I have lived in the Finger Lakes Region most of my life. I was born and raised in the Ovid area, and I attribute my love of the outdoors to my grandmother and my mother. Some of my earliest memories are of gathering mint with my grandmother along the creek that ran in front of the farm house where we lived and making hollyhock “dolls” from the blooms and the buds of the flowers that grew along the side of the house. She loved to watch the hummingbirds that came to feed from her flowers, so I too developed a fascination with them early on that has lasted some 40+ years. She loved all birds, though; and the one thing that I inherited upon her passing that meant the most to me was my first field guide, a Golden Guide for birds.

My mom was a farm girl, and she still wasn’t afraid to climb on a horse well into her late sixties. She truly loved being outdoors; and she loved all animals, though she never totally understood why her children felt it necessary to have pets indoors. She never discouraged me from being a tomboy (much to my wealthy aunt’s dismay); and she was tolerant of whatever critters I brought home, whether it was my collection of garter snakes or a litter of baby bunnies because I was sure that my German Shepherd had killed their mom. She helped me try to raise them, showing me how to feed them with an eye dropper; but they were too small to survive. It was a lesson well learned about interfering with wildlife. She also taught me to appreciate wildflowers. I clearly remember her showing me my first jack-in-the-pulpit while we were hiking up to Silver Thread Falls one day when I was very young. She was a single parent, and she didn’t make much money; but she managed to buy me my first microscope when I was in the 7th grade; and she managed to save enough to send me to summer camps when I was in the girl scouts. It was no small cost to send a child to a two-week horseback riding camp, even back then.

I started working as an accounting clerk the summer after I graduated from high school; and I worked in various office positions for the next 14 years until I finally decided to return to college full time to acquire my degree in natural resources conservation. Because I didn’t want to end up working in an office again, field experience was a major component of my degree program. My coursework included Environmental Chemistry: Testing and Analysis, Wildlife Management, Fisheries Techniques, Fisheries Management, Field Botany, Ornithology, and Conservation-Recreation Field Techniques.

I started working with the US Forest Service on an internship while still in college, and I worked seasonally and volunteered off-season in the Finger Lakes National Forest for a number of years. I also worked with the NYSDEC in both fisheries and wildlife.

My experience/certification includes:

• too much trail work. (If I ever have to shovel another wheelbarrow full of gravel it will be too soon.)
• timber cruising
• surveying
• map orientation
• topographic mapping
• live trapping
• deer aging (certification lapsed)
• waterfowl identification (certified)
• banding adult and juvenile Eastern Bluebirds and Tree Swallows (license lapsed)
• banding juvenile Kestrals (only assisted, but what an experience!)
• trap netting, gill netting, and seining
• boat trailering/operation
• fish stocking fish marking and tagging (including being a member of the first team on the east coast to utilize an elastomer tagging process on juvenile Atlantic Salmon)
• electrofishing with both a backpack unit and an electrofishing boat (Ask me about night electrofishing!) aging scale samples (for unending hours on rainy days)
• volunteering with the New York River Otter Project
• judging conservation exhibits at the Schuyler County Youth Fair
• presenting at Conservation Field Days and Career Days presenting at the annual meeting of the Rochester Academy of Science (one of my scariest experiences)

My first camera was a Brownie that my mom passed on to me when I was about 7 or 8 years old. It was a very old camera then, but it taught me the basics. I was in the photography club in junior high school when I learned how to develop my own photos. I never had my own dark room, nor was it something that I was ever really interested in doing. I took a semester of outdoor photography while I was in college, because it was required, but I wasn’t enthusiastic about it. While I have albums and stacks of photos that I’ve taken over the years, it wasn’t until I finally received my first digital camera as a present in ’06 that the “bug” caught me again. I’m still not very good, but I do get lucky every now and then. Joining this community has taught me a great deal already and I’m more than happy to share my knowledge and experiences in return.

Contributions
Community Moderator
Niagara Falls Historic Timeline - Editor