Week 6: Pre-Post

I hate poetry. I'm sorry. I am really trying. I really am. But first of all MARY OLIVER HAD A PARTNERRRR!?!?! this is like Whitman. I will never be able to read leaves of grass the same way.

Ok on to the readings. I do like some of Oliver's poetry. I like that she is free-verse. I'm not all about that rhyme scheme business. at all. Its so confining and restrictive. There is beauty to poetry (but that doesn't mean I love it) that is able to move and flow with perhaps some meter but without the restraint of a rhyme scheme or structure or even punctuation. Maybe there is some hidden meaning to those feelings that a psychoanalyst could figure out, but thats ok.

Back to the poetry itself. I enjoy that she calls attention to subjects that others may pass by or may not be considered a subject for poetry, although I feel that romanticizing everyday things is the true calling of poetry.

I don't like snakes. They rank up there with spiders. possibly higher on my dislike list simply because of how they move. It creeps me out. I don't think they are slimy or scaling like some girls. I merely don't like the way they slither without a spine and such. But- all that being said- Oliver's poem Ribbon Snake Asleep in the Sun was great. I love all the comparisons to a wheel and such.

Messenger is interesting because it is not nature poetry but at its very root is the core of who we are and our job on earth which would make it nature.

Week 5: Post-Post

I decided to write about an ecosystem that I am very familiar with and that I have already expressed a love for: Southeastern. Particularly my favorite spot, narrowing down the broad environment that can be found on our campus.

Looking at the overall environment, I find: trees- oak, tall, providing shade and respite. Grass- green and lush, flourishing under the care of the large, patriarchal oaks. The spanish-moss draping over them delicately and with care.  They are the founding fathers of this little meadow-esque spot that I love so much.

There is a small man-made creek new to the environment that releases the rainwater into the ground that accepts it thirstily and without question.

Raccoons, squirrels, and armadillos all make a home here. They race around the oaks like children at a family reunion, and perhaps they are. They enjoy all that their elders provide, those that have seen, heard, felt, and tasted so much more they have and ever will.

The worms that lives in the moist soft earth, eating, chewing, grinding. The fallen leaves, as confused as the rest of us, about what season it is. covering the ever-green grass, protecting it like a blanket.

the crickets and fire ants. making it impossible for me to sit amongst those oaks I love so much. The sweet smell of damp earth and the decomposing leaves and twigs.

The gentle breeze that floats through rustling, moving.

The birds that sing in four part harmony. They wrap you in their melodies.

Those patriarchal oaks. I love them.

This is my ecosystem.

Week 4: Post-Post

Here are my nature photos. I included some I took in January just because it gives some contrast. Enjoy!

This is my favorite spot on campus:

There is no filter on this by the way...

Week 4: Pre-Post

I was excited to dive into this section of the Sand County Almanac readings because it deals with my favorite time of year. I absolutely love the Fall. The leaves changing to those glorious shades of deep reds, golds, burnt oranges, even browns. Yes, it is all lovely. I love the changes in the air as it turns cold and the feeling when you walk out your front door on a Saturday morning and you can smell the change in temperature just as much as you can feel it. It sudden urge to light a fire and snuggle up in a blanket and read a book next to a great big window and a roaring fire.

The night is extra still and gives you pause to consider the feeling of solitude, though it is not as strong as the feeling that comes in winter, standing in the middle of a field of snow. The only disruption in the gentle blanket, your footsteps. Winter is a time that to some seems dead. I see it, however, as a white backdrop that enables you to notice so many small things that may be overlooked in other seasons.

Winter to me, is summed up in a moment I can never forget. The cloudy afternoon in the winter of my junior year of high school where I was walking across the practice football field after the sky had dropped a bounty of snow that morning. I stopped in the middle of the field, feeling the silence, hearing it echo and shout around me, louder, in that moment, than any silence I had ever heard before. I saw the footsteps of my boots as they trampled on the grass hidden underneath walk across the field and lead to where I was standing. No one else had some this way since the snow had fallen, each flake delicately in its own piece of ground. Robert Frost's poetry, several poems in fact, came rushing to my mind. It was my moment. My split second in time, just me and the world. I will never forget that moment.

Perhaps my favorite passage out of this section is found on page 97 and is accompanied by a picture of a Barred Owl.

The Choral Copse
"By September, the day breaks with little help from birds. A song sparrow may  give a single half-hearted song, a woodcock may twitter overhead en route to his daytime thicket, a barred owl may terminate the night's argument with one last wavering call but few others have anything to say or sing about.
It is on some, but not all, of these misty autumn daybreaks that one may hear the chorus of quail. the silence is suddenly broken by a dozen contralto voices, no longer able to restrain their praise of the day to come. After a brief minute or two, the music closes as suddenly as it began."

I love the idea that there is barely noise as the sun rises and then, in this great moment, every morning as the sun crests the horizon, there is a great swell of emotion and song as the birds welcome the fresh day ahead. They appreciate the beauty of the day ahead without thought to why they do it. They just are a part of the glory that comes at dawn each day.

Week 2: Post-Post

I decided in an effort of diversity in blog content with my peers I would use Melbourne, Florida, where my parents live, as my location.

The City of Melbourne's official websites states "Our water supply is derived from two independent sources, Lake Washington, and the Floridan Aquifer. " Obviously, the Florida Aquifer is a common source. Lake Washington (which I only knew to be a neighborhood and a tiny lake that my school did a clean-up service project at once in 8th grade) is descibed by the city as "part of the St. Johns River, the largest river in Florida. Lake Washington is approximately four miles long, and mile wide, and 10 to 15 feet deep. Lake Washington is one of the few surface water supplies used for drinking water in Florida." I was surprised that the lake is so shallow and yet we use it as a water source, and a rare surface water one at that.

As for waste water treatment plants (WWTP), in Melbourne we have two: D. B. Lee WWTP which deals with 7 million gallons per day and Grant Street WWTP which processes 5.5 million gallons per day these two plants service 74,000 customers. The City of Melbourne makes no differentiation between these waste water plants and solid waste plants, so I assume they are one in the same.

Our power is supplied by FPL or Florida Power and Light which supplies the majority of the Atlantic coast of Florida with power.
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On to my water testing experience!

I'll be honest, I procrastinated a bit. There were just so many fun things going on this weekend. So, at 9 pm on Saturday night, I was walking toward Lake Holloway, when a few of my friends asked me where I was going. I explained what I was doing, and they decided to join me. A group of 5 of us made our way down to the dock. The two boys..er.. men helped me retreive the water, but not before we paused to watch some of the baby ducklings!

One things I discovered is that I will not be swimming in that lake anytime soon. The amount of visible organisms was enough of a deterrent, that I can not imagine what the microscopic ones are in number. Once I returned to a well lit area and preformed the tests, my readings were as follows: Air Temp- 22'C; Turbidity- 0 JTU; Water Temp- 30'C; DO- 4; and pH- 9.5.

This was not an entirely new concept to me. I went on a field trip when I was in the Advanced/Gifted Program in elementary school in Hillsborogh County. We went to the actual Zephyrshills Spring where the bottling company draws their water and pulled our own test samples. We then did similar tests to the ones we did today, as well as looking at the samples compared to the Zephyrhills Bottled Water samples, under a microscope. It also brought back memories of being obsessed with testing the pool water at the camp we lived at when I was in elementary school. Something is absolutely fascinating to a young mind about mixing the different drops to test all the water levels.