Tree Pruners Wanted

Do you love to prune trees, or want to learn the finer points? We’re looking for a dedicated group of people who would like to get together regularly over the spring, summer, and fall to prune our Main Street dogwood trees and give them some tender loving care. Help us to help our trees, and we’ll help you become a confident pruner. Learn from a certified arborist the ins and outs of selective pruning and how to tell which branches should stay and which should go. We’ll break into small teams and put our training to use, learning and building confidence as we go and benefitting our scenic by-way in the process.

Prominent Rosarian

The Suffield Garden Club will hold a monthly meeting on Monday, April 1 at 11:45 a.m. at the Second Baptist Church, Fellowship Hall. Coffee, tea, a light lunch and a short business meeting are followed by a guest speaker at 1 p.m.

Suffield now has its own Master Consulting Rosarian, Marci Martin. Marci, our guest speaker, moved from Windsor, Conn. to Suffield in May 2018 with 125 of her roses to love, care for and share. She is a rose garden consultant for personal and commercial gardens around the state.

Reap What You Sow

Gardening is a great practice for the mind, body and spirit. Whether one is a plant pundit or new to the hobby, you can find multiple benefits in gardening. We have many choices of either seeds or young plants, and in a little time, we can reap a bounty of nutritional vegetables. Breathing fresh, clean air and utilizing the sun’s rays which make Vitamin D for our bodies are much-needed blessings. Also, children need to learn about gardening practices.

Where’s Waldo?

I first spotted him on December 21, 2018, in a torrential rain storm. It was a Friday morning and I was getting ready for work. Easy to remember too, because we were enjoying unseasonably mild temperatures in the low 60’s, but in a two day period between December 20 and December 21 we received over two inches of rain. Our back yard, the shallow patch of woods beyond and the vernal pool in the empty lot next door, were all very wet, pooled everywhere with standing water. I stared at the big white pine in our back yard with concern.

Helping our Feathered Friends

As many Suffield residents have noticed lately, this winter has brought with it an influx of barred owls. It’s been a treat to have an opportunity to observe owls so easily when most of us had rarely, if ever, seen one! Just a word of caution- when watching owls or taking photos, be sure to stay well back. If you’re taking a photo with a cell phone, it’s very likely you’re too close. Ethical birding means not disturbing the bird or “flushing it”.

Enfield Loaves & Fishes Spring Challenge

The Enfield Loaves & Fishes Soup Kitchen is once again beginning its Springtime Challenge. Our principal fundraising drive helps to keep our doors open. The Soup Kitchen is seeking monetary donations from March through April 30. Letters were recently mailed to past benefactors, and area schools and churches, in an effort to raise money and supply food items to enable Enfield Loaves & Fishes to feed the ever-increasing number of needy people in Enfield and surrounding towns. The Enfield Soup Kitchen served 113,871 meals in 2018, including meals to hungry children and 76,422 snacks served to children participating in after school programs of Educational Resources for Children (ERFC).

King of the Woods

Back when we were growing up, we had one of those squat console television sets in our family room with rabbit ear antennae. It was one of my brother’s jobs to wrap hunks of tin foil around those rabbit ears and to adjust them based on the prevailing winds so that we could tune in our favorite shows. My job was to turn the channel, and that was back before remotes and actually involved leaving the comfort of our sofa and trudging across the room. When “Leave it to Beaver” wasn’t on, we liked to watch “Woody Woodpecker.” We were glued to this bird’s antics and we’d replicate his maniacal laugh long after the show was over, and our mother had sent us out to play in the street. It turns out the creator of Woody designed his cartoon based on an acorn woodpecker out on the west coast, although the birding community agrees that many of his characteristics are those of our majestic pileated woodpecker.

Run for Dustin Memorial Race

The Doyon family and Kyle Englander are hosting a 5K and 10K Memorial Road Race in memory of ET2 Dustin L. Doyon of the United States Navy, who lost his life while serving on the USS John S. McCain on August 21, 2017.