Reforming the Utility Business Model for Resilient Reliable Renewables Thursday, November 10, 7–8:30 PM Online Mark Sandeen, Lexington Select Board member, and Audrey Shulman, cofounder and president of the Home Energy Efficiency Team, talk about utility reform and how we can move toward a greener, more resilient grid. Sponsored by the Lexington Climate Action Network. Register for link at lexcan.org/events/reforming-the-utility-business-model-for-resilient-reliable-renewables/ Bittersweet Removal at Riverbend Park Saturday, November 12, 9–11 AM Riverbend Park Freedom Way, Medford Volunteers will tackle bittersweet, an invasive vine that can kill trees, impairs habitat value, and degrades park aesthetics. Meet next to the Medford Dog Park. [READ MORE]
Belmont Porchfest to Celebrate Our Resilience
By Mary Bradley Planning is underway for Belmont Porchfest’s most ambitious event yet to reflect on and celebrate our resilience as a community. Porchfest is scheduled for September 10, and registration is open at BelmontPorchfest.org. Expect to see our new “Thank You Sponsors!” signs in front of EVERY registered porch beginning in early July. A peek behind the curtain reveals plans for a Park Palooza (location TBA) featuring student musicians, a community-wide art project, and food vendors. The art project is geared toward all ages, aimed to bring out our inner painters and writers, each creating a small part [READ MORE]
Events July-August 2021
Though days are now long and warm, event listings for local organizations harken back to the dreary depths of winter. Few groups are planning meetings this summer, the season of bittersweet freedom, of sunny days so many people did not live to see. Voltaire wrote in Candide, “We must tend our garden,” but he didn’t specify how, or who should benefit from said garden. If you’d like to help support your local web of life, consider enrolling in a class with the Native Plant Trust: “Native Species, Cultivars, and Selections: What’s the Difference?” held on Friday, July 16, from 1-3 [READ MORE]
Belmont Roots January 2021
Welcome to another year. We are still limited to mostly solitary entertainments—long walks and webinars—but there are still more places and topics to explore. Are you sure you’ve actually walked everywhere you can? Several local communities have maps of cross-town walking trails that include parks, greenways, art installations, historical markers, and other sites. You can find town-wide walking maps for Arlington: bit.ly/BCFArlWalk Belmont: bit.ly/BCFBelmontWalks West Cambridge: bit.ly/BCFWestCWalks Waltham: walthamlandtrust.org/trail-guides Watertown: bit.ly/BCFWatertownWalks And have you looked at everything? Yes, it’s cold, but most things that live outside around here don’t migrate for the winter. Trees can’t fly, and frogs can’t hop [READ MORE]
Belmont Roots November 2020
Now is the winter of our discontent. We’ve watched all the videos of past events at the Belmont Historical Society and the Charles River Watershed Association. It’s getting cold, but it may be time to get outside. Nature is a balm when screens separate you from the world. If you’ve walked all of the Western Greenway and Lone Tree Hill, consider trying the ACROSS Lexington Challenge. Walk all 12 ACROSS Lexington trails—more than 35 miles!—record the dates, and submit your record to get a certificate and get added to the “baggers” list. Many spellcheck algorithms replace “COVID-19,” the virus, with [READ MORE]
Belmont Roots September 2020
By Meg Muckenhoupt Well, it’s fall, and most meetings are still being held via screens and speakers. I’m sorry. There are still some things you can do alone, or sitting on your couch, that might help you understand and improve the world. The following organizations are offering a variety of virtual events. These are highlights: Mass Audubon is holding several online classes this fall, including Identifying Hawks in Flight (Wednesday, September 9, 7–8:30 PM, $20 member/ $24 nonmembers), Beginner Birdwatching (eight classes beginning Thursday, September 10, 7–8:30 PM, $100 members/ $120 nonmembers), and Nature Writing (two classes beginning Thursday, October [READ MORE]
Belmont Roots March/April 2020
By Meg Muckenhoupt Is your workplace letting everyone off for Spring Break this year? I didn’t think so. It’s just as well. Flying to the Caribbean spews a lot of carbon into the air, and there’s so much to explore at home. Animals are stirring from their winter torpor, buds are subtly swelling, and more than 500,000 herring are preparing to swim up the Mystic River—perhaps to Alewife Brook, named for those very herring. It’s fun to watch, and even more fun to watch while recording information that helps us understand our world, and how it is changing. Winter Forest [READ MORE]
Belmont Roots & Shoots, January 2020
By Meg Muckenhoupt As you recover from a month of pies, plum puddings, sufganiyot jelly doughnuts, fruitcake, fudge, hot cocoa, panettone, eggnog, and every other cold-season excuse to eat sugar, pause to remember that neither sugar cane nor honeybees are native to New England. Sugar cane is a tropical plant, and there were no honeybees north of Florida before 1630–and those bees which did arrive spent more than a month trapped in a hive in the hold of a wooden ship that creaked and lurched its way across the open ocean. Sugar maples did yield syrup, and that syrup was [READ MORE]
Belmont Roots September/October 2019
Now comes the fall. Summer vacation is over, and it’s time to get back to work. If that thought does not fill you with glee, perhaps it’s time to consider a new career that will help preserve, protect, and promote our planet at the Massachusetts Green Careers Conference. If a wholesale career change isn’t in your future, you can still take some time to consider how to help people interact with the natural world in a way that helps both nature and humans—by building trails, using space wisely, or simply taking a mindful walk in the woods. 11th Massachusetts Green [READ MORE]