WILLISTOWN CONSERVATION TRUST

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Market in the Meadow Vegetarian Chili Recipe

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This recipe comes from What’s Gaby Cooking.

You all loved our Vegetarian Chili from Market in the Meadow, so we had to share!

A special thanks to our dedicated volunteers who harvested, chopped, and cooked this delicious meal at the Rushton Conservation Center. Most of the ingredients came right from Rushton Farm.

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 tablespoon olive oil, plus 2 extra teaspoons
  • 1 large sweet potato, peeled and diced
  • 1 large red onion, diced
  • 4 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
  • 2 tablespoons chili powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground chipotle pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 3 1/2 cups vegetable stock
  • 1 15-ounce cans black beans, rinsed and drained
  • 1 14.5-ounce can fire roasted diced tomatoes
  • 1/2 cup dried quinoa
  • 4 teaspoons lime juice
  • serving suggestions: avocado, cilantro, crema, grated cheese

DIRECTIONS

  1. Heat a large heavy bottom pot with the oil over medium high heat.
  2. Add the sweet potato and onion and cook for about 5 minutes, until the onion is softened. Add the garlic, chili powder, chipotle, cumin, and salt and stir to combine.
  3. Add the stock, tomatoes, black beans, and quinoa and bring the mixture to a boil. Stir to incorporate.
  4. Cover the pot and reduce the heat to maintain a gentle simmer.
  5. Cook for 30-40 minutes until the quinoa is fully cooked and the sweet potatoes are soft.
  6. Add the lime juice and remove the pot from the heat. Season with salt as needed.
  7. Garnish with avocado, cilantro, crema, or cheese before serving.

Serves 4 people.

This recipe comes from What’s Gaby Cooking.

Designing the Future of Motus

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Birds are on the ropes in our rapidly changing world. One recent report suggests that North America’s bird populations have declined by more than a billion birds—more than a third—in the past 50 years. Among the biggest threats are habitat loss and climate change, but there are many other reasons for these declines. Willistown Conservation Trust is addressing some of these issues through our strong partnership program called the Northeast Motus Collaboration (www.northeastmotus. com), which includes the Ned Smith Center for Art and Nature, Project Owlnet, and the Powdermill Avian Research Center. 

A young ovenbird is fitted with a Motus nanotag, a tiny lightweight radiotransmitter.
Its signal is detected by Motus receiving stations located within 15 kilometers of its path. Data from these receivers is filtered, analyzed, archived, and disseminated to all organizations in the network and made available to the public through motus.org.

The Collaboration has achieved incredible success with support from the Pennsylvania Game Commission and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, among many other donors and partners. Since 2017, we have been building a network of more than 70 automated telemetry receiving stations throughout the northeastern U.S., allowing researchers to track the migrations of small birds, bats and even insects like monarch butterflies and dragonflies. We are now the largest collaborator with global coordinator Birds Canada in the Motus Wildlife Tracking System (www.motus.org). For the first time, Motus is allowing us to follow the full, annual life-cycle movements of animals once too small to track across great distances. 

The Motus Wildlife Tracking System has grown explosively in its first five years, expanding from a largely regional Northeast telemetry network to one with an international scope—more than 850 receiver stations on five continents, involving more than 600 research partners and collaborators. If Motus is to continue to expand to its full global potential, strategic planning is urgently needed at multiple levels—to ensure sustainability of funding for both infrastructure and maintenance; to provide more seamless data integration and processing as data upload rates increase dramatically; and to create systems to adopt and adapt to changing technology. 

The Northeast Motus Collaboration, which has grown into the second-largest operator of Motus receiver stations in the world, has received support from the Richard King Mellon Foundation to help underwrite this critical strategic planning process. As the collaboration’s lead organization, Willistown Conservation Trust, together with Birds Canada, will host a strategic planning conference  that will include Motus partners and experts from the Western Hemisphere. The meeting will be facilitated by the Institute  for Conservation Leadership and plans to create a framework to support diverse research, conservation action, education, and continued sustainable growth and management of the Motus network for the future. The date of the conference, originally scheduled for June 2020, has yet to be determined.

Through this remarkable collaboration, we are helping the scientific community translate research into specific conservation action that will protect and conserve small migratory animals, especially birds. Through the innovative use of technology and research methods, we’re improving our understanding of what populations of birds and other wildlife need to survive. 

With the Spotted Lanternfly it’s Always Squash Season

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At our most recent free lunch & learn at the Rushton Conservation Center, Meagan Hopkins-Doerr provided a wealth of useful information about the invasive and destructive Spotted Lanternfly (SLF). Meagan is Coordinator for the Master Gardeners of Chester County and Master Watershed Stewards of Chester & Delaware Counties, and she travels the area providing informative sessions like this one on a variety of topics.

