Category: Upcoming Events

As promised! Lake D’Arbonne State Park is hosting a 1st Day Hike and Louisiana Master Naturalists – Northeast is invited. In fact, we’re kind of co-hosts, as yours truly will be a volunteer guide for the hike.

As the flyer below indicates, we will meet at the Visitor’s Center in the Park at 10 a.m. and hike for about 2 miles. Park staff member Penny Wainwright tells me the trail is a bit hilly but not difficult, and although it might be a bit muddy, we should not encounter standing water.

Please be sure to bring your own water and snacks if you need them. Penny also said we are welcome to gather in the Visitor Center to “debrief” and snack or eat lunch at the end of the hike.

I will have some of our LMN-NE brochures and will take this opportunity to do a little recruiting for us. That will be all the more effective if some of YOU are along to share the good times we’ve been having.

Now here’s a little treat: My best photo from the Christmas Bird Count last Saturday, taken in the D’Arbonne NWR.

Y’all! Hope you haven’t forgotten our 3rd Quarter Meeting this coming Sunday at 1:30 p.m. at Poverty Point World Heritage Site. I hope I’ve provided an accurate map this time!

I will be hightailing it to PP from Grace Episcopal in Monroe, but should get there by about 1 p.m. If anyone can’t make it by 1:30, don’t worry. Come. We’ll be on the premises somewhere and you can join us. Our meeting will not begin until about 4 or 4:15 p.m.

Here–in somewhat random order–is what’s on our agenda:

1. The usual organizational business: brief reports from treasurer and membership chair. If you haven’t already renewed for next year, you can do so at the meeting.

2. T-shirts: Hope you’ve looked at Kim Paxton’s designs and considered the questions I put forth below. We need to make a decision that will enable our t-shirt committee to proceed. I want an LMN-NE t-shirt! Yesterday!

3. Certification: A brief review of what I posted below, plus a little discussion of our interpretive project requirement.

4. Camp Hardtner project: The news is good, but brief.

5. 1st Day Hike: I want to do this but none, NONE, are offered in the State of Louisiana. What can/should we do about this?

6. Plans for next year: Besides finishing our first certification round, what do you want to do? And what do you want to do to help make it happen?

See you Sunday. Don’t forget to bring you own water and snacks, and dress to walk. Remember that we need to leave PP by 5 p.m. sharp.

T-shirts! They are on our agenda for the December 9 meeting at Poverty Point. By the time t-shirt weather rolls around once again, I hope we will have t-shirts of our very own.

Kim Paxton has been busy generating designs, while Suzanne Laird and I have egged her on with ideas. Here are the four best results of her labors:

So… I’m not going to say much about these. I do have a fave, but I think they are all really great. The group needs to decide which one(s) to use and how. Here are some options I think we have:

• Keep our current logo of the Anhinga inside our name that was provided to us by the statewide Association, print it small on the front of a t-shirt, and choose one these designs to print large on the back.
• Toss the logo provided by the state, choose one of these, and make it our new logo for everything. Print it large on the back of a t-shirt and small on the front or leave the front blank.
• Keep the state-provided logo for the website and make a series of t-shirts, using two or more of the designs – and, over time, a few more! In fact, the Arkansas Native Plant Society has a whole bunch of great t-shirt designs. They are a larger organization than we are, but, hey, we’re growing. We could add to the series. I’m sure all of you could suggest some additions.
• Make this our logo, put it on the front of a t-shirt, and go for something completely different, perhaps that doesn’t include our name, for the back of a t-shirt.

Please be thinking about these options and your preferences, and come Dec. 9 prepared to discuss.

I finalized our 4th Quarter Meeting plans with Poverty Point just a couple of hours ago. It’s going to be a great day. Here’s the skinny:We will be met by a Park Ranger who will give us some background on the site, answer our questions and lead us on a hike. Our own Roselie Overby will teach us a thing or two about birds and edible plants. She has helped Poverty Point in this role many times.

We will begin our 4th Quarter Meeting no later than 4 p.m., and, although I try to keep meetings to a half hour, we do tend to run over a few minutes. We will end no later than 4:45 because the Park closes at 5 p.m. I want us to be well out of the way so staff can do what they need to do and get out on time.

I do realize that 1:30 p.m. is a bit early for those of us who have a ways to drive. I myself will have to hit the road immediately at the end of my Sunday morning obligations. If you absolutely cannot make it by 1:30, come as soon as you can. We’ll be there and most likely won’t begin our hike until 2 or 2:15 p.m.

We will meet outdoors under a pavilion if weather permits; if not, there’s an indoor space we can use. Please bring your own water, snacks and whatever else you need to spend a few hours outdoors, as you are accustomed to doing. Here’s hoping for glorious weather to explore this amazing site.

Closer to the time, I’ll post Kim Paxton’s t-shirt designs, and I just realized I have another idea I really want her to work on. For the moment, enjoy another shot from our fun ULM Biological Station BioBlitz a couple of Saturdays ago.

Two events this Saturday you shouldn’t miss: The Friends of Black Bayou Fall Celebration and the Northeast Louisiana Arts Council Brew on the Bridge.

Fall Celebration happens at Black Bayou Lake NWR. There’s a 5K trail run at 9 a.m., but everything else begins at 10 a.m. And “everything else” includes a long list of fun stuff for the whole family.

Louisiana Master Naturalists – Northeast will have a table in the Visitor Center alongside Ouachita Green, so stop by and say “Hi!” And if you see Charles and Kim Paxton–as you most likely will–be sure to thank them for this beautiful new brochure we have to hand out!

In addition to the Paxtons, Roselie Overby, Suzanne Laird and David Hoover will help staff our table, and Stuart Hodnett will be nearby at the Ouachita Green table.

Fall Festival happens every year the Saturday of National Wildlife Refuge Week.

Brew on the Bridge runs 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. It’s an event of the Northeast Louisiana Arts Councils North Delta Food & Wine Festival and features dozens of craft beers to taste for just $10.

The Endom Bridge across the Ouachita River, from Cotton on the Monroe side to Trapp’s on the West Monroe side, will close early in the morning so that artist, artisan, food and beer vendors can set up booths, tables and the like all along the bridge.

I will be there this year as a vendor with framed and unframed prints (some Limited Edition, some not), artist note cards and something new: Limited Edition puzzles! If you don’t spend your entire day at Fall Celebration, I hope you’ll stop by Brew on the Bridge.

BTW, I will also be handing out our new LMN-NE flyers at Brew on the Bridge! Sure do hate to miss Fall Celebration, and please know I have wailed long enough and loud enough that an Arts Council Board member has promised me that these two events will NOT conflict next year.

And just for the fun of it, because I need a good header photo, here’s one from last Saturday’s BioBlitz, which was a blast.