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Cooks Creek Arboretum Project Celebration
On a hot afternoon in early June, the 2015 training class for the Headwaters Master Naturalist chapter celebrated both the end of their first semester of study and the completion of their Spring skills project with a reception at Cooks Creek Arboretum in Bridgewater, Virginia. The twelve members of this year’s training class had undertaken to identify the various species of trees found in the small but lovely park. Visitors to the Arboretum can now find identifying markers on exemplar trees representing every species found there. Identifying markers were supplied by Plants Map, a Northern Virginia company which manufactures interactive plant tags for private gardens and public nature preserves such as Cooks Creek.
Read more about this from Peggy Plass, 2015 Training Class HERE.
Thanks to Steven David Johnson for many of the above photos!
Clockwise from upper left: Admiring the Norway Spruce tag, Sandy with Bill and Selah Sprinkel, Kathy and Lacy lead a tour, Kathy addressing the group, photo op, special guest Nick Cadwallender of PlantsMap.com discusses creative uses for Plants Map tags, tagged tulip tree, Nick with RoxAnna and Lacy, ceremonial tagging by Byron and Anna Maria.
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Events for HMNs ...
 National American Butterfly Association (NABA) Annual 4th of July Butterfly Count, Friday, July 10 @ Island Ford and Saturday, July 11 @ Shenandoah National Park. Scroll down to these dates on the leplog calendar page for details. There is a $3 fee for NABA. Beginners are welcome! Contact Mike Smith, 540-298-1913. Note: the July 10 Island Ford date is a recent reschedule from July 3 and may not be reflected yet on the leplog link given above.
 Friday, July 10, 1-4:30PM, Habitat for Frogs and Other Amphibians, Augusta County Government Center,18 Government Center Lane, Verona. Continuing Education program for Master Naturalists provided by the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. Registration required here.
 Saturday, July 11, 9:30AM-12:00PM, Building a Water Garden for Frogs, Springdale Water Gardens, 340 Old Quarry Rd, Greenville. HMN volunteer project. More here. Contact Sandy.
 Wednesday, July 15, 12-1PM, Stream Restoration Talk. Part of the Summer Brown Bag Lecture Series at JMU Arboretum, Harrisonburg. Brian Wagner, Principal Biologist with Ecosystem Services shares about the environmental restoration project at the arboretum. More here.
 Wednesday, July 22, 12-1PM, Flora of Virginia App Talk. Part of the Summer Brown Bag Lecture Series at JMU Arboretum, Harrisonburg. More here.
 Wednesday, July 29, 12-1PM, Fireflies, Sustaining Nature's Lights Talk. Part of the Summer Brown Bag Lecture Series at JMU Arboretum, Harrisonburg. More here.
 Saturday, August 1, 8AM-1PM, Harrisonburg Farmers Market, HMN Outreach tabling event, contact Adrie.
 Saturday, August 1, 8:30-10:30AM, Birds of the Burg, Hillandale Park, Harrisonburg. Guided bird walk with HMN Kathy Byers and others. More here.
 Friday and Saturday, August 7-8, Mid-Atlantic Volunteer Water Monitoring Conference, Shenandoah University, Winchester. Presentations, workshops and field trips. Help build a unified, multi-state volunteer program never before seen in the Chesapeake Bay watershed! More here.
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Monarchs & More! Migration Tour
 Make plans to participate in a tour of the Headwaters Chapter's Monarchs and More! five pollinator waystation sites on Saturday, August 15. This 2014/2015 chapter focus project was designed to raise awareness of the need to preserve and plant native wildflowers to support pollinators.
We'll have two 15-seat buses leaving the Augusta County Government Center in Verona at around 9:30AM and making stops at each of our five gardens. A mid-tour lunch stop is scheduled around noon at Natural Chimneys Park which will include a short chapter meeting to vote on chapter bylaws changes. Chapter members and partners will get first options on the bus seats.
Everyone is welcome to meet the bus at any of the sites. Watch our website for the schedule.
Contact Sandy Greene: greenes104@aol.com
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A June glance at some of our gardens. Left to right on top: Natural Chimneys Park, Purcell Park.
Bottom: Cooks Creek Arboretum, not a garden picture but Carl and Peggy spreading the Monarch (and HMN) story at the rainy Harrisonburg Farmers Market on June 25.
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Our VMN Regional Conference is Saturday August 29, 2015
Four one-day regional continuing education conferences are replacing a single state-wide Virginia Master Naturalist conference this year. The Headwaters Chapter is one of eight chapters comprising the Central Region. The others are the Alleghany Highlands, Central Blue Ridge, Central Piedmont, Central Virginia, James River, Rivanna, and Rockbridge chapters.
The Central Region's conference will be held on Saturday, August 29 at the Holiday Lake Educational 4H Center in Appomattox, VA. Find it on a Google map here.
Not just about training, this gathering is also an opportunity for VMN volunteers to share ideas, network and learn from other volunteers in their region. It will be open to Virginia Master Naturalist volunteers only.
Headwaters' own Paul Bugas and Kate Guenther will be among the presenters. Paul is leading an outdoor, hands-on session on Freshwater Fish Ecology in the morning and Kate will present on how to Assess, Assist, Capture and Transport Injured and Orphaned Wildlife in the afternoon. Attendees have a choice of one program each in the morning and afternoon from among five options offered during each time slot. You can expect to get a total of six hours continuing education for re/certification purposes if you participate in the day's worth of events.
Registration will open to all chapter members of this region on Monday, July 6. Watch your e-mailboxes for a link to the registration.
The 29 chapters in the Virginia Master Naturalist program are divided into four regions. The Northern Region will have their conference on Sunday, September 27 at Skyland Resort, Shenandoah National Park, Luray. Headwaters members may be able to attend this if it does not fill up with members of the North Region chapters. More about the other regional conferences here.
Contact Jerry Hopkins if you would like assistance in joining or arranging a carpool to the August 29 conference at the Holiday Lake 4H Center in Appomattox.
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 Sharing About Members Project
Membership Committee Co-chairs Dwayne and Pat Martin have been envisioning a platform ... something like a yearbook ... for our members to learn more about each other. With that end in mind, they solicited Adrie's help in setting up a members-only website which groups our members by cohort and transferees with click-able images to find out more about each other.
This project is dependent on members submitting information about themselves ... such as background and interests and motivations or whatever they wish to share. This can be done via the online form on the site or by direct email messaging to Adrie. Members need only click on the image on our VMN VMS home page to get started.
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Headwaters Chapter Board of Directors Meeting
Thursday, July 16, 11:30 AM - 1:30 PM
 @ Department of Game and Inland Fisheries Office
517 Lee Highway, Verona
Find directions through Google maps HERE.
All members welcome!
If you'd like to add any item of discussion to the Board agenda, please contact Jerry Hopkins, gerald.hopkins@comcast.net, by July 9.
Our Chapter Board meeting minutes can be found in the Documents section of the VMN Volunteer Management System.
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 Submissions Wanted!
Have you been on an interesting nature walk lately? What projects are you involved with? The Headwaters website and newsletter would love to hear about it. Consider writing up something for us to post. Photos also most welcome. Send anything to Adrie: ahvoors@gmail.com.
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 Wind your way HERE to view our calendar of Naturalist-related events in our area. Contact Adrie if you know of events to add to the calendar.
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