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Miniature World...

6/16/2020

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PictureThe intricacy of a leaf under the water.
       If you don’t like to look at pond water under a microscope we can’t be friends. Well, alright we can be friends but at some point in our friendship, I am probably going to ask you to join me in viewing the miniature world. If you aren’t fascinated by what you see I will expect you to feign interest or I will wonder about your character. When I was in Kindergarten, the neighboring classroom had a big jar of magnifying glasses at the front of the room. Our classroom did not. Occasionally we would visit the other class to interact socially or something. I don’t know the purpose of the visit but meeting with friends was not what was on my mind. The visit always meant I could get my hands on those magnifying glasses. I usually spent the entire unstructured time looking all the room with them. In high school, I vaguely remember using microscopes. We used prepared slides of flat, long-dead organisms stained odd colors that had probably been there since my grandfather was the science teacher and they didn’t stay in my memory. We looked at live cheek cells once but all I remember is a classmate swabbing her cheek for the cells. I was grossed out and much more into the social aspect of the class experience than seeing the cheek cells themselves. In college, I took a biology class. In one of the labs, there were microscopes set up around the room as we walked in and the teacher announced that we were going to look at pond water and specifically for something called rotifers which I had never heard of. I took my sample and placed it under the lens. To my complete fascination, there were tiny clear creatures moving in what seemed like a clear drop of water to the unaided eye. The rotifers were easy to spot as they had small rotating filaments near their heads to help them ingest food. I still remember how embarrassed I felt when I realized that in my excitement, I was moving quickly around the room loudly asking my fellow students if they were seeing the rotifers and how incredibly cool the experience was. I tried to calm down but I never forgot the amazing things I saw. 
      One of my favorite things that I have been able to share with my students is looking at pond water. I take it from my pond in 5 gallons buckets, first filling the bucket with water and then scooping up moss and dead grass with my hands and depositing it in with the water. I take the buckets to school. The experience is a good workout and builds muscles. That’s what I keep telling myself anyway. First, we search through and identify the macro-organisms, and then we use the microscopes to observe the microorganisms. Not only do the students get to have the hands-on experience of searching through the moss and grass in their containers and finding small wriggling creatures of all shapes and sizes (finding leeches is still the all-time favorite), I can take that experience and learning in any direction. We can move on to food webs, habitats, body systems, etc. So much can be introduced with a quick delve into the watery world. My students don’t get as excited as I do about using the microscopes, or maybe they do but they don’t show it by running around the room voicing their excitement loudly. They are, after all, in middle school and usually cool is king.  
      I decided to look at pond water under a microscope this week since things around the pond are simply continuing to progress toward their summer vitality. The cattails have started to grow in their usual spot in the far corner. We got a new lawnmower this week after ours being broken since the mowing season began. The back pond, akin to a jungle before, is now more tame and docile as my husband mowed around it. I’ve always been torn between a maintained lawn and a wild lawn. Sometimes we like to let it grow up, much to the dismay of our neighbors I’m sure, to see what will grow. We have lots of interesting wildflowers and new trees from this practice. One year I ended up with sweet william growing at the edge of my lupine patch. This plant is not a wildflower and I figured the seeds must have been brought in by a bird. So cool! This year I had to defend my wild strawberry patch from mowing. I guess after not having a mower for so long my husband was excited to master the lawn. My son is also learning to mow and it is surprising that anything is safe from the whirring, chopping blades. Who knew mowing could be so much fun! The crows are still loud and active. We think we found one of the babies dead near the edge of the pond in front of the house. I discovered it and I wasn’t sure which type of bird it was at first. It sat still near the water as if it were hiding and it might fly up at me at any second. I thought it might be a ground-nesting bird sitting on a nest. I carefully reached down to see why it was being so still. That’s when I realized it wasn’t alive. We’re assuming it fell from the nest, whether it survived the fall and was carried there by an animal, or if it ended up there itself we will never know. We have seen both the male and female mallards on the pond together this past week. She doesn’t have any babies, yet. I’m wondering if her eggs didn’t make it with the cold weather we had this spring. She may have another clutch later in the summer. We’re hoping. The daisies are about to open. I keep checking them everyday. It seems like they came up and got tall so quickly but they seem to be taking forever to blossom. I guess a watched daisy never blooms. One evening, in between scratching mosquito bites and swatting at the little heathens, I scooped up some pond water along with some moss and grass into a flat container. Once back in the house, itchy from my short excursion to the pond, I took out my microscope to see what miniature beings I had captured. It always astonishes me to see the peaceful world under the lens. I like to put the water in a petri-dish and then I can move it around and observe different things. At first, the water is still, lots of brown detritus with wisps of green from living moss and small pond weeds. Then, suddenly, a minuscule clear creature, only discernible by its outline, zooms through the scene. I start to focus on movement and notice the outline of a circular shape moving slowly around the edge of the moss, presumably eating maybe the moss or other zooplankton to small for me to see. Other clear creatures of different shapes and sizes meander through my field of view. As some of them lurk near the moss and other debris their insides turn from clear to the color of what they are near. It is obvious that they are eating it. Amazing! I have always spent a lot of time in my yard but I have reveled in this opportunity to observe my favorite spaces close up these past few weeks. As I sit here anticipating an 80-degree day it's hard to believe that my first post started with knee-deep snow. I am looking forward to continuing my observations into the fall and finding pleasure in the seemingly minute changes from week to week.  
   

