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Where once Blue Thumb staff members and helpful volunteers were outdoors working with children, now there is the sound of crickets chirping... and birds singing and frogs croaking... and indeed it is spring! But 2020 is a different kind of spring. We are staying home or at least minimizing our outings. No large group education events are taking place. So let's consider what might be the BEST way for you to help others gain knowledge of what it means to be a steward:
- Post your Blue Thumb activities on Facebook! Whether it is you out monitoring your stream, cleaning your test kit, picking up litter, or describing your watershed, share your Blue Thumb volunteer activities on social media
- Place a phone call to a friend, ask how they are doing, then stealthily wait until they say "What have you been up to?" Hopefully you can respond with:
- I just finished entering my monthly Blue Thumb data
- I was just reading about water conservation in my Blue Thumb calendar
- I was just writing a letter to the editor about protecting streams and rivers against nonpoint source pollution
- I was taking a look at the volunteer written data reports on the Blue Thumb website
And consider this: write a little article about your stream and about your monitoring for "From the Water's Edge." Let all the other Blue Thumb volunteers know about you and your site. Thank you for being a volunteer. We'll get through this rough patch!
Cheryl Cheadle
Volunteer Coordinator
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Dear Blue Thumbers,
Like many organizations, the Oklahoma Conservation Commission has altered business-as-usual in order to incorporate practices that will reduce the spread of COVID-19. The health of our employees and our volunteers is our highest priority. At least through April, we will limit face-to-face meetings and cancel events with an expected attendance of 10 or more. Because the situation is constantly evolving, these practices may change. Cancelling events with an expected attendance of 10 or more will have a huge short-term impact on Blue Thumb educational programming. April is typically our busiest month because organizations schedule events to celebrate Earth Day. We hope our educational programming can return to normal in May. In the interim, we will offer online educational opportunities through Facebook. Thanks to the wonders of social media, we can stay connected with our volunteers even under these challenging circumstances.
At this time, we plan to hold a few small bug picking/QA sessions in available facilities. We will be mindful about spacing and disinfection. If you are uncomfortable attending a scheduled bug picking in your area, please let your Blue Thumb staff person know and we will make other arrangements to process your sample. Thank you for your understanding as we negotiate this situation.
Stay healthy!
Rebecca Bond
Blue Thumb Director
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To our Monthly Monitors:
Howdy Howdy from your QA Officer,
Certainly some strange times we are living in right now. But to stay upbeat and positive, to help not go insane, get out and visit your creek site and keep up with your monitoring. Getting outside will do good for your body and mind. If it's not your monitoring day, then still go out and pick up trash, take photos, talk to your creek, take a walk, drive around in the watershed, do yoga or some meditation creek side, etc. There are still activities you can do for your creek and the environment while keeping your distance and trying to stay healthy from this virus. April is Earth Day Month, and there are still things you can do, even in self-quarantine, to keep you active in environmental education and advocating for our surface water quality:
- make a video about your monitoring for Blue Thumb and post it on your Facebook page or other social media sites
- teach people what nonpoint source pollution is (that there is MORE to it besides trash)
- If you have photos of your creek before, do a time lapse video of your site to see if there are any changes physically
There are ALL kinds of things you can do on social media, and this is where a lot of people are flocking to right now. Keep monitoring and keep sending me your data. Take care of you.
Kim Shaw
Blue Thumb QA Officer
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 Blue Thumb Volunteer Trainings
Yukon:
Mabel C Fry Library
May 2 and 3
*We hope to continue May events as planned. Please keep up with changes regarding the trainings on our Facebook
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"Soil, Water, and Ways... to Make a Difference!"
One of the final weekend work efforts of Blue Thumb (with help from the Soil Health Team) was the offering of a 2 hour mini-workshop at the Glenpool Public Library: "Soil, Water, and Ways... to Make a Difference!" Also abbreviated to SWW, this short event brought in lots of local citizens to contemplate just how they want to live their lives concerning their own bits of green space: their yards.
The last couple of decades has seen a new trend bit by bit gaining momentum: the trend of creating yards that are earth friendly. SWW starts out by taking a look at how we surround our homes with our small pieces of earth, what might be called the typical lawn. From there, the lessons move into reduced lawn chemicals, setting the lawn mower blade higher for the sake of taller grass/longer root systems, allowing plant diversity, creating pollinator gardens, and the actual inspection of healthy soils versus not so healthy soils.
Once COVID-19 is under control, and people can gather safely, consider asking Blue Thumb to come to your community with a SWW mini-workshop. Let's help our friends and neighbors gain an understanding about how to have a healthier yard, healthier community, and clean streams and rivers.
 
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 Looking at the health of our ecological systems, diversity is one of the highest indicators of balanced systems. Soil Health has the same approach. We look at plant diversity above ground as an indicator for soil and ecological health. All plants help feed something in our ecosystem, both above and below ground. This time of year, many lawn owners will be deciding what chemicals to apply to prevent diversity. I encourage you to not worry with chemicals. This time of year, we have several pollinators coming out of hibernation or beginning their migration. The Monarch Butterfly families are starting their migration from Mexico and into Texas and Oklahoma. They lay eggs on the milkweed we have present, and then the adults pass away. The Monarch needs milkweed to lay their next generational eggs and provide the only food source for caterpillars. This plant is a necessity for the caterpillars survival.Unlike most wildlife, Monarch caterpillars depend solely on milkweed. Once they are transformed into a beautiful butterfly, then they can use other plants to feed on in the form of nectar. That generation will move on north, and lay eggs there.
If you plant it, they will come. It's amazing how the monarchs have evolved to find milkweed. I encourage you to plant milkweed and let it grow. If you need to mow, try to mow around the milkweed until mid-June. You may mow after the first of June, and then watch for it to grow again. The Monarchs travel to Oklahoma twice a year and they will need more milkweed in September and October.
Please be aware of the diversity in you lawns and understand that diversity helps feed many different kinds of wildlife, both above and below ground.
Amy Seiger
Soil Health Coordinator
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- Happy 50th Earth Day! Join the Earth Challenge 2020, a citizen science initiative that's sweeping the globe!
- Richard Louv, author of "Last Child in the Woods" and co-founder of the Children and Nature Network, has recommendations on how to get through this pandemic with the help of nature.
- Don't forget about the "Stream Selfie" project from the Izaak Walton League, the #trashtag movement, and tick testing!
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