For many, New Years is a time for making resolutions. For me, it’s a great time for reflecting on what I’ve accomplished in the past year and setting intentions and goals for the new year to come in terms of nature study.  Below is a run down of how I did on my 2018 goals and what I hope to accomplish in 2019.

My goals for 2018 included:

1. Post to Seashore to Forest Floor regularly. — I managed to post new blog content approximately once a week all year (for a total of 53 blog posts in 2018). 
2. Start (and maintain) a “perpetual nature journal”. — This goal was inspired by Lara Gastinger’s perpetual nature journal. At the start of the year I did manage to create at least one new entry each week. Somewhere around March or April, however, I found that I was forcing myself to squeeze this task in on Sunday evenings, completely taking the fun out of it. I eventually decided that if I skipped a week, it was completely fine, as I will be able to add to that page in future years when I come back around to it. All told, I completed an entry in 37 out of 52 weeks. To see my entries this past year, check out the Perpetual Nature Journal page. 
3. Start a Cape Cod based year-long nature study course and/or club. — I did both! And I’m so happy I did. The Upper Cape Naturalists Club has been meeting approximately twice a month since February 2018 and has more than 40 members. I also partnered with the Green Briar Nature Center in Sandwich to put on a monthly adult natural history class, which ran from May through December. 

For 2019, I plan to continue posting to the Seashore to Forest Floor blog and drawing in my perpetual nature journal regularly. I will also continue coordinating the Upper Cape Naturalists Club, and will work with the Green Briar Nature Center to hopefully host a second year of the monthly adult natural history class. But I also have three additional nature study goals I hope to achieve:

1. Attend Mass Aububon’s Creating a Year List 2019 Birding Program, a monthly birding program run out of their Long Pasture sanctuary in Barnstable. 
2. Create a daily nature journal to keep track of my everyday nature experiences and observations. 
3. Take at least one kayak trip each month (what you can observe from the water is so much different from what you can see from a trail).

Do you have any nature study goals? If so, I’d love to hear about them. Share them in the comments below.