Portfolio for Ecosystem Project-Luckey's Landing: High Lake

1.

My first time at Luckey's Landing on my own was when I went Kayaking to get water samples for my e-coli tests. This was unsuccessful because I didn't use any of the samples, but it did give me great insight into the place that it is. It was not easy to kayak on. I am used to kayaking on rivers, not lakes. I had forgotten how hard it can be without a current to carry you along. It was also a pretty windy day. I got in and went over to the beginning of the residential area. I stopped at many places along the way. My first stop was along left side, where I saw a Great Blue Heron wading around in the lillie pads. I tried to sneak up on him, but my big orange kayak stuck out and he knew I was there before I even saw him. He took off and moved a little farther away from me, waited for a little bit, and then left.

I then came upon a part after the cattails that has many different trees and shrubs. Lots of red maples, white and red oaks, some hackberry. This is from what I could see from my kayak. I didn't get out and explore this little island area. The thing that was so great about this place is that it was so loud! There was tons of birds that made it their home. I don't know what kind. I couldn't really see them and I can't identify by call. I had a feeling that they knew I was there and they didn't like it. Their sounds went on the entire time I sat at the edge in my kayak.

I moved along and found myself in more places with cattails and lillie pads. The flowers were amazing. White and pink, big and beautiful, growing from bright green floating plants atop the brownish water. I made my way into this area and just sat for a bit, taking a break. The change that occurred in such a short time was astonishing. Going from tall trees to aquatic plants was mind boggling. There was no sound of birds telling me to get away. Just silence. I saw nothing but plants, no animal life, no humans.

I then made my way to the edge of the residential community. What a change. I was back into more tree cover along the banks. There were few lillie pads. It was a different place. Houses lined the shore. Boats were attached to docks. There was no one there though. No sign of life. No birds, no human, not so many plants. There were signs of life or course, but no one in sight. It was odd to be in an area that housed people, but not see a single soul.

On my way back, my kayak begin to flood. I had forgotten to close some valves that allow water out...and they also allow water in when you leave them open. I didn't pay attention to anything around me. I was so annoyed. I was soaked up to my waist. It was hard to paddle. The wind had picked up and it took so much time to get back to the dock that I thought I would never make it. Leah was waiting for me. She had left me tons of messages on my phone checking in on me because I got back so much later. It was a quite a different experience.

2. sycamore

white washed bark painted years ago

like fences left alone for centuries

trunks that reach high into the sky

taking space away from birds in flight

straight as an arrow your trunk rises

from sandy soils left by ancient lakes

made from the water of glaciers

perfect water frozen in form

covering the earth

carrying along bits and pieces

from places unknown and far away

a time that stood still

that is told from formations left

from cuts and holes and serration

shaping the land that we see today

glaciers that since have passed away

your leaves that cover up green grasses

and send me astray as they cover the paths

made from others that have walked your way

or deer that have gone through your woods

leaves so large they could hold a baby

or cover a mammal so small

the stories you tell

from your white washed shell

i wish i knew them all

3. great blue heron

your wing span reaches far above my head

you do not let me get close

you squack at me from a distance

grumy old heron

but i watch and i sneak

to try and get a closer peak

of your marvelous beauty

as you stand in the water

still as can be

among the lillie pads and reeds

4. duckweed

your speckles of green

covering the blue water

making it easy to see

where the wind has been

showing me the ways

in which the water has changed

even though i have not been there to see

moving in circles

moving in waves

you form banks of green

feeding the life

that lives under the blue

of the water that sits still as can be

small little speckles

of green

waiting upon the top of the lake

forming a chain

of being

so that we can see

where the lake has been

5. paddling on a lake

oh i do not like to paddle

on a lake

no, i like to take the easy way

along currents

so that i can see

what all there is that may be

awaiting upon the land

that surrounds the precious body of

water that i glide upon

oh how i love to lay upon a raft

or kayak

or tube

and float

above plants as they tickle

my sides

and i move

wherever she wants to take me

so that i can see every place that the wild

will hide

no i do not like to paddle

upon a lake

moving where the wind

will blow

i am not a fighter

and the wind puts up quite a fight

no, i like to go with the flow

6. I like to sit and think of what was once here. I like to imagine the lake much larger than it now appears. To feel the sand that is beneath my feet, even though I am far away from the shore. While walking in savannahs, that are new to this place. I find it hard to move along sandy soils. My footing slips and slides and i remember what once was upon this land that is filled with sand. Amazing to look around and see the changes. From water to tall grasses and sprouting trees. The woods that surrounds this area is full of life. It is full of trees. I once was walking down the lane. Between the lake and sea of tall grasses. And a deer was waiting right ahead, as if I were supposed to be following it along its own path. It stopped and looked to see what I would do. And I stopped and I stared back on too. I began moving again and it made its way into the woods. Sounds exploded from its footsteps. Leaves moving, limbs cracking as it jumped and hurdled its way through, away from me. I continued, but left the path as the deer had shown me. Wandered through the woods. Pieces of barbed wire stick from the ground, reminding me that this is not the wilderness. It has been touched by humans, and their remains stay in these woods. Becoming a part of the landscape, as chipmunks make it their home and hiding place, virginia creeper makes its way through every hole and opening, curling around the metal. I find mushrooms tucked away in dead trees. Different colors and smells. They make these dead logs a place of life and beauty. Living amongst the dead. I look down in order to find more. Ignoring what is ahead or above me. Just wondering what type of life lies along the ground that I walk upon. Walking carefully, so I do not hurt anything.

7.

I came looking for geese, but

they had already gone

even though it was sunny

temperatures were warm and inviting for

life in this place.

I had heard them leaving

they chanted together in flocks

landing in another place

I don't know where.

Maybe they knew I was coming

to find out if they were to blame

although all they were doing was living

I remember that this is lake.

A lake that these birds call home

every year as they make their way

north and south

east and west

they must stop here along the way.

But they will be back

There is still time a plenty

for them to return

before the seasons begin to change

they will show themselves again

as the leaves begin to change

and fall beings to set itself in

ready to bring on comfortable and expected change.

8. Lake Shore

The sun touches your bottom

reaching your muddy floor

providing an essential ingredient

in this potion of life.

Critters that one cannot see

living from the light of the sun

that reaches down and touches

the ground so that life can be.

Cattails form lines and rows

upon these shores

tall, long, lean and green

they invade and conquer

still providing life

preventing erosion

some want them to be eliminated

but I cannot picture this place

without cattails.

Macroinvertebrates inhabit this area

fascinating as can be

telling a story of the quality of life

that can live in this living body

of water that provides life for all

critters that twist and turn

making their way to adult hood

transforming from one thing to another.

And your bottom with muddy sediments

small stones have been deposited here

you have broken and tossed many others

in order to make it the way you wanted it

to appear.

