The Monroe Technology Center in Leesburg is holding its fall plant sale this week!

I am a failure as a gardener, but the plants I bought at MTC’s spring plant sale held up better than the rest of my attempts. I have found the students, staff and volunteers working past plant sales to be courteous and helpful. Most importantly I enjoy the feeling of community I get from buying my plants at a local high school rather than a large overwhelming box store and my kids love pulling the wagons around and helping me choose a couple plants.

Don’t forget to bring cash or a checkbook!

While you are in the neighborhood I highly recommend a stop at the Rust Nature Sanctuary at the end of Children’s Center Road. It has been beautiful lately!

Here’s the scoop as shared on their website and mailing:

Monroe Technology Center (MTC) will hold its annual Fall Plant Sale from Wednesday, September 16th through Friday, September 18th. The hours of the sale will be

•  10 am — 8 pm on Sept 16th
•  10 am — 6 pm on Sept 17th
•  10 am — 5 pm on Sept 18th

Proceeds from the sale will go to scholarships for MTC students.

Plants for sale include:

• Mums
• Hardy Winter Pansies
• Fall Perennials
• Trees
• Shrubs

MTC is located at: (map it)
715 Children’s Center Road
Leesburg, VA  20175

Woodend Sanctuary
8940 Jones Mill Road
Chevy Chase, MD 20815
301–652-9188

We love the Audubon Nature Fair, and look forward to attending each year. We picnic with friends, shop for gifts for upcoming events, meet bee keepers, learn about invasive species, find little creatures in the pond, make cardboard binoculars, enjoy performances geared at both kids and all ages and bask in being surrounded by such a wonderful crowd of folks.

This year’s fair will be held on Sunday, May 3, 2009 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and the details are all online.

Valerie Cook of Better Choices, a vendor participating in Earth Day @ Loudoun 2009, asked me to pass the following announcement along:

EarthDay@Loudoun 2009 Family Festival will be held on Sunday, April 26th from 11–3 at the Willow Creek Farm by Clyde’s, 42920 Broadlands Blvd.  Vendors will be offering green services and goods.  Local artists will feature “green” works of art.  Proceeds from the event will support environmental efforts to reduce the county’s ecological footprint.

I wish the organizers and vendors great success and hope many Loudoun families are able attend!

We visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium on our recent trip to California and were introduced to the Sea Food Watch program there. The program seeks to educate little and grown folks alike about the environmental impacts of our fish choices through their interactive exhibit and website.  Sea Food Watch also offers a well-researched and regularly updated regional pocket guide that you can access via your iPhone or download and print for your wallet to remind yourself which seafood choices are most sustainable.

While on their website you can bookmark the activities and printables for a rainy day. Have fun & pass the word along!

Here’s a glimpse at our other favorite exhibit at the aquarium in which a simulated wave breaks above and around you while you stay dry:

Happy belated Thanksgiving!

We snagged a great book from the library recently! In A Plump and Perky Turkey (written by Teresa Bateman and illustrated by Jeff Shelley) the turkeys all skip town before Thanksgiving and the town-folks try to trick them back, but (after pages of engaging illustrations and rhymes that please me) they end up eating shredded wheat on Thanksgiving. Luckily for us meat eaters, our Loudoun turkeys weren’t quite as savvy as those in the book. I know Thanksgiving has passed, but if you feel like embracing your inner locavore the rest of this holiday season, the folks at Buy Fresh Buy Local Virginia have put together a list of local turkey providers by county.

Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary

Our family kicked off Thanksgiving week with a trip across White’s Ferry to visit the Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary in Poolesville, MD, where we spent an afternoon celebrating an early Thanksgiving with the Turkeys and participating in a vegan potluck with hundreds of people. The animals at the sanctuary were spread out with plenty of room and the atmosphere was peaceful and inviting despite the freezing temps and the surprisingly large crowd. The sanctuary does not have any upcoming events or visiting hours listed on their website now, but I definitely recommend visiting it.

Turkeys feasting at Poplar Spring Sanctuary

More on White’s Ferry

If you are looking for a change of scenery on a day home with sick kids, a drive through the county and ride across the river on the only ferry still operating on the Potomac River might fit the bill. You can keep your kids and their germs in the car the whole time, but share a special adventure and most importantly get out of the house! A round trip ticket costs $6 ($4 one-way) and the ferry runs from 5am to 11pm year-round.

