Erin Garrett: 00:06

Welcome to another episode of the Everyday Environment podcast, where we explore the environment we see every day. I'm your host, Erin Garrett.

Amy Lefringhouse: 00:14

And I'm your co host, Amy Lefringhouse.

Erin Garrett: 00:17

And we want to say a big welcome back to Everyday Environment for our second season. It's been a while since we've released a new episode, and we're really excited to be recording again for our second season. For those that haven't heard, our second season is about all things water. We have an excellent lineup of experts and topics to bring you this season on the podcast. Amy, do you wanna share some sneak peeks of what's coming up this season?

Amy Lefringhouse: 00:45

Absolutely. Well, you are going to be really excited to learn about groundwater during this podcast season. We have wonderful speakers that talk, really in-depth about groundwater. And at first, I was like, oh, what's that gonna be about? But stay tuned. It's an amazing episode on groundwater. We talk about rain gardens. We talk about storm water, talk about the economics of water and how we price our water. It's gonna be a really great season to, quote, dive in to the topic of of water. So stay tuned. Stay with us during this season.

Erin Garrett: 01:27

Yeah. We're really excited. And you stole my pun that I was gonna say later, Amy. So it's we're probably gonna hear it throughout this whole season, everyone. And we do just wanna mention too that if you're not familiar, each podcast episode that we post is accompanied by a blog post too. And so you can always refer to those. If you don't have time to listen to the whole podcast, you can read a blog post or vice versa. We also always do some webinars. So we'll have a webinar in March and one in May. And then we'll also have some videos on social media about what you can do to help prevent water pollution. So there's tons of things coming. We're really excited to kick it off with our first episode today. And as a reminder, you can find all of this content at go.illinois.edu/everydayenvironment. So everyone get ready as we, I'm gonna say it, Amy, dive deep into our water here in Illinois. Today, we're gonna kick off the season with the big picture of watersheds, and our guest is Laura Keefer. Laura is the Illinois state hydrologist. Welcome to the podcast, Laura.

Laura Keefer: 02:30

Oh, thank you for having me.

Erin Garrett: 02:32

Well, we're gonna get started today by just asking you a little bit about what you do and the work that you do as the state hydrologist.

Laura Keefer: 02:41

Yeah. As you said, I'm the Illinois state hydrologist. I'm one of seven in the state. We are actually designated by Illinois state legislation and statute. There's a biologist and entomologist, that's bugs, geologist, climatologist, pollution prevention, and archeologist. And they're all at the state scientific surveys in the Prairie Research Institute at the University of Illinois. Our goal is really to just bring understanding and awareness to the citizens of Illinois about some important scientists' scientific advances that they can benefit by and, and then learn.

Amy Lefringhouse: 03:16

I don't want to say dive in again, but let's, let's, let's talk about... We're kicking this off... our first water episode. Let's talk a little bit more about watersheds. So, what is a watershed? Where is a watershed? And why is it important?

Laura Keefer: 03:36

Well, watersheds, and I think people have heard about them, but, really realizing that they, are everywhere. And what they do is they they catch the rain. So when rain comes, hits the ground, it either soaks into the soil or runs off. That runoff goes down the hill, meets up with another water drop, and holds it together, becomes a rivulet. They pull together. They become a little creek and join more creeks and go in a river. And and so that you can think of them as a bowl of land that's kind of forced to finally come together in one spot. I kinda like to think of it as if you if you've ever picked up a leaf and looked and saw the veins in the leaf, and how it all pulls together into a main line to one end, you know, that is actually how a watershed comes together, except of course they're not flat and they're everywhere. So, if you want to learn more, and actually have some good visuals about it, there's several web pages that you can go to. The National Oceanic Atmospheric, NOAA, has a great website, the National Geographic Society, and the U. S. Geological Survey. So, you know, you can learn a little bit more about there. But they are everywhere and they drain the land surface. You can't go anywhere without being in a watershed.

Laura Keefer: 04:59

They eventually, like I said, form into a river and they flow into lakes and oceans. And so it's a, it's a constant process and you can be very close to the edge of several watersheds. I like to use the example of Champaign Urbana. You can you're actually between different, watersheds. There's, if you're over if Champaign and most of Urbana, you're draining towards the Vermilion River or the Embarras River.

