Happy Friday — we’re back with more Hot Bones and a cool new tool. If you’ve ever wondered how much energy it really takes to power a lightbulb, run the washing machine, or watch 8 hours of Netflix when you meant to stop after 1 episode, now’s your chance.

Hannah Ritchie, the deputy editor at Our World in Data and author of climate books like Not the End of the World and Clearing the Air, created this interactive energy use (and pricing) tool that I’ve been having fun playing around with.

Here’s how some items compare:

Where are you using the most energy at home?

Do one long thumb scroll for more Cville-specific updates like local events, cool houses, and pets to adopt.

🐶 Speaking of: Stevie! This little bean has paws and ears to grow into, but right now she’s ready to crawl into your lap and make sure you don’t get any work done (hound, 4 months, 17 lbs).

Composting turns food scraps and yard detritus into amazingly nutrient-rich soil — and prevents that stuff from ending up in landfills, where it can create “garbage lasagna” aka layers of trash emitting the planet-warming gas methane.

So … for residents of the Cville area, Black Bear Composting is your ticket.

What Black Bear members get:

Bonus: You’ll get free finished compost (aka “gardener’s gold”) delivered once a year to supercharge your yard.

Become a Black Bear member here.

This past Sunday, I spent the better part of the evening removing hundreds of briars from our dog, Frannie, with both the exasperation of a dog owner whose dog didn’t respond to “here” and the satisfaction of someone who loves to pick at things.

While typically leash-bound, Frannie got to spend the weekend with her dog grandparents, who live on a farm in the foothills of the Blue Ridge. When she visits, it’s like she’s on another planet, and there is no leash on that planet. She spends two days running through fields, streams, and directly into briar patches in search of squirrels, rabbits, deer, anything with a pulse.

Thankfully, she’s yet to catch anything out there, but I haven't forgotten about the night last summer, right after we adopted her, when she accidentally caught a bird. I had to army crawl under our porch deck in my pajamas to catch her and pry open her jaws. It was hell.

So I worry about the wildflower meadow this spring.

It’s beautifully crafted, with bright coneflowers and dogwood saplings and asters and tall native grasses, all planted to encourage songbirds and small creatures to gather, eat, and rest. To make a home and let their guard down. So by unfortunate extension, it’s also like it was made for sniffy hound dogs.

In fact, it’s like Frannie was in the planning meeting for the meadow design.

Here’s what I’m imagining:

“Yes yes, native grasses are good but can we make absolutely sure they’re the thorn-free varieties?” Frannie asks as she sniffs and licks the most recent meadow landscape sketches.

“And that goldenrod, can you confirm it’ll attract songbirds? Like, a lot of songbirds.”

A design intern nods vigorously.

“Yes, good. Double that then.”

The intern types rapidly on a laptop.

“Now I’d like to move on to the agenda item about bunnies,” Frannie says as she sits at the head of the conference table.

“How do we get more bunnies into the meadow? Who has the pulse on bunny habits these days?”

Frannie pauses. She puts her whole hind foot in her mouth. “The briars are killing me this year” she says as she pulls a thorn from her paw with her front teeth.

The team pretends to check their email.

“Okay enough of that. Let’s plan on new sketches by EOD Wednesday,” Frannie says. “And please don’t send them to me as pdfs again. I don’t understand how to open those.”

As the intern and esteemed landscape architects shuffle out of the meeting, Frannie leaves them with some inspirational advice: “And don’t forget about squirrels, team. Peak season may not be until October, but the planning starts now! Good work, all.”

The new meadow plans arrive on Wednesday as promised. My parents start executing by EOW.

And as if by the sheer will of this hound dog alone, nearly 50,000 other people have also started planting these types of natural spaces all over the US.

It’s called the Homegrown National Park movement.

The Homegrown National Park movement encourages people across the country to transform even a pocket of their outdoor space into a biodiversity haven. To turn it back wild.

The best way to do that is to get rid of any invasive species and plant a ton of natural plants and trees instead. (Invasive plants like kudzu crowd out biodiversity, whereas endemic species support native wildlife.) Simple as that. And you can “rewild” no matter what your current setup is: a Kentucky Bluegrass lawn, a backyard mud pit, a patio flower pot, a small woodlot, or an entire farm.

