Friday, July 28, 2017

Summer Snippets

June 21: Driving home, the sun has set, but the sky is filled with the oranges and yellows of the afterglow. The clouds contrast the warm colors with their deep purple of dusk. Farmland, barns and silos silhouette the night canvas. Fireflies blink on and off floating up and down sending out their mating lights.

Welcome summer in all your glory!

July 7: Two does and two fawns came into the yard last night. The fawns are still spotted. They pranced and danced, excited for their adventure. Two rabbits watched. The fireflies brought attention to the dwindling light as their little lights beckoned for a mate.

This morning, a turkey came to eat sunflower seeds. The red-winged black birds didn't want to share. Poor turkey was under attack. She flapped and jumped and ran away to escape those pesky birds.

July 8: Turkey flew up into the trees from the brush as the dogs caught her scent and began to search. Dogs everywhere. A turkey chick runs out squawking on the path before it disappears back into the brush. Dogs gathered. Everyone safe. Staying away from the field for a while.

July 15: Dragonfly Lays her eggs on the lake at Walcamp

July 19: Art from Nature

July 20: The scent of lavender transports me to Maui and France. Baking Blueberry Lavender Muffins and making herbal iced tea. (Sweet mint, lime basil, lavender, chamomile, and red clover).

July 21: Still Life in Green
 July 26: Little girl at camp doesn't join with any other kids. Doesn't engage with the counselors. She puts sand all over her body. She says it is so she can wash it off.

Alone.

She wanders into the water out to the shallow end rope. She continues to follow the rope to the side boundary until she is back at shore.

Alone, talking to herself.

My lifeguard tube can help me rescue a struggling swimmer, but has no power to help someone connect with people.

Saturday, April 22, 2017

Worm and Butterfly: A Spring Forest Story

by Sarah Tobias
Worm was sound asleep deep in the soil when he was awakened by a poke.
“Who’s there?” he asked, but no one answered so he curled back up when . . .
Poke . . .
Poke.
“Hey!” he yelled in his tiny little voice. “Stop poking me, I’m trying to sleep though winter.
Worm moved a little deeper in the soil, curled up, and was almost asleep when . . .
POKE!

Worm couldn’t see a thing, but he had tiny bristles all along his body that worked almost as well as eyes so he began to investigate. He headed up and discovered that the thing that was poking him was long and slender, soft and fresh. Up, up, up he went, the soil and the slender thing getting cooler as he went until he bumped head first into a big clump of long slender things. He pushed and twisted his way around and out of the soil and onto it.

“Hmm,” he said out loud to no one, “The earth smells green.” And then, “What’s green?”
“It’s a color,” said a bee as it buzzed over the worm. Can’t you see that spring is here?”
“No, I can’t see, I don’t have eyes,” replied the worm.
“Oh, sorry,” the bee buzzed. “I didn’t know.”
“Would you be my eyes?” asked the worm.
“No time. The Queen does not like us dilly dallying around. Gotta go.” Off the bee buzzed, the vibration of the wings tickling every hair on worm’s body.

Worm was starting to get warm and feeling a bit dry, so he crawled under some leaves and started to eat.
Something landed on the leaf over his back.
“Ooh!” he quivered and wiggled out from under the leaf.
A butterfly flapped her wings and turned to look down at worm.
“So sorry. I didn’t see you there. I was too busy tasting the flowers.
“Flowers?” asked worm.
“Oh yes, they are quite beautiful and filled with a delicious juice. Look up. They are blue and green and pink and yellow and . . . Butterfly ran out of breath.

“I can’t see,” said worm.
“I didn’t realize.”
“Do you have time to tell me more?”
“I’d love to as long as you don’t mind if I drink along the way.”
“Not at all. I hope you don’t mind if I eat?”
Butterfly didn’t mind and she flew up to a bunch of flowers.

“This flower is blue and a little bit pink. You know when the sun shines and you feel kind of hot? Well, that’s yellow – bright yellow – squint your eyes yellow. Oops, sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“That’s OK, I know you didn’t mean anything mean, but I understand what you said, Hot means dry and I head for cover – so that’s yellow. But what ‘s blue?”

