July 16
*Review of invasive issues was a treat esp. the glossy buckthorn--such an innocuous plant
*Finally! I learned how to distinguish low bush blueberry from young burning bush
*Loved the process of compiling questions then condensing them to help us focus on a project topic. A neat method to come to consensus while being mindful of people's contributions.

Brought the corpse of an autumn olive shrub I had gurdled in May-ish to class today. I thought I had cut it up good, but it kept on growing..."La-di-da! Didn't you hear? I'm an invasive--tough to impossible to kill!"  The old leaves were fragile looking and many had fallen off. But there was tremendous new growth. The new leaves were much larger and the cut I had made had started to both heal over and it sprouted eentsy little mouse ear leaves!!!  Since I cut it down this morning, I'm curious to see how the stump behaves.

Learned about the humble umbel family today. Delicate but deadly. Tom Lee explained that the hemlock used to kill Socrates came from the umbel family not the coniferous tree. The study of poisonous plants must be full of fascinating stories. I work with a woman who, on the word of a neighbor, cooked dinner using a mushroom found on their property. She inadvertently poisoned her whole family. Her young son died. We tend to forget how powerful plant toxins are.

The spot in the center looks like a tiny dark red set of petals--shaped differently than the rest of the flowers.

19 July

*Learned I need to get a better grasp on tree physiology and function

*Learned (again) that I need to cultivate patience

*Reminded about the joy of being with and seeing nature

Today Sam did her facilitated reading on Wessels 3^rd chapter. I particularly liked the activity where we drew a forested landscape, swapped drawings with the other group and made up a story about the picture and told it to the class. I liked the other group’s idea of the character being the old white pine thinking about his missing neighbors (killed in a forest fire) and its philosophical conversation with an even older tree, its grandmother.  I’m tickled by our story, set in 1928, of Penelope the herbalist who is scouting and collecting from the forest to make fermented birch/wintergreen beer and collect chestnuts. She plans to sell them and make a little extra money because NH is in an economic slump prior to the Great Depression and the Prohibition is in force.

The best part of the day:

Out at the plot we went a little wild during our “beyond the plot” journaling. We ran around looking at this-that-and-the-other and…forgot to write. But we took a lot of pictures! Here are a few of our finds:

Canadian Mayflower in seed--speckled!

White pine and sassparilla seeds

Laura & Dan...having so much fun they forgot to journal :)

Wessels rot-resistant branches in a white pine snag

We’ve all got so many thoughts and ideas running around upstairs. As I listen to and participate in conversations I find myself thinking more about my responses than listening to the other person. Last week I found a small piece of paper. It said:

Power Listening

Don’t interrupt

Listen for main ideas

Fight distractions

Substance not style

Stifle anger

Take brief notes

Let others talk first

Empathize

Withhold judgment

React to message not messenger

Read feelings between lines

Ask questions

It’s about understanding

Someone sure knew what I would need before I did and made sure I had it. One hour later… Power Listening reminded me of my quote diary. I’ve collected a lot of environmental and teaching quotes over the years. Here are a few that struck me tonight:

~Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.

        —Confucius

~I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respect her seniority.

        —William Westmoreland or E.B. White

~And forget not that the Earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play in your hair.

         –Kahlil Gibran

18 July
*Inquiry based teaching was easier than I expected--I didn't have to keep a slew of info at the forefront.  *Keeping quiet was easier than I thought it would be too. :)

Today I had my facilitate reading. The topic was Inquiry. I must admit I didn’t connect with the three readings. Lara helped me come up with a topic (seeds) to facilitate the conversation. And then I went hog-wild imagining activities. What fun! I had to stop and remind myself that this lesson was not really about seeds.  

When I worked as a Park Ranger giving tours my husband helped me get over my shyness. He said, "If you don't tell them about it, they won't know." It helped a lot. It made the experience of standing in front of a bunch of strangers more about what I could give them than about my fear. Fast forward to the inquiry/seeds lesson planning...I realized I had to partially set that paradigm aside and give students time to observe and figure things out for themselves.