The reason we need all hands on deck is that we’re losing species left and right. For example, we’ve lost nearly 3 billion birds in North America in the past 50 years. Scary stuff. And Frannie only killed one of them.

So speed is the biggest hurdle right now. We can’t rewild land fast enough.

True, we do already have preserved wild places like our national park system. But those parks are completely distinct from day-to-day life. By comparison, the Homegrown National Park movement brings nature right into our backyards. It’s a novel approach to conservation because it allows humans and nature to coexist right from our window boxes.

Doug Tallamy, famed ecologist and cofounder of the movement, explains the math.

And while the biodiversity angle is great, there’s also a really long list of personal benefits for a homegrown park:

If you’re my wife and you’ve taken literally a single whiff of spring air, you may want to start planting your tiny national park right now.

What we’ve actually done so far is decide on the location for our native wildflower area (the side yard, a full fence away from Frannie’s prowling), and we’ve ordered the plants. We’ve also decided this summer to pull up the liriope in the front yard (invasive).

My Home Park is a recommended partner for the movement, and you can order individual plants, seeds, or pre-designed gardens through their site, all curated depending on your location. Manhattanites, they also have potted plant versions.

(Piedmont Master Gardeners is also an incredible local resource.)

I make no pretenses of being good with plants — longtime readers will remember when I tried to move an azalea bush, cut my hand on the shovel, and then passed out on the kitchen floor — so we went with the pre-designed “purple mountains” native garden for our order. It includes joe pye weed, ironweed, switch grass, asters, and two types of sunflowers. It looks amazing and bright.

We’ll need to figure out the part about getting rid of the lawn grass and readying the beds, but that is for later. Right now, we have our purple mountain vision and, most importantly, new twinkle lights in the backyard.

Step 1: Plant native plants and seeds

Step 2: Remove invasive species (if you’ve got em)

Step 3: Get on the map

The interactive biodiversity map is how we’ll know when this project gets bigger than Yosemite et al. Right now, you can register your natural spaces, as well as see how many other people and organizations have contributed, including nearly 3,000 amazing folks in Virginia. As a state, we’ve turned over 6,000 acres into biodiverse habitats for the Homegrown National Park project.

Frannie is planning on sniffing through each acre, but she’ll be on a leash I promise.

Nothing better than Charlottesville serving up 70 degree afternoons. This is Frannie when she’s not in a briar patch, by the way.

👢 Dress to impress, and eat pastries: Le Marché du Soleil is hosting a vintage pop-up at Cou Cou Rachou all weekend long (9am - 2pm).

⛷️ Toodles, snow: Wintergreen’s annual pond skimming event is this weekend, and it’s the perfect send off for ski season (Saturday at noon).

🐝 Top story on point: Get the garden basics on flowering native plants. These Piedmont Master Gardeners classes always fill up before I can get to them, but this one’s still open (April 18 at 10am, free).

🏠 Battle of the Victorians this week: Downtown Staunton rocking the spooky woodwork, plus exposed brick fireplaces, fully renovated bathrooms, and my biggest pet peeve: a split kitchen sink (3 bed, 3 bath, $540k) 👉 vs 👈 downtown Waynesboro boasting an actual turret, plus transom windows, a secret kitchen passthrough, and … a split kitchen sink (4 beds, 2 baths, $635k).

🏡 Cool rental of the week: Renovated Belmont cutie with original hardwood floors and a lush, fully fenced yard (3 beds, 2 baths, $2,375/month).

🐦 More pretty birds: Join the Piedmont Virginia Bird Club for an early morning spring bird walk at Panorama Natural Burial grounds (free on Saturday, March 21 starting at 8am).

🚲 Project bikes starting at $10: Cville Community Bikes is having a yard sale with vintage mechanic specials next Friday, March 13, 11am - 4pm. Live music after.

💼 Job of the week: Community Farm Seasonal Grower at the Piedmont Environmental Council ($18 - $22/hour, April - October).

💾 Remote job: Senior Manager of the Species Fund at Re:wild ($90k - $110k).

Have an event or rec you’d like to share? Hiring? Interested in advertising? Share any and all info here.