 Before we end, I wanted to acknowledge and announce some native plant awards to two couples that have done some fantastic work in Kentucky. So let me share my screen real quick. Okay, so this is the first year that we're going to give out awards. There are so many folks that are doing some great work in the state. But I really wanted to highlight two groups of folks that have done some fantastic work. So first the native plant stewardship award. So this award this year is going out to Jeff Nelson and Liz Nehoff. This is an award that actually is going to be given out by the Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves, but the native plant society is now also going to adopt, giving out native plant awards as well. So this award is being given to Jeff and Liz from both organizations. So just a background on Jeff and Liz. Jeff Nelson was born in San Francisco, California, and grew up in Sunnyvale, California, he received a BS in chemistry from the University of California at San Barbara. And Liz Nehoff was born at home in rural McCracken County, Kentucky. She received a BA in sociology from San Jose State University in San Jose, California. Jeff Liz and their son Aaron moved from California to McCracken County, Kentucky in 1987. So after building their house on their 10 acres, the family has spent the last 30 plus years restoring the property from farmland to native woodland. Jeff was employed as an IT director at of the of the Paduca Independent School District for 15 years retiring in 2008. So hence Jeff is our webmaster he is an IT guru. Liz was self employed for many years as a gardener and landscape designer and has spent much of the past 30 years removing exotic invasive species from their 10 acre restoration. He has been a member of the Kentucky Native Plant Society since the early 1990s and Jeff has been on the board of KMPS since 2017. Since 2019 they have shared responsibilities as nature preserve monitors at Metropolis Lake State Nature Preserve in McCracken County. And as lifelong amateur naturalist Jeff and Liz love exploring Kentucky and learning about the rich diversity of the Commonwealth's many ecosystems. I can't say enough about Jeff and Liz I absolutely love, love them so much. You know from their work on invasive species. Jeff's work and now using iNaturalist and mapping different interesting plants that he finds. Rare species updates, general preserve monitoring. Of course, Jeff is also our webmaster and esteemed board member. The restoration of their their property is just fantastic. They also do native work at restoration on their property and work with partners to increase increase native orchids. And they've volunteered for our roadside native plant project. So just just some amazing people. Not only that they're amazing nature photographers. They also manage the Native Plant Society social media pages and their content is regularly shared and loved by thousands of nature enthusiasts. And I also wanted to just to just mention, you know, often when Jeff posts different photos Liz is always hiding in the background so I'm always trying to find where Liz is in the photos. And she's here and she's also an amazing poet. So, here's a poem by Liz Red Fox sits beneath the black cherry tree, knowing only Gray Fox perched above could climate with patients of Job eyes ears on point Red Fox six and weights for rain of Gray Fox's feast. So, thank you Jeff and Liz for all of your work from, and this is from the Native Plant Society and the office Kentucky nature reserves. So, Jeff and Liz I don't know if you want to say a few words. Where are you guys can can you. Yeah, yeah. Can we highlight everybody. Let's see. Make sure that you guys are spotlighted so that we can see you. Okay, yep, we are. Okay. Let me tilt the thing. Yeah, just thank you for that that's that's really nice and thank you for everything and Liz said when we started, we're now 30 years into a 200 year restoration project. And so, we just love native plants and all the critters that depend on the native plants so indeed. Thank you all very much. Awesome. This will go on. Never give up. Thank you so much. And look to our newsletter for more information about Liz and Jeff, we're going to be creating an article about this. All right, so I will just want to mention one other award. So I'm going to give you an article that will be giving out and highlights the work of and Milligan and Steven Brown with the native plant diversity award. So some of you folks may know and Milligan from social media posts on Facebook from the Louisville seed swaps. I'm going to put more background on and Steven so they currently reside in semi rural southeast Jefferson County, and as an oil painter and Steven Brown is the author and historian. So over the past 12 years they have transformed their yard into a native plant sanctuary. We all know the work of Doug to Lammy's work bringing nature home promoting native plants and gardening. Among other things, well and and Steven are just as inspirational and our Kentucky heroes in that regard. This show us how the power of just a few individuals can start a movement and inspire others to join them. So over the past 12 years they've transformed their yard and realizing the amount of native seed that they were producing. They decided to share their love of native seeds and start seed swaps and that has been just wildly popular throughout Jefferson County. And they just wrote a book. I have it here called you can't see it because of my background but let the earth breathe and I encourage you to find that and get yourself a copy just to learn more about the details of and and Steven's work with their native plant restoration in their yard. So this is a and also just recently started a nonprofit let the earth breathe to about this restoration process and the seed swaps and there's also some really great Facebook groups for the seed swaps to join particularly if in your if you're in that region. And and just wrote an article for the native plant society on this process and encourages everybody to start their own seed swaps across the state. So those are just photos of the recent seed swaps. But I just I've just loved watching over the past couple of years, this develop and so excited that and and Steven have published a book so and I don't know if you are on here. Yeah, but I don't know how to make myself. Okay, Jeff will spot Jeff will spotlight you. Okay, thank you Jeff. Okay, so do you want to say a few words. There we are. Hey, all right. First of all just want to say really quickly because we're almost at the end how much I've enjoyed this. This symposium I've been here since the beginning today and I'm absolutely amazed at the amount of work that's being done. But this are amazing people in the world. I'm so proud of all of you and everything that you're doing everywhere around Kentucky. I'm really, really impressed. Right. So what we are in Kentucky is we're serving we are suburban nights we, we love the well but we live in suburbia and our job is to make sure that suburbia plants native species in our yards and we want it to start with our neighborhood and we want it to spread out to our city through regions and then we want it to spread from our regions around the state. And just want to say that Margaret Shay at drop seed nursery is sort of the core she sort of the native plants guru of our area and we started our project she's who we went to and in the end she'll be the one we go to. And it's such a resource here and we're so so honored to be a part of extending what they're doing at drop seed nursery out to suburbia so thanks so much for asking us and if you wanted the book you'll you can learn everything about where we're at and where we're going we hope we're going at lettheearthbreathe.org you can buy the book there you can read up on what we're doing you can keep up with what we're doing on lettheearthbreathe.org and also you can buy the book let the earth breathe on Amazon. By just clicking in let the earth breathe book and also on our website lettheearthbreathe.org thank you. Thank you so much. All right, let's see. So I was going to open this up for any questions or comments. Originally I was going to do a native plant stakeholders updates for folks that are doing some really great work across the state on on other native plant projects, we don't have too much time but I encourage folks. You know, if you're whether an organization or an individual if you're working on a really awesome native plant project, you know, write an article for the native plant society and we can and highlight your work. Let us know what you're doing. And just just communication. And yeah, Heidi do we have any questions or comments. There was one question for you. If we find a population of an unusual or rare wildfire what is the best way to contact you with info or photos. Yeah, so I can provide my email. If you wanted to email me directly I know what Vanessa had talked about with a naturalist and in our, you know, rare plant volunteer programs that we're trying to start on i naturalist that's also a good way. And with rare plants of course we obscure our data. But you know if you put a rare plant on i naturalist, you will get contacted by me or Vanessa or other folks at at nature preserves and we'll get that but yeah I can put my email down as well. If anyone want to contact me. Jeff you got something. Yes, I did. I have a question. When are y'all coming down here.