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Truthfully, this Winter 2026 newsletter doesn’t include any moss. Click on the cover to download to the left to see what we did have room to include. The beauty of a blog is that there is room to add those photos and finds that don’t fit on a 2-sided, 11 x 17 piece of paper.

There is finally water in Cranberry Run after a drier-than-dry summer and fall. On a walk to treasure the leaf-tannin-rich flow, we saw a lovely quarry boulder sporting a moss that we hadn’t seen before. I turned to Bill Schumacher, former neighbor-over-the-creek and current mosses, lichens, and liverwort expert. Although Bill is busy with a water quality project in Bangladesh, he responded generously to my “What is this?”

“To confirm definitely would need to look at myself. But this one it looks to me like Plagiomnium cuspidatum (woodsy thyme moss or baby-toothed moss). Note the oval shape of the individual leaves. It has a costa (midrib) that goes to the top with a pointy end outside the leaf. Also, the leaf should be toothed in the upper half but not in the bottom half. Plagiomnium cupidatum is a common moss that is in the woods and by the creek. I saw quite a bit of it when we did the moss survey on The Quarry Farm. Although common, it is one of my favorite mosses. Think it is very beautiful, and greatly accentuates the forest system.”

The Spring field trip season was hopping with onsite visitors and road trips to offsite presentations. Matt Hanneman, Cubmaster for the Glandorf Cub Scout Pack 229, brought his troop to earn their hiking badge on April 11. Recent flooding resulted in sightings of displaced shrews and hungry Great Horned Owl calls. Continental Elementary School third grade students arrived on May 12, most for the first time. They traveled by yellow bus across Putnam County at the urging of Charlene Finch. Charlene and her Continental Junior Gardeners were some of our first visitors after The Quarry Farm became official. We took The Quarry Farm on the road on May 15, or at least a snapshot thereof. Miller City-New Cleveland School rounded out their elementary program year with the theme “School is Wild” and we visited, along with Estella the Virginia Opossum and Amur honeysuckle hiking sticks finished by Deb Weston for each teacher.

The May 20 Spring Migration Bird Hike resulted in 44 species observed in the nature preserve, including the addition of a Mourning Warbler to our eBird.org list of species. The days leading up to the hike were full of song, although the early spring foliage gave the birds plenty of places to hide. It’s a good thing that David Smith speaks bird. David and Deb Weston recorded 56 species the day before the hike. Eleven were migrating warblers.

For the first time we shared space with Into the Wild LGBTQIA+ at the Findlay Pride Resource Fair on June 3. We removed invasive honeysuckle the day before and used all 50 trunks to make hiking sticks there at Riverside Park.

Putnam County Educational Service Center scheduled a summer camp geared toward Grades 5–8 here on June 6. Campers made hiking sticks and discussed aquatic insect adaptations before wading into Cranberry Run and the quarry to look for the insects, fish, mollusks and crustaceans that live there.

On June 17, the pavilion was set for a tea-tasting led by Kathleen Heeter. Her presentation included a rich, flavorful history of tea and tea culture. Participants tasted four curated loose leaf teas, each paired with a selection of freshly baked items from Kathleen’s menu. Attendees also shared a display of their own tea pots and tea cups.

Last fall, Cub Scout Pack 324 conducted their annual cake auction at Findlay Zion United Methodist Church. They donated the proceeds from the auction to support the work that we do here. On June 28, over a dozen pack members hiked The Quarry Farm trails to earn a badge and visited the farm animal sanctuary residents.