Even with yesterday’s rain, it will take a while for water levels to catch up. There are many small steps we can all take to conserve water in our homes. UConn Extension has these ten tips for your lawn and garden. Take shorter showers Run dishwashers and washing machines with full loads Use water only […]
Climate Adaptation & Resiliency
Advancing Adaptation and Resilience in a Changing Climate
Extension Assists with 1st CT Grown Forest
UConn Extension Educator Tom Worthley recently assisted the Crescent Lake Recreation area in Southington to become the first Connecticut Grown Forest. The Hartford Courant wrote about the work being done at Crescent Lake.
Praying Mantis
Our Tolland County Extension office has had a lot of praying mantis in the gardens this year. Three more egg cases were found earlier this fall. Each case takes about five months to hatch, waiting for a few weeks of warmer weather, when they sense “summer.” The cases can hold anywhere from 100-200 tiny Mantises. […]
Will Halloween Be Ruined Again?
“Dad, is Halloween going to be cancelled again this year because of the weather?” It’s not a pleasant thought for kids dreaming of bags full of candy. Well, we are approaching the end of October, and for those of us who have been in Connecticut for the past few years, it seems appropriate to discuss […]
Smartphones and GPS
by David Dickson Smartphones are the swiss army knife of the digital world. They have replaced countless single-function gadgets from calculators to cameras to pagers to, um, phones! But for mapping geeks, one of the gadgets they have not quite been able to shake is the handheld GPS unit—at least until now. The Geospatial Training Program […]
Learning Sustainability with Extension Forestry Program
Tom Worthley of UConn Extension’s Forestry Program spent Tuesday, October 1st at Crescent Lake in Southington teaching agricultural education students from Southington High School about forestry management. Crescent Lake has experienced problems with the invasive insect emerald ash borer. Worthley felled a damaged ash tree on Tuesday and used a portable sawmill to make lumber. […]
Praying Mantis
As summer winds down, pay close attention to your garden and other areas of woods and open space – you might see a Praying Mantis. We have had several of these at the Tolland County Extension Center lately. The European praying mantis is found throughout the state and is also the state insect. They are […]
Cloud Watching
I am amazed at just how often I check the sky to see what the weather will be for the next while. I know some people check the weather channel or local news channels to see what the weather people are forecasting, but I look to the sky. After so many decades of turning my […]
Rain Got You In A Depression? Put It In One!
With historic amounts of rain falling on our state this month, it is easy to get a little down. It puts a damper on beach days, picnics, and hikes. Not to make things worse, but did you also know that as all that rain runs off roofs, parking lots, driveways, and roads and into storm drains […]
Mulch Molds – What is Growing on my Mulch?
What is growing on my mulch? This is a common question UConn Extension is asked at the UConn Home and Garden Education Center and in our county Master Gardener offices. People are perplexed when they find a yellow foamy mass that looks like the neighbor’s dog vomited in their flower garden. Or when their nice […]
Be on the Lookout for Giant Hogweed, an Invasive Plant in Connecticut
UConn and the Connecticut Invasive Plant Working Group (CIPWG) are asking state residents to be on the lookout for Giant Hogweed, which typically blooms during July. Giant Hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum) is an invasive, non-native plant from Eurasia that was first identified in Connecticut in 2001. This Federal Noxious weed has now been confirmed in 25 towns in […]
This is not Your Dog’s Clicker Training
By Bruce Hyde When you say the word “clicker” the first thing many people think of is training a dog. But clickers can also refer to the devices used to engage an audience in group decision-making. When a contestant in a game show decides to “ask the audience,” an audience response system (aka clicker) is […]
A Golden Plan for a Turnaround
Originally posted by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology By Gustave Axelson The Golden-winged Warbler has had a hard time of it lately. Habitat loss and competition with a close relative have cut its numbers by three-quarters in the last 50 years. But a new push of research is uncovering more about the species’ life cycle […]
Survival 101: The Science of Survival
On June 1st, The Middlesex county 4-H Advisory Committee presented Survival 101 – The Science of Survival. This high energy and action packed workshop day included 10 different survival workshops focusing on the science and technology behind survival skills. The workshops included: Shelter Engineering, Fire Building, Survival Communication, Wild Game and Fishing, Wilderness and Survival […]
Dealing in Imagery
By Emily Wilson My extra desk has seen a steady stream of boxes – little and big ones, brown and black ones, even an iPad box (no iPad included). One had old maps crumpled up to protect its contents. Some have been dropped off and others have been part of a suspicious looking package trade […]
Using GPS for Monitoring and Mapping Land Trust Holdings
By Cary Chadwick On May 3, CLEAR’s Geospatial Training Program (GTP) and the Connecticut Land Conservation Council held its second session of a training course called “Using GPS for Monitoring and Mapping Land Trust Holdings.” The one-day course is designed to teach participants how to use a handheld GPS receiver to map property boundaries and […]
They’re Back: 17-Year Cicadas To Swarm East Coast
Right on schedule, millions of 17-year cicadas will emerge from underground and bring their distinctive mating song to the East Coast. HAMDEN, Conn. — Colossal numbers of cicadas, unhurriedly growing underground since 1996, are about to emerge along much of the East Coast to begin passionately singing and mating as their remarkable life cycle restarts. […]
A Watershed Moment
By Michael Dietz Many of us have heard about watershed protection efforts. Perhaps you live in a drinking water supply watershed. Poor Willy Wonka was wrongly accused of poisoning the watershed of his brown river (it turned out to be chocolate). But what is a watershed, really? In physical terms, a watershed is an area […]
State Sees High Level of Beach Erosion After Powerful Storms
OLD LYME, CT (WFSB) – The Connecticut shoreline is eroding at rates not seen in our lifetime, and the devastation was sped up by powerful storms like Irene and Sandy. In some spots, five years of erosion was accomplished in just three months, and for the first time, Channel 3 Eyewitness News is showing you the dramatic […]
When It Comes To Climate Change – Money Talks
By Bruce Hyde It is generally accepted by climate scientists that New England will experience a trend of increasing intensity and frequency of storms resulting in an increase in flooding and coastal erosion. Recent storms have raised our collective awareness of the damage, both fiscal and physical, that these storms can cause. Consider that Sandy […]
Do “We” Believe in Climate Change
By David Dickson Over the last year and a half here in Connecticut, we have certainly seen our fair share of extreme weather events – Irene, the Halloween nor’easter of 2011, Sandy, Winter Storm NEMO (no relation to our NEMO), etc. These events have certainly had a big physical and financial impact on our state, […]
Impacts of Hurricane Sandy to Connecticut Shoreline
By Juliana Barrett UConn’s Connecticut Sea Grant Program (CTSG) and Center for Land Use Education and Research (CLEAR) hosted a discussion of Hurricane Sandy impacts to Connecticut’s beaches and dunes on November 20, 2012. Several municipalities and private beach associations attended and provided insights into local shoreline changes. Many areas along the eastern part of […]