Owl Light
Where Inspiration & Inquiry Converge
  • Home
  • Literary Journal
  • Owl Light Sponsorship
  • Digital Owl
  • Contact Us
  • Login
  • Home
  • Literary Journal
  • Owl Light Sponsorship
  • Digital Owl
  • Contact Us
  • Login
  • Home
  • /
  • Animals
  • /
  • Finger Lakes
  • /
  • Gardening
  • /
  • Nature
  • /
  • Sustainability

Dragonfly Tales

A Lesson in repurposing, recycling, and windfalls

  • By Steve Melcher

I want to thank our local Scout Troop 10/410 for not only providing a treat for the critters here at Odonata Sanctuary, but a lesson in sustainability and stewardship. We’ve all heard the saying, ‘When life gives you lemons, make lemonade’.  That’s just what the scouts did with the ‘leftover’ lemon trees they were selling for the holidays.  The ex-Xmas trees were heading for the landfill or the chipper, which would have used town labor and expensive fuel.  Unfortunately, there were quite a few smaller spruce and pine trees, perfect for a 600-square-foot apartment in the Big Apple, but not suitable for most folks in upstate NY, who want to fill the family room with as big a tree as possible. After the holidays, there was a surplus of spruces. A call was out by phone and social media to ‘come and get em’. Folks showed up with pickup trucks and trailers, some even dragging them down the street tied to the backs of their Priuses, doing a great job of keeping the streets clean in the area. Odonata Sanctuary was contacted about the *windfall of ‘free if you can haul them’ trees. We told them that we would take any of the giveaway gymnosperms that were abandoned at the park.  After all, Odonata Sanctuary is a hospice for farm animals, why not expand that to the plant kingdom? Before they were to be hauled away and chipped at taxpayer’s expense, the scouts loaded the balsam, larch and Fraser Firs onto a dump trailer and delivered them to the Sanctuary. 

The scouts turned what was possibly a financial loss into a lesson of social responsibility and a lesson in ecology straight out of Barry Commoner’s Four Laws of Ecology. The abandoned trees could have have taken up space in a landfill, after all ‘Everything must go somewhere’. Or the trees could have been run through a chipper which uses fuel and labor and is designed to reduce the volume where, in most towns, ends in a landfill anyway. Or they could’ve become part of the ‘Great Christmas Tree Race’ where Concolor Christmas trees are tattooed and then dropped upstream into Honeoye Creek and tracked to see which one travels the farthest in three days. But, because ‘Everything is Connected to Everything Else’, they chose to put the word out to local goatherds, Solstice and Saturnalia celebrators and Christmas Tree collectors, but, most importantly, a local animal shelter, to provide food and shelter. This is a lesson in resource management as well. What happens to trees in a natural setting? Because Nature Knows Best, trees in the beautiful woods of the Finger Lakes, provide food and shelter when they are alive and when they are dead, decayed and decomposed, they provide nutrients for the firs of the future. The scouts learned that ‘There is no such thing as a free lunch’ by doing the best with a business deal that lost its bark. 

Odonata Sanctuary received a small local grant specifically for trail maintenance that will require mulch on some of the footpaths. Where will we get the mulch? The Scouts! The Sanctuary has given half the funds to the scouts for the trees and is planning on providing an Eagle Scout Project for this summer. This will hopefully defray some of the losses from the annual tree sale. 

The trees that the scouts provided will:
1. provide food for the goats** and donkeys here at the sanctuary; 2. Provide shelter for the geese and peafowl; 3. Provide a windbreak for the pot bellied pig shelter; 4. Dry needles, fallen from the trees, provide bedding for the warm blooded critters during the blustery upstate winters; and, 5. The skeletal remains of the spruce and pine will be mulched and spread across the 5 kilometers of trails where generations of nature lovers, including future and present scouts, will tread softly through the woods and fields of Odonata Sanctuary. 

I’m looking out towards the barn where piles of pines are stacked against the windward side of the barn where two goats, Van Der and Stilton, are munching away in the manger on the eve of 12th Night. Thank you again, scouts.

Barry Commoner’s Four Laws of Ecology
1) Everything is connected to everything else
2) Everything must go somewhere 
3) Nature knows best
4) There is no such thing as a free lunch

The scouts learned valuable lessons in the fields of  economics and it’s cousin ecology; both using the suffix ‘eco’, meaning house. This generation has stepped up and is taking care of their house in the Anthropocene epoch. 

*Windfall: The trees on a British nobleman’s estate, here in the colonies as well as back home in Great Britain, belonged to the king and were marked with the ‘King’s Mark’ . However, trees that had fallen in a storm were free to those who lived on the estate. Such a piece of luck was called a windfall. A tree commonly used today as a Christmas tree, the majestic White Pine, (Pinus strobus), played a crucial role in early American sailing history providing masts for the tall ships that brought prosperity to what became the USA.  

