gmri's blog

Contrary to Vital Signs methods, I tend to find things I'm not looking for.

With the first Vital Signs Teacher Institute of the summer just one short week away we thought it would be neat to see where everyone is coming from. Wow!! We were right, this is neat!

Rachel Carson Wildlife Refuge staff and a group of committed volunteers staged a well fought battle against invading garlic mustard in and around a rare plant area in Kittery on Tuesday, May 11th.

Japanese knotweed sprouts were green and growing aggressively one day, and brown and limp the next. I couldn’t believe it. What was going on?

We're experimenting with just the right way to explain the Vital Signs community. Check out our latest and greatest, and let us know what you think....

We introduced 70+ members of the Josselyn Botanical Society (JBS) to Vital Signs this morning at Bates College. It was a highly social and eclectic group of professional botanists, passionate amateurs, dragonfly & lichen experts, eager graduate students, environmental educators, and others with their hands, minds, and hearts deeply rooted in Maine's plant communities.

On a walk through Mill Creek Park in South Portland, the Mahoney Environmental Explorers noticed that a woody vine with orange berries was wrapping itself around a large bush with winged stems. “That is strange,” said a curious explorer.

If you spend time on Maine lakes during the summer, chances are you have been greeted at the boat ramp by someone that wanted to look for hitchhiking plants attached to your boat. I wanted to know more about these Courtesy Boat Inspectors and how they are trained. To find out, I attended the 2010 training for lake association directors and board members who will be training and organizing Courtesy Boat Inspectors (CBIs) across Maine this summer.

What do a former teacher, a theoretical physicist, an oral surgeon, and an engineer have in common? They are all members of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI). Maine's OLLI community is based at the University of Southern Maine, and is one of 122 institutes in the nation that provide opportunities for motivated adult learners. After spending two days with the Vital Signs Team, they are now official participants in the Vital Signs Community!

I was walking in Odiorne Point Park (Rye, NH) not long ago and there was SO much bittersweet. In this one section it has completely taken over and covers an entire hill, there used to be plants, shrub, and more trees growing here. It was the densest area of bittersweet growth that I have ever seen.