Charles grew up in the panhandle of West Virginia and Victoria in Baltimore, Maryland and later northern Ohio. Charles is an economist by training and after several years of environmental energy consulting, joined the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics where he worked on the Consumer Price Index and other issues for over 20 years. Victoria is a retired lawyer who specialized in labor law, representing corporations and unions in employee benefits and compensation issues and securities law.  When they lived in the DC area, they had a house on a small 50- by 100-foot lot with a large oak tree. They added birdfeeders and some plants – but it was still “city life.” As a couple they looked forward each year to their two- or four-week vacation where they would visit natural areas such as Grand Teton National Park. “It was cultural shock to return to city life and the ‘teeming masses’ after each vacation,” reflected Victoria. Charles added, “There is no real life in big buildings. The real life is out in nature.” In the 1990s they began to search where they would like to live when they retired. They visited many beautiful areas around the country, including Big Sur in central California, Idaho and many other places around the United States. Then they were delighted to find an undisturbed 50-acre wooded lot on Red Oak Mountain in Rappahannock County where they now make their home.
 
When and how did you become interested in nature and the natural world?
Victoria remembers not being an “inside kid” or a “TV kid”– rather, she was always out in nature while she was growing up. When living outside of Cleveland there was tobogganing and skating. In the summers of the suburbs of Baltimore there were woods, streams and ponds where she looked for toads and salamanders and other wildlife. Every summer her family would vacation at the Maryland beaches, which were not nearly as developed as they are now.  She and her sister delighted in searching for sand crabs, shells, horseshoe crabs and feeding the shore birds. Even when living in the city, she and Charles would bike along the trails where they lived.
 
Charles remembers spending a lot of time in the woods of West Virginia as a child. He remembers feeling a connection with nature and the natural world. Their annual vacation to be in nature was a continuation of the joy he felt as a child when he was outside.
 
When they moved to Rappahannock, they met Robin Williams, an ORMN member, at a yoga class. Her love of nature was so infectious and effervescent they both became interested in becoming Master Naturalists. Charles was in the class of 2008. Victoria took the class several years later. They both began volunteering even before finishing the Master Naturalist program.
 
Describe what you do on your property to support a healthy ecosystem.
Before moving to Rappahannock, Charles completed a 3-year landscape design program with a focus on woody plants. “But once we moved here” he said, “our world view changed and we became more oriented toward native plants.” They attribute much of that change to another Master Naturalist, Bruce Jones. In the 1970s Bruce had purchased a 250-acre cattle farm in Rappahannock County. He spent many years turning this farm into a nature preserve, including meadows, fields, forest and a pond restored and managed for native plants, pollinators and animals. Under Bruce’s friendly mentoring, the Fortunas deepened their understanding of the immense value of this natural ecosystem. They also appreciate Bruce for sharing his preserve and expertise with many groups – both Master Naturalists and other community organizations – and that he is dedicated to educating the public on the importance of conserving the natural ecosystem.
 
The Fortunas’ land is almost completely wooded and filled with native trees such as oaks, hickory, and beech as well as pines and poplars. They also have a rich understory of hackberry, spicebush, redbud and dogwood. “We designed and built our home to blend in with nature” Charles explained. They are continually working to eradicate nonnative plants on their property as well as along the roadways near their home. “We spend a lot of time each spring pulling garlic mustard,” Victoria noted. “We even pull it up along the roadways near our home. When our neighbors see piles of garlic mustard along the roadside, they know the Fortunas have been at it again!”
 
 “We walk our property every day and you never see the same thing,” Charles stated. Nothing is too small to observe and appreciate. Charles described observing a moss colony on their property, which overnight was covered with frost from the recent cold weather. “We are so fortunate to live in this incredible part of nature,” he said. Victoria noted that central Virginia has biodiversity rivaling any place in the country. She shared that on a warm night this January she had seen a spotted salamander. “It was ginormous – almost 5 inches long,” she exclaimed.
 