**Goats, like deer are browsers and not grazers like cows and sheep. 

Posted on February 2, 2020 by owllightnews.com. This entry was posted in Animals, Finger Lakes, Gardening, Nature, Sustainability and tagged #OdonataSanctuary, #Sustainability. Bookmark the permalink.
Cartoon by Sally
THE NIGHT SKY-February

    Recent Posts

    • Visual Studies Workshop Announces Project Space Residency Open Application Period
    • West End Gallery showcasing Brian S. Keeler, Treacy Ziegler
    • Hard
    • Eye-Magine – Future Youth Art Exhibit
    • “These Wilds” Announcement

    Recent Comments

    • Darlene on Let’s Talk About Beep!
    • Darlene Bentley on Hello! from a new Guest Editor, and Finding Joy in Hardship.
    • owllightnews.com on The Farm
    • Douglas Morgan on The Farm
    • owllightnews.com on Energizing and Engaging Fun at GEVA

    Archives

    • May 2025
    • April 2025
    • March 2025
    • February 2025
    • January 2025
    • December 2024
    • November 2024
    • October 2024
    • September 2024
    • June 2024
    • May 2024
    • April 2024
    • March 2024
    • February 2024
    • January 2024
    • December 2023
    • November 2023
    • October 2023
    • September 2023
    • August 2023
    • July 2023
    • June 2023
    • May 2023
    • April 2023
    • March 2023
    • February 2023
    • January 2023
    • December 2022
    • November 2022
    • October 2022
    • September 2022
    • August 2022
    • July 2022
    • June 2022
    • May 2022
    • April 2022
    • March 2022
    • February 2022
    • January 2022
    • December 2021
    • November 2021
    • October 2021
    • September 2021
    • August 2021
    • July 2021
    • June 2021
    • May 2021
    • April 2021
    • March 2021
    • February 2021
    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • November 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • August 2020
    • July 2020
    • June 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • March 2020
    • February 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
    • May 2019
    • April 2019
    • March 2019
    • February 2019
    • January 2019
    • December 2018
    • November 2018
    • October 2018
    • September 2018
    • August 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • May 2018
    • April 2018
    • March 2018
    • February 2018
    • January 2018
    • December 2017
    • November 2017
    • October 2017
    • September 2017
    • August 2017
    • July 2017
    • June 2017
    • May 2017
    • April 2017

    Categories

    • #2021
    • Agriculture
    • Animals
    • Antiques
    • Art
    • Astronomy
    • automobiles
    • Beekeeping
    • Birthday
    • Boating
    • books
    • Botany
    • Broome County
    • Buffalo
    • Canadice
    • Canandaigua
    • Cartoon
    • Children
    • Civics
    • Collecting
    • Comic Strip
    • Community Information
    • concert
    • Covid-19
    • Creative non-fiction
    • Dansville
    • Death
    • Democracy
    • Dogs
    • Editorial
    • Education
    • Environmental
    • Essay
    • Family Fun
    • Fantasy
    • Fiction
    • film
    • Finger Lakes
    • Food and Beverage
    • gallery
    • Gardening
    • Gender Rights
    • Great Lakes
    • Health
    • History
    • Holiday
    • Honeoye
    • Human Interest
    • Human Rights
    • In Memoriam
    • Innovation
    • Interview
    • Leisurely Pursuits
    • Literary Arts
    • Little Lakes
    • Live Theatre
    • Livingston County
    • media
    • Monroe County
    • Movies
    • Museums
    • Music
    • Naples, NY
    • Nature
    • Night Sky
    • No. 1
    • NYS
    • Obituary
    • online
    • Ontario County
    • Opinion
    • Outdoor Sports
    • OWL Light
    • Owl Light News
    • Owl Light Newsstand locations
    • Owl Light Sponsor
    • Owl Sponsor
    • OwlLight Blogpost
    • OwlLightNewsArchive
    • Performing Arts
    • Photography
    • Poetry
    • Politics
    • Press Release
    • Recipe
    • Reviews
    • Richmond, NY
    • Rochester
    • Satire
    • Science
    • Scifi
    • Seniors
    • Shop Local
    • Social Justice
    • sports
    • STEM
    • Steuben County
    • Sustainability
    • Theatre
    • Tioga County
    • Tompkins County
    • Travel
    • Uncategorized
    • Veterans
    • Weather
    • Women's Rights
    • Wood working
    • writing
    • Wyoming County
    • Yates County
    • Young Adult
    • youth
    • Zoom

    Meta

    • Log in
    • Entries feed
    • Comments feed
    • WordPress.org
Powered by