Recent Articles from BRMC Newsletters

Seasons of Change

This past year was filled with changes. Jeremy and Michael Ann with their children Eli, Gussie, and Atticus moved to Weyers Cave, VA. Jeremy had served as our caretaker for four and a half memorable years. One day during the summer after Gussie was born, Michael Ann walked into my office with Gussie in one hand and a four-foot black rat snake in the other. She simply asked if there was more that she could do to prevent this snake from coming back onto her porch. After all she did not care if they were in the basement rafters, but she wanted to prevent them from visiting the porch and eating the chicks in a phoebe’s nest above their entrance way.

It was a gift to have Jeremy and Michael Ann in our headquarters for those years. They made the mountain house a home, while providing stability in a once ephemeral position. Their perserverance is agruably the catalyst that firmly established BRMC as the steward of the Bull Run Mountains. If that was not enough they put us in contact with their replacement, John Warden, who is quickly becoming a favorite among patrons of BMRC.

We also witnessed the departure of BRMC’s first full-time naturalist, Tanya Amrhein. Tanya was with us for over three-years and helped to develop and provide numerous education programs. She quickly learned to not only collect macro-invertebrates in the five perrennial streams we monitor, but she also learned to identify them. Skills that helped her obtain her new position with Fairfax county.

When you work with a small staff developing an organiztion, you become closer for your struggles. I cannot thank Jeremy, Michael Ann, and Tanya enough for not only sharing the vision for BRMC, but helping to make it a reality.