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As we near the end of the holiday season, many people are ready to take down their ornaments and get rid of their tree. But wait! Before you toss that dying fir out with the garbage, have you considered recycling it? Bring One for the Chipper is a nation-wide movement to recycle as many Christmas trees as possible. Why should you recycle your Christmas tree?Throughout the month of January, landfills are often overwhelmed with the number of Christmas trees they receive. As you can probably imagine, depending on the size and health of the tree at the time of disposal, those babies can take up a lot of room. Bring One for the Chipper’s mission is to reduce the number of trees that end up in our landfills, and help out the environment along the way! What happens to recycled Christmas trees?Like the name suggests, most trees in the Bring One for the Chipper program go through a woodchipper. This generates mulch that can then be donated to places like public parks, public and private playgrounds, city scaping projects, and even individual yards. In some locations, a few trees will be saved from chipping to instead be sunk into local lakes. This creates new habitats for fish and other marine life to flourish! How can you recycle your Christmas tree?Keep Athens-Clarke County Beautiful is partnering once again with Bring One for the Chipper to make recycling your Christmas tree easier than ever. This year, the event kicks off at 9am on Saturday, January 8th. From 9am until 1pm, you can bring your undecorated tree to one of multiple drop-off locations:
If January 8th isn’t a good day for you, never fear! Check out the Keep Georgia Beautiful Foundation’s list of statewide drop-off locations. Be sure to remove all ornaments, Christmas lights, and any other decorations from your tree before you bring it for chipping. This year, you can also drop off wreath metal and light strings to be recycled as well! To learn more about this initiative and how you can participate, check out Keep Athens-Clarke County Beautiful. AuthorEmily Casuccio is sister and sister-in-law to Rebekah and Scott Rushing, and has over half a decade of experience in copywriting, copyediting, proofreading, and developmental storyboarding. She's worked with both published and undiscovered authors on both fiction and nonfiction, and takes pride in supporting local businesses. Her passion lies in the written word and helping authors of all capacities realize their dreams and achieve their fullest potential. To learn more about her, read samples of her work, or contact her, visit her online portfolio.
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Whether you’re an avid insect enthusiast or just a casual observer, pretty much everyone knows what the Monarch butterfly looks like. Their bright orange wings are easy to identify, and most of us learned about them and their unique migration pattern in elementary school. Monarch butterflies are sensitive to temperature, and can’t survive the cold of North American winters. So each year, they travel from their homes in Canada and the northern states down to warmer weather, usually settling in Mexico or along the coast of California. Did You Know?Monarch butterflies use air currents and the Earth’s magnetic field to propel them on their journey Their actual departure depends on any given year’s weather, but on average, Monarchs head south around October, and return home around February. It’s this return trip that makes their migration pattern so unique. Monarch butterflies are the only species of butterfly known to embark on this kind of two-way migration. Two-way migration means that a single generation of the species in question travels from one location to another, and then back again. Monarchs, in this case, travel south for the winter, as they can’t survive colder temperatures. Once things warm up again, they head back north to their normal habitat. The Monarch migration is also noteworthy for its span – the Monarch migration route is one of the longest in the animal kingdom, covering over 3,000 miles. Along the way, Monarchs make many stops for food and rest. Here in Georgia, the Monarchs we see are just passing through on their way to their overwinter destination. What is the Monarch Butterfly Count?Every year, conservation organizations like Monarch Joint Venture and Western Monarch Count band together to monitor the Monarch butterfly population. This process can vary, but the general idea is to get a count of how many Monarch butterflies stop by a certain location so we can track their numbers as they migrate to and from home. Counting butterflies is no mean feat, but it’s important. The Monarch butterfly is endangered, with its population decreasing every year. Keeping track of both their migration patterns and their numbers each year helps conservationists and environmental scientists learn how best to support the species so they can thrive. How can I help?One of the biggest ways you can contribute to the preservation of Monarchs is by giving them a place to rest on their long journey. Plant a variety of native nectar plants for them to choose from, and make sure to include lots of milkweed, their preferred host plant. With the