Laura Keefer: 05:25

If you're in western Champaign County, it flows to the Kaskaskia River. Interestingly enough, the Vermilion and the Embarras River flow into the Wabash River, which divides Indiana, Illinois, and then that goes into the Ohio River and then the Kaskaskia flows into the Mississippi River. And then the Mississippi and Ohio meet at the tip, Southern tip of Illinois and become the Mississippi River. And they go to the Gulf Of Mexico. So it's amazing.

Laura Keefer: 05:50

If you think about a drop of water, you know, hitting here in Champaign Urbana ends up in the Gulf Of Mexico eventually.

Amy Lefringhouse: 05:57

I love that. I love the map that, and I don't know which agency makes major watersheds of Illinois map. I can't remember if it's State Water Survey or State Geological Survey.

Laura Keefer: 06:07

No. The Water Survey, we put out that map. And watershed maps are very common, but we kind of tailored that to Illinois because we wanted to actually demonstrate which watersheds go to the Mississippi and which go to the Wabash, Ohio. And the Illinois River watershed, which really drains almost half of the water, half the State of Illinois. So it's color coded, so you can kind of see how much things are are divided between those two great, you know, river watersheds.

Amy Lefringhouse: 06:37

Right. We we love that map. I of course, I'm over on the western side of the state, Laura. I'm straight, you know, west of you on the other side. And we right where I teach, we're right kind of exactly like you said in Champaign Urbana. We're right between the Illinois River Watershed and the Mississippi watershed. So we talk about that. You know, if you spill your drink in the parking lot, you know, where is where is that water gonna end up at some point in time? And depending on where you stand, it could go either way. But yeah, we do use that map a lot as a tool and folks in Illinois can use that for their own properties and their own homes to see what watershed they're in too.

Laura Keefer: 07:13

Yeah. We, in my blog, I'll have a link to that map that's actually if you had the right printer, you could print a poster size of it. But the nice part about it is that it has county boundaries and then a lot of the towns Yeah. But in so that you can actually start to maybe get close to figure out what's my watershed? Where am I?

Amy Lefringhouse: 07:33

Absolutely.

Laura Keefer: 07:33

I think you mentioned you wanna know why watersheds were important. And it really has to do that really, as I described, the water has a path and it gathers. And we we use it for, for many purposes. Animals and plants all around the rivers and everything.

Laura Keefer: 07:51

And we've, we've gone ahead and impounded a lot of the water to make small farm ponds, or we've made lakes. Anything South Of I 80 is not a natural lake in Illinois. So we've impounded those. And they're- they're mostly made for reservoirs for drinking, power generation factories, things of that nature. But we drink from them as well, and sometimes we pull water from the rivers, as well as groundwater.

Laura Keefer: 08:15

And people will tell you how that works, you know, in your subsequent episodes. But, we have so many needs for water that it can get very complicated when there's not enough rain. And then, you know, droughts really tell us when we don't have enough enough water where we wanted to do. And then, sometimes, you know, things can get carried in that water. It could be sediment or it could be really some undesirable things that we don't want, and we have to clean these clean them up in order to use that water or make that water better for the next person downstream.

Amy Lefringhouse: 08:50

Mhmm. Everything on land ends up in the water.

Laura Keefer: 08:53

Yeah.

Erin Garrett: 08:54

Yeah. Well, that's a great, explanation that kind of leads into my next question, which is when we talk about managing a watershed, how do you prioritize the different aspects that go into that? So, you know, you mentioned drought, but there's also flood control, you know, water quality, habitat protection. How how do we kind of prioritize all those different parts that go into and affect our watersheds?

Laura Keefer: 09:20

Well, I'm glad you asked because during just before and during COVID, a coalition was put together by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources to reassess the Illinois State Water Plan. The last time we planned "What Does Illinois Do and Protect With Its Water" was 1984. Yeah, it was it was due. But, we worked on that. COVID slowed us down, but a new water plan came out in '22.

