C.E. Moore's Blog, page 2

A New Name

We're excited to share our new name, Earthbound Books! This gives us the opportunity to expand our content and explore even more of Earth's wild places. So say hello and come be curious with us about all things nature!

Check out the website at:
earthboundbks.com

Mood Board Mondays: Scott's Run Nature Preserve

Exploring the colors, shapes, and textures of Virginia's Scott's Run Nature Preserve. This 336-acre forest is a lyrical journey of names where bluebells, hornbeams, catchweed bedstraw, mayapples, and more carve out their little niche in the ecosystem.

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Nature Crafts Roundup: 6 Activities for All Ages

Celebrate Earth Day and recycle those magazines, bottle caps, and aluminum cans to make something new. From garden planters to emoji bottle cap magnets and aluminum can bird feeders, these crafts from around the web are sure to engage and inspire.

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Women in Science & Nature: Ynés Mexía

Born in 1870, Ynés Mexía was a Mexican-American botanic adventurer who defied societal norms and began plant collecting in her early fifties, proving that it’s never too late to pursue one’s passions. Throughout her 13-year career, she traveled extensively from Alaska through Central and South America collecting over 145,000 specimens and discovering over 500 species with 50 named in her honor.

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Q&A with The Moore Air: A Family of 6 Living the Airstream Life

What is your ultimate road trip? Meet the Moore's, a family of 6, who packed up their things during the pandemic to fully experience the airstream life. They are traveling America in order to deepen their connection to nature and with each other.

Read the full post to find out about their experience, 6 months in, and what things they have found surprising, challenging, and life-giving in their journey on the road.

You can follow their journey at themooreair.com and on Instagram @the_moore_air

Women in Science & Nature: Mary Seacole

Born in Jamaica in the early 1800’s, Mary Seacole (née Mary Jane Grant) was an intrepid traveller, entrepreneur, and healer of the sick, a remarkable woman who pushed aside Victorian norms and overcame racial and gender bias to accomplish whatever she set out to do.

Her love of travel and desire to be a nurse ultimately led her to go to Crimea and help the British with their war efforts. She would be denied official support multiple times, but it didn't deter her determination.

“Need I be ashamed to confess that I shared in the general enthusiasm, and longed more than ever to carry my busy fingers where the sword or bullet had been busiest, and pestilence most rife. I had seen much of sorrow and death elsewhere, but that had never daunted me…I never stayed to discuss probabilities, or enter into conjectures as to my chances of reaching the scene of action. I made up my mind that if the army wanted nurses, they would be glad of me, and with all the ardour of my nature, which ever carried me where inclination prompted, I decided that I would go to the Crimea; and go I did, as all the world knows.”

Read the full post about this extraordinary woman who would defy social norms and risk her own health to achieve her goals.

Women in Science & Nature: Maria Sibylla Merian

Maria Sibylla Merian was a 17th century, German-born naturalist and scientific illustrator whose keen observations made important discoveries in the field of entomology. She was one of the first naturalists to observe insects directly.

She was also a working mom with no scientific formal training who at the age of 52 followed her dream to study the plant and insect life in Suriname. Her detailed observations, though dismissed or forgotten during the Victorian era, would later become validated and recognized as important contributions to the sciences.

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Beyond Black History Month

"If we look at history and say, well, black people can only write about the natural world and think about slavery or think about being a runaway, you forget that other component—that there has always been promise and survival in the natural world. That some people knew where to look and how to look. And so that is as much a part of these poems: the hope and the potential for a real connection and collaboration, as much as this devastating and horrible history, is there.” - Camille T. Dungy, Black Nature: Poems of Promise and Survival

Read, listen and explore subjects ranging from sustainable farming to poetry, rock climbing, and more with these 10 Black voices: Daniel Bernstrom, Carmen Bogan, Camille T. Dungy, Noami Grevemberg and Anais Moniq, Shelton Johnson, Brittany Leavitt, Mikhail Martin, Leah Penniman, and Dorceta E. Taylor.

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Design by Nature: Part 3

"The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first; Be not discouraged - keep on - there are divine things, well envelop'd; I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell." - Walt Whitman

Texture and pattern occur everywhere in nature. While both texture and pattern are ways we can describe what we see around us, texture has to do with the way things look and feel, while pattern is a repeating visual element. Like the other elements, both are functional in a plant or animal's survival whether it's varying forms of feathers that allow birds to fly or stay warm, or the use of pattern by mollusks to make their shells.

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2021 Great Backyard Bird Count

The Great Backyard Bird Count is a community science project that counts birds in order to provide data to scientists about how bird populations are doing. Supported by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society, it's a great activity to do during the pandemic. Whether you're a beginning bird watcher or an expert, find out how you can participate , or check out real-time data and maps for your area.

What birds have you observed in your area? Learn about four amazing birds from The Wild Wonders of Alabama.