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Peaks of Interest: Hiking Adventures with Hirak Parikh
Hirak Parikh moved to Stuttgart, Germany in 2013 and spent about a year in Europe hiking some of the world’s tallest and most scenic mountains, including the Swabian Alps, the Swiss-Austrian Alps, and the Balkans. He founded the Stuttgart Hiking Meetup to explore the lesser known local Swabian Alps and the more famous Alps that are further to the south. The highlight of his time there was walking across the Peaks of the Balkans. This challenging trail loops around Kosovo, Montenegro and Albania and takes about 10-13 days to traverse the 120 miles. Hirak's writeup was featured in the January 2016 issue of Backpacker magazine and the hike was ranked at #2 out of 32 places on the Life List.
Hirak shared his experiences hiking, photos of his adventures, and tips for hikers interested in making their own journeys.
Hirak Parikh was born and raised in Pune, a region in Western India at the foothills of the Sahayadri mountains. He moved to Ann Arbor for grad school in 2002 and never really left. An avid amateur hiker, Hirak has hiked along the Inca Trail in Peru and climbed Mt. Whitney. He is a proud father of 2 little girls and a rambunctious coonhound. While not hiking or running, he's reading the many books checked out of the AADL.
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Biking Northern Michigan
When it comes to cycling, Michigan is at or near the top of the list in America with 109 rail-trail conversions totaling 1,311 miles.
Learn more as veteran cyclist and traveler Bob Downes discusses cycling and his book Biking Northern Michigan: The Best & Safest Routes in the Lower Peninsula. Bob shares his fascinating travel experiences, tips, and stories.
Packed with funny stories, cycling tips, history and dining recommendations, Biking Northern Michigan will have you ready to ride one of the top cycling destinations in the world. The book includes more than 35 bike routes and 56 maps and illustrations in and around Traverse City, Petoskey and the Mackinac Straits in northwestern lower Michigan.
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National Library Week Event: Rain Gardens and How to Create Them
Learn how to begin and sustain your own rain garden, including design ideas, the best plants to use, and care and keeping of the garden. Rain gardens prevent rainwater from causing erosion and reaching the sewer system to become wastewater and instead capture it to be kept within the ecosystem.
Jesse Tack, of Abundant Michigan, Permaculture Ypsilanti and Whole Culture Repair, is a co-founder of a permaculture group in Ypsilanti that combines members’ efforts to create more sustainable yards, gardens and farms in the area.
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Establishing A Rain Garden: Clean up the Huron River, One Garden at a Time
Planting a rain garden is a fun way for people to make a difference in the quality of the water in our rivers, lakes, and streams, starting in our own backyards. You don’t need any special equipment – just some space, a spade, compost, and a few plants. This talk covers the benefits of Rain Gardens and how to build and plant one.
Susan Bryan is the Rain Garden Coordinator for the Washtenaw County Water Resources Commissioner’s Office, working with plants and people to protect the water quality in the Huron River. She has designed many residential gardens, rain gardens, and bio-infiltration areas. She is a past president of Wild Ones, has a master’s degree in landscape architecture from the University of Michigan, and is an Advanced Master Gardener in Washtenaw County.
Roger Moon is a Master Rain Gardener, trained in the Washtenaw County program, and a Traverwood neighborhood resident with four rain gardens on his property. He has given numerous talks on rain gardens, media appearances, and designed six rain gardens himself. Roger has adopted rain gardens in Huron Hills and Gallup parks, and takes care of them throughout the year. Roger received the Washtenaw County Rain Garden Leadership Award in Education in 2015.
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City Of Ann Arbor 2016 Sustainable Ann Arbor Forum: Climate and Energy
In this entry of the annual Sustainable Ann Arbor series, hosted by the City and the Ann Arbor District Library, the focus will be on climate and energy. This discussion will include updates on Ann Arbor’s Climate Action Plan, an overview of local climate impacts, and sustainable programs underway at the University of Michigan.
Speakers for the Climate and Energy discussion include:
o Mike Garfield, Executive Director, Ecology Center
o Anya Dale, Sustainability Rep, University of Michigan
o Sean Reed, Executive Director, Clean Energy Coalition
o Wayne Appleyard, Chair, Ann Arbor Energy Commission
o Nathan Geisler, Energy Programs Analyst, City of Ann Arbor
The Sustainable Ann Arbor series will include four events (held monthly through April) with each focusing on a different element of sustainability from Ann Arbor’s Sustainability Framework.
