To begin, I tried to publish this post two days ago, but I’ve been having some technical difficulties with the site. Please excuse the delay!
Well, the 7 Day Challenge ended yesterday, and I can honestly say that I spent at least a half hour out of every one of those days outside. Due to work and other commitments, I wasn’t able to wander every day, but just getting out in nature was the primary goal. Since getting out in nature is my primary goal as well, it wasn’t too difficult to meet and exceed the half hour a day minimum requirement!
Mark and I spent several days in our own yard, taking care of some overdue spring chores: raking, trimming, weeding, planting, and pond maintenance. In the 26 years I’ve lived in our house, I’ve been diligent about avoiding adding any harmful chemicals to my yard. When Mark and I married, he was just as adamant that we continue that practice, which has extended to the 
maintenance of the pond we built in the backyard almost seven years ago. So garden weeds are dealt with strictly by hand pulling and digging. The pond receives beneficial bacteria to help maintain the small ecosystem, and occasional barley in the spring to help keep algae blooms from taking over – nothing else is ever added. The pond community seems happy – these two Green Frog friends are two of eleven we have living there this summer. We turned the bottom of the front yard into a rain garden the same year we put in the pond, and it is thriving now, with little help from us other than some weeding. The annual event that, to me, proves choosing a natural yard was the right decision (not that I really need proof, to be honest), is the June arrival of fireflies. When I bought this house, in the early 1990’s, there were no fireflies (lightning bugs) in the neighborhood. A few years later I noticed a few, maybe a half dozen or so at the edge of the woods. From that point on, every year I’ve counted more and more of these fascinating tiny creatures, and today we have hundreds! They glitter among the trees in the woods, give the rain garden an almost Christmassy look, and seem to play hide and seek among the plants surrounding the pond. Watching them is mesmerizing and magical – and I don’t believe they would be here at all if we hadn’t provided a safe environment for them.
One day during the Challenge week, I did have to work all day. But that didn’t pose too much of a problem, as the day was spent outdoors with groups of young children, teaching them about lake and lakeshore habitats. It was such fun, and I’m quite sure I learned just as much as the children did. Before they arrived, I found a water scorpion in the shallows of the lake, and the kids had a great time looking for it – and were all so excited when they finally spotted it!
Two of the Challenge days I joined with a group of songbird banders I’m associated with, assisting with public banding programs. We don’t ever know for sure what we’ll end up with when banding songbirds, but we were kept very busy during both of these programs. 
In total we banded 64 birds, including a Black-billed Cuckoo (pictured here), which is a bird many of us had never seen before, and the banders hadn’t encountered at that location in almost 20 years! Quite exciting!
Even though it was a busy week, I did get out to do a little wandering. Mark and I took a walk along the Lake Trail at Carver Park, and spent a bit of time listening to this little House Wren singing away just before we left the park. It was a lovely ending to a 
wonderful week spent in the wild outdoors!