Background

SLF is an invasive species that was discovered in Berks County back in 2014. With few natural predators, it has spread and threatens the Pennsylvania economy. It is critical to manage this pest now. SLF was also introduced in South Korea, which is similar in size to Pennsylvania.

So, here are some of the highlights of actions you can take now:

Destroy the Eggs

The SLF adults have now died from the cold, but have left behind their egg masses. Here’s a photo of what they look like.

Photo: Penn State University Extension – Image by Erica Smyers

Females will lay eggs on virtually any outdoor surface. In addition to trees you may find them on:

  • Fence posts
  • Grills
  • Sheds
  • Lawn furniture
  • Outdoor seating cushions
  • Exterior walls (siding, brick, stone)
  • Flower boxes
  • Bird feeders

Careful inspection of your property for the egg masses is an important step in controlling the spread of the SLF. Each egg mass can contain, on average, 37 eggs. Therefore it’s important to destroy any you see. When you see one, here’s what you do:

  • Scrape the egg mass into a jar or similar container
  • Soak the eggs in isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol
  • Dispose of the container

You can also smash the egg masses, or burn them if you have a fire pit.

Limit the Spread

Willistown Conservation Trust’s program area is within the quarantine zone. At all stages of growth, SLF are very efficient hitchhikers. There are some things you can do to limit the spread of the SLF:

  • Check your car (wheel wells, grille) and any trailers and remove all SLF before departing. This is important ESPECIALLY before driving out of the quarantine zone.
  • Don’t park under infested trees
  • Do not transport firewood
  • Inspect any material stored outdoors before transporting it elsewhere

Remove Tree of Heaven

If you use landscapers or arborists, ask if they have received an SLF permit from the PA Department of Agriculture. For more information about the permit visit: https://extension.psu.edu/does-your-business-need-a-spotted-lanternfly-permit

Though the SLF will feed on other plants, the Tree of Heaven is one of its preferred hosts. If you have Tree of Heaven, it is important to remove them. You MUST use an appropriate herbicide to treat the tree before cutting it down or it will multiply.

Get Ready for Hatching

Banding. When the SLF eggs hatch in the spring, the nymphs will begin to forage. By banding trees they prefer, you can help to capture them. Bands should be checked regularly and replaced as needed. Excluder cages should be used to  keep other animals away from the bands. Read more about use of traps here: https://extension.psu.edu/using-traps-for-spotted-lanternfly-management

Insecticides. If you have an infestation, it may be necessary to use insecticides. There are a variety of systemic and contact insecticides with varying degrees of efficacy against the SLF. Always read and follow the label before applying any insecticide. Additional information can be found here: https://extension.psu.edu/spotted-lanternfly-management-and-pesticide-safety

See the Penn State Extension website for instructions on how to band trees and for selection and use of insecticides.

Report. Report. Report.

Researchers need data. By reporting sightings of SLF you will help researchers understand how the SLF are moving. To report SLF you can go online to extension.psu.edu/spotted-lanternfly or call 1-888-4BADFLY.

Learn More

You can download a variety of helpful information at the PSU Extension website. The Trust also has some print materials left over from the lunch & learn. You’re welcome to stop by our office and pick up some while supplies last. We also have a small supply of scraper cards, which also have helpful information on them including the number to call to report SLF.

Watch for more informative lunch & learns coming up.

BYOB – Bring your own BAG

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The average family accumulates about 60 plastic bags in only four trips to the grocery store. The majority of these bags are not bio-degradable and can take 700 to 1,000 years to break down. A plastic bag from your neighborhood store might blow from a trash can into a storm drain before traveling through pipes into the Delaware River or a tributary.

Bringing your own shopping bags to the grocery store is a great way to reduce single-use plastics. But did you know there are alternatives to those plastic produce bags?

At our Rushton Farm we’ve even switched to biodegradable produce bags for our pickup days. Reusable mesh or cotton bags are a small investment and are available from many retailers.

This July, ditch plastic bags and bring your own reusable bags instead. Stash them in places where you’ll remember them like by your front door, in your purse, and trunk. 

Declare your independence from single-use plastic by participating in the Plastic Free July Challenge at https://www.plasticfreejuly.org/ Together we can create a Plastic Free Watershed!

OUR NATURE PRESERVES

Our nature preserves are open to the public 365 days per year from sunrise to sunset, providing natural places that offer peace and respite for all. Willistown Conservation Trust owns and manages three nature preserves in the Willistown area - Ashbridge, Kirkwood and Rushton Woods Preserve. We maintain these lands for the … Learn more about our nature preserves.

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WHERE WE WORK

The work of the Willistown Conservation Trust is concentrated on 28,000 acres of Willistown Township … read more