Laura Keefer: 09:47

I'll put a link of that in the blog as well. But in that, the agencies we had a long list of critical issues or things that were important for water and, and having to deal with watersheds, you know, implicitly in that. But, we couldn't tackle everything and we picked out 13 of them. And that includes what you just talked about. Flooding, water quality, water sustainability, you know, they call it the aquatic and repairing habitat.

Laura Keefer: 10:11

That's for the critters and, and the, and the fish and things. Things about water use laws and regulations, you know, how well are they updated, the navigation of the rivers, erosion, recreation uses. So that covered that. And, that is now managed, by the State Water Plan Task Force, which actually, was always an unofficial group that's been going since the 1980s, but it actually was, just codified in legislation. So it's actually a standing group that all agencies and scientific agencies participate in.

Laura Keefer: 10:46

And we came up with 130 recommendations to tackle over the next five, ten years. But it's, the task force meets quarterly and they do have a website and, anybody can listen in and ask questions towards the end and people can find out what's going on. And we try to keep things up to date. So, that's how it's kind of decided, you know, as to how the state's going to be dealing with things and, you know, the Water Survey is very involved in that and so we try to bring our scientific knowledge and institutional experience, to help address those problems and do further research.

Amy Lefringhouse: 11:23

Well, you mentioned several, you know, over a hundred recommendations for what we need to be looking at as far as water is concerned and decisions that we need to make. But how do how do our human activities and the decisions that we're making on our own land, like agricultural decisions, land management decisions, or urban development decisions, how do those management activities and development activities, how do they affect our watersheds?

Laura Keefer: 11:54

Well, I think, you know, anybody who's lived in an urban area, you know, has seen maybe a construction site and they have, like, kind of these burlap fences around them and hay bales and things like that. You've seen them across roads and everything, and those have been employed, you know, really well in a lot of places because it rains, you're in a construction site, you've got nothing covering that dirt, and it will carry it with it. And so, it helps filter the water coming out of that. So, that does really help. There are problems if you get one of those really awful downpours, you know, and stuff, but it definitely really works.

Laura Keefer: 12:29

But as far as like your own backyard, making sure you can have in, maybe suburban areas are probably a little better because you can have lawns and green spaces and parks and things. But if you get into really, intense urban areas, we have a lot of impermeable surfaces. It's hitting, hitting rock and water comes off faster. You know, how I mentioned how to raindrop forms and stuff. Well, it just amplifies it and, and it comes off a lot faster and a lot more water And water, when it comes together powerfully like that, it actually has energy.

Laura Keefer: 13:05

It has teeth. And when it hits weak spots in, you know, sometimes even between a lawn and a concrete or within the drainage or the little nice little creeks that are flowing through the neighborhood and can really get tore up. And I think people have seen that. So, urban areas have their problems and they try to take care of those with trying to put in projects and restorations or projects that will go ahead and slow the water down. You've seen detention basins, you know, in shopping centers and stuff like that. They're catching all that water. You can't stop it, but you can hold it and let it drain out slowly down the line. Slower water is weaker water. Doesn't have as many teeth. So, you know, that, that really helps.

Laura Keefer: 13:49

With agriculture, it's almost the same thing. You know, we, we've done a really good job since the Farm Bill started in the 1980s, you know, when, we've harvested crops. You know, we have we have conservation tillage and a lot of no till and things and a lot of the green spaces and the riparian barriers and things. There's so many great programs that help farmers, you know, put these in. But again, if you get those horrible downpours that we can get every once in a while, it does hurt things.

Laura Keefer: 14:18

Just like, in the urban areas where you hit concrete, the same thing can happen in agriculture areas. The water in the plants can only take up water only so fast. And when they're done, it shoots off just like it would if it hit concrete. And so we get a lot of hungry water again. So it's those extreme events that really cause some, some issues.

Laura Keefer: 14:41

And, and also, you know, we've done a lot urban and, rural where we've actually modified the natural streams that were there in order for us to make our land very productive for food. And they're there to take all that water and stuff. But, they also have some weaknesses when, you know, they we get those inundations of, of water and so they can erode some more as well. So there's a lot of progress to go in there. So we're, we're on it. You know, there's a lot of things we can do. It's, time and money, you know, to get those things in.