Order: Juncales
Family: Juncaceae
Genus: Juncus
Species: J. marginatus

Characteristics
fairly open inflorescence, rounded capsules, margined perianth parts,

Adaptations:
live in prairies, provide cover for birds

Big Toothed Aspen

Order: Malpighiales
Family: Salicaceae
Genus:Populus
Species:grandidentata

Characteristics
medium sized deciduous tree
leaves are tear shaped with large wavy teeth
bark: younger 0 olive green, thin and smooth, older, grey, thicker with rough grooves
flowers 0 2 valved capsules

adaptations:
shade intolerant

Side-Oats Grama

family: Poaceae
Species: Bouteloua
Genus: B. cutripendula

Characterisitcs
2-2.5 ft tall, unbranched
culms are light green, glabrouw and round in cross-section.
alternates leaves are more common towards the back
mostly hairless, few white hairs toward the base of each leafe blade

adaptatios:
sunny places
food for many animals

fox sedge

Order: Cyperaceae
Family: Cyperaceae
Genus: Carex
Species C. vulpinoidea

Characteristics
elpngated spoles containing 10+ spikelets
Stem: erect, slender, sharply triangular, rouch to touch
leaves: Elongated, narrow, longer then the stems
fruit: achenes flat,

Adaptations:
achenes eaten by waterfowl.

crickled hair grass

Order: Cyperales
Family: Poaceae
Genus: Deschampsia
Species: D. flexuosa

Characteristics:
6"-12" tall, wiry foliage, happens in tight clumps
golden colour
individual flowers, silver,

adaptations:
draught tolerant

Panic Grass

Order: Poales
Family: Poaceae
Genus: Panicum
SpeciesL P. virgatum

Characteristics:
LEaves are 30-90cm long
flowers have a well developed panicle
seeds 0 3-6mm long and 1.5mm wide and develped from a singleflowered spokeletuses

Adaptations

c4 carbon fixation advantage for drought and high temperatures

Pyle & whole season of leaves...

I fell in love with compost precisely because of its' disintegration existing as an outline for bringing it back -the alive, the vibrant, as Ackerman concludes, "the things of this earth that perish". I guess going somewhere is important to me. Maybe I'm attached in some way to this closed feedback cycle because I want living & dying to mean something outside of self.

Moments of health gone awry, bodily distress and illness can easily serve as camouflage, as with the beloved leaves, for the first time a newness about what being o.k. means is revealed, what we're really made of gets noticed. My 1st time in the ever-so-wet Amazonia, I had a few days to register the images of neon-colored frogs, vistas of the innumerable clouds of canopy above and dig up some yuca before my brain went to sleep and my body turned into an oven. My fever awakened this other part of me that was aware, patient, slow, that kept me alive in quite a different way than my regular self perceives being alive. Even being upset about being sick was too exhausting -I quickly made peace and not war. In some ways, I'd like to hear Pyle coming out of such a situation, a scenario that beckons for more than "nature bats last".
Perhaps he's already experienced a spiritual fast or something and being cynical is just his true self -just his truth (in this lifetime, of course). I just don't see it on the scale to which he bring things to: is it really a battle on earth? the winning/losing game, "the ravaged land" and qualms about postponing departure...maybe we'll just have to find rapture here on earth. After all, it is where spirit embodies an earthly form. I guess undoubtedly, I see -us- as an extension of existence made of earth. Because its' sooo fleeting, giving a damn is part of the justice question.

Maybe an intrinsic part of a healing in flux Earth, is the possibility for humans to engage/receive/work through/ offer healing ourselves, as a species. While reading Pyle, my brain recalled Paul Shepard's How Animals Made Us Humans, and the idea that we -as humanity- are stuck in a stagnant kind of way- within these Jungian archetypes of adolescent boy/male behavior in which we have become somewhat helpless. There's a whole more to that, but I pictured it for some reason while reading him. A rebirth/coming of age sounds more like what we're heading for, hopefully other Pyles will be willing to be awake for the ride.

It's not that I can't identify with such feelings of hopelessness and despair -I come from a place in which such disparities are in your face. And its' somewhat a privilege to give up hands down, perhaps not having stakes against you offers up that luxury.
Rather than operating from a place of struggle, perhaps if we understood the role of compliance in affirming the "ways things are"/ "business as usual" we could deal with the turmoil on a different note. If I really think about it, my biggest umph with Pyles' writing is that its' ultra -"acting right toward the earth" is an expression of relationship (on a spectrum of good & bad, sure -what ever makes most sense for you) not a means of "cheating death" or mortality. Since he brought up his "catholic tastes", perhaps there's some revisiting of fear that could offer up more to his coyote lifting a leg.

Dillard...

She had me hooked from, "ensconed in the lap of lichen" to feeling her feeling the locked embrace with the weasel. I'm thankful her skull didn't rupture because I really enjoyed her writing. It's almost as if her writing is flowing from instinct. I had an eye-to-eye moment with a coyote back home on the lakefront a few years ago. I had just returned from Peru and went to the frozen ice to settle back into the cold and the city, when in my stillness, I realized this was no dog, this was coyote walking across the solidness of the lake seemingly straight to me, when it stopped and I could feel that I
was being watched. In all our looking, it was I that broke the stare simply by changing my feeling. Coyote just scanned and noticed my feeling had changed to fear and it decided to switch direction away from me. I often wondered how close would it have approached.
So true -the remarkable waking up of each day comes and goes. Some days it may feel as if we aren't doing anything out of the ordinary and yet as she says, "...we plunge and surface, lapse and emerge.
I appreciated her unapologetic truth in describing the great effort of detecting while being human, our minds do have the tendency of carrying off, wanting "to live forever".

Pyle

“Nature doesn’t care. Only we care.” Pg 976.
Thank you Pyle. I have done the kids activity thats like the concept map and stringing living things together, I think it is a great activity and can get the point across that nature is connected. But one thing that has bothered me in the last 3 months is that humans don’t need to be apart of that interconnectedness. Pyle is also saying something similar, if the race of humans end it only effects us, not the way nature wants to run. I think it is something that makes humans unique, (apart from our thumbs), we don’t matter to the earth. We really don’t. Yet we also make everything about us. PLT seemed to be all about resources and how we use trees. How did we get there? How should we change our actions to reflect that? I don’t know.
At one point Pyle comments that humans cannot think about the future. I think that we can think about the future. Not to put Native American’s in a perfect box, and I don’t know so much about now, but think that their actions effect 7 seven generations both in the past and future. The stories and tales are lessons and information being passed on to present and future generations. I think that our Western world has lost something a long time ago that makes us think about us, maybe about our grandchildren but not too much farther then that.

Pyle and Ackerman

I echo Rachel on this one. Whoa boy. Several of us recently had this same conversation during the Earth as Ally conference. Yes, there is hope, but who are we really saving the planet for? Hands down, most would say us. Do we really care about polar bears? If you had the chance to shoot a polar bear in the head or a person chosen at random, you'd probably pick the polar bear. Right? Does that mean we shouldn't save the polar bear, or all the endangered mussels in Indiana? Of course our human nature doesn't allow us to think about life in 2070 when all the oil will be gone. Heck, I'll be gone, and who knows if I'll even have grandchildren to worry about. Let's live it up now. Ha. I do agree that in the end the earth will take care of itself. It would just be nice if we could slow it down a little. Ackerman gives me hope. She reminds me that this is a cycle. Maybe we've already been there before. What is deja vu anyway? This is Earth 2.o, or 3.0, or 6.0. The downward cycle to the end has already begun. I can't wait for the next round.

Pyle and Ackerman

Wow, these two are sooo different, yet they do have their similarities.

I enjoyed Pyle, and now I am wondering what this says about me. Reading this tonight made me giggle because I sat on my porch last night with a friend discussing this exact same topic. He said to me at one point in our conversation, "The Earth will be just fine, Sami, we are the ones who are going to be extinct". And most likely he and Pyle are correct. Which makes me think...."what the hell and I fighting for?" I guess I still believe that even though we have gotten as far as we have, they maybe we have a chance to help nature begin healing it's wounds. Although, according to Pyle, I think he would say that I was straight up full of it. It really makes you think that as humans we are truly not part of nature, or maybe because we are humans we are not a part of nature. Although, I guess our coming and going is in the natural cycle of species and creatures of the Earth.