What is the most amazing thing you have experienced in nature?
Victoria
“We were doing a 20-mile circuit hike over the top of the Teton Mountains. The elevation went from 7,000 feet and 60 degrees at the hotel to 11,000 feet and 40 degrees at the ridge line. A thunder storm with pouring down rain rolled in suddenly. Lightning was striking all around us. We were totally soaked, cold and miserable – but we had to complete the circuit, as we had not planned to spend the night in the backcountry. Charles kept complaining that we hadn’t even seen any big animals. So tired and focused on getting back, he failed to notice a huge male moose sitting on his haunches in a willow grove not four feet away from the trail. Even sitting down, the moose was taller than Charles who is six feet tall. I called to Charles softly so he could turn around and see the big guy, then we quietly but quickly proceeded down the trail and eventually made it back to the hotel.”
 
Charles
“We were in the Polynesian Islands north of the Tahiti Chain. We were staying at a little hotel with about 30 huts on the beach. The hotel offered boat tours to an island atoll that had a break in the rim. You could get suited up in your scuba gear and when the tide was running into the center of the atoll lagoon, the rushing current would take you into the lagoon. Victoria decided to stay in the boat but I jumped in, ready for the ride! The water was about 50 feet deep and there were dozens of sharks – nurse sharks and reef sharks about 4 to 8 feet long - on the bottom and all around feeding on the fish as they flowed with the current rushing into the lagoon. The guides were from nearby islands and had a French macho attitude – but for me, it was a real adrenaline rush to see this amazing event.”
 
Tell us about your activities with the Master Naturalist program
Charles and Victoria have been active in a number of ORMN projects, including the Socrates Project (they were on the project committee for both the 1st and 2nd editions). They are energized by Citizen Scientist activities that connect them directly with the natural world. They have worked more than ten years on the Buck Hollow Project, which is focused on removing invasive plants the from the alluvial forest area along the Thornton River. The project started at the Buck Hollow Trail Head in coordination with Shenandoah National Park. Targeted invasives included Oriental bittersweet, Japanese honeysuckle, multiflora rose, garlic mustard (a personal target for the Fortunas), Oriental lady’s thumb, Ailanthus altissima (tree of heaven), and Japanese stilt grass.  Victoria initiated and organizes the Rappahannock  Audubon Christmas Bird Count, and has helped organize the NABA Rappahannock Butterfly Count, as well as participating in other NABA Butterfly Counts in the region.
 
Charles always remembers something he learned in the Master Naturalist class: that the geometric progression of the human population’s growth rate has overwhelmed the Planet. Both Charles and Victoria are committed to helping people learn about the natural world in the hope that they will join them and others as champions for nature – be it through participation in an organized project, contributing to environmental organizations, or creating a natural habitat in their own backyard.
 
Interviewed by Charlene Uhl, February 2021
Photo courtesy of Patricia Temples
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Alfred Goossens grew up in The Netherlands, where his family was always in touch with nature. This country, which is half the size of South Carolina and one of the most densely populated countries in the world, values nature and has many forests and nature reserves which were  wonderlands for Alfred during his childhood.  His love of nature led Alfred to get his BS degree in Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture, after which he intended to become a planter. Instead he took a job in South Africa where he became a flavor chemist (a profession that uses chemistry with a strong ability of taste and smell to create natural and artificial flavors). The company he worked for bought a company in Baltimore, which transferred him there in January 1968. “My profession as a flavor chemist was on the ‘preferred profession list’ of the U.S. government and I had my green card within several months!” he recalled. He went to work for International Flavors and Fragrances (IFF) and he and his wife went on to live in Jakarta, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Singapore and then back to Manhattan before retiring in Madison County in 2008. He was a member of ORMN’s Class 3. “It was a great experience to continue my interest in nature that I had as a kid, my education and much of my professional life.” Alfred jumped right in to volunteer for “lots of projects” and immediately became a member of the ORMN Board as Treasurer.
 
When and how did you become interested in nature and the natural world?
“I got my love for nature from my mother,” Alfred observed.  “We had a big garden filled with trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals.” The family also had a large vegetable garden, in which Alfred loved to work from an early age. “I knew the name of most of what grew there in both Dutch and Latin,” he recalled. He started his first herbarium when he was 12 years old.  His post-secondary education and his profession as a flavor chemist all point to his enduring interest in the natural world.
 