Erin Garrett: 15:17

For sure. And for our listeners, we'll be going a lot deeper into those topics that Laura just mentioned with some other guests later this season. So we'll be diving a little for a little deeper into agriculture and water. And then we've got, quite a few different guests that are gonna talk about green infrastructure, kind of on the the homeowner scale and then on more of the community scale too. So we'll definitely get some more expertise and we'll get some more guidance from those guests too, and some more perspectives on what's happening in Illinois and some examples around the state, which is really great also.

Erin Garrett: 15:52

All right. Well, for our longtime listeners, you know, last season we focused on climate change. And so can you speak to how climate change is impacting our watersheds in our state and then what strategies are being implemented to help us adapt to those changes that we're seeing?

Laura Keefer: 16:10

Yeah. I think for details of maybe why we're seeing these changes in our climate, I would go ahead and defer to Trent Ford, who is the other state scientist of the state climatologist. But from my talking with him, and as well as just being out there and being a scientist for my last thirty nine years that I've been here, we're definitely seeing an increase in those really heavy rains. Getting a lot more rain in the same periods that we used to get, you know, not as much rain. Those downpours that, you know, it seems like somebody just opened up that spigot just wide open.

Laura Keefer: 16:44

The trend that's been, looked at from, like, the 1900s to about 2016 shows that there's been about a 40 increase in what we call the 1% storms. You know, they're the type of storms that are the heaviest that you get. And they're 1% because and I always like to try to explain this to people because people listen to, like, a hundred year storm or things like that. That's shorthand for probabilities. And and so it's really your your statistics reset every year.

Laura Keefer: 17:15

And so this year, the slate's clean, and the odds say that we have just a 1% chance of getting one of those outrageous rains. And of course, it doesn't mean that if we get one of those, we're not going to get any of the next year. It's just saying we're you know, we got more of those really rare ones that we got. And those are the ones that are really, you know, causing some some issues that And especially if you get, kind of a spat of them coming through, you know, almost like one after the other every week or something. You just don't get a chance to, recover.

Laura Keefer: 17:49

And those, as I described before, is in the urban and rural areas. It's really those are causing a lot of problems and I've heard, that the really people are starting to wonder the best management practices and the things that we have that we've been using to control these things. Can they hold up to these? And so, you know, there, there needs to be some more research in that, and I'm hoping your speakers and the next episodes can probably speak to that. The other part of these varieties and climate we're getting is droughts.

Laura Keefer: 18:21

We don't have the same kind of droughts as we got in the early part of the nineteen hundreds. We don't get as much where we are a little wetter than we were. But they do pop up and they are telling us that even though Illinois seems to be surrounded by water, we got the Mississippi, we got the Ohio, we got the Wabash, we got Lake Michigan. And there's a lot of competing interests. And when we get a drought is when you find out where those pinch points are. And so droughts can be, just as informative and just as painful as the the inundations. So that's what what, some of these changes are are, wreaking on us is really understanding, you know, how much water do we really have and when we have too much, you know, can we handle it?

Amy Lefringhouse: 19:07

It's really interesting, like, just studying it and you guys are looking into it a lot deeper. Just what do we do when we have too little water? And then what do we do when we have too much water? And not really at the, you know, the homeowner level, but on the bigger picture, right, for communities and for our state as a whole. So what role does our state agencies and our federal agencies, and I guess the regulations that come along with those, what how do those play into managing at the watershed level?

Laura Keefer: 19:42

Well, a lot of the state agencies, and I'm talking about, the IEPA, you know, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Illinois Department of Agriculture, they have regulations and then programs to implement the regulations to help with these things. Funding's always an issue, but much of the funding actually goes to help groups, watershed groups assess what their issue is. There's perceptions. And then there's, you know, what's kind of really going on and really teach people a lot about what's going on in their watershed and then, funds to provide assistance to create a plan on how to do that. And once you have a plan, that opens you up to be able to apply for those projects and events and stuff that you need to educate and help, you know, reduce, you know, the chances of damage and the impacts of lots of rain or not enough rain type of thing.

