The Sweet Spot

On the weekend of April 30th-May 3rd 2021, if you are out and about - in your garden or yard, on a walk, or walking your pet, chatting with a neighbor or hanging outside in the playground in Acton or Boxborough - and you happen to see an interesting plant, or animal, a bug, bee or a bird - or any local biodiversity, you can earn the title of a Citizen Scientist ! This weekend is when Acton-Boxborough participates in a public collaboration effort in contributing to scientific research through crowdsourcing . And for crowdsourcing, more the merrier! “I followed the steps [ during the kickoff meeting for the project] and in just a couple of minutes I am all set to start observing biodiversity, and uploading the pictures to the site”, says Liliana Rao, a recent member of the AB BioBlitz initiative. The steps include downloading the iNaturalist app ( iPhone or Android ), creating an account and under “More” in the menu, click “Projects'' and search “Acton Boxborough” to find and j...

A few days before Mother’s Day, a friend shared an enthralling picture and some videos of New Life. First there was a fascinating picture, from a nest cam, of the deep blue eggs, in a perfectly constructed Robin’s nest in my friend’s rhododendron bush. Then the chicks hatched and came the videos from her nest cam. The cam captured all without disturbing the chicks’ feeding rituals. How the chicks opened their beaks wide and how the parents fed them perfectly! Everyday we were clamoring for more on this new life, excited that it was happening right where we lived. The best was the day before Mother’s Day, when there were some snow flurries at night and the mother Robin created a shield with her wings to protect her little ones! In these uncertain times, in the middle of the lockdown, with news about devastation and destruction coming in from everywhere, I really needed this breath of fresh air. It was a reminder of new life. Of Mother Nature continuing to do its th...

“When you do common things in your life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world”, said teacher, inventor, agriculture-scientist, botanist, nature-lover and my sustainability hero, Dr. George Washington Carver . An early proponent of composting, he said “Waste is man-made; nature produces no waste; whatever is consumed is returned to the whole in a reusable form. Man fails to utilize appropriately the bounty of nature”. While I am inspired by his words, work and philosophy of life, I started small, by doing common things in a common way. Such as separating my kitchen and organic waste in a separate bin than my trash bin.  We got a smell free, rust free, indoor composting pail with charcoal filters (there are other options). Instead of dumping kitchen and food scraps in with the regular trash, it was easy enough to separate it into this pail. We were already separating recyclables, so separating the wet waste reduced our trash to ¼ of the original, and much li...

The sky is overcast and one can imagine the song “ghanana ghanana ghir ghir aayee badara” from the movie Lagaan, as the surroundings looked lush with trees and saplings of all sizes covering the pale sand over ten to twelve acres. There are trees of many varieties like Neem, Khejri, Acacia, desert teak and fruiting trees like pomegranate, among other native species. As the person in the video indicates there is a temple and sand dunes intact outside, in the vast, otherwise barren landscape of the Thar desert around Barmer district of Rajasthan, one can’t help but wonder why the landscape is so lush inside the compound, even attracting rain, and wildlife such as peacocks and deer.  The video depicts a forest adopted by philanthropists Vivek and Vandana Sharma, who, through their foundation have given back to the community through multiple projects in New England and beyond. This project in Rajasthan, and another one in Vidarbha, Maharashtra, is through SankalpTaru (Sankalp:Pledge, T...

Late last fall, when Executive Director of Acton-Boxborough United Way ( ABUW ), Griet Dehandschutter, walked past an empty hallway that connects Terminal B and C on the departure level at the Boston Logan Airport, the amazingly powerful giant mural exhibit on Deconstructing Stigma  by McLean caught her attention. The exhibit carries stories and pictures of volunteers affected by mental illness and its stigma. These are stories of hope and resilience that the campaign participants shared with a view to offer a different perspective on mental illness. One of the displays showcases Vaidehi’s story. “I think the biggest problem in my culture is that mental illness is not thought of as a serious illness. It’s considered to be ‘all in your head’. Of course we know that’s not true”, says Vaidehi in one display. She is a writer and editor, who was raised in a South Asian family, and is referring to her anxiety and depression. These stories are powerful and Griet wondered if we could bri...

This past holiday season, while scanning for the top and recent movie titles on Netflix, the word “catfishing” caught my attention. I learned that catfishing means the deceptive act of creating fake online identities to lure folks into false relationships. The movie, “ Love Hard ”, where I encountered the word, was about online dating, which started with the protagonist finding herself the perfect match online after several failed attempts at dating before. Not only is this guy good looking, she is having interesting conversations with him, sharing many common interests and just feels such a strong connection with him that it feels too good to be true ! She travels across the country to surprise him. Instead, she is in for a rude shock when she finds out he looks nothing like his profile picture. The plot takes a few sweet turns when the guy promises to introduce her to the real person in the picture. She tries to date the other guy, but realizes that she had developed a connection wit...

This summer, “staycation” assumed a whole new meaning. Our backyard, with the newly installed Glenfeeder , opened our world to the exciting activity of a variety of New England birds. Within a couple of days of putting the bird feed out, there had been enough communication for the birds to start trickling in. We observed their patterns and slowly learned the best visitation times. We parked ourselves by the window when they visited and as time went by some birds were bold enough to visit even as we sat, not too far away, on the deck. I had never imagined birds would have so much personality, and even attitudes! We even ended up naming a few. Goldfinch            Black & White Chickadee House finch First we got the sparrows, and the warblers and the finches. Then one day we observed an unusual phenomenon. A big, fat, fluffy, grey bird sat plopped on the edge of our deck, away from the bird feeder; and a much smaller sparrow flew back and forth feeding th...