Describe what you do on your property to support a healthy ecosystem.
When Alfred and his wife Valerie bought their property in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, they built their dream home. Valerie, an avid gardener, landscaped their home with both native and cultivar plants and had a large vegetable, herb and flower garden. Outside the small area around their home, however, they let nature be in control. After twelve years on this land, they decided to move to a smaller home site which they are still exploring. The area is great for nature walks “but I am dedicating most of my spare time to The Socrates Project right now,” Alfred stated. He knows that once the second edition of this seminal publication comes out, there will be time for “plenty of other projects to do that take me outside with Mother Nature.” 

Even though born in DC, Robin considers herself a lifelong Virginian, albeit one who loves to travel. “Traveling is similar to being out in nature, it’s just another type of discovery,” she explained. She spent two years in France after high school, where she lived with her aunt and uncle and attended the Alliance Francaise and the Sorbonne. A third year aboard was spent in art school in Florence where she worked in sculpture.  “Living aboard was very reasonable back then and the dollar went far, particularly with student credentials,” she noted. She returned to the States and obtained her degree from the University of Maryland in anthropology and comparative literature in 1969. “And one of my goals was to make enough money to make the next trip to Europe and later to get to more parts of the world,” she stated, “and I have seen a great deal of it, all wonderfully fascinating.”
 
Robin has lived in a number of places in Virginia, including Alexandria, where she was a travel agent as well as worked with antiques. She also lived in in Fairfax, Marshall, and Luray. She and her husband settled in Rappahannock in 2004. She became a certified Master Naturalist in 2009. When asked why she initially applied for the class, she said “I saw the ad for the class and it sounded like fun to me!” She has been having fun ever since, as her over 1,900 hours of volunteer service attest.
 
When and how did you become interested in nature and the natural world? While Robin spent a lot of time during her childhood in nature, it was with horses. She also taught horseback riding for many years. “You see a lot of nature when you’re riding a horse,” she explained. Since becoming a Master Naturalist, she has found her niche – invasive plant removal. She has long been interested in native plants and became concerned about how invasive plants such as garlic mustard and autumn olive were affecting Virginia’s native flora. “The more I learned about invasives, the more I saw them as I drove around Virginia. It depressed me seeing trees along roads being killed by nonnative vines.”
 
Describe what you do on your property to support a healthy ecosystem.
Robin and her husband Bill have 25 acres in Rappahannock. Their neighbors raise cows and also cut hay on Robin’s land. While her husband “loves to mow grass” she insisted on a big pollinator garden where she plants a large variety of native plants, including native host plants for butterflies and native nectar sources for butterflies and bees. Trees on her property include oaks, elms, hollies, and nut trees; shrubs include dogwoods, viburnums, spicebush and wafer ash; flowering plants include mountain mints, common violets, asters, mallow, indigo and wild senna. She encourages using locally native plants, if possible.  “In doing this” she says, “you will enjoy most of our native wildlife. They are adapted to the native flora.”    She recommends Douglas Tallamy’s book Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants as an excellent source for good plants to use.
 
Robin doesn’t cut down the plants in her pollinator garden when they are finished flowering. Instead, she leaves the seed heads and debris in the garden to provide food for birds during the winter, which also provides cover and haven for toads, skinks and other wildlife.   “The birds own my garden, not me,” she stated.  An example of “birds rule”: Robin planted pussytoes (Antennaria) in her pollinator garden specifically because it is host plant for the American Lady butterfly. She was delighted to see multiple caterpillars on her pussytoe plants that season. “Then a family of catbirds found them – and those little assassins ate every single one!”
 
Robin and her husband have spent a great deal of time removing invasive plants from the wooded edge to their hay field. “When we take out the invasive plants, native shrubs and then trees come up. It is fun to see and learn from what grows naturally.” They now have hickories and oaks and many other species that had been previously crowded out by invasives.
 
What is the most amazing thing you have experienced in nature?
“I had always wanted to see a Giant Swallowtail butterfly”, Robin shared, “as they are the largest butterfly in North America.” [Note: Giant Swallowtails are 4 – 6 inches in size.] “While these butterflies are most commonly seen in Florida, where they are considered a serious pest by citrus farmers,” she continued, “they are occasionally seen further north including here in Virginia.”
 