As for Ackerman, I enjoyed her reading as well, but it was very different. After reading Pyle, I was a little turned off by what she was saying as she talked on about the reasons why leaves change their color and how they do this. I thought to myself, "Oh scientific terms, blah, blah, blah" But there were many parts of her writing that I really enjoyed. I like when she say, "Colored like living things, they signal death and disinigration....They are as we hope our own fate will be when we die: not to vanish, just to sublime from one beautiful state into another." I liked her comparisons about how humans view the natural world and choose to see what they want. They do not acknowledge that they changing of the leaves is its preparation death and winter, but flock to see the beautiful colors changing along the coast, not really knowing the reasoning behind it.

Pyle and Ackerman

Robert Michael Pyle: "And the Coyotes Will Lift a Leg"

ooowee well talk about major philosophy reading! I thought that Pyle raised a lot of questions that I often think about. Without humans would the nature world be better off? Well there's no real way of actually answering this because there has been human life on Earth for quite a while AND we if humans were taken off the planet then there would be no way of knowing if the nature world was doing better without us. sooo I guess that is one of those questions that can't be answered. duh. But it's something fun to think about. And I often wonder that when we as people try to help "save" the nature world by better managing it if we are just doing even more harm than help. The nature world will more or less figure it's issues out. That's one aspect that people can't do, we can't figure our issues out.

I liked the way Pyle finish his article by stating all the neat aspects that the nature world and it's creatures possess. "In a sense, all life in the ravaged land is a bunch of weeds-- survivors, coping and adapting under adversity." Pyle presented a lot of points that create for active thinking and I defiantly need to go back and break down his ideas.

Diane Ackerman: "Why Leaves Turn Color in the Fall"

This article made me really excited for when all the leaves fully change their color. I can't wait for the red leaves, they are the best, especially the strawberry blonde leaves. Before living in Indiana, fall wasn't my favorite season just because there aren't really trees that change color in New Mexico and it just kinda gets dusty and dry. But not that I live in Indiana I think that fall is the best season! I love the colors, food, cool weather, hats, light jackets, sweat shirts, pumpkins, crunching leaves!

Both of the articles help me deal more with the fact that death is a natural thing that must be done. I think in our culture in this day of age that death is thought of something that can be postponed with the help of technology and medicine. But since when should death ever be something that is postponed, it needs to happen. Ackerman says, "Colored like living things, they signal death and disintegration. In time, they will become fragile and, like the body, return to dust. They are as we hope our own fate will be when we die: Not to vanish, just to sublime from one beautiful state into another." Transferring from one beautiful state to another is nature's destiny for all of us.

Annie Dillard

I love Annie Dillard and her loveliness and style of writing just continued to show itself in these readings. I read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek after my mentor recommended it to me while listening to me complain about literature I was reading at the time. He said I needed to learn from her, not only in her writing, but in her ways of observing the natural world.

When I told my dad that I was reading the book, he said to me, "well yeah its a great book! I took you to Tinker Creek when you were a kid." I have no recollection of this trip, but he had to stop and see what she had been talking about. He described it as being a place that was not all that awesome, but if you spent enough time there and looked closely enough, it could be as great as she described in the book.

I feel as though this is what I and all of us have to learn from Annie Dillard. She is amazing at finding the balance between society and wilderness. At connecting things together. At taking these small things and making them as amazing as the Alps or Grand Canyon. This is what is important. We all may not get a chance to live somewhere that is truly amazing of awesome according to most, but it is making your place amazing and awesome by looking closely and interpreting it in this way. This is why I love her so much.

Dillard pulls out these amazing details in her writing. She pays attention and makes connections between worlds. She describes everything that is happening, describes her surroundings, what she did, what others did, why they did it, and what caught her interest. She then dives in and explores these things the way that she did with the Weasel. It is just fascinating and amazing. I have so much to learn!

Annie Dillard

I really enjoyed the style of writing Annie Dillard wrote in the two articles we were supposed to read. It was defiantly more of an action packed style of writing that kept me intrigued for what was coming next. I particularly liked the "total eclipse" reading because it was one method of trying to explain the weird ways of human nature through a natural event. I liked how the reading was broken up into 4 parts. Annie Dillard began the 4th part by describing how we are taught as children to wake up from a deep sleep and then after we get the hang of it we never think about it again, we just do it. There are a lot of things like this that we just do in life and don't even think about it. This action also goes along with what we notice about nature and the environment. Most things that are happening in nature we take for granted, like the changing of seasons. But when a total eclipse happens we totally change our perspective and give our full attention to what is happening because it only comes so often.

I really enjoyed Dillard's story about the eclipse. She made it into an action story that I couldn't stop reading and she help related it to so many things about life. I defiantly learned to just enjoy life and all it's wonder, just sit back and enjoy the show. For the most part I already live my life like that but I tend to get caught up in the little things that don't matter as time moves on. So that is my new goal, just to enjoy life for all it's craziness.

Annie

Weasels,
I do not think that I have ever seen a weazel in my life, I believe that there is one in the Gods must be Crazy II movie, it is a highly amusing part of the movie because they never let go. I am also sure if I would like to see one in the wild. I am a little spaze if you haven't noticed and think I would freak out making the weazel also freak out, grap my neck and i am now dead. But I admire those who can be completely comfortable with nature and embrass the moments when they come because they are spastic.

Eclipeses:
I remember going outside while in grade school with special glasses. I can't remember seeing anything but I am fairly sure it was a particle eclipse. The was Dillard explained the event was facinating. It was a little freaky but also so intergreing at the same time. MOst of us love to see these spectatular events, yet others are in their cars missing all of the action. I would definately skip work for something like that.

I was surprised that they left before it was over. I was imagining her and her husband sitting there until mid afternoon and being the last to leave. I think that we miss alot because events aren't over yet. It is too bad.

Dillard

Oh, Annie Dillard! How I do love you so.

On the first day of school I read a passage from Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. In this passage Dillard explains how she “used to hide a precious penny” in hope someone would find it and “receive, regardless of merit, a free gift from the universe.” She goes on to compare this free gift with watching “a muskrat kit paddling from her den.” Dillard wonders if this sight is only worth a “chip of copper.” She concludes, “It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigued that he won’t stoop to pick up a penny, but if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then since the world is in fact panted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days. It is that simple. What you see is what you get.” I then tell a story about seeing a Great Blue Heron dive off a pier to catch a fish. That event happened after a long disappointing day. The heron turned my day around. Even before I read about "seeing" I knew I was experiencing it that day.

This reading for Natural History was timely for me. After spending two months learning, we are now thrown into teaching. I must admit I wasn't ready to let the book work go. After reading Dillard's words about the weasel, I had a change of heart (I hope it lasts). "I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you. Then even death, where you're going no matter how you live, cannot part. Seize it and let it seize you..." Let the seizing begin.

Le Guin/ Wilson

I really loved reading "A Very Warn Mountain" by Le Guin. This whole article made me realize how important it is to journal. I'm not talking about the middle school journaling about describing which boy/girl is the new hottie. I'm talking about the journaling that describes the details of the events that happen each day. And the events don't even have to be about major things that are happening in the world at that time. My Grandma Funk is a huge journal-er. Right before she goes to bed she describes each day and she is 92 years old so I think it would be fun to go back and look at her life through her journals but that would be invading her privacy just a bit. When Le Guin shared some of her entries in her article I found those to be very intriguing because they were her personal thoughts and emotions. Thats what journals possess is a person's own personal thoughts and feelings.

I really liked when Le Guin started describing how the history and legends show that St. Helen is a woman. Oh man I just ate all that up. It also made me think about how all the people were freaking out about the natural disaster happening. Natural disasters may seem really destructive... at first but man-made disasters are ten times worst to the Earth. Think about the oil spill in the gulf, it is destroying many kingdoms of organisms and taking out ecosystems. Natural disasters seem to be horrible at first but they are supposed to happen, they are natural.