View from the car on White’s Ferry

This summer we attended a rain barrel workshop. The workshop was a joint presentation by the Loudoun Soil & Water Conservation District and the Town of Leesburg.

We enjoyed making our own rain barrel by adapting a fifty gallon drum to include a spigot, overflow release, and insect screen. When we got home we needed to choose the best location and build a stand to put it on… this part proved to be the harder part.

We are slowly watching our rain barrel fill up a little more each time in rains and looking forward to watering our garden with it someday soon.  Rain barrel workshops continue to be offered throughout Loudoun County, and we will add them to our community calendar as we hear about them.

Here’s the content of a previous announcement of the workshops that was emailed to me:

Build a Rain Barrel & Conserve Water; Workshops Scheduled

Rain barrels have started to re-emerge as an economical and practical way for homeowners to conserve water, reduce runoff, save money, and help protect the Chesapeake Bay. The recent lack of rain has left many looking for ways to conserve water. A rain barrel collects the water that runs off the roof and makes it available for homeowners to water plants, fill the birdbath, wash their car, the dog, and muddy feet. It can even be used in toilet tanks when the well pump isn’t working. This water is free and the water is collected before it runs off and picks up sediment and contaminants that pollute our streams and rivers and eventually the Chesapeake Bay.

The Loudoun Soil and Water Conservation District in partnership with the Town of Leesburg and Loudoun County Parks, Recreation & Community Services will present 3 workshops where homeowners can learn more about the benefits of rain barrels and make one to take home. The workshops will be held…

Participants are reminded to dress appropriately as they will be constructing their barrel. There will be a $XX charge per barrel, and pre-registration is required.

Contact: Suzanne Brown, Loudoun Soil and Water Conservation District, 703–777-2075

And here’s the info I have received regarding upcoming dates:

Rain barrel workshops will be held on Wednesday 09/24/08 and Thursday 09/25/08 from
6:00 — 7:00 at Tuscarora Creek Park in Leesburg. These 2 workshops are for Leesburg residents only.

Loudoun Soil and Water Conservation District is getting a shipment of 70 more barrels in and will be holding a rain barrel workshop open to all county residents later this fall. Probably early
October in Lovettsville or Hillsboro. They also plan to hold a workshop in Ashburn. The dates for these workshops are being determined this week. Contact Suzanna Brown (703–777-2075) for details.

If you’re looking for a way to simplify your hunt for local foods in Virginia, you’ll want to check out the buylocalvirginia.org site created by the Piedmont Environmental Council of Charlottesville, VA. The site contains a wealth of information, including:

• why it is a good idea to buy local
• events and news concerning the local food scene
• a searchable database of farmers markets, CSAs, U-picks, caterers, and other local food resources.

GreenerLoudoun is a blog for all you local folks interested in greening your lives. It covers a wide range of topics — from information on reuse and recycling, to how our choices affect local wildlife, to educational events suitable for children. The blog is interspersed with fascinating photographs, as well.  Have a look!

Small Change
1629 Washington Plaza
Lake Anne Village Center
Reston, VA 20190 (map it)
(703) 437‑7730

Hours: Tuesday — Saturday, 10 — 5

There’s nothing like a used children’s shop right next to a used book store to draw folks like us! I love visiting Lake Anne and recently shopped at Small Change. I walked in and found exactly what I needed with help from the staff. While there I noticed that they carry a lot of name brand toddler shoes in great shape, but as with any consignment store, it’s best to walk in without an agenda and let serendipity take over.

Please note: Small Change is currently closed and will re-open this July 15.

Campaign for Loudoun’s Future recently sponsored a local foods and farms celebration. American Flatbread, a new restaurant in Ashburn which uses some local ingredients for their pizzas, helped to host the event — which made it into The Post and Leesburg Today.

The kids and I stopped by the event, but I was too wiped out by the heat to write it up when I got home that night. Kudos to the many volunteers, local farmers, and animals who spent the day in the heat to expose the rest of us to some of our local food options. I’d like to say that we learned a lot, but the reality of visiting an event like that solo with two preschoolers is that we spent most of our time at the moonbounce and in the bathroom at American Flatbread. Regardless, fun was had, sheepskins were touched, and we found a new place to eat out. American Flatbread’s service was friendly and quick. You can see the flames in the pizza oven from many of the seats. My children kind of zone out while watching fires, so it makes them more managable in restaurants.