To entice this butterfly to her farm, Robin included one of the Giant Swallowtail’s favorite food – wafer ash (Ptelea trifoliate) – in her pollinator garden. While walking her dog one morning “a Giant Swallowtail flapped by my head and set down on my wafer ash, where it laid eggs on top of the leaves.” Robin explained that most butterflies lay their eggs on the underside of host plant leaves to hide the emerging caterpillars from hungry predators. Giant Swallowtails, however, have evolved a different way to deter predators. Their caterpillars look unappetizingly like bird droppings. Robin had her husband build a cage around the plant where the Giant Swallowtail had laid her eggs, in recognition that the mortality rate of butterfly larvae is enormous. “This was in July,” she said. “Three caterpillars survived and pupated in late summer. We took them into our garage, where they were dormant until the following May, when they emerged and flew away. I got to watch the whole process from egg-laying to mature butterfly.”

Going from a career as a banker to becoming a Master Naturalist might seem like a major life shift – but for Dera Cooper, it was a natural progression that reflects her lifelong love of animals and being outside in nature. Born in Dallas, Texas, Dera and her family moved around the United States as they followed her father’s career as an engineer. Connecticut was the last place she lived with her family before getting married and starting a family of her own. Her career as a banker included stints with JPMorgan and Bank of America, where she primarily worked with large nonprofits – including several conservation-oriented firms – as well as colleges and universities. When she and her husband David, who also had a career in banking, retired in 2016 they moved from Chevy Chase, Maryland to Madison County.
 
When and how did you become interested in nature and the natural world?
Dera has always loved animals. “There have always been dogs in my life”, she said. Like many girls, she also wanted to have a horse but to her disappointment, that never happened. Her interest in mammals continued when she became a Master Naturalist. One of her first volunteer activities was with the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI), where she drove a 15-passenger van that took visitors around the SCBI facility in Front Royal. She learned a lot about different endangered species and had the incredible opportunity to see an annual exam of one of their clouded leopards. [Note: This cat is considered a threatened species with a decreasing population trend. Since 90% of what is known about clouded leopards comes from research on captive populations, SCBI’s collaboration with international partners is providing critical information to efforts to protect this threatened animal.]
 
Describe what you do on your property to support a healthy ecosystem.
Dera and her husband moved to Virginia in 2016, where they brought a 54-acre parcel. “Part of the land was originally a tree farm,” Dera explained. The owner had planted a lot of different trees (mostly non-native) that he liked but in no particular order. There was also a significant amount of non-native invasive species on the property such as ailanthus, autumn olive, and bittersweet. Dera and her husband initially focused on removing plants that threatened their pond’s dam. “We have worked each year to remove the invasives and let the land ‘do its own thing’,” she explained. Some land is still in hay production and they have a good variety of pines and hardwoods such as hickory and oak. They have observed many mammals, including foxes, groundhogs, and in their first year, two young bears that walked up their driveway while they were sitting on their front porch (they moved inside right away). “There is a natural stand of blue sedge in the front yard that we don’t mow,” Dera explained. “We leave it for the birds.”
 
What is the most amazing thing you have experienced in nature?
When Dera and David lived in Maryland, they had a weekend house on the Eastern Shore. “I was standing outside looking over the water and a bald eagle barreled down from the sky, caught a humongous snake, and flew off. It was truly breathtaking” she said.
 
As the VMH Coordinator for ORMN, what would you like our members to know?
When they first moved to Virginia, Dera became friendly with her neighbor who encouraged her to become a Master Naturalist. As a member of ORMN’s Class 8, Dera took to heart the request made during class that member support in administrative functions was critical to the continuation of the chapter. So when the VMN Coordinator at the time stepped down, she accepted the responsibility and has been in this position for three years. “It is so important for each of the members to help with administrative tasks,” she said. “And to make a pitch for my area, you can put in your time in the comfort of your own home and earn volunteer hours really quickly!”
 
Dera described the importance of reporting volunteer hours, particularly volunteer hours for our State sponsors. “Our sponsors need this information to justify their involvement with us, which sometimes includes funding.” She continued, “If members don’t record volunteer hours, ORMN doesn’t get credit for all the time we collectively invest in our sponsors and partners.”
 
