Talks & Walks Calendar

Wild DFW & Firefly Lullaby at Vector Brewing Holiday Market

November 29 Saturday
11 am to 5 pm

Lakeridge Village Shopping Center
9660 Audelia Rd, SE corner of Walnut Hill, Dallas, TX 75238

Come visit me at the Vector Brewing Holiday Market in the pretty greenspace of the Lakeridge Village Shopping Center. Buy a copy of Wild DFW: Explore the Amazing Nature Around Dallas-Fort Worth. With its 350 color photographs and arty layout, it makes a great gift.

Also available:
<> Wild DFW stickers
<> Itchy Business: How to Treat the Poison Ivy and Poison Oak Rash, Prevent Exposure and Eradicate the Plant 
<> Holy Smoke: Loose Herbs & Hot Embers for Intense Group Smudges & Smoke Prayers 

Sharing the space is Karen Weiss and her wonderful Firefly Lullaby book with MP3 soundtrack. Boldly colorful drawings and gentle magical rhyme delight ages 2 to 7 with the magic of nature.

We’ll be with a couple dozen vendors in the landscaped interior area of Lakeridge Village Shopping Center. Santa will be walking around. Games galore. And much more fun.

Start out at Vector Brewing & Pizza, get a beer or bite to eat, and pick up your game card. Visit every space and get a free nosh.

Wild DFW at Old Lake Highlands Jingle & Mingle

December 6 Saturday from noon to 3 pm
400 block of Parkhurst, Dallas

Join the festivities celebrating the fun and nature-loving Old Lake Highlands neighborhood east of White Rock Lake. Wild DFW will be one of a couple dozen vendor booths from area enterprises.

Come buy a copy of Wild DFW: Explore the Amazing Nature Around Dallas-Fort Worth. With over 350 color photos and an incredibly artistic layout, it makes a great gift book for nature lovers.

Also available:
<> Wild DFW stickers
<> Itchy Business: How to Treat the Poison Ivy and Poison Oak Rash, Prevent Exposure and Eradicate the Plant
<> Holy Smoke: Loose Herbs & Hot Embers for Intense Group Smudges & Smoke Prayers 

Family fun like bounce houses, face painting, and photos with Santa. Live music and food trucks.

Event details.

Wild DFW at 5th annual Eustis Sip & Shop

Dec. 7 Sun. – 2 to 5 pm
8700-9000 blocks of Eustis
park at Casa Linda Park, 1500 San Saba Dallas, TX 75218

Walk the tree-bedecked blocks of Eustis in Little Forest Hills. Shop from vendors offering funky hand-crafted wares. Enjoy free wine and non-alcoholic drinks to help enliven the experience.

I’ll be at part of the clan at Honeychild Naturals, Julie Whitmire’s wonderful line of honey-based personal care products. Come hang with us at 8919 Eustis!

This was immense fun last year. I loved my vendor crowd at Julie’s and all the customers who dropped by. Great conversation — tipsy people can be fun! Bring your dog on a leash and amble the fun and funky Little Forest Hills.

Also available:
<> Wild DFW stickers
<> Itchy Business: How to Treat the Poison Ivy and Poison Oak Rash, Prevent Exposure and Eradicate the Plant 
<> Holy Smoke: Loose Herbs & Hot Embers for Intense Group Smudges & Smoke Prayers 

A Life in Moonlight

Nov. 2 Sunday — 11 am to noon

Denton Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
1111 Cordell St., Denton TX 76201

Become swept away by the Moonlady and enthralled by the magic of the Moon in this purely poetic talk. Amy Martin, author of Wild DFW: Explore the Amazing Nature Around Dallas-Fort Worth (wild-dfw.com), will share her relationship with the Moon and expound on the nature of moonlight and the art of living with lunar phases, and how we owe our existence to tides and the nature of synchrony. Learn to live in tune with the Moon.

Part of the Denton Unitarian Universalist Fellowship service on Sunday. Open to all faith traditions or those of none at all. All are welcome. Also online; see website for link.

Amy Martin has been deeply tied to nature, on Earth and above, since a toddler. She writes about nature in books (Wild DFW, Itchy Business, Speaking of Mother Earth) and for GreenSourceDFW (greensourcedfw.org), and volunteers extensively to aid urban nature in its healing. She recommends a good howl at the Moon on a regular basis. Better than therapy. Which is why she’s called the Moonlady (moonlady.com).

Wild Lands of Denton County

Feb 4 Wed – 7 to 8:30 pm

The REC of Grapevine: 1175 Municipal Way, Grapevine, Texas, 76051

Denton County is home to three of the five largest—ranging from 2600 to 3700 acres— nature parks and preserves in North Texas: Clear Creek Natural Heritage Center (Denton), Ray Roberts Lake State Park (Pilot Point), and Lewisville Lake Environmental Learning Area, called LLELA. That’s bragging rights!

Get to know them all—rich bottomland woods, wide open prairies, upland forests, wetlands, river and creek riparian corridors, and more—in this talk.

Speaking for Keep Grapevine Beautiful as part of their commitment toward environmental stewardship.

Amy Martin, author of Wild DFW: Explore the Amazing Nature Around Dallas-Fort Worth, will share excerpts and photos from those chapters in the book, woven with the dramatic story of recovering from a traumatically broken neck by walking dirt trails at these and other locations.

Photo of Bittern Marsh at LLELA by Daniel Koglin.

Never See North Texas Nature the Same Way Again

Rockwall Butterfly Brigade
https://www.facebook.com/RockwallButterflyBrigade/

March 3 Tues – 6:30 probably, exact TBA

location TBA, private residence

Author and naturalist Amy Martin nearly died four years ago from a severely broken neck. She learned to walk again by hiking natural trails. Those hikes are an integral part of Wild DFW: Explore the Amazing Nature Around Dallas-Fort Worth. Hear her inspiring story woven with rhapsodic passages from the book.

Learn how a little knowledge about natural history and ecology can transform your perception of North Texas nature. Astounding color photos bring alive peak experiences from the 25 featured hiking adventures through hardwood bottomland forests and Eastern Cross Timbers, soaring limestone escarpments, lush wetlands, and rare remnants of Blackland and Fort Worth Prairies.

Wild DFW is Martin’s way of facilitating others to find the healing power of nature and the natural wonder she felt as a child. Get to know a diverse community of volunteers working for nature.

Photo of Sunset Cove at Ray Roberts Lake State Park by Denise Thompson.

13 Things You Need to Know About the Poison Oak and Ivy Rash

Sept 24 Thur – 11:30 am to 1 pm

Myers Park & Event Center 
7117 Co Rd 166, McKinney, TX 75071

In this subversively funny talk, Amy Martin, author of Itchy Business: How to Treat the Poison Ivy and Poison Oak Rash, Prevent Exposure and Eradicate the Plant, shares her deep knowledge of poison oak and ivy gleaned from 12 years working in wildlife habitat management. Facts such as that soap is terrible for removing urushiol from the skin and the poison oak and ivy barrier creams that actually work.

You’ll learn how humans are the only animal allergic to poison oak and ivy, and why your immunity to poison oak and ivy can change at any time. Understand that the rash is an allergy to be managed, not a poison to be extracted, and how you respond to its allergen depends on a number of factors. Discover the herbs that are far better treating the rash than jewelweed and effective topical minerals like Milk of Magnesia. Afterwards, share your story of rash woe. It’s an entertaining talk that will leave you itching for more.