At each event, a think tank of local stakeholders including representatives from community organizations,and staff from both the City of Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County, will join the public to discuss local sustainability efforts and challenges in our community. Each program will include a series of short presentations followed by a question and answer session.
The forums offer an opportunity to learn more about sustainability in the community and tips for actions that residents can take to live more sustainably. Details of this series will be posted online on The City of Ann Arbor's Sustainability site. For information and videos from current and past Sustainable Ann Arbor Forums, please visit the City’s Sustainability website.
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Nerd Nite #31 - The Great Pleasure (and Long History) of Creating New Kinds of Plants
Basically as soon as agriculture began, humans started messing with plants, controlling their sex lives in order to transform the weeds around them into the grains and vegetables we depend on today. And while the crazy origin stories of things like corn and broccoli are in the distant past, I still use the exact same traditional methods to indulge my inner mad scientist and create new varieties of plants in my garden. The results are fun (and sometimes delicious) and will make you see the produce section of the grocery store in an entirely new way.
About Joseph Tychonievich: A life long gardener and lover of plants, Joseph has been a repeated guest on public radio’s food show The Splendid Table, wrote a book, Plant Breeding for the Home Gardener (Timber Press, 2013), spent two years working at the famed rare plants nursery Arrowhead Alpines and was named by Organic Gardening Magazine as one of “…six young horticulturists who are helping to shape how America gardens.” Joseph lives and gardens with his husband and an adorable black cat in Ypsilanti. You can find him on Twitter at @gsgardens, read his blog posts at gardenprofessors.com or http://www.facebook.com/TheGardenProfessors/
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It's Easy Being Green 2015: Plants, Pollinators, and Why They Matter with Joseph Tychonievich, Greensparrow Gardens
Joseph Tychonievich, author of Plant Breeding for the Home Gardener, explains the interesting ways plants have evolved to attract their preferred pollinators. Along with a tour of nature's most creative (and sometimes disgusting) methods of connecting pollinators and plants, Joseph discusses ways to foster biodiversity in your own garden and shows examples of managing garden pests by letting other insects do the dirty work.
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Fleeting Beauty, Enduring Value: the Peony Garden at the Nichols Arboretum
The U-M Nichols Arboretum Peony Garden presents a stunning spring display, with over 270 historic cultivated varieties (cultivars) from the nineteenth and early twentieth century representing the best American, Canadian, and European peonies of the era. These fragrant spring beauties are arranged in 27 beds with each full bed containing 30 peonies. When filled to capacity the garden holds nearly 800 peonies and up to 10,000 flowers at peak bloom.
Dr. David C. Michener, Associate Curator at the University of Michigan Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum, will discuss the beautiful Nichols Arboretum Peony Garden and give an update on the current work in the Garden in preparation for its centennial in 2022.
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Long Distance Hiking: Tales from the Trail
Long distance hiker Chris "Wolverine" Hillier earned his "Triple Crown" title by completing the Pacific Crest Trail, the Continental Divide Trail, and the Appalachian Trail, covering a total distance of about 7,900 miles. He was also the first to hike Michigan's 924-mile trail that reaches from Belle Isle to Ironwood. Chris will share his love for hiking through photos and stories, and pass along some of the lessons he has learned firsthand on the trail.
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Bee Awareness: Protecting our Pollinators With Dr. Meghan Milbrath Of Sand Hill Apiaries
What is going on with bees? Honey bees have been all over the media lately with talks of colony collapse and the doom of our food system.
Dr. Meghan Milbrath gives a brief history of bees and beekeeping in the United States, and talks about their current role in Agriculture. She will untangle what we know are the root causes for their decline, and discuss ways that you can become involved to help their plight.
Dr. Meghan Milbrath owns and manages Sand Hill Apiaries, a small beekeeping and queen rearing operation in Munith, MI. She began working with bees with her father over 20 years ago, and has been hooked on bees since. She most recently worked as a postdoctoral research associate in the Entomology Department at Michigan State University, studying honey bee disease with renowned bee researcher, Zachary Huang.
This event was cosponsored by the League of Women Voters of the Ann Arbor Area (LWV-AAA).