After reading E.O. Wilson made me want to read more about evolution and animal behavior I think that stuff is so fascinating. I listened to E.O Wilson when he came to Goshen and I was glued to every world he spoke. E.O Wilson can be a little depressing when he says the Earth just needs no humans bc really how is that supposed to happen? But I get where he is coming from.

Le Guin/Wilson

When I was in Jr. High (1985-1986, Oh, the 80's) I lived near the 4-H building. Every 1st Saturday and Sunday the 4-H building was home to a flea market. This was long before the days of eBay and Craigslist. The flea market was the only place to find rare baseball cards, and junk you wished you never bought. One of those items was GENUINE ASH FROM MOUNT SAINT HELENS. I begged my mother to let me buy some, but she said no. I was mortified. Just three years ago I took my students to see Edward O. Wilson speak at Goshen College. I was afraid his speech would be boring for my students. I was greatly surprised. Wilson was not only knowledgeable, he was entertaining. Not one of my students fell asleep! They were captivated by his intellect and wit. Both Le Guin and Wilson know the importance of science, but they also understand a connection to nature that is non-scientific. I've never quite understood how some can divorce themselves from that connection. Wendell Berry wrote, "When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free." I don't want to loose this connection. Even when my project plagues me, I want to remember the freedom the still water gives.

Le Guin

If there is one thing that I remember about first year human geography is that we all live in danger zones. Winnipeg is located in a flood zone and we built an alternatirve river around the city to protect it. There is no where on earth that humans can escape from all of earths excitment and sometimes distruction.
I liked reading Le Guin because it was easy, personal, and accepted the erruption for the excitment and adventure that it was, not the trouble it caused for people.

Sometimes associating gender roles to things drive me crazy, in the French language there are things that are gender specific and it is meant to be that way and set up for that. In English we do it not because it should be but because we don't have the right words. I liked the feminist like view Le Guin had of the volcano. It bleched, fart and roared (I am womyn hear me roar, type deal). It was still a lady but let the true side show not just the legs crossed version.

Finally Wilson, I am sure that I will be able to relate to him when I am done this program (and after I spend some time at home, I am going to want to go out and discover and do cool things, but am most likely going to get stuck on one or two wonderful thhings (for him the bird of paradice) and dwell on that. UMM I wonder what it will be? Composting and .... sure there will be something else, maybe snakes.

"A threat: a terror: a fulfillment"-Le Guin

I remember hearing all about the Mount St. Helen's eruption during my Geology class at Texas State. My professor had been one of the lucky geologists who got to go and watch the eruptions and study the mountain. He only talked about how lucky he was to get to see such a great eruption and witness a moment in history such as that one. So, when I began reading this article, I had only positive thoughts about the eruption in my head.

I really loved the way that Le Guin talked about the volcano and the general public's reaction to the eruption. It is so interesting that when a natural disaster occurs in the world, people do take it personally. We begin to question our nations religion and question if the disaster is a act of God's wrath on a people or a nation. The truth is that it is just a natural disaster, they happen, with or without a divine intervention or message that is being sent. Like Le Guin says, "Everybody takes it personally". They try to justify the act and avoid the fact that it is just the way that nature and the earth works. If we knew more about nature and the natural world, maybe we all wouldn't take it so personally.

I also enjoyed the interpretation that Le Guin had about St. Helen's as well as the thoughts of others. She tells us that " In all the Indian legends dug out by newspaper writers for the occasion, the mountain is female." It even shows it in its name that the mountain has been called a woman. It makes the act of eruption so much more interesting when you begin to think of it in the terms that the mountain is a woman. One man, Hamilton, that Le Guin talks about compares the mountain to breasts and the eruption to cancer. Le Guin speaks of the eruption in terms of women's empowerment and the women's movement, which I really like reading about. I think of it as erotic and sexual. I mean, it is called a eruption...but that is just me. I find it interesting that Hamilton would compare the eruption to breast cancer. It shows again just how much we think of it as absolute destruction and an end to life. Really, it is not. Yes the mountain will change visually, but who knows what else will come from the eruption or what will happen next. It is a big mystery, just like anything else in nature.

Funk Island

Wow...I really liked this reading, especially his style of writing. It was intense, riveting, exciting, and amazingly poetic.

While reading, I kept on thinking of what I was taught in my poetry classes and workshop. Every poetry prof repeats this throughout the semester "show, don't tell". While I read, I kept on thinking of how well Russell was "showing" us the island instead of simply telling us about the island. Of course he told us that it was rock, that there were lots of birds, that it smelled, that there was poop, and dead things, and eggs all over the place,that it was loud, but he shows us all of this and gives it so much more meaning that just saying it.

I appreciate this in writing, especially in writing about the natural world. If you cannot see what they have seen or hear what they hear or smell what they smell, the you must be able to describe it all very well and "show" it to your reader. I believe that Russell did this so well and that this played a major part in making the reading really special and interesting.

Russell...

More than brave, I felt there was so much more to this person who envisioned far more than what met his eyes. The daunting images of smell & life along with death (the cries of agony at the throat of the gannet) was piercing and yet there is something equally intriguing about the describer describing. Anticipating arriving at that kind of "edge", so to speak has to be a transformational experience. I loved the image of the island "suffocating in the original gases of earth".

Russell

After reading the Russell piece I feel as if I've been to Funk Island.  What an appropriate name for the island. Funk! (Sorry Rachel, you're not as stinky).  I think we all agree that this writing captured a lot of our senses.  I could see, smell, and hear this island.  I could feel the sense of adventure.  Isn't it interesting that Russell was living in Manhattan before he made a new life for himself.  How many of these writers were living the typical "american" life when they decided to leave it all for adventure.  Is someone trying to tell us something here?  Is it time to pack it up and head out?  I wanted to find out more about Russell, but it's hard to track down info on this guy.  I did find his Twitter account.  A few days he posted this, "Really Terry Francona, U thought putting an aging knuckle baller in the bottom of the 11th was going to turn out well? Really?"  I don't think it's the same guy.  I would love to talk to the real Russell.  I know he would have some more stories to tell.

Funkadilic

I liked this reading, why, because it wasn't all happy and hunkydory.

I like reading the poetic readings of nature and they have a place in the world, but I also like the readings that tell things less dreamy. Hearing about the not so pretty things or the parts of nature that are not so clean.

Canada is a vast and beautiful land and it is hard to imagine that there is a place and has a stench that is so aweful that it can make a man go mad.

IT is also interesting that an island can support a population of birds for such a long time and the birds are weak flyers.

Wow. What a place! After I finished the reading, I immediately researched Funk Island and found out some really interesting things about the place. First, it is now a bird sanctuary with over 1,000,000 birds on the island! That is amazing. You are not allowed to go to the island anymore, unless you have a permit of sorts.

The history of this island is also very sad- humans wiped put the last of the Great Auks, which lived on the island, in the 1800's. They killed the flightless birds for oil, feathers, and meat. They have found "rooms" made by people to direct the Great Auks into so that they would be easier to kill. It is difficult to decide what is more disgusting-the layers of gauno and rotten eggs on the island, or the actions of the people who ruthlessly slaughtered and made extinct an amazing creature. I'll go with the latter.

The depiction of the island was pretty incredible. From the perilous landing to the ungodly stench and the visual decay, it is hard to not look away, as so to speak. This is a very good example of how a writing does not need pictures to illustrate it's point- it transcends any sort of visual example that it could have used, but thankfully didn't. I enjoyed visualizing the rocky coasts with it's manmade handholds, the layers of rotting eggs with the birds falling off the cliffs. It was chaotic, and amazing really. I would like to read more from this author- especially what he wrote during his time that he actually stayed on Funk Island.

