UNCOMMONLY FINE WRITING

By Coggin Heeringa, Interpretive Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, Inc.  Wearing green, shamrocks, rainbows, and photosynthesis! Green is the color of the environmental movement and will be the theme of Crossroads programs during the week of St. Patrick’s Day.  “The Color […]

By Coggin Heeringa, Interpretive Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, Inc. In 2004, Gov. Jim Doyle signed legislation designating the first Saturday in March as Aldo Leopold Day in Wisconsin. At Crossroads at Big Creek, our first event was  in 2007. This year, we […]

By Coggin Heeringa, Interpretive Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, Inc. At Crossroads at Big Creek, the creatures seem to sense Valentine’s Day.  A few days ago,  we noticed a pair of red  fox showing great interest in each other.  Love […]

By Coggin Heeringa, Interpretive Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, Inc. Ever since we at Crossroads found artifacts revealing that people had lived beside The Cove Estuary more than a thousand years ago, we have endeavored to learn how the Indigenous People […]

By Coggin Heeringa, Interpretive Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, Inc. Eyes will be on the skies this week at Crossroads. Many folks seem to be longing for snow clouds, but next Saturday, it would be splendid if the skies would […]

By Coggin Heeringa, Interpretive Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, Inc. The topic for the Saturday Science program this week is “Hexagons.” It may seem to folks that we at Crossroads are obsessed with hexagons—the six-sided polygons that show up in […]

By Coggin Heeringa, Interpretive Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, Inc. This weekend, Crossroads will ring in the New Year! Appropriate to the celebration, our Saturday Science Program will feature “Annual Rings,” and at 4:15 p.m. on Sunday, we host the […]

By Coggin Heeringa, Interpretive Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, Inc. With the exception of our friends in the Door Peninsula Astronomical Society who think fifteen hours of darkness is a good thing, most of us, regardless of our ancestry or […]

By Coggin Heeringa, Interpretive Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, Inc. We count birds every day at Crossroads.  So why is the Annual Christmas Bird Count so important? Why are we making it a special event for adults and families? And […]

By Coggin Heeringa, Interpretive Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, Inc. The Collins Learning Center is decorated for the holidays, and we invite the community to come by each Saturday afternoon between 1:00-4:00 p.m. to see the handiwork of our volunteers […]

By Coggin Heeringa, Interpretive Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, Inc. As we approach the holidays, we see many images of Dr. Seuss’s antihero, the Grinch. But around Thanksgiving, we at Crossroads think of another Dr. Seuss character who also finally […]

By Coggin Heeringa, Interpretive Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, Inc. With all of the superstitions and mysteries floating about this time of year, Crossroads decided to demystify the mysterious and celebrate a phenomenon that, through the ages, has been associated […]

By Coggin Heeringa, Interpretive Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, Inc. At Crossroads at Big Creek this week, we will present the final Door County programs for the 2023 Wisconsin Science Festival – Curiosity Unleashed. We are all about unleashing curiosity, […]

By Coggin Heeringa, Interpretive Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, Inc. The Fall Archaeological Dig at the Crossroads Cove Estuary Preserve is underway, and the general public—adults, families, groups –are invited to observe, or even better, to participate in the Dig on […]

By Coggin Heeringa, Interpretive Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, Inc. Planting Day at Crossroads is coming up on Thursday, September 21! This seems like a rather odd announcement since, during the past three growing seasons, we have planted about 4,000 […]

By Coggin Heeringa by Interpretive Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, Inc. “Where Waters Meet” is the 2023 educational theme of Crossroads at Big Creek. The phrase describes our preserve, where the waters of the Big Creek Watershed flow into The […]

By Coggin Heeringa, Interpretive Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, Inc. Labor Day has become the traditional, though often not the meteorological, last day of summer. It became a holiday in 1882 to celebrate the success of the labor movement; over the years […]

By Coggin Heeringa, Interpretive Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, Inc. Cross-pollination is important to many plants, and organizational cross-pollination is important, too. It enables Crossroads to host two special programs this week. Wild Ones of the Door Peninsula, the Door […]

By Coggin Heeringa, Interpretive Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, Inc. August 19 will be quite a day at Crossroads at Big Creek. In the morning, volunteers will be helping with restoration; in the evening, the Door Peninsula Astronomical Society will […]