Laura Keefer: 20:35

So, there's really a lot in that we... There's, the help that you can get really spans not only some of those agencies, but you can also get help from a lot of different local environmental groups. And in the rural areas, my favourite group is your County Soil and Water Conservation District and your Extension Educators. They're they're the best. They're the ones also that have the problems with having enough funds.

Laura Keefer: 21:06

But that's what they're there to do is to help you figure out what's going on, create a plan, help you sign up for the funds to implement things. And that's the mechanism that's there, and it does work. It does. Maybe slower than we all like, but it's there. And then, you know, with the water plan that's going on, those agencies that I mentioned, as well as a lot of other ones, their, their programs line up, you know, with some of these issues so that there is that mechanism and the plan highlights, you know, what their, their jobs are and, and puts highlights and focuses their efforts, you know, on some of these issues.

Erin Garrett: 21:45

Yeah. And I feel like a lot of the times, it's just it can be such an overwhelming concept to think about that, like, even sitting down to kind of assess, you know, in your region, in your community, where is our water coming from? Where is it going? What are the issues that are impacting us on that local scale? That's we're definitely working with soil and water and extension. Right? We have that local picture. We know the local community. We know the local conditions. It can be really helpful to kinda break it down and outline, like, what's happening so that it's easier for, you know, you to understand and be prepared, especially at, like, that community level.

Erin Garrett: 22:24

And that's something that, you know, extension's working to help, educate folks on too. We're gonna talk about in our wrap up episode of the season and how you can get a little bit more knowledge and get engaged in your community too, to help with with understanding your watershed and and being an advocate for helping prepare for those extremes that we talked about. Right? That not having enough water and having too much water. So definitely something that we can all play a role in, but but definitely comes into play a lot in that community level scale. Right?

Laura Keefer: 22:53

Oh, yeah. Definitely.

Erin Garrett: 22:54

Alright. Well, we've talked about a lot of challenges that that we have with our watersheds. But if you had to pick a couple of the largest challenges, that are facing watersheds in Illinois today, what would you say they are, Laura?

Laura Keefer: 23:09

I think the challenges really come down to if people understood their watersheds and how they react better. It is one of the bigger challenges. You know, them better understanding how that water moves, why it goes there, and- and what kind of effect it has downstream. Because as I demonstrated, you know, that following that water drop, whatever we do here can actually affect somebody in Missouri who pulls water out of the Mississippi River. You know, that it's, it's just doesn't disappear, once it runs off somewhere. And so understanding that better makes people better stewards of the water.

Laura Keefer: 23:46

And I think getting people to understand that our that the water in Illinois or really anywhere is not endless. You know, as I, as I stated before, people think Illinois is water rich. I used to hear, read things about how bad droughts were in the Southwest, you know, of the United States. And, you know, maybe they would just pump water from Illinois or something. And we're kind of like, wait a minute. You know, that it doesn't work that way. Because I, as I demonstrated, when we have droughts, we, we don't have enough water. Our last drought was in 2012 and we had nuclear power plants that had trouble being able to pull cool enough water out of the Illinois River to cool the rods, and be able to provide electricity from those nuclear power plants. They eventually, they would have had to shut down, but that would have been pretty bad. But at the same time that water was warming up and our aquatic species and our fish and people, those, those animals were really having a tough time.

Laura Keefer: 24:43

And, Illinois River, Peoria pulls their drinking water, you know, out of, you know, the Illinois River. It, it, it was getting tight folks. So, that's when water supply planning comes in and that really, there's a huge water supply planning program that the Illinois Department of Natural Resources operates. We provide the scientific information and trying to get people to participate in those. So we know what people are expecting, what kind of water uses they think they're going to have, and we can provide the models and the information for them to be able to plan locally or even regionally.

Laura Keefer: 25:16

And people's, people's participation is so needed, you know, and, and it may be boring, but it's, it's really important. So I think it's, you know, it's the information and the participation is some of the biggest obstacles. I think we have some of the tools. Do we know everything about how water's working? Do we know everything about how chemicals transform as they move downstream and everything else? No, there's so much more we need to learn, but what we do have can can work, you know, if people understand things better. And I think those are the biggest obstacles.

Amy Lefringhouse: 25:47

It's interesting.