Funk Island

Well I must say at first when I read that the narrator was going to an island that was named Funk Island I was excited just because I had the same name as the island, but as read on I was a little disgusted but in a good way. The author wrote in a way that enhanced all the senses, especially smell. While I was reading I felt like I could smell the island. For example, "The smell of Funk Island is the smell of death. It is probably the source of the island's name, which in various languages means 'to steam,' 'to create a great stench,' 'to smoke'; it may also mean 'fear.' The island certainly smells ghastly. No battlefield could ever concentrate such a coalition of dead and dying." Man oh man that island must have smelled something awful if the author had to use the word 'ghastly' and compare the island to a battle that resulted in a bunch of old people. After reading all about Funk Island and how bad it smells, it just made me want to visit. I think it sounds like a very unique experience so it's an experience that needs to happen. I think it would be a good experience for all the senses. Good for the eyes to see all the green muck and bird feces all over; good for the nose with all the inners of the birds projected out all over the island; good for the sense of touch, to feel the squishy surface as one walked. Even though the island sounds like something that no person should venture to I think those places are what get ingrained into one's memory because it is so vivid.

Le Guin/ Wilson...

This primarily emotional affiliation with life is the stuff we're made of. Such a genetic tendency rooted in our species' ancient story of becoming. The emotional bonding that goes beyond people, to the land which we live, to Earth itself is the yelp felt by LeGuin describing our imagination dependent on this contact, feeling the landscape.
Why should she bear any birth that we can recognize?
It may very well take such powerful imploring "births"for our genetic predisposition to awaken -"This is beyond us, and we must take it personally."

No doubt, we bear a personal account to what surrounds us, how often do we speak from what we surround? -it's a living Earth after all. I would like to become familiar with the Papuan ways of knowing, what's their naming for the paradise bird? -emperor of germany- just doesn't tell much, they may very well have insights into the spirit of this incredible bird.

TEALE/WHITE response

Having just visited the dunes and reminded of the Valparaiso moraine, I loved the image of a boy as "small as an atom" among ancient great trees arriving to one discover after another. There are several places for me that echo that very wonderment Teale describes for the places that take us for flights that bring us closer to some knowingness. I felt this piece spoke to the resounding conviction across the "last child in the woods" perspective of the invaluable need for children to all have such experiences.
Even though Walden has been on my list to read, I have yet to do so and after reading White's essay, I'm definitely taking on the invitation. I love how he is so adamant about young college boys being able to "see what kind of chips he leaves before listening to the sound of his own voice.

Teale/E.B. White Response

I started reading the first line to the Teale selection, and immediately after I read "...through a snow-filled landscape and under the sullen gray of a December sky." the first thing that came to mind was Hmmm, sounds like an Indiana winter to me. So funny to read in the next sentence that that was where he was! I really enjoyed this reading - it made me recall a couple of my most vivid memories from the past, most of which have taken place outdoors in nature. The one memory, from when I was 14 and living in Ecuador, is of a trip I took with a groups from school into the Amazon jungle for a week. The moment I play back all the time in my head is that I am sitting at the front of this canoe. There is a motor on that back being driven by an Ecuadorian. We are zipping through the calm warm water of some river far, far away from my reality. I remember the feeling of the wind hitting my face, watching the trees and vines get lost as we flew over the winding waters. I remember thinking to myself - I am the happiest I have ever been in my life, and perhaps will never feel this way again. I recently took a trip back to Ecuador. I thought about getting back on that canoe, flying down that winding river so far from home, and then, i just couldn't! I didn't want that memory to end. To have this new one replace the old, beautiful, one. What if it wasn't as amazing as i had recalled, as a young, confused 9th grade girl? I want to keep that memory safe.

E.B. White is a great writer. And really, how can you not read this selection and want to pick up Walden one last time and give it a try? I sure do.

Teale & White

I loved the piece by Teale...although this seems to be a commonality between the class. When I was home this weekend, we went back to the house where I lived until I was 12. At 12 my parents got divorced and I moved away with my mom. I would visit on weekends, but I just didn't do as much as I had done when I was younger and living there all the time.

I have been very lucky to have grown up in such a great place. We had what I thought to be a HUGE yard with a creek in the back. My childhood memories of that place involve playing in the creek every day that I could. I would sit on the dry rocks along the creek and catch crawdads, fish, play games, swim, anything I could think of just to be close to the water. I remember that spot being the most fascinating place. It had a steep bank, and when I went to my rocks, I felt like I was completely alone in nature.

Well, I went back this weekend when I was home. It is now home to family friends who have an 8 year old and a 17 year old. We walked around the house, which looked so much smaller to me and I showed them my old room and told them about my memories. Then, we went into the back yard. It seemed so much smaller to me. We walked along looking at the old treehouse and shed that provided me with hours of entertainment each day, and then we came to the creek. There was my spot. The same as it always was in my memory. I still thought of it the same way.

I looked at the 8 year old and said, "you have the coolest back yard in the world! This spot is like no other". She looked at me a bit funny when I tried to tell her why.

While reading Teale it reminded me of that. I have not lost that place, I can go back any time that I want. I still have the same feelings and fascination that I did when I was a child. It is amazing how some spots just stay with you throughout your life.

Teale/White

I absolutely loved the piece by Teale. I'm guessing we all has a "lonely spot, some private nook, some glen or steramside-scene [that] impressed us so deeply that even today its memory recalls the mood of lost enchantment." Mine was the woods behind our house in Hartford City, IN. When I first learned our address is was Rural Route#4 Hartford City, In 47348. Soon it became 1406 North Mill Street Hartford City, In 47348. There is a lot of me that wishes it was still RR #4. The woods behind our house was owned by "mean old farmer" Williams. I'm not sure if he wanted kids on his property, but I didn't care. This became my retreat from the world. Like Teale, I would forget the locations of several of my secret hideouts in that woods, but I felt it was my responsibility to learn those woods well. I slowly learned where the Red-tailed hawk was nesting and where the fox's den was located. Immediately after school I would don the green jacket I obtained from the army navy surplus store, and enter my secret world. Surprisingly, my younger brother did not want to join. I'm not sure if I protested his presence, or if just didn't want to come. The woods was my own, and rarely did I encounter another soul. I do believe this place set me on the path that I'm on now.

Every class that is required to read Walden should read White's piece. How can you not love the book even more after reading White's commentary?

Oh such memories

"The Lost Woods" by Edwin Way Teale really made me think of my childhood memories that involved nature or when I first feel in love. I think one that is embedded in my memory is from when I was in 5th grade. My family threw a party for one of our family friends because it was his 50th birthday. We had the party on the piece of land we own in Ramah, NM. Ramah is about an hour from Gallup (my hometown). Our land is comprised of a bunch of pine and pinon trees and many desert plants. We played bocce ball and had a picnic and ended by having cake, which had a icing bocce ball on top. I think I remember this time so much is because it was such a fun time filled with family and good friends. I remember that I didn't wear socks with my shoes and not having socks really bothered me because sand and pine needles were getting all up in my shoes. So my brother gave me one of his socks so each of us were just roaming around with one sock. I can't remember if he did it to be nice or if I made him. I probably made him. I also remember that I was wearing a tweety bird t shirt, I was a big tweety fan. So now when I go back to my families land, through smelling the pines trees and feeling the dry heat I am reminded of my 5th grade memory every time. I really liked how Teale ended his article by saying, "For me, the Lost Woods became a starting point and a symbol. It was a symbol of all the veiled and fascinating secrets of the out-of-doors. It was the starting point of my absorption in the world of Nature."