food, shelter, and water these plants provide, the butterflies will have everything they need to keep going. Even if all you can plant is a single pot with one milkweed plant, you’re still doing your part! Every stem counts. If you’d like to get involved even further, check out these resources from Monarch Joint Venture to find conservation efforts near you. AuthorEmily Casuccio is sister and sister-in-law to Rebekah and Scott Rushing, and has over half a decade of experience in copywriting, copyediting, proofreading, and developmental storyboarding. She's worked with both published and undiscovered authors on both fiction and nonfiction, and takes pride in supporting local businesses. Her passion lies in the written word and helping authors of all capacities realize their dreams and achieve their fullest potential. To learn more about her, read samples of her work, or contact her, visit her online portfolio. Most people know that you can tell how old a tree is by counting its rings. It’s a fun fact to wow kids with, and a cool way to visualize history. But the study of tree rings is actually a much wider field than just counting some lines. First, those tree rings are scientifically called annual growth rings, and the official term for the study of annual growth rings is dendrochronology. According to the Oxford dictionary, dendrochronology is “the science or technique of dating events, environmental change, and archaeological artifacts by using the characteristic patterns of annual growth rings in timber and tree trunks.” Let’s start with the basics. When you look at a tree’s growth rings, you’ll see that there are dark circles separated by lighter sections. A common misconception is that only the dark rings count towards a tree’s age. In fact, a full annual growth ring actually includes a dark and a light section. Every year, a tree gets not only taller, but also wider in diameter. Springtime is the ideal growing environment, and so trees grow their fastest during these months. Because they’re growing quickly, the individual developing cells are larger and have thinner cell walls. This results in wood called springwood, or earlywood, that is light in color. Towards the end of summer, trees start to slow down. Cells that develop during this slower period are smaller, and have much thicker cell walls, resulting in darker wood we call summerwood, or latewood. Every year, a tree will grow a new light and dark section. Therefore, these two-part rings can be counted to learn the tree’s age in years. But that’s not all we can learn by looking at a cross-section! Diameter growth in a tree is highly sensitive to environmental factors, like whether or not the tree gets enough water and sunlight. A thicker annual growth ring indicates a bountiful growing season, where the tree had everything it needed to flourish. A thinner annual growth ring may therefore indicate a poor growing season, with not enough (or too much!) rain, sun, or warm temperatures. Now, not all trees are created equal. To determine whether any given growth ring is considered “thick” or “thin,” you’d have to research the average growth ring width for that particular species. You’ll also want to keep in mind the climate of the area you’re in – the growth rings of a pine tree in Georgia may differ from those of a pine tree in Vermont! Looking at a tree’s growth rings can also show you any trauma the tree experienced in its lifetime. For example, a fire might result in blackening along at least part of that year’s ring, depending on how much of the tree was burned. Knots in a tree’s growth rings can indicate where a branch used to be, or where insects or other pests caused damage. Lopsided rings that are thicker on one side than the other can indicate that the tree spent some years growing at an angle, and one side of the tree had to grow more than the other to accommodate the change. Trees that are exposed to high winds on one side may even have their ‘heart’ off-center as the buffeted side of the tree is unable to grow at the same pace as the other. The study of annual growth rings can tell us so much about a tree’s lifetime, and can be used to not only give us a peek into the past, but also to confirm historical events, like a forest fire, or corroborate the age of an artifact. Dendrochronology is a rich field of study, and plus, it’s just plain cool! AuthorEmily Casuccio is sister and sister-in-law to Rebekah and Scott Rushing, and has over half a decade of experience in copywriting, copyediting, proofreading, and developmental storyboarding. She's worked with both published and undiscovered authors on both fiction and nonfiction, and takes pride in supporting local businesses. Her passion lies in the written word and helping authors of all capacities realize their dreams and achieve their fullest potential. To learn more about her, read samples of her work, or contact her, visit her online portfolio. |
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January 2023
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23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters,
24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.
Colossians 3:23-24
24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.
Colossians 3:23-24