Happy Dancing Blog

The holiday season brings excitement, nostalgia, and stress. Stress fueled by shopping lists, clutter, and pressure to find “the perfect gift.” But many families are rediscovering what this time of year should be about. Instead of accumulating more stuff, people are prioritizing experiences, handmade gifts, sustainability, and meaningful togetherness.

What disposable items that you use daily can you change to reusable items that are actually a better product and more responsibly acquired?

Although volunteering brings a wealth of positive returns for both the cause and the volunteers themselves, the hurdles to participating are real.

It can be tempting to cut everything down in the fall, but leaving some of your garden “messy” through winter is one of the best gifts you can give to birds, pollinators, and your soil.

Spending time with hands in the soil has been shown to provide significant mental health benefits. Gardening, farming, or simply...

Double checking your printer settings to prevent common office waste. If you had a chance to read my previous blog about “Stumbling into...

This fall marks the start of Happy Dancing Turtle’s fifth year of Bingo Scavenger Hunts! For each season since 2020, a new bingo card has...

If you’ve ever found yourself mesmerized by the activity at your bird feeder or wondered if that’s the same caterpillar you saw...

Are you a naturally curious person? Do you pay close attention to detail? Do you WISH you paid better attention or hope to develop your...

It is not news that we consume a horrific amount of plastic. As author Susan Freinkel (Plastic: A Toxic Love Story) famously shows on her...

"Now" is always a great time to take stock of your well-being and how you care for yourself. One aspect of mental health that is often overlooked is the role that clutter plays. Decluttering will not only make the spaces you live in more comfortable but may have a profound impact on your mental health.

Use of food shelves in the Northern Lakes area increased dramatically during the pandemic and has continued to grow post-pandemic. For the Lakes Area Food Shelf and the Pine River Area Food Shelf, that has meant challenges in keeping up with customer demand. But Farms 2 Food Shelf, a new program, is meeting the need for produce on a whole new level.

For eight weeks, from late April to mid-June 2023, Happy Dancing Turtle was fortunate to host the We Are Water MN exhibit on the Hunt Utilities Group Resilient Living Campus. The experience of having a museum-quality exhibit on campus plus the events, collaborations, and conversations that arose during that time continues to inform Happy Dancing Turtle’s work to grow good stewards of the planet.

There are certain patterns to mammal fecundity (the ability to produce offspring) and these patterns have a very vital role in ecosystem functions.

Like most of us, we were very excited to return to a “normal” summer this year. While we craved the routines and activities of the past, we also recognized the need for caution and to ensure the health and safety of our staff and program participants. So, we were back to “normal”, with a few small changes.

Pollinators have been all the buzz in recent years as research has shown steady declines in populations.

One of the most difficult problems that gardeners face is proper use of water. They either use too much or too little.

Now that we’ve had a few frosts, many think they can hang up their garden gloves. But think again. If you want a successful garden next year, start this fall. Your garden is still alive and the microbial livestock in your soil need to be fed.

There are options for how to handle the overabundance that is likely pushing against your fridge door’s capability to seal (or is this just my fridge?). Eat right now, eat soon, or preserve/prepare for later consumption, or find a new home – these are the options we’ll be addressing.

2018 was designated the Year of the Bird by the National Audubon Society, so Birds of a Feather seemed like a natural theme for this year’s Eco Camp. With August now upon us, we have just one camp left. Our first three camps were a huge success and so much fun was had by all! There are favorite activities that we do every year with each group.