The lesson itself was easier than I thought it would be. It was nice not being laser-focused on mountains of information to convey. Asking questions and leaving silences for comments and questions made the whole lesson was much more relaxed, it flowed. Many people were familiar with the sprouting bean activity but they liked the addition of corn kernels, unsprouted seeds and advanced sprouted beans and corn so they could see the tremendous changes a seed goes through. I was tickled by this response. It is nice to realize people are seeing something familiar in a new light.

At the Little Packets of Magic: Gallery of Seeds we looked at different seeds. I think people sometimes make the mistake of thinking something is simple because it is small. I enjoyed watching them pick the seeds up too get a closer look, Mary sharing her seed dispersal ditty and hearing what people knew about seeds and the political/ethical/economic issues regarding seeds.

I don’t think they thought much of the last activity when I gave them the instructions. We went outside and looked for seeds in the landscape immediately around the building. But they said afterward that they were amazed by the quantity of seeds available…and their faces lit up. It was a perfect moment. 

Kim said the lesson felt unstructured. I'm of two minds about that. On one hand I'm very happy she felt that way. I want delivery to be smooth, relaxed and to not interfere with their learning process. The transition of ideas and projects should flow easily. But the lessons can't seem loosy-goosy either. People tend to not value things that come too easy or are dismissive if delivery is disorganized. I guess I have to assimilate that student perceptions will all be different and I can only control my contributions.

We finalized our projects and went out to the first site today. Woohoo!  The plot was along Rt125 in the forest. Thin vegetation but it took us a while to get through it. I learned a few new forest plants. :) We'll get smoother and faster as we go along. We plan to go to the powerlines later...when we are more practiced!

 11 July
*Figuring it out for yourself rather than being told leads to much deeper learning...but you have to be plugged in
*Clethra blossoms rubbed with water create sweet smelling "soap"
*multiple animals/insects use one tree and the remains of the activities of the other critters: White pine host tree for carpenter ants (which taste lemony because of <formic> acid, bite their heads off so they don't bite you on the way down!). The carpenter ants hollow out the tree and attract woodpeckers. Woodpecker activity allow other cavity nesters like flying squirrels in. Then, scarab beetles lay eggs in the decaying dung of the other critters.

                                                               

                                                                    GOLD THREAD

I learned to ID and uses for more forest plants today. My two favorites were the clethra flower 'soap' and using gold thread roots as a tea or just chewing them numbs the mouth if you have canker sores etc. Dan, our forest guide for the day, reminded me of the wintergreen/birch beer flavor of the black birch twigs. Tom Lee told me he makes a tea from the branches. I'll have to collect some at BHW to give it a try.  I'm going to start taking plant samples and IDing them.  Saw some stuff that looked like burdet growing. Does burdet grow wild here?     

Came to class today dehydrated and headachy. Big learning morning:  No fun, won't do that again.  

The KWL (Know/Wonder/Learned) exercise was an eyeopener...I need to review the carbon cycle! I've forgotten so much! The range of knowledge and holes in knowledge throughout the class was incredible. Powerful lesson in understanding where everyone is coming from and with different levels of understanding.

Tue, 10 July
*getting off the path, you experience the forest in a much different way
*When setting up a lesson for students, ask them to look around and say what they think the answer might be before the data is collected & analyzed--a hypothesis
*so many plants to identify--focus on shrub & herbaceous layers

Forest composition data crunching today. In the science-focused classes the numbers crunching was usually more complex so this simple exercise was a nice review. It was fun watching others figure out how to read the data and then what it all meant.

The hike through BHW was fast although we spent 2 hours doing a scavenger hunt. Seeing many of the features mentioned in Tom Wessel's book like the coppiced trees was great. The highlights for me were seeing beautiful plants I could not identify, the re-sprouting beech trunk, finding clethra beside the beaver pond and the old homestead with Alice's headstone. I'm really looking forward to exploring that site more. 

Mon, 9 Jul:
*stopping and taking time to really LOOK at something
*Stumps & snags are full of life
*present an idea, give time to think about THEN partner up to share

The mosquitoes almost sucked the blood from my bones and carried them away! I won't forget the bug spray & long pants tomorrow!  :) 

I was astonished by how much life there was in what we normally perceive of as "dead". The various fungus', ferns, lichens, and insects were beautiful. Ants, spiders and mite-like insects crawled about breaking the wood.