Thanks to all who participated in the Annual Lake Clean-up Day on April 25.

The Easy Way to a Greener, Healthier Yard

Why GreenScape?

Our yards are our outdoor homes: fun, beautiful, great spaces for relaxing. By taking care of our lawns and gardens properly, we can save money, time, and help the environment. GreenScaping encompasses a set of landscaping practices that can improve the health and appearance of your lawn and garden while protecting and preserving natural resources.

By simply changing your landscape to a GreenScape, over time you can save time and money and protect the environment.

• Save Money by eliminating unnecessary water and chemical use
• Save Time by landscaping with plants that require less care
• Protect the Environment by:
  • Conserving water supplies
  • Using chemicals properly and only when necessary to keep waterways and drinking water clean
  • Reducing yard waste by recycling yard trimmings into free fertilizer and mulch

Put nature to work in your yard

In nature, soil recycles dead plants into nutrients for new plant growth. Plants are adapted to the water, sun and soil available in their site. Maintaining a wide variety of healthy plants, soil organisms, beneficial insects and animals can keep most pests and diseases in check.

By working with nature, you can have a great-looking yard that’s easier to care for, cheaper to maintain and healthier for families, pets, wildlife and the environment.

Among the many species of wildlife that you may observe at Lake Churchill is the Wood Duck (aix sponsa) – a distinctively North American species that spends most of its time along the Atlantic coast from Canada to the lower Mississippi River valley and on the Pacific Coast British Columbia to California. After a long winter in the relatively frost-free southeastern and western United States, Wood Ducks migrate via the Atlantic and Pacific Flyways to their Canadian breeding grounds, arriving there by April (Lake Churchill lies within the Atlantic Flyway). However, about 30% of the Wood Duck population are permanent United States residents.

Many naturalists consider the Wood Duck to be the most beautiful duck in North America. The male in its breeding plumage of iridescent green and purple crested head and burgundy chest with white striping from the eye and the base of the bill, worn from October through June, is unexcelled among ducks. The female is less showy, although still beautiful and more colorful than other female ducks. At close range, her iridescent plumage, red eyes, and black, red, and white bill are conspicuous. A white eye-ring, light-colored throat, and fine crest distinguish the female from both the male Wood Duck and females of other species. Both sexes usually show a downward pointing crest at the back of the head, and their long broad square tails are distinctive features in flight. Wood Ducks are intermediate in size – the males average about 1.5 lbs. and the females slightly over 1 lb.

Wood Ducks nest in trees. The nests are lined with down taken from the breast of the female and are situated from 3 – 15 feet above the ground – usually close to water. Being a tree-nester, the Wood Duck can easily be induced to nest in artificial nesting boxes, many types of which have proved successful. The female breeds when one year old and lays 8 – 15 dull-white to cream-colored eggs, which are incubated for 28-30 days. Hatching occurs usually in June. By mid-August both the males and females have completed their molt, and they begin storing up energy in the form of fat in preparation for their fall migration. By the first severe frost, the Wood Ducks are headed south – and Lake Churchill is on their radar screen.

Federal, provincial, and state wildlife agencies can provide an abundance of the habitat essential to Wood Duck survival by maintaining over-mature trees in nesting areas, controlling pesticides, and preserving wetlands, particularly wooded swamps. Reasonable hunting regulations combined with management policies will ensure that Woodies continue to be a source of enjoyment and a valuable resource. Many private and government websites offer information on the Wood Duck. Ducks Unlimited at www.ducks.org is one of those sites.

Every time your idyllic walk around the lake or your putt is interrupted by a gift from one of our 3.5 million non-migrating geese, do you wonder why they don’t hit the road for Florida or Canada?

Well I’ve got news for you. Despite the common belief that these geese just got used to the posh suburban life they never migrate! According to wildlife scientists, these “resident” geese are descendants of farmed geese and tens of thousands of live “decoys” once used by professional hunters.

The Fish and Wildlife Service calls them “hybrids. . . originating in captivity and artificially introduced” around the country. These geese are a non-native species, like feral cats, thriving in the comforts of suburbia and the object of a love hate relationship. The typical goose weights 10 to 16 pounds and live about 12 years. Each goose defecates five or six times per hour depositing one to two pounds of feces daily.

While their relative, the once endangered migrating Canadian geese, continue to pass through on their annual vacation, the “resident Canadians” continue to thrive year round in suburbia and leaving their soft gray callings cards in lawns, greens, paths, and in our ponds. These “residents” now out number the native migrating birds in the Atlantic fly way and their number are increasing at 14% per year.

Stay turned as colleges, golf courses, airports, municipalities, water supplies, cemeteries, and others spend millions each year to keep the geese out of peoples’ way.

by Kathleen Summers

NOTE: This article expresses my personal opinions and not necessarily those of the Churchill Community Foundation or any of its members.

Spring will soon be upon us, and the flowers will be blooming again. Some of them will be the “good” flowers— tulips, daffodils, and garden roses. Others will be the “bad” flowers—dandelions, daisies, and other unwanted weeds that run amok… We also look forward to the “good” bugs, like butterflies and ladybugs, while waging war on the “bad” ones, like beetles and ants. Time to get out the lawn sprays and chemicals.

But wait… Which is really more harmful to our overall well-being— the bright yellow dandelion, or the mists of chemicals that we spray upon these unwanted blooms? As I sat in my veterinariany oncologist’s waiting room week after week for more than a year, trying to save my dog from Stage Four Lymphoma, this question floated through my mind with increasing frequency. My dog’s oncologist had told me that the type of cancer that affected her, and dozens of other dogs in the waiting room (not to mention several human beings I have known), has been linked to lawn chemicals—herbicides. Are we killing our pets, and maybe even ourselves, just to stamp out unwanted flowers?

And it’s not just our dogs. Childhood cancer rates have been increasing over the past 20 years, and some of the increases have been linked, at least in part, to pesticide exposure. Parkinson’s Disease is also on the rise, and has been linked, in many studies, to pesticide use. Again, are we killing our kids, and ourselves, just to stamp out ants and spiders?

Consider these findings…

• A study published in 1999 in the Journal of the American Cancer Society showed a strong link between the world’s most commonly-used herbicide (glyposate, an ingredient in products like Roundup) and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
• The Pesticide Education Center (www.pesticides.org) has compiled a collection of more than fifty studies demonstrating a link between childhood cancer and pesticide exposure.
• Federally-sponsored studies tracked farmers in several states who used pesticides regularly. It found that they had higher than normal rates of several types of cancer.
• The Journal of the National Cancer Institute reported in 1991 that pet dogs exposed to the weed killer 2,4-D are dying of cancer at twice the normal rates. 2,4-D is an ingredient in many popular over-the-counter weed killers.
• Over 40 studies have found a link between pesticide exposure and Parkinson’s Disease, as well as many other devastating neurological impairments (report available at www.pesticides.org).
• More than 380 studies over the past 35 years have linked many types of cancer in adults to pesticide exposure in the home, work, and environment (www.pesticides.org).

I no longer spend so many afternoons in the vet’s office. My dog died of cancer last year at an early age. Now I have more time to spend with my mother, who is suffering from her tenth year with Parkinson’s Disease—which has also been linked to lawn chemicals.

Perhaps we need to rethink our priorities here. I’d rather have ants and weeds in my rose garden than Parkinson’s and cancer in my family tree.