Teala & white

I am have been eight when I had my nature moment, when you think that it is so wonderful and vast. We were driving home from my grandparents house late one winter night. It was cold I am sure, and my parents stoped the van, turned to us and told us to get our coats on. As we stepped outside we looked up,we saw the most amazing northern lights ever. Starring at the dancing night sky, the cold and the late night didn't bother me. It felt like we were out there for 20 mins starring but who knows. Maybe this is the reason that I love the prairies (also you can bike forever and never have to go up a hill) and I love winter. I feel like it brings its own mysteries for starting the path after it snows, skating on the river and sitting on your front steps with friends watching the snow fall.
I think that experiencing nature as a kid is important. Things feel larger then life, you don't see them everyday and when you grow as an adult nature (or what you
regularlly experience) becuase the norm, things get smaller and less impressive.

About 2 years ago the book club I was apart of read Walden. While discussing the book it was clear that his life style was a dream for many of us (me too but I wouldn't want to live by myself). Away from the hustle and bustle and experimenting with food, nature and taking the time to relax. And most of all being a dream and knowing that it would be hard work but dreams make you happy. I wish that my friends or family would buy a piece of land in Northern Manitoba (not too north) with mostly rocks, trees and water to live on. That would be grand. Only problem is the student loans... Maybe I will have to wait a few years to do that.

Porter and Austin

I enjoyed reading Porter, her language and story telling abilities made it a joy to read. So far I feel that many of the writings we have read discribe nature. Here she nature is much more of an adventure to see it. FInding the moth and seeing it, studying it was a big adventure that she was longing to have and then finally did. Even taking the pictures was an adventure, people were out and about and she was "working as fast as I could make my fingers fly". Not only the hatching moth but the excitment and anticipation made it seem like such an exciting event. I like adventures (though I rarely seek them out), but I would have gotten excited for the Cecropia.

While reading Austin my mind travelled to amazing plants and animals. Here I am in Northern Indiana sweating more then I ever have and reading about plants and animals that have a limited source of water but survive, (without complaining).

One of the comments I like is "Trust Indians not to miss any virtues of the plant world!" How is it that many Native peoples around the world (not all) have been able to live for so long without major damage to the earth and the rest of us who have moved around the world have messed things up. Would this be a reason for our culture (and the many generations before us)to be so disconnected from the world, because we don't have the native vegetation in us? I don't know it was a thought that I had.

Shrub Carr Ecosystem

Eastern Wood Peewee

Order:Passeriformes

Family:Tyrannidae

Genus:Contopus

Species:C. virens

Identifying Characteristics: Adults are grey-olive on upperside and light on underside with olive coloring on breast. Whitish wingbars. Call is a "peee-a-weeee".

Special Adaptations: Very large habitat.

Softleaf Arrowwood

Order:Dipsacales

Family:Caprifoliaceae

Genus:Viburnum

Species:V. molle

Identifying Characteristics:

Special Adaptations:

Question Mark Butterfly

Order:Lepidoptera

Family:Nymphalidae

Genus:Polygonia

Species:P. interrogationis

Identifying Characteristics: The silver mark on underside of hindwing is broken into two parts and looks like a question mark. Upperside of wing is red-orange with black spots. Live in wooded areas with some open spaces.

Porter and Austin

I have to start off by saying that I love female nature writers. It may be because I am a woman myself, but for some reason their writing draws me in and hold me there. It seems as though every female nature writer has a maternal view of nature that they bring to their writing. This makes it so special and so different from the many, many male writers that we read so often. Now I'm not saying that I don't appreciate nature writing from a male perspective, but it is just SO different when it comes from a woman.

Reading Gene Stratton Porter made me giggle and brought me back to a lunch I had with my grandmother and her friends before I came to Merry Lea. They had invited me out for their weekly lunch and during the lunch wanted to hear all about what I would be doing in graduate school. Now these ladies are not your typical 80-90 year old women, they are sharp, smart, and progressive. They loved what I would be studying and wanted to give me every bit of advice to help me. One of my favorites mentioned Gene Stratton Porter. She said that I would have to go visit her house since I would be so close to it and continued talking about how much she enjoyed reading her when she was a child. She talked about how she wanted to be just like the girl of the limberlost and read Porter to her children when they were young.

Anyways, I really enjoyed reading Porter. I remember reading her when I was young, but I didn't have the same experience as I did reading it today. I love her writing. It is so poetic yet down to earth and natural. It is easy to understand, yet beautiful. The way that she was describing the Cecropia moth was fascinating. I loved that she spent so much time focused on this one species of moth and the intense love that she had for it. The way she describes her encounters with the moth makes it seem almost magical and mysterious. If she would not have said so, I would never have thought this moth was a common one.

Reading Austin though brought me back to the type of writing I love. For some reason I love deserts. They fascinate me. I am always amazed by the amount of life that is happening in such a seemingly barren place. In my undergrad I was a Southwestern Studies minor. Basically all of my classes for my minor involved Southwestern nature writing and history. Austin's writing was very similar to all of that and I really loved it because of this. Southwestern writing tend to show this connection to the land and the culture of that land. I saw this while I was reading. She constantly refers to all the physical attributes that make up the land as well as the "Indians" that inhabited it at that time. You can tell from her writing that she really loved everything about the desert. This is true about so many people. While living in Texas I met many people who disliked Texas for many reason, but refused to leave because of the diverse landscape and culture that fills the area. I felt this many times while reading.

I looked up a bit of information about Austin after the reading. She was born in Illinois and did not move to the Southwest until she graduated college. Her family then moved to California. Throughout her life she studied Indian life in the Mojave Desert and became a defender of Native American and Spanish-American rights. This view is shown in much of her writing of all types. I saw it in this reading that we did and it felt very much like the feeling you get when you read other female Southwestern writers.

Hot, Hot, Heat

I have always enjoyed the writings of Gene Stratton Porter and how she draws you into her writings visually- and without pictures too! What I think is most significant for me about this selection is not so much her hunt for the moth, but the realization that she is hauling around a really heavy set of camera equipment to photograph with through the marshes, swamps, and bogs! Here is a good representation of the type of camera she was using- she would have also had a large, wooden tripod to attach it to, a case holding many negative holder (where the film is kept), release cord, large, dark blanket for standing under (in that hot, hot, heat!), and I'm probably not naming everything..... In order to take the actual picture of the moving specimen, she had to stand underneath the blanket, look through the glass (which has everything backwards and upside down, manually focus by moving the bellows back and forth, set the aperture, close the shutter, take the negative holder out of the case, put it in the back of the camera, take the darkslide off carefully, press down on the release cord, take the picture, and then put the darkslide cover back in and remove the negative holder...all awhile, hoping that the specimen hasn't moved! I am in awe of by her diligence and persistence. With all of our digital camera fanciness we have today, we have forgotten so much of our past- and how perhaps there was more appreciation for species, like moths, because of how time consuming it was to actually take that picture! There were no such thing as a snapshot back then. These images would have been indispensable and precious to the one who captured them. Their value, undoubtable, was unmeasurable.

Yay Women Writers!

Let me start this blog response by saying that I really enjoyed reading these articles that were written by women during the 1900s. I thought that was really neat.

The first article by Gene Stratton Porter, "From Moths if the Limberlost," felt like an adventure from Indiana Jones or Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It was like the author was searching for the holy grail but this time it was a butterfly/moth and she didn't have a whip or she wasn't using coconuts as horse hooves. As reading of how the author was on this long search for the Cecropia I couldn't help but feel discomfort. From studying to be a scientist I understand that we need to discover and research things to move on to the next level but I often struggle with feeling the need to discover and name every species out there. And to discover all those species it requires taking them out of their natural habitat so we as humans can fully understand every little piece of that certain species. Now don't get me wrong I love exploring new areas and discovering new things and I love labs, but this is just a constant struggle that I feel. In the realm of science, there has always been that constant struggle, of finding how to find a good balance between humans and nature.

