The news and events pages offer three ways to keep up with what's happening at Merry Lea.
Read the upcoming events page to find public programs and volunteer trainings you may wish to attend. These range from 2-hour day hikes at Merry Lea to in-depth workshops or weekend trips. Annual offerings include the Autumn Hope Conference in late September and NatureFest in early May. Most events are family-friendly.
The Merry Leaflet is Merry Lea’s quarterly newsletter. Each eight-page issue pursues a theme. Recent issues have profiled our grads, looked at different classes of animals at Merry Lea, and examined the faith-based underpinnings that shape this organization. Also read the Merry Leaflet for features on new staff and volunteers.
Recent Happenings connects you to to additional day-to-day happenings and to stories about Merry Lea that appear in other media. Read Recent Happenings to find out what’s blooming, where the grad students went on their last field trip, or simply to gain a better idea of what life at Merry Lea is like.
Merry Lea's annual NatureFest, May 11 - 12, 2013 brought a record number of attenders to the Farmstead site despite chilly weather. Fortunately, the event kicked off indoors in the Barn hayloft, with a folk concert by The Nearby Elsewhere. Other highlights new this year were a chance to visit with aquatic biologist Darraugh Deegan, a spinning group, an off-trail hike with Bill Minter to a remote corner of Merry Lea's property and a chance for children to learn about the rock cycle by making their own rocks out of crayons.
See our photo gallery and plan to come next May!
An interesting blend of students and community members grappled with glacial deposits and their legacy at Merry Lea's Groundwater Resources Workshop Saturday, November 3. Among the nine attenders were a landscape architect, a Catholic sister from a community with land by the St. Joe River, a homeowner questioning the wisdom of his community's plans for wastewater treatment, a city engineer and several environmental science undergrads filling in geological gaps in their education.
At left, Nathaniel Klink and Aradhana Roberts, both students at Goshen College, assist with a demonstration illustrating contamination of groundwater. Klink plays God by raining water into a cross section of sediment while Aradhana Roberts monitors a tube representing a well. The group watched as red food coloring seeped through the aquifer and began appearing in the dishpan.
