Hi Kids,
Things were looking better today for the mice an voles.
We found quite a few today and when you do the math, it looks like there are
about 16 in a hectare of forest. The numbers might be better this week as we
were in a different area of the forest.
One of the interesting things we did today was to meet
Kevin Veinotte who is organic tree farmer. He showed us around his forest and
showed us how a healthy forest has trees at basically three stages of growth.
Older, taller, mature trees along with medium sized trees, and also young,
newer trees too. He grows trees for lumber as well as for Christmas trees.
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| Magic floating tree in Kevin Veinotte's forest |
I also want to tell you about something else we did
earlier this week. We made little homes for mason bees by using a kind of plant
which is a type of reed. These plants have a hollow stem. We cut them into
about 8 inch lengths and made bundles out of them. We then tied these bundles
on to a fence that surrounds a berry orchard. The hope is that the mason bees
will use the hollowed out tube like part of the reed to make their homes. Then
when the berry plants flower, the mason bees can pollinate them to make sure
that the flowers grow into berries.
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| Reeds being used to make beehives for mason bees |
Mason bees are native to this area and therefore are
around in this area already. These bees live a solitary life but each one can
pollinate up to 2000 flowers a day. The population numbers of mason bees have
been declining recently.
I'm looking forward to seeing you all on Monday. I've
learned a lot here and I'm really grateful for the opportunity to have been
able to participate in this project.
Regards,
Mrs. Reginald
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