I really connected to Mary Austin's article "The Land of Little Rain" because it was a little taste of familiarity and it actually made me really miss home. Even though Austin was talking about California I couldn't help but think of home. She did a good job of describing the wonder about the desert and how it's so different from other places like Indiana. I really do love the dry weather, blue skies, sunshine, painted rocks. Austin is right, it for sure doesn't rain a lot but when it does it is so spectacular! The clouds get dark blue and purple and the lighting is unbelievable, so clear and dangerous and then when it does rain... it rains! But then after 15 minutes or so the rain stops and the clouds move on and then the sun breaks through. Those are the type of storms I like. Another thing that I really enjoy is that you can look out at a landscape and see for miles to the next horizon, and you can see every crevice and do't get me started on the texture of the rocks! . Austin states, "Very fertile are the desert plants in expedients to prevent evaporation, turning their foliage edgewise toward the sun, growing silky hairs, exuding viscid gum." I think that is just so amazing how plant life adapts to the climate of the desert and how it survives. Those are the type of things that assure me of why I choose to study biology and why I want to be an environmental educator.

Porter/Austin

I love everything about Gene Stratton Porter except her writing. For some reason, I just can’t get used to her style. “Moths of the Limberlost” does contain the perfect description of finding and photographing a Cecropia moth, and I actually liked this except more than some of her other works.

I clearly remember finding my first Cecropia. I couldn’t believe how big it was. The moth seemed otherworldly. Perhaps Porter had a hard time finding the Cecropia because it has a short life span. I got lucky finding mine. It was resting quietly on the side of a building. I know there is some skill in capturing butterflies and moths, but I believe a lot of it is luck. Enter skill. Porter’s placement of the female Cecropia was deliberate. She experienced a moth orgy like no other. I had heard Porter routinely left her windows and doors open to allow butterflies and moths to enter at all times. In this case it seemed to work perfectly.

As I read “The Land of Little Rain” it is pouring outside the Merry Lea Learning Center. A gully has formed next to the construction project. The newly constructed river will eventually find its way to the Elkhart River. I have never read any of Mary Austin’s work. She shares the power of description with Porter, but I find her much easier to follow. I can feel the heat she describes, and know the despair. Is Austin depressed? I think so.

Potter & Austin...

Even in these spaces/places that seemingly appear unhospitable, there is a way to transcend & break on through and live. Austin's telling of how it,"becomes necessary to keep eggs cool rather than warm", was amazing to picture. How the birds shield their young and become a medium of shade, while there is"...no special preponderance of the self-fertilized or wind-fertilized plants, but everywhere the demand for and evidence of insect life."
Austin seemed to connect respect for the deserts' living inhabitants to their belonging landscape -mirroring the tenacity of those plant relatives. "There are hints to be had here of the way in which a land forces new habits on its dwellers...", it's true, we respond to our environment, to a culture of place. "They trick the sense of time, so that once inhabiting there you always mean to go away without quite realizing that you have not done it." Surely, the land is a witness to our sense (or lack of) of belonging. Fragility of life and its' own self-determination spoke to me in Land of Little Rain,"...so much earth must be preempted to extract so much moisture. The real struggle for existence, the real brain of the plant, is underground; above there is room for a rounded perfect growth.

Just picturing an "amaranthus ten ft high and a year later matured at 4 inches" reminds me of the impermanence all sentient beings face.
Yesterday you were in the world alongside your wife of 40+ plus years and today you are telling me about her because she has shape-shifted and you find her presence -out there, in the land dear to you. I stuck around yesterday & got to talking to Larry and had no clue that he had lost his wife 8 months ago.

As a witness, I wonder how the desert receives the bodies of people dying, from the noted perished "coolie" men to those today crossing the border. It's a clenching terrain for how you must persevere in order to not die and when you do, it's the way you go that is most hellish, "Dehydration had reduced all your inner streams to sluggish mudholes. . . . Your sweat runs out. . . . Your temperature redlines -- you hit 105, 106, 108 degrees. . . . Your muscles, lacking water, feed on themselves. They break down and start to rot. . . . The system closes down in a series. Your kidney, your bladder, your heart." - Luis Alberto Urrea, "The Devil's Highway,".

The end of Moths of the Limberlost, made me smile at her highly animated personhood. Potter definitely enjoyed herself and even though I am not about collecting "specimens"in these ways, she conveyed the process of her coming to know, and that's the piece she relished and shaped her. Evidently, she truly lived along side the Cecropia to be in the know of their mating, the intricacies in the laying of eggs, stories of cocoon emergence,"...with Cecropias holding high carnival...from every direction they came floating like birds down the moonbeams.
I imagine the Cecropias came to know a Potterness, that could only come from being gleaned in such close scrutiny.

Jefferies Response

I felt like the two writers were similar in their subject matter. Basically both addressed the mixing of nature with man. I felt as though both were struggling with their place and nature and the way that people interact.

In "Out of Doors in February" I liked the fact that he pointed out all the little things that begin to come back to life after a dormant winter. He notices all these little things and appreciates them. It reminded me of Lisa's story in class about her friend who says that when the birds migrate back its like her friends have come home.

I enjoyed "Absence of Design in Nature" the most of all three readings. I just liked his thoughts on everyday objects in the house and how there is really no place for them in nature. Nature has no objects that it needs in order to do its daily tasks. I thought a lot about the "beauty" of things. He says in his writing that "...the grass of my golden meadow has no design, and no purpose: it is beautiful, and more; it is divine."Sometimes I think that as humans we can only see man made things as art. We put high value on things that are made by man. But what about the things in nature? Aren't they just as amazing as a great picture of a flower or a painting of a landscape? Now I'm not saying that we need to put a price on nature, but maybe focus on what is already there instead of what we do not have.

This particular part of the writing also made me thing of Frost and Whitman. Obviously Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" came to mind. Frost's poem, "Design" also popped into my head because it has always been one of my favorites of his. He basically is talking about something very similar to Jefferies. Questioning the reason for the spider to be where it is and the reasoning for the moth. He makes comparisons to "things" in order to describe the moth and the spider, but at the same time keeps them separate from man made objects.

Here is "Design"

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,

On a white heal-all, holding up a moth

Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth—

Assorted characters of death and blight

Mixed ready to begin their morning right,

Like the ingredients of a witches' broth—

A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,

And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,

The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?

What brought the kindred spider to that height,

Then steered the white moth thither in the night?

What but design of darkness to appall—

If design govern in a thing so small.

Jefferies Reading Response

There are many points in Jefferies writings that really stand out to me: first, in "Out Doors in February", when he talks about birds and animals always returning to where their original home. That section made me think about the day we were bird-banding, and how surprised I was to learn that most of the birds at Merry Lea return year after year. Jefferies also brings a new light to what we might refer to as "the dead of winter" , when he says that "there is never a time when there is not a flower of some kind out.......There is life always, even in the dry fir-cone that looks so brown and sapless." Later, when he says "I think the moments when we forget the mire of the world are the most precious." really resound for me. Jefferies adoration and respect of nature is most evident in this first selection.

The next writing, "Absence of Design", is more somber and melancholy. I read a bit about Jefferies, and this writing really made a lot more sense. Jefferies struggled with both poverty and tuberculosis (which ended up killing him early in life), and his negative commentary on the human-constructed world I think must have reflected what he was going through. There must have been a thought of his own mortality when he wrote ".....I dislike the word economy: I detest the word thrift; I hate the thought of saving." What good is not enjoying the present when you might not be around in the future? Lastly, his comment on the fact that there are more than enough food in the world for all its human children really brings his writing into the present moment- with the general overall poverty that the world is battling today.

Wright....

