Home

Timber & Taxes Workshop

12/9/2019

A Blessed Thanksgiving to All!

11/25/2019

Here are nine fun facts about Thanksgiving to share around the dinner table.

The first Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621 over a three day harvest festival. It included 50 Pilgrims, 90 Wampanoag Indians, and lasted three days. It is believed by historians that only five women were present.
Turkey wasn’t on the menu at the first Thanksgiving. Venison, duck, goose, oysters, lobster, eel, and fish were likely served, alongside pumpkins and cranberries (but not pumpkin pie or cranberry sauce!).
Abraham Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving a national holiday on October 3, 1863. Sarah Joseph Hale, the woman who wrote “Mary Had A Little Lamb,” convinced Lincoln to make Thanksgiving a national holiday after writing letters for 17 years.
The history of U.S. presidents pardoning turkeys is patchy. Harry Truman is often credited with being the first president to pardon a turkey, but that’s not quite true. He was the first to receive a ceremonial turkey from the National Turkey Federation – and he had it for dinner. John F. Kennedy was the first to let a Thanksgiving turkey go, followed by Richard Nixon who sent his turkey to a petting zoo. George H.W. Bush is the president who formalized the turkey pardoning tradition in 1989.
There are four towns in the United States named “Turkey.” They can be found in Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, and North Carolina.
The average number of calories consumed on Thanksgiving is 4,500.
Butterball answers more than 100,000 turkey-cooking questions via their Butterball Turkey Hotline each November and December.
The tradition of football on Thanksgiving began in 1876 with a game between Yale and Princeton. The first NFL games were played on Thanksgiving in 1920.
More than 54 million Americans are expected to travel during the Thanksgiving holiday this year.

It's Time for Our Annual Meeting & Report!

10/17/2019

The public is invited to join the Benzie Conservation District conducting our 74th Annual Meeting & Report!

Please come out on Thursday, November 21st, from 6:30 to 8:00 pm to the Mills Community House in Benzonia, and enjoy a presentation by local wildlife biologist, Linda Thomasma; you'll also learn about what the District has been doing this past year.

Enjoy tasty hors d’oeuvres, locally sourced and catered by Still Grinning Kitchens!

This event is free and all are welcome. Please contact the Benzie Conservation District with questions: 231.882.4931; aime@benziecd.org

Linda Thomasma received a B.S. in Biology from Grand Valley State University. She went on to earn a M.S. and Ph.D. from Michigan Technological University where she studied the American marten and fisher in the Upper Peninsula. Linda did a post-doc in the School of Forestry at SUNY Syracuse and then was a Research Wildlife Biologist for the US Forest Service, Northern Research Station in West Virginia. Returning to Michigan, she accepted a position at GVSU and taught in the Natural Resources Management Program. After teaching, Linda worked for a private timber company in Northern California on the 92,000 acre Collins Almanor Forest as their only wildlife biologist. Again she and her husband returned to Michigan and she worked as a consultant for public and private land owners. Linda has had the great good fortune to work in a variety of ecosystems with a diversity of wildlife species. Her career has spanned both the public and private sectors as a researcher, educator, and land manager.

<<Previous

Benzie Conservation District

Timber & Taxes Workshop

A Blessed Thanksgiving to All!

It's Time for Our Annual Meeting & Report!

We feature our latest events in our posts to the left, or you can check out the categories below for previous happenings!

Categories

Location

Contact us

follow us