While studying agriculture at West Virginia University, Ann Bodling admits she might have spent more time in the university’s greenhouse than her classrooms. Her passion for plants led to a career as a gardening consultant and educator.
On August 11, Bodling represented the Manada Conservancy Speakers’ Bureau for a virtual Library program, “Supporting Your Garden’s Pollinators.” In her visual-rich presentation, Bodling shared the importance of feeding pollinators and creating habitats that encourage them to reproduce.
“We’ve been taught how nice bees and butterflies look on the flowers, but where do they come from?” she says.
From her Dillsburg-area home, Bodling tends six hens and four Nigerian dwarf goats. In gardening, she notes, “we’re going to make mistakes. We don’t know what something’s going to do down the road, and that’s okay. We can do it over. It’s not a ‘perfection goal.’ It’s a living with the plants and whatever creatures that come in the relationship.”
What are you reading? Always a smattering across disciplines. My latest have been The Wisdom of the Enneagram, by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson; Threshold of Light: Daily Readings from the Celtic Tradition, edited by A.M. Allchin and Esther de Waal; Life and Letters of Pelagius, by B. R. Rees; The Shell Seekers, a novel by Rosamunde Pilcher; Raising Goats Naturally, by Deborah Neimann; Wildflowers, by William Cullina; and The Vascular Plants of Pennsylvania, by Ann Rhoads.
Why those books? Mostly because my mind is usually going in several directions at the same time. Celtic Christian spirituality is where I find my home base in awareness of God, so those books are never far from my reach. I also need the counterbalance of story and escapes into fiction, so I turn to authors I trust to do just that. And because I focus so much of my attention on the natural world, I often reach for books that can help me figure out plant identification or propagation or teach me how to care for earth’s creatures in the most beneficial way.
What do libraries mean to you? Libraries are the only reason I can do all this reading! I worked at Hershey Public Library many years ago, and when I met the interlibrary loan staff person, she said, “Oh, you are Ann Bodling! You have asked for the most interesting books through the ILL system!” When I wanted to read “The Life and Letters of Pelagius,” there aren’t many libraries that carry it. I was able to get it through the ILL of my local library. That was a fantastic find. Libraries are a wonderful resource.
You can watch the replay of “Supporting Your Garden’s Pollinators” on The Library’s YouTube channel. Subscribe at YouTube.com/DCLSLibrary.