While reading Wright, I thought to myself -Nature is, after all, her own best spokeswoman. It's creative verbal thinking, her writing allows for the seeing & feeling she names. An image, vision of a pattern, intuition, lead to a seed of thought.

Jefferies' writing felt contradictory to me. Amidst all natural phenomena -all plants & animals adapt to their environment creatively- precisely because the grass of the golden meadow is part of the divine, there is a design, an inherent purpose, even if man/woman can't see/know it. After squinting real hard to read this, I feel it's a prime example of how there are guiding stories that form the frame of reference for a people and how they understand themselves. These stories inform us, people then normalize & internalize what has been learned, and then we take apart and restructure interpretation. I assume he reached his own newer level of understanding. I hope he was able to perceive that the human being is not separate from the rest of nature.

Jefferies response

I like when people acknowledge what is human made and what is nature. Jefferies does just that at the end of 298, he comments that economy, thrift, wealth are inventions. I agree and it is important for people to see nature as a separate being from human civilization. When learning about the environment is it important to see a tree for its part in the ecosystem, for the things it does, not just seeing what the wood is used for and how we use it. That said we have also depended on nature for our world, therefore it is important to know how the environment fits in with the economy, wealth, land management.

I love winter, for many reasons but one of the reasons is to go skating on the river in Winnipeg. Every winter it is amazing for me to see the banks of the river from the view point of the river. In spring we sit on the banks and watch the ice melt and float down the river and in summer we walk along the banks to get to friends houses, or to collect clay. We see the plants and trees close up, but in winter we get to look up at where the plants and green trees are and remember the time when it was green. I liked reading Jefferies winter remembering because the seasons are amazing especially when you remember a particular spot. Remembering where plants sprung up is also a great way to deal with cabin fever.

Jeffereis and Wright

Alright so after reading Muir last week I guess I was expecting the same kind of writing this week and I was wrong. I was not that intrigued when I read Jefferies, Out of Doors in February. I kept getting off track and go back to re-read. However, I did enjoy reading Absence of Design in Nature because it was interesting to read what Jefferies was feeling during his time. It was really interesting to see how he analyzed "nature's forces." For example, when Jefferies said, "From childhood we build up ourselves an encyclopaedia of the world, answering all questions: we turn to Day, and the reply is Light; to Night, and the reply is Darkness. It is difficult to burst through these fetters and to get beyond Day and Night: but, in truth, there is no Day and Night; the sun always shines." It would have been interesting to be there with Jefferies when he figured out that the sun is always shinning even when we can't see it because it's night. I take for granted the knowledge of knowing what day and night is, but in Jefferies time (1848-1887) people are just starting to go through the steps to figuring out that knowledge. I enjoy reading these readings from this book because they help me see a new perspective on how things were or are thought.

The Story of a Garden was also a good read. I liked how Wright was able to go through a story about how a garden changes and evolves with the growing boy. This reading helped me appreciate all the surrounding aspects a garden holds. Like the music of the birds, the plants, the smells, etc.

Jefferies/Wright

"Out of Doors In February" made me think this heat had disappeared, but then I stepped outside. It's a hot one for sure. At first I thought Jefferies was similar to Leopold, but after reading "Absence of Design in Nature" I felt otherwise. Leopold was born the year after Jefferies died. Jefferies ideas could not be more different than Leopold's. I believe Jefferies "Absence" reflected some of the general scientific thought of the time. It's almost comical to think about form without function. Whenever I read a piece like this I often wonder what people in the future will say about our current line of thinking. I can here them now? Will they have a similar "inevitable conclusion that there is no object, no end, no design, and no plan; no anything that is." It could be argued that Jefferies was referring to a Divine plan, but I think he means otherwise. It's as if he sees nature as nature. A random occurrence of interactions. Suprisingly, this was possible written near Darwin's 1859 Origin of the Species. Could this be a response to Darwin's great work, or was it written before? We know that Darwin wasn't widely accepted at first. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the exact publication date of "Absence."

I've always loved the name Mabel. It was Hannah's grandmother's name, and will be the name of our first child if it's a girl, and if we ever have children. Mabel has a gift of describing the things we see, but do not see on a daily basis. She reminds us that a garden isn't just a garden. There is a microcosm of life in those beds. Mabel encourages us to sit outside and see. I now understand why the editors associate her with Michael Pollen. He too has the gift of writing about something familiar in a new way.

High on Nature...

I am sitting on the front porch of the house and dark clouds, winds and rain are coming out of no where. I am a scardy cat and go inside to finish reading. Muir on the other hand goes outside because e figures he is just as safe outside as inside. Wow. Now he goes and climbs a tree to experience the storm from above.
I really enjoyed reading Muir because he spoke about nature as a being or spirit. It wasn't all that scientific and it was clear that he had a relationship with nature. There seemed to be give and take from both Muir and nature. In some ways I am jealous that his comfort with nature is so extreme but in other ways I think that not everyone can, nor wants too.

I think that Muir has a wonderful way of thinking and experiencing nature and I know that I will never climb a tree in a storm or canoe in Alaska I think that reading him makes me understand others a little better, see the beauty that someone else sees.

Both pieces resonated that knowingness of belonging to that something greater, how alive the "who" in you becomes in the places we call wild: gazing and being gazed at, listening and being listened to.What I can appreciate about Muir's writing is how it sheds light on what how one conceives Nature as a reflection of an understanding about ourselves.

There is an "asking" quality to his storytelling, probing the bigger question of how does woman/man consciously chose to relate to the natural world? On the other hand, I think that is telling of the clashed worldviews that transpired across the Americas
(as elsewhere in the world) on how peoples perceived natural phenomena in their environment. As evident from his description of "Digger Indians" a.k.a. the Pauite, that he conceived Native peoples as almost not being "capable of" sharing his conception of beauty; later just as Thoreau did as well, after actually having a lived exchange (actually living with Natives in Alaska, I believe) his perception of Natives changed, and I presume contemplated his notions of the savage -civilized matrix.

His reference to the class-based distinction of the business man and miner mirror what is (and will be) indeed the same today & tomorrow about how we are: whether it's the 3-piece suited corporate whatever who takes his "recreational" time in the outdoors or a person self-sustaining from their place on the land to the "other" person, we are another species part of Nature, not separate from, even as our arrested development continues...no matter what the influences upon our lives may be, it is that innate biophilia in us all -humankind-, that connects us all to being a part of this Nature. It is an older story part of our collective human consciousness.

Muir

John Muir is crazy, but in a good way. Several years ago I discovered he lived in Indianapolis, IN. Since I’m from Indiana, I was instantly interested. Before he became the Muir we all know and love, he worked at a factory in Indianapolis. He was injured at the factory and lost his eyesight. After the accident he was confined to a dark room for six weeks, and he wondered if he would every regain his ability to see. When he did regain his eyesight everything changed. He packed his bags and left for Florida. I’ve also read that he was a minimalist. On his thousand-mile walk to the gulf he took the following: “a comb, a brush, a towel, a bar of soap, a change of underclothing, a copy of Burn’s poems, Milton’s Paradise Lost, Wood’s Botany, a small New Testament, his journal, a map, and a plant press.” Incredible. I think we’ve all had these “lightbulb moments.” Something happens and suddenly our eyes are opened to a world we’ve never seen. Muir does a great job of describing the excitement that comes with these awakens. He’s always full of life. Unlike Thoreau, he never seems to lose his enthusiasm. I want to encorporate this kind of thinking in my own life. It also doesn’t hurt that he’s a birder. His description of the American Dipper, a.k.a the Water Ouzel, or the Water Thrush was amazingly poetic. It’s as if he knows the Ouzel. Some would say this is anthropomorphism. I say otherwise. Muir’s passion for nature exceeds his desire to formalize his experiences.