Spring has sprung! With the change in season, we are seeing trees returning to their green splendor and flowers that add pops of color to our landscape. Did you know that pollinators such as butterflies, moths, flies, birds, bats, and bees use the nectar in these blooms as their first foods, which in turn helps the plant cycles continue? To encourage people to protect pollinators and to honor their important work, National Pollinator Week was established in 2007 by the US Senate with the Pollinator Partnership under Laurie Davies Adams. It has since grown into a month-long international celebration of the valuable ecosystem services that pollinators provide to the plants and in turn, to us. It encourages people to protect the pollinators by providing them with the right environment.

In 1999, a medical doctor by the name of William Sawyer was worried about putting his children into daycare. He worried about all the germs that they would come in contact with and wanted them to remember the importance of handwashing and hand awareness. So, he came up with the idea of a sock puppet that evolved into Henry the Hand, and ending with Henry the Hand Champion Handwasher as a cartoon character. Henry continues to encourage people of all ages to wash their hands every 1-2 hours, protect their eyes, nose and mouth, and break their unconscious habit of touching their T-zone (eyes, nose and mouth area). Henry the Hand Foundation reminds us how important hand washing is especially during the cold and flu seasons, now during the COVID-19 outbreak, and all 52 weeks of the year.

When you think of unconditional love, who comes to your mind? Your parents? Your spouse or significant other? Your children? All of these examples would be correct, but we would be missing one of the purest forms of love that we can find; the love from and for our fur babies. A fur baby can come in many different shapes, sizes, and species; from the traditional dogs and cats, to guinea pigs, bunnies, hamsters, and even rats. They greet us when we come home with so much joy in their eyes because we are their world. They love to play, go for walks, snuggle and sleep by us. When we are sad they comfort us. They will listen to us and never tell another soul our deepest thoughts.