“Well, when a cloud floats in front of the sun, you can see the sky is a beautiful blue. It’s bright and cooling. Like a breeze.”
“Oh, I know blue – it’s when my bristles are tickled by the wind.”
“Yes, these flowers are the color of the breeze tickling your bristles.”

“Then what is pink?” worm asked.
“Pink is soft and gentle.”
“Like when I meander through the grass.”
“Sure,” replied butterfly, who wasn’t sure at all.

“Tell me more.”
“Well, there are a bunch of flowers and they droop like dresses hanging and dangling in the wind.”
“Like dresses?”
“I don’t know either,” said butterfly. “That’s just what came to me.
“Oh,” replied worm. Kind of like how I know green – I just know.”
“Yes!” exclaimed butterfly.

Butterfly was busily drinking nectar and worm got hot and bored. He wriggled down into the leaves and was thinking about going deeper into the soil when he bumped into a new plant.
“Hey,” he called. “What’s this? It feels different that the other flower you were talking about.”
Butterfly flew down into the tangle of plants.
“Pee eww! I don’t know, but it smells yucky.”

Just then a fly flew down. “I don’t think it smells so bad.” And the fly disappeared into the flower.
“Yum—mmmmmmmmmm hum—mmmmmm” went the fly and then there was no sound at all.
“The flower ate the fly!” cried worm. With courage he didn’t know he had, he wriggled over to the flower, lifted up on his back end and leaned into the flower.
“Fly, fly are you OK?”
“Grunt, hum-mm, buzz, what? Oh, sorry, I fell asleep. That’s tasty pollen and it’s nice and warm in here. I bet there’s more pollen in other flowers.” And off flew fly.

An army of ants marched up.
“Are they ready yet?” asked the head ant.
“Are what ready yet?” responded worm.
“The seeds. They make good eating.”
“Oh, I don’t know, fly just said the pollen tasted good.”
“Not ready then.” The ants marched off.

“Yummy!” came the distant sound of butterfly.
“What?” called worm. “What is it?”
“It’s shiny bright yellow.”
“Be careful – Hot! Hot! Hot!” exclaimed worm.
“It’s that kind of color, but not hot. It’s like butter, shiny and smooth, almost slippery.”
Before butterfly could taste more nectar, a big bumble bee buzzed in and bumped butterfly out of the way.

“Oh, look!” cried butterfly flitting over to a tall stand of lavender flowers. Out came her proboscis and she began to drink. “Hum-mmmm.”
“What is it asked worm?”
Iths pupple.” Mumbled butterfly not even stopping to roll up her tongue.
“Pupple?”

Butterfly stopped drinking for a moment. “Purple, light lovely purple. It’s the best! The tastiest color. So many flowers. I have to go worm. I’m really hungry.” Without another word, butterfly flew to the next flower and drank and drank and drank.

“Purple – tastiest color ever.” Worm thought for a moment and said to on one in particular, “Like the soil. Purple is the soil.” With that worm wiggled down into the cool dark earth and he ate and ate and ate.

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

April Photo/Poetry Challenge

Life is full of challenges. Why not take charge of your own?

Spring is here and I am ready to challenge myself to get out and take photographs everyday. I called it a photo challenge, but it is also National Poetry Month, so I will try to write a new haiku or other type of poem each day as well.

You are welcome to join me on this journey and spend time working on your creativity too. Feel free to share your images with me.

There are no special requirements. You can use a "fancy" camera or smart phone, you can edit or not. Post to a social media sight or just save them for yourself. It's your journey, make it what you want.



Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Happy Birthday, Albert Einstein Let's Have Pi

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research."
This is one of my favorite quotes by Einstein. Today is his birthday and therefore, in my opinion, a good day to celebrate. It also happens to be Pi Day and, well, that gives us a great excuse to eat Pie and learn about math. For the last several years, I have used this day to gain a better understanding of both Einstein and Pi. I have learned that while Einstein did not discover Pi or name Pi, he did use pi (π) in his work. Pi is used in understanding the circadian rhythms of our sleep, planning
flight patterns, making our GPS' work, and much much more.
decided this year to celebrate Einstein's birthday and Pi with some art and imagination. I wanted to play and also work on a project that my sister, who is developmentally disabled, could work on as well. I went upstairs to my art closet to get some large paper. Then I got caught up in ideas and possible things that we could use. After a while, Jane was upstairs wondering what I was doing. I was really on a bit of a mental walk down memory lane as I had come across some of my old artwork. Pieces buried and hidden in a closet. A stark reminder that I have hidden my talent and desire to be an nature artist for a long time. She woke me out of my reverie. I then attempted to explain to her a little bit about Pi and plans for the day.

I grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and I drew a circle. I explained that the number 3.14 was the number for pi and that it is always the ratio between the diameter of a circle and its circumference. Since it is hard to measure around a circle, if you measure across the center/widest part of the circle and multiply it times pi, you will get the size of the circumference every time no matter the size of the circle. Jane nodded and agreed with what I said. So far so good.
We then proceeded to gather supplies for our art projects that would be an Ode to Pi and Imagination. I found several items that were round and could be traced to make circles. I pulled out my father's compass set.


Grabbed a few old magazines and a stack of old photographs that have languished in a drawer long enough. We took our supplies down to the dining room table and started to create. 



We drew and painted, traced, cut and glued. Along the way, I wrote a few haiku's. Not sure why, but I enjoy fitting my thoughts into the simple 575 syllable structure of these Japanese poems. (In case you are wondering the number combination 575 appears in the 411th position after the decimal point of Pi).







We took a break for lunch and had . . .
Circumference of pizza = 26.7035 inches
Circumference of pepperoni = 3.9269 inches
Area of pizza = 56.7449 square inches (ℼrsquared)
After several hours of cutting and playing, we had completed our Ode's to Pi and Imagination. 
By Jane

And this is mine.
I had another thought along the way. As I looked at all my old almost forgotten photographs, I saw that I have always been connected to nature, but I didn't really understand it. I accepted that I liked it and rarely went any further than that until 2014. That was the year that I became a Master Naturalist. Peggy Doty taught me, most importantly I think, to be curious and see the connection between all things. The readings and other class teachers provided a basis to gain a deeper scientific understanding of all the beautiful things I see in the world. My love of nature has become a lovely blend of science and art, forever connected and always expanding.

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when one contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality, It is enough if one tries to comprehend only a little of this mystery every day. " -- Albert Einstein. 

If you want more on Pi:

Nasa offers up a Pi Challenge

There is a Pi Day website so be sure to check it all out and celebrate Pi with all the cool kids.


Monday, January 16, 2017

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

I woke up this morning bored and antsy. It is grey and raining outside. I have lots of projects that I could be working on, but I wanted something more from this day. I wanted to do something that had substance and used energy.
I was gloomily looking at Facebook and letting life's moments fly past and getting more bored by the moment. Sorry to my FB friends, but . . . 
It was Facebook that woke me out of my stupor when I read a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. There were several posts today.

"Oh yes," I thought, "It's Martin Luther King, Jr. Day." Searching his quotes for inspiration, the one below felt the most inspirational for me for today.  

"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.
Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?
The time is always right to do what is right." -- Martin Luther King Jr.



I shared the quote with my FB friends along with this extra note: Let's give something positive of ourselves to help others today. When you do, take a photo or write a few words about what you did so that we can see/experience how each of our small actions, when added up with everyone else's actions, have great impact.

I had leftover flour and brown sugar from making Christmas cookies so I decided that I would make cookies to take to the local homeless shelter. After a run to Aldi for the rest of the needed ingredients, I picked up Jane and we baked about 8 dozen cookies; chocolate chip and oatmeal.

We delivered them to the local homeless shelter, the police department, and the fire department. There are no photos. That was not the point. We received thanks and smiles plus one hug. 
John went through our coats and I was able to deliver 3 nice jackets to the homeless shelter.

There is so much wrong in the world today. Alone we cannot fix it all. Together, we may not be able to fix it all, but we can make a positive impact in small ways. 
Like the man who walked a beach covered in starfish. He bent and picked up a starfish, threw it back into the water. He moved forward and threw back another and another. A second man walked up beside him and said, "You can't possibly save all those starfish." As the first man bent to throw another starfish back into the water, he said, "But I can save this one."
You may not have time to bake 8 dozen cookies, but there are lots of little things you can do for other people. It could be as simple as putting the quarter in the slot of the shopping cart at Aldi so when the next person arrives, he/she doesn't have to dig for one.

Spread a little love today and everyday. Feel free to share what you did in the comments.