Say hello to our latest "pets!" We picked them up in their cage from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Brock Environmental Center at the beginning of last month. Our oysters are tiny -- spat on shells, which basically is a technical way of saying baby oysters. Or oyster larvae, but I like baby oysters better.

Over the course of the next year, Anouk and I will be growing these oysters into bigger oysters that look more like the ones you are accustomed to seeing. At the end of that year, they will be transplanted back into the Chesapeake Bay, to help purify the water and rebuild dwindling local oyster populations. The CBF Oyster Gardening Program is open to the public, and training (you have to register and take a seminar) is held at the start of each summer.

So far, our oysters are doing really well. I think. It's kind of hard to tell with oysters. In any event, they look exactly like they did when we got them, maybe slightly bigger. They also have been given names -- Anouk named them Moana and Maui (Moana are on the left side and Maui the right).

As far as pets go, oysters are pretty chill. Every week, we head down to the marina where their cage hangs off of the dock into the water. We tumble their cage and hose the oysters down to remove silt (too much can smother them). This week, we also had to remove a small crab that had scuttled in through the bars, molted, and gotten to big to get out on its own.



We are going to blog our oyster adventures over the next year, and hope this will bring awareness to the CBF's awesome program and encourage others to get involved! To read more about the CBF Oyster Gardening program, click here.  For more information on Chesapeake Bay oysters in general, click here.

These oysters are not for eating! --> Anouk wanted me to add that. You are destined for greater things, Maui/Moana. Looking forward to seeing how far you'll go!

It's officially spring today, so I thought it would be the perfect time to share a citizen science initiative that I heard about a while ago. This project -- Project Budburst -- deals with phenology: the study of organisms and how they change with the seasons and with variations in climate or habitat. The creators of this project ask ordinary people to make observations of the plants around them in the hope it will help scientists understand how plant species are reacting to climate change.

There are two ways to participate in Project Budburst. You can make a single report -- observing a plant once on a walk or hike and writing down what it is doing (budding, flowering, etc) at that moment. Or else you can choose a plant -- a tree, shrub, patch of wildflowers or grasses -- and observe it throughout the year, reporting the date when that plant buds, flowers, fruits, and loses its leaves. (Project Budburst provides worksheets for thousands of different plants and lets you know what you're looking for if you're not sure).

Anne and I have been watching the plants in our yard for signs of spring for a few weeks now. The previous owners of our house planted a ton of bulbs in our yard, and every morning it seems like something new has come up overnight. So far we have gorgeous hyacinths and crocuses and beautiful double daffodils. We've been watching diligently for the first bud on our our bare hydrangea bushes and found it yesterday.

Happy Spring! What's growing in your yard? And do you think your kids would enjoy participating in Project Budburst?