We spent the first week of 2016 buried under snow. After a 5-day storm we were left with 31 inches of snow on the ground, which is said to be the 17th highest total snowfall since 1898! It was so beautiful to spend time at the Center, with everything around being so quite and still.
On January 2nd we held our First Science Saturday for 2016. The theme for this month was our sustainable building. We had tours and scavenger hunts of the building, played a building material matching game, made solar oven smore’s, and drew our own dream sustainable buildings. Even with the cold weather we had a good turnout.
January 6,7 and 8 were declared FUSD snow days so all of our school programs were cancelled. Our Center staff had time to catch up on program preparation, event planning, and donor thank you’s.
On Thursday (January 7th) we dug our way out and accidentally broke Willow Bend’s only snow shovel. We put an urgent call our on Facebook asking for a snow shovel donation. An hour didn’t go by before Veronica Hipoloto (former Willow Bend board member) responded, offering to purchase a new one. She delivered that same day and we were able to clear the path to and from Willow Bend. Thank you Veronica!
On January 9th we were scheduled to have a Basic Wildlife Tracking Workshop, our first 2016 Adult Education Workshop in partnership with the Arboretum at Flagstaff. However, given the serious snow pack at the Center we had to postpone the event to January 30th. Not only was it impossible to walk around looking for tracks, there actually weren’t any tracks to find. All of our local wildlife hunkered down waiting for the snow to pass.
We are excited for next week! We will be preparing for our Bald Eagle event on the 23rd, facilitating our classroom programs, and even going to City Council to talk about plastic bags!
Stay tuned, and …stay warm!