At the end of each calendar year Dera’s team “scrubs the data” to make sure everything is accurate. They check each entry for correctness and consistent language. They then compile it for inclusion in ORMN’s annual report which is submitted to the State VMN office. The State VMN compiles the data from chapters across the State and submits it to the various sponsors and partners.
 
Dera and her team are always ready to help any member who has problems with entering information into the VMN system. “The system is set up to allow you to go back and easily correct something you may have entered incorrectly.” The Volunteer Management System is being updated this coming year and Dera hopes it will be easier for members to use. She also hopes that members will take her plea to heart.  “Your volunteer hours are so valuable!” she said. “We want to be sure that our sponsors and partners know of the exceptional contributions made by the members of Old Rag Master Naturalists and you are recognized for all your hard work.”
 
Her ending request: “Let’s make sure VMN, our sponsors and our partners recognize how much we value them by documenting the many, many hours of support we give them each year.”
 
Interviewed by Charlene Uhl, November 13, 2020
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Carolyn Smith holds many positions in the Old Rag Master Naturalist chapter: citizen scientist, educator, committee chair, mentor, and a voice for natural habitats in Virginia. She was interviewed from her unique homestead that is a living example of how a cattle ranch can be transformed into a vibrant natural habitat that supports native flora and fauna.
 
When and how did you become interested in nature and the natural world?
Carolyn, a member of the ORMN class of 2015, has been interested in the natural world since early childhood. “My father and mother took me camping and hiking from a young age. I was in Girl Scouts. I was always outdoors,” she says. She believes her love of the natural world came from her father (a birder) and mother (a botanist) who passed their genes on to her. Her father in particular was always pointing out the rhythms of nature. He appreciated the spiritual dimensions of nature and considered it his cathedral.
 
Growing up as an Air Force “brat”, Carolyn lived throughout the US and abroad. Born in Tripoli, Libya, she lived with the family in Bangkok and Moscow.  During the two years her family lived in Moscow she attended a local Russian high school where she learned to speak Russian with a Moscow accent.  This in turn led to a career as an interpreter, much of which she spent in Geneva at the nuclear arms control talks between the US and Russia.  From there she went to the Sudan to work in a refugee camp, and later settled in the San Francisco Bay Area and had a second career in the non-profit world. 
 
Describe what you do on your property to support a healthy ecosystem.
When she was 15 years old and her father was stationed in the DC area, her parents started looking around for a piece of land in the country. In 1965 they found the 129-acre parcel of land in Madison County where Carolyn now lives. The land was an old family farm that then was used to raise cattle. Over time her parents transformed the landscape to one that is now 80% forest, includes three manmade ponds, marshy areas, and meandering paths through the woods dotted with native wildflowers. She remembers helping her parents heel in 20,000 pine seedlings, which now tower 90–100 feet.
 
Carolyn continues to add native plants, shrubs and trees to her land and will soon begin a cost-sharing project from the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) to install riparian buffers along the streams that run through the property.  This will involve taking 14 acres out of agricultural production and planting trees and wildflower meadows.
 
She has also invested significant time over the last 20 years in eradicating invasive plants, including autumn olive (Elaeagnus umbellate), Oriental bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus), mile-a-minute (Persicaria perfoliata), Japanese stiltgrass (Microstegium vimineum) and tree of heaven (Ailanthus altissima).  Her most enduring nemesis is garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata), which she calls “particularly pestilential” because it can quickly and thoroughly take over a wooded area. This noxious weed can produce thousands of seeds each year which remain viable in the soil up for to 10 years.  There used to be huge stands of garlic mustard in her woods but she has made great headway after years of compulsively pulling up, bagging and hauling it out of the woods, both on her land and (with permission) that of her neighbors.  
Carolyn is also on the lookout for invasive plants that are newly emerging threats to natives. She has found two on her land -- mulberry weed (Fatoua villosa) and incised fumewort (Corydalis incisa).  The fumewort flowers not only in spring but also in fall, and she’s trying to keep it from enlarging the  foothold it has already gained on her property.
 
