Her main advice is to leave baby birds and animals alone and I already knew that.  My last class was an inspiring talk about growing garlic.  I knew how to grow garlic but not how to harvest it or cure it.  Now that I know how to harvest and cure the garlic, I'm pretty excited.  I hope this excitements holds out until October, 2014 because that is the time to plant garlic.  Saturday was a good day.