Erin Garrett: 25:49

I was going to say, well, hopefully this season of Everyday Environment is a great step for folks to learn a little bit more and then feel inspired to, to attend those meetings. Right. And to voice their concerns and, and their ideas and and to to really have a voice and a say in their community. So I stole your answer right before you said it, Lauren. I'll at this.

Amy Lefringhouse: 26:11

Well and I think I think water sometimes we take it for granted. Right? If we we live in United States, we have clean water, we have, you know, it's just something that we expect, you know, that's our, you know, baseline expectations. And sometimes we don't realize our participation, our individual choices that our participation in that cycle, you know, of of, the water that we use daily. So, yeah, getting more information about all of that is important for all of us. So as we're moving on through learning more and more about water and watershed management, what new technologies from the field or approaches that we're we're taking in communities are being used today to improve, you know, managing our watersheds?

Laura Keefer: 27:04

I I think right now we're working on trying to develop better modeling tools so that we can provide better information to people. We're putting together, some research groups within the water survey and PRI where we're really trying to, approach how to integrate the models that we have and how can we use some of the the powers and advantage of artificial intelligence or machine learning to kind of speed that up or help look at our data maybe a different way. And by integrating, we have climate models, we have watershed models, we have groundwater aquifer models.

Laura Keefer: 27:47

And not so much having those in real time, but being able to talk to each other in a way that actually might help us tease out some of those things we don't know yet and that we can add more detail or knowledge to how people should be using their water or cleaning the water, things of that nature. So, stay tuned. That's kind of, you know, where we're going right now. No model. Yeah. We're always developing models, and new models. Technology has provided so much more, than when I started. I was writing Fortran code on deck cards when I first started and and we didn't have a PC yet. That was after my first year. But, the technology has provided, you know, a speed and the computational ability that we didn't have in years and I think that'll help keep improving.

Laura Keefer: 28:38

So, maybe that doesn't help everybody today in your everyday environment, but we, you know, I just want to give people impression that just because we've studied something and we made a model, we're done. We're always learning and we're always improving. And, maybe sometimes the answers might shift, but it's not because, you know, we made mistakes. It was just we learned more and, we can, we can always, everybody, we can all learn more. My motto is I'm, I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do when I grow up.

Amy Lefringhouse: 29:08

When you say people, Laura, you're like, we do we develop models for people? Are you talking about who are who are the people that are using those models that you guys develop? Is it communities? Is it counties? Is it the is it watershed groups? Is it all of the above?

Laura Keefer: 29:26

It's all the above. And, and obviously, you know, we're, we're not going to, you know, the, the Forsyth Garden Club or something and saying, here's a model, run it. That's what I did think. You know, you know, we work pretty hard to find out what are the questions or what are the needs to have, and then we'll, you know, run those models and then give them options.

Laura Keefer: 29:46

You know, we do not like to dictate management. We like to give people a range of options so they understand, you know, why there's not just one answer and they can understand that if they pick option B, these are the results they're going to get. And so they can tailor it depending on, you know, resources or how they feel they, they need to improve things that they feel they're deficient. At the same time though, we will work with municipalities. We've worked with, businesses. We actually provide a lot of information to consultants who work for municipalities. So we interpret a lot. For our scientific accomplishments, we publish in journal papers. But when we want to give information to these groups, we write reports. And, you know, we we substantiate why we use the tools we use and stuff, and we explain everything, you know, so and then interpret for them and and bring it out. So we, you know, it's kind of, farm to table type of approach to science.

Amy Lefringhouse: 30:46

And you come on to Everyday Environment podcast and take it down even further for all of the rest of us. So it's great. Thank you.

Erin Garrett: 30:55

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Laura, for sharing all of your abundant knowledge about watersheds with us today. We really appreciate having you on the pod. We're gonna finish today's episode with our everyday observation. This is where we highlight the mundane and normal of our environment that's actually really interesting. So, Amy, what is your everyday observation?

Amy Lefringhouse: 31:14

Well, I thought about this for a long time because unfortunately, I haven't spent a ton of time outside lately, but I have this buckeye seed on my dash in my car. I don't know why. I think it's, you know, probably because I work in this field. Right? But, wow, a buckeye seed is is just kind of a neat thing.

