Happy Friday {{first name | my friend}},

How close are you to a National Park? There’s 63 designated official U.S. National Parks, and here’s the map! 🗺️

ECL TRIVIA: What is the name of the process where a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly inside a chrysalis? (Answer below)

🪻 WILDFLOWER RESTORATION: “In 2005 we stopped farming [this] as the land was difficult to drain. I really wanted a wildflower meadow,” a lead professor says. What if the fastest way to restore a wildflower meadow is doing almost nothing? Read about how his field doubled its plant diversity in just a decade.

🪶 NEW BIRD SPECIES: Previously thought to be just a single species across two Indonesian islands is now confirmed to be two separate bird species! Scientists are thrilled about this discovery, noting bird song differences: they “routinely responded to recordings of their own population, but ignored song recordings of birds from the other island.”

🤿 HYUNDAI & FISHING NETS: Know someone who drives a Hyundai? The car company is partnering with Healthy Seas to help clean up the 664k tons of discarded “ghost nets” in the oceans. THIS FISHING PLASTIC they help recover is repurposed into nylon for floor mats in their European market vehicles!

😭 LONELINESS STUDY: This new study reveals loneliness and isolation is strongly linked to worse mental health, well-being, and overall health. Helpful resources like THIS TOOL KIT are available, especially to help older adults stay connected.

🔥 HEAVY METAL DETOX: What might be more effective: a 20 minute sauna session, or 30 days of a specialized detox program with supplements? Latest studies show “infrared sauna therapy significantly outperforms other detoxification methods for eliminating heavy metals,” says functional medicine expert Dr. Jill Carnahan. Read her 12 other sauna benefits HERE.

🍭 SURPRISING SWEETENERS: What happens when certain sweeteners combine with certain medications? Cambridge tested 39 sweeteners on gut bacteria and found that MOST alter gut flora behavior, especially isosteviol paired with antidepressant duloxetine, which sharply reduced beneficial microbes in the study tests.

Food prices keep climbing, so if you're looking at a counter full of garden tomatoes or a farmer's market haul you can't eat fast enough, this one's for you.

Too much of a good thing is a great problem to have, as long as you've got a plan. Otherwise that harvest ends up in the compost when it could've been pasta sauce in January. 😉

That's why I want to point you toward a masterclass with my longtime friend and ally Stacey Murphy called 3 Strategies to Simplify Preserving and Storing the Harvest.

>>> Access the Masterclass HERE

Stacey teaches you to think like a restaurant owner, so fresh food becomes a stocked kitchen without eating up your whole weekend. Her Harvest into Meals system covers canning, fermenting, drying, dehydrating, pickling, meal planning, and storage, plus the flavor trick her dad taught her that turns basic garden ingredients into something you'll want to brag about.

You'd be doing more than lining up jars of tomatoes. You'd be building meals that taste like August in the middle of February.

>>> Grab your seat, and pick up the Quick eGuide for Preserving the Harvest while you're there

What is the name of the process where a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly inside a chrysalis?

Answer: Metamorphosis. It is a complete body restructuring that turns a crawling larva into a flying adult.