Mariton: Blog Posts Looking Back

by Tim Burris, Preserve Manager.

When Dan Barringer recently posted how long we had been doing the blog (they are now called Field Notes)I was surprised.  When the two of us started working at Natural Lands, many of the preserve managers didn’t even have computers.  Our timesheets, truck logs and reports were filled out by hand and sent in by the US mail.  It doesn’t seem that long ago, so it is hard to imagine blog technology was around 14 years ago.

The two of us go through dry spells when we are either too busy managing the preserve to sit down and write a Field Note, or we feel like we don’t have anything new to write about.  After reading Dan’s post I decided to go back and count.  I wrote 52 Field Notes this year.  Dan had 74 posts!  So our dry spells weren’t that dry.  While it is easy and fun to post a photo on Facebook, Dan and I still like to craft something with a little more substance for the readers.

As I reviewed my posts from this year, I decided to add links to some that I liked the most.  A eulogy for a tree at Mariton that many knew.  The trails after a wet snow.  A post on the healing powers of nature.  I did a four part series on learning bird songs.  My blog posts are greatly improved thanks to the wonderful photos by Carole Mebus.  I liked this wildflower post, because she got such a great shot of a Jack-In-The-Pulpit.  All of the posts from Mariton’s weekly nature walks are made much more interesting because of Carole’s photos of birds, butterflies, flowers, etc.  I wrote a post about Tufted Titmice using the nest boxes this year.  I had been playing with a blog draft for several months when Dan started posting about the Crow’s Nest Camp theme of Maps and Map Reading.  I decided it was time to revisit that draft and post a Field Note about my love of maps.  I like posting about our vacation to the Adirondacks.  We canoe with other nature lovers, so I always learn something.  This is just a cross section of some of my posts.

Next to his mother, I may be the biggest fan of Dan’s blog posts.  If you have a few hours to spend on a rainy or snowy day, please go back and sample some of his fine writing and photography.  We hope that over the years we have contributed useful information, inspired people to visit a Natural Lands preserve, and vicariously transported people to our preserves.  Happy New Year.