Naturalist's class ending, Thoreau, etc

Well, I am a little bummed our "Master Naturalists" class is coming to an end. It was a way to really learn a lot (lots of which I am certain I will forget) about nature. Met a few interesting people, people I actually have something in common with. We went through most of the "Peterson's Guide to Eastern Forests," which covers living things coming out during the 4 seasons, as well as identifying various trees, plants, birds, wildflowers and most bugs (there are a million out there, so we didn't cover all that many, just some in the water and woods).
OUR environment is a wonderful amalgam of all these things, which make up our Eastern forest ecology. We need to protect the environment, for the mussels in the water and ourselves, as well. Oh, we also went into amphibians and had a professor show us various (dead, of course) snakes native to Virginia. It's hard to run into snakes. They are secretive. They don't try to get into your garbage, like maybe a possum or raccoon might.
For my final project I did a presentation on Henry D. Thoreau. Not many realize that not only was he one of the Transcendentalists, but the leader of the movement, Ralph Waldo Emerson, was his mentor. He even let Henry live with him and his family while Thoreau did odd jobs for him and wrote. Thoreau's notes on when plants appeared were actually looked at recently by a few scientist researchers. As noted in the Oct. 2007 issue of "Smithsonian" mag, most of the flowers in Thoreau's time are flowering a full week EARLIER now. And there are corresponding rising winter and summer temperatures now too. If you would like to be part of a global effort to denote plant comings and goings, go to www.smithsonian.com and learn more.
Then--- on Sat. the family and I did some running around. In front of K Mart several ladies were selling things to help "Relay for Life" and the Cancer Society. They should have sold something healthier than chocolate fudge, cupcakes and colorful sprinkled cake. Don't they realize being fat or overweight increases your chances of breast cancer as you get older?