Join Conserving Carolina for the 2018 Speaker Series at Walnut Creek Preserve (WCP), a free lecture on “Talking about Death Will Not Kill You; How to Make a Riveting Dinner Conversation,” presented by Carol Motley and Caroline Youngue of the Carolina Memorial Sanctuary, North Carolina’s first Conservation Burial Ground, on Saturday, February 17 at 10:30 a.m. at the Anne Elizabeth Suratt Nature Center at WCP.      

The program will discuss green burial and cremation and provide a revival of all things natural about death and how we came to be so mortified by it.  Death is the most natural thing that will happen to you since birth, yet it is a taboo subject.  The program will provide information that will help change this attitude, reveal myths, highlight the cycle back to a practical burial, and give us tools that will help us talk about our end of life without it becoming awkward. 

To get to Walnut Creek Preserve’s Nature Center from the Tryon and Columbus area, take Hwy 108 E and turn left on Hwy 9 toward Lake Lure.  Follow Hwy 9 N for 5 miles and turn right onto McGuinn Road (at the Exxon Station).  Go 1 mile to the intersection with Big Level Road; turn left, go 2/10ths of a mile and take the first right onto Aden Green Road.  Follow Aden Green for 4/10ths of a mile and turn left on Wood Thrush Lane and into Walnut Creek Preserve.  Take the first left onto Conservatory Lane, which takes you to the parking area for the nature center.

For more information or directions from another location, contact Conserving Carolina at 828-859-5060 or e-mail Pam Torlina at pam@conservingcarolina.org.  The next program at Walnut Creek Preserve will be held on March 10th, when Ann May, Education Center Director at the WRC Education Hub for the NC Wildlife Resources Commission, will present “Let’s talk about Scat,” a program on how to identify wildlife by the signs they leave behind. The program will take place at the Anne Elizabeth Suratt Nature Center at 10:30 a.m.

For more information about Walnut Creek Preserve, visit www.walnutcreekpreserve.com.  Please note, Walnut Creek Preserve is private property and guests are only allowed on the property by invitation (a planned event or scheduled group). 

Conserving Carolina, your local land trust, is dedicated to protecting and stewarding land and water resources vital to our natural heritage and quality of life and to fostering appreciation and understanding of the natural world.  For more info visit, www.conservingcarolina.org.

– submitted by Pam Torlina