What is the most amazing thing you have experienced in nature?
Carolyn shared two different experiences that reflect her appreciation of the expansiveness of nature. When she lived in California, she used to backpack with friends in Yosemite National Park.  She was awed by the “grand scale” of nature when the group would climb Half Dome, which rises 8,839 feet above sea level and has a 360-degree view.  “After the physical exertion required to get to the peak, the view was awesome, inspiring and a truly spiritual experience,” she says.

​She compares that to her other amazing experience, which is her 4-year study of the life cycle of the monarch butterfly as part of the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project. She described the day-by-day observations she makes, seeing this insect go from a tiny egg to an adult that flies from here to Mexico. Carolyn explained it gave her a new appreciation for living things beyond humans: their constant effort to ensure survival by avoiding predation, metamorphosis into a chrysalis, then emergence as a winged creature capable of traveling over 2,000 miles.

As Chair of ORMN’s Project Committee, what would you like our members to know?
Carolyn resisted becoming involved in administrative duties when she first became a member. She remembers former ORMN president Don Hearl saying “No one joins a Master Naturalist chapter to do administrative work but without it we can’t do what we joined to do – support and conserve nature.  So please consider joining the Board or a committee.”  Heeding his words, when the chapter’s first Projects Committee chair left her position two years ago Carolyn took her place.  She has enjoyed working with the other committee members and getting to know Board members.  She says there are individual perks as well, such as interacting with VMN people statewide and attending leadership workshops.
 
Carolyn views herself as a steward of her land. It took her family years to restore their property to a natural habitat that supports native animals, birds and insects. She accepts the responsibility to maintain and improve this vibrant environment. She continues to be enthralled with the mystery of nature and sees the doorway to learning as exciting and inspirational. “Natures soothes my spirit and fills my soul,” she says. “Like my father, nature is my cathedral where I feel closest to the infinite.”
 
Interviewed by Charlene Uhl, October 24, 2020

Have you ever looked at your land – be it a small garden, a large corner lot, a hay field, or whatever your spot on earth is and wondered: could I do something different here that would be beautiful, encourage butterflies, bees, birds and other animals to come? 

​This month’s Spotlight on Our Members features two Master Naturalists who have transformed a part of their land into a vibrant, colorful meadow that is filled with guests – plants, insects and animals - from nature. One member had a hay field and the other a portion of land that was not being used for any particular purpose. Read their stories of how they transformed these areas into meadows and their advice and lessons learned on how you could do it, too!

 Of the current 77 members of the Old Rag Master Naturalist (ORMN) chapter, Jack Price stands out in many ways – not the least of which is that he has earned over 6,500 volunteer hours since becoming a member in 2008. Jack was interviewed from his 10-acre homestead on Hazel Mountain, which abuts his beloved Shenandoah National Park.
 
How and when did you become interested in nature and the natural world?
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During his childhood in Connecticut on the Long Island Sound, Jack and friends would explore the tide pools at low tide, marvel at the storms that came in over the water, explore astronomy in the nighttime sky, and delight in walking through the then-wooded areas to find different birds and other forest wildlife. He thought he would grow up to work in a science field or an area related to nature. But his math and science teachers weren’t all that engaging “which reinforced the significant impact that teachers have on their students.” He ended up getting a BA in history and political science.
 
After serving four years in the Air Force, with a tour of duty in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, Jack began his lifelong career in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. This included working in human resource management at the VA Hospital in North Hampton, Massachusetts and at VA headquarters in Washington DC. He retired as head of HR policy for the VA hospital system.
 
Jack’s fascination with nature was reignited when he worked in the DC area. He became a member of the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club and explored much of Shenandoah National Park in his free time. This led to him becoming a member of the first ORMN class in 2007. He was a charter member of the ORMN chapter when it was officially established in 2008 and became its first president.  He subsequently served as Chair of the chapter’s education committee and as a member of its board of directors. 
 
The Virginia Master Naturalist program is supervised by the state coordinator and a Steering Committee made up of representatives of the state agencies that sponsor the program.  In 2014 the Steering Committee was expanded with the addition of four representatives from local chapters around the state.  Jack was one of four master naturalists appointed to serve in this important role and remains on the Steering Committee to this day.