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Do you see the bug face? It looks so large but I could barely see it with my unaided eyes.
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observing the  Details

6/6/2020

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PictureJewelweed. I ended up tracing a leaf.
​    I can’t draw. Lots of people say that they can’t draw, but I really cannot. There are two reasons that I believe are the root cause. The first reason is that I lack spatial reasoning skills. I didn’t even know that spatial reasoning was a thing until high school when we took a test and I had to tell what some flat segmented squares would look like if they were folded up into boxes. I failed miserably as I had no concept whatsoever about how they would all go together. The second reason might also inform the first and that is one of attention and attention to detail. I can conjure the concept of a moose or other object in my mind’s eye, I can picture the details somewhat, but when it comes to putting it on paper my hand cannot make the connections. When I draw pictures on the board for my students at school I do a lot of labeling because a blob with lines coming out of it is a deer and a smaller blob is a rabbit. My students and I often get a good chuckle out of me trying to draw, especially if I try to put details. I am always as surprised as they are to see what my hand ends up creating. I didn’t realize how bad my deficit is until my daughter started drawing. Her talent amazes me. She shows attention to detail and will work until the picture is just how she wants it. 
    I mention my deficiency in drawing to introduce the idea of drawing the natural world. It had never occurred to me until a few years ago why anyone would want to draw something in nature. I learned to draw flower petals when I was in the first grade and that was enough for me. When using field guides, I usually prefer to use ones with photographs, although as I get older, I am finding that I appreciate the value drawings of flora and fauna offer. I always understood the purpose of nature journaling as a way to remember what plants look like and what flora and fauna are seen at certain times of the year. This view of the usefulness of such a craft did little to entice me as I have never had trouble remembering plants. It is unfortunate for those that go hiking with me that I not only remember all of the plants that I have ever learned, but I can tell when I first saw them, and how I first identified them or who taught them to me. I say unfortunate because I have been known to launch into an unsolicited anecdotal story when I see plants that I especially like. I didn’t know that not all people aparently possess this ability until I noticed my husband forgetting plants that I know he was able to identify before and my children not remembering plants that I had taught them in seasons past.
    The true value of nature journaling, however, has slowly seated itself in my mind. Recognizing the details of how plants change over time and being able to point out certain details to confirm identification for others is very important. When people ask me how I know for certain the id of a plant, I am not usually able to point to certain characteristics, I just know. I can see the value of taking time to observe the details. I decided to sit and do just that this week. I drew mint, horsetail, and jewelweed. I was surprised and excited at the questions that arose as I observed closely to include all of the details. Some of the questions that I wondered about are which plants have alternate, opposite, or whorled leaves? How many leaves does each section of horsetail have and is the number consistent all the way up? I tried to draw exactly what I was seeing with little success. It occurred to me that I could still try to include details and label what I was drawing for future reference. I am going to try nature journaling with my own children. I am interested as much in what they will draw as what they will have to say about the process.   
    This week more dragonflies have emerged and I noticed damselflies for this time this season. I have had adults tell me that they are terrified of dragonflies and I find that often it is because when they were children adults told them stories, such as if you say something mean a dragonfly will sew up your mouth with its “tail”. Or that the “tail” was a stinger. I have always told people that dragonflies don’t bite. I believed it until I tried to rescue one from the window in our garage and upon catching it it continued to bite me until I released it outside. The bite didn’t hurt, it was more of a pressured pinch but it was a little startling. This week the apple blossoms did indeed expire from the trees. The striking puff of white that graced the far end of the pond is now green and other than the pleasing distinct shape of the apple tree, short in stature and wide at the top apple trees always seem round and dwarfed, it no longer stands out as the green blends with the grass and surrounding trees. At the beginning of the week, I noticed what looked like small white balls in clusters all over the branch of the ash tree that hangs out over the trail. I knew that they would be flowers. By the end of the week they had blossomed into small, feathery-white clusters and their malodor filled the air as we walked by. Ash leaves don’t smell sweet. I can’t describe the smell. It isn’t horrible but it is not something you would subject yourself to a second time by getting your nose too close. As fall nears the blossoms will turn into bright orange berries, hanging en mass in beautiful contrast to the backdrop of green. The baby crows have been cawing and at this point, the leaves are too thick to be able to see the nest in any detail. It is exciting to be standing near though and see and hear the parents land to the uproarious cries of their young. We have also noticed the grackle flying out and returning often with worms in her mouth. She is obviously feeding something be it her young or perhaps a cowbird. My husband pointed out that she ascends to her nest like she is climbing a spiral staircase. She lands on the branches below her nest and hops up and around the tree to her roost. I wonder if she does this to try to keep her actual nest site a secret? The nest can’t be seen at all from the ground and although I have listened often I have not heard any peeping. I am thinking that might change as the babies grow this week.  

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Salamander Larva
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Damselfly. Damselflies rest with their wings together while dragonflies rest with their wings spread apart.
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Ash blossoms at the beginning of the week.
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Ash blossoms by the end of the week.
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    I live in Maine with my husband, children, dogs, cat and chickens. I am a middle school science teacher with a passion for sharing nature and science with children.  

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