Amy Lefringhouse: 31:37

And I've I was just looking at it. I was I had I had it picked up the other day, and I was like, this is such a beautiful seed. And then I was thinking about all the different types of seeds that were out there, and I just kinda went on this, like, reflection of of all the different beautiful seeds. And, anyway, that's kind of that was kind of my everyday observation. If you have never seen a buckeye seed, try to find one out there.

Amy Lefringhouse: 32:02

They are native to the entire state. Yeah. The buckeye seed. And they've always said back, I feel like when I was younger, did they say it was like good luck if you found a buckeye seed and you rubbed it? I feel like that's a, it's a tale that was told.

Amy Lefringhouse: 32:16

Anyway, I went super nerdy into the different different seeds and thinking about just the potential and the the beauty of a seed. So that's my everyday observation. How about you, Laura? What is your everyday observation?

Laura Keefer: 32:32

Well, I had to think about it too. And and when I drove in this morning, or at least when I was drinking my cup of tea, you know, at, at home, in my, my, three season room, you know, just marvelling that, oh, it's going to be warmer, you know, and the snow's disappearing. And, realizing that suddenly after the last couple days of it being really warm, you know, my dogs have wanted to go outside a lot more. And more than you, and not because it was so cold, but just, I have a nine month old puppy who adores harassing every squirrel that walks on our fence. And, and he's just been going nuts, but then kind of thinking, but, you know, he really wasn't doing it that much.

Laura Keefer: 33:10

And, you know, when the North Pole visited, you know, not too long ago here, you know, I wasn't seeing a lot of squirrels and then realizing on my drives to work during that Arctic blast, the only real wildlife I was seeing was the red tailed hawks. And, you know, it was, but I wasn't seeing very many squirrels. So like everybody else, we were all hibernating as much as we could, but those hawks were out there and they just reminded me of when I actually would do field work. You know, I'd go out and collecting water and doing measurements and being on bridges and and in the creeks when, you know, muskrats and stuff would play hide and seek with me and and all the different animals and watching turkeys go across the the fields and things. And it just made me think, I can't wait for spring.

Erin Garrett: 33:52

I love that. I've been noticing all of the hawks too recently. It's just that time of year, right, when they really stand out and you see them all over the place. So that's been really fun.

Amy Lefringhouse: 34:02

How about you, Erin?

Erin Garrett: 34:04

Well, my everyday observation in the past few weeks have been trying to go on a walk every day. And my husband and I have been we just have a loop around our neighborhood, and we just really started to notice the oak trees. We have a lot of oak trees in our neighborhood and, you know, I am familiar with the concept of marcescence. I feel like we've talked about it on the pod before, but where a lot of oak trees will retain some of their brown leaves throughout the winter time.

Erin Garrett: 34:35

And we were just noticing some trends in the where on the oak tree we would find the brown leaves. And so in the really mature trees, it's only on the bottom branches that we would see all of the, brown leaves, and then on like younger trees, it could be the whole tree. And so we were kind of speculating like why that is. And then there's a great Extension article on it that we looked up, that that kind of goes over some different theories on why oak trees, retain their leaves in the wintertime because we don't have just one single answer. That's something that there's been a lot of research done, but we still don't totally know.

Erin Garrett: 35:16

And the trend that they said was on the younger branches of mature trees and then on younger trees in general. So it was kind of cool to take that concept that, you know, you can read about and that we we've studied and to kind of see it on the landscape, in real time. So that's something that that we just noticed on our on our walks around the neighborhood is just all the different, leaves on the oak trees and where we found them. So maybe a little bit more mundane than our usual observations, but it was kinda cool just to to notice a trend and then and kinda see, oh, yeah. Well, that is that is why that happens.

Erin Garrett: 35:54

So alright. Well, this has been another episode on the Everyday Environment podcast. Check us out next week where we talk with Hannah Griffis about the RiverWatch program.

Abigail Garofalo: 36:07

This podcast is a University of Illinois Extension production hosted and edited by Abigail Garofalo, Erin Garrett, and Amy Lefringhouse.

Matt Wiley: 36:19

University of Illinois Extension.