Save the date, Saturday March 10, 2018. This year's event will be mostly like those of the past, with good food, good company, the great outdoor spaces of the refuge, and a captivating speaker. Our keynote speaker will be the ever popular Ken Sassaman. Dr. Sassaman will tell attendees about surprising discoveries he and his students have made at Shell Mound and nearby sites. Then, in a break from the past, following lunch we will travel from refuge headquarters to Shell Mound. There Dr. Sassaman and students will guide us around the site, showing us where and how their discoveries were made.

Based on these recent findings, a rerouted trail is being laid out, brochures with two different levels of detail are in preparation, and a series of permanent informative panels will be installed at key locations along the trail. We expect some or all of these products to be available by the time of the meeting, and attendees will get to be the inaugural visitors to the new trail.

Even without the expected influx of visitors, volunteering at the Refuge is a great way to spend a morning or afternoon. This day was windy and in the 30s, so the porch rockers were not as inviting as normally.

The Friends volunteer visitor contact program began in December with more than 30 volunteers taking turns greeting visitors at the refuge. Volunteers were on duty most weekdays, with the exception of Fridays and the Christmas to New Years' interval when the refuge office was closed. Visitation has been sparse, but is expected to increase dramatically when the increased level of services available is more widely known. Volunteers have been reorganizing the refuge reception area, working on training materials, developing a chat room to share experiences, and boning up on brochures about refuge features and activities to be shared with visitors. In the future it is expected that volunteers will lead field trips for visitors and expand coverage to include weekends during the winter season.

Additional volunteers will be welcomed. In addition, our needs list includes: a laptop computer with wifi connectivity, a computer printer, a wall-mount computer or television screen, and one or more desk chairs in good condition. In the future we may want to obtain a golf cart to ferry people with disabilities to sites in the headquarters area.

This crab wasn't caught right on our refuges but I thought it might interest our members. Tagged blue crab caught locally raises eyebrows