Last blog post of the To the woods intersession!

Today in the "To the woods" intersession, we worked on a short story. The short story is about an animal, and we were supposed to personify and make it creative. I tried my best, and this is my short story.

Drake the Dragon

By: Jon Henry

At the beginning, Drake the dragonfly is just a mere egg. He is laid by his mother on top of the plants in the small pond, the same pond where he will find his home at for the majority of his life. The pond itself is nothing special, it is very murky and is thriving with insects. While it’s early spring this year, the mating of all the insects is occurring and laying their eggs in the water. After a couple days after his mother lays him he hatches. He immediately realizes that he’s not alone and must act fast. There are hundreds of other larvae, and he knows he must compete with them. “Gotta eat! Gotta hide! Gotta eat! Gotta hide!” In his alien-like nymph form, Drake swims around and tries to find his food, for he knows that if he doesn’t get any soon, he will soon die. He eats other dragonfly larvae that are late to hatching and he eats other insects that live inside of the pond. Drake swims around, blowing himself around like a Jet Ski while eating and hiding from predators.

Drake goes through this process every single minute of every single day. For days, months, years, he never stops. He constantly thinks “Food. Need food. Need to hide. Which one is more important?” He lives every moment of his life in the moment and doesn’t let anything pass him without seeing it. He doesn’t have regrets, he doesn’t have grudges, he doesn’t have hates or loves. He simply lives, and thinks about living, and everything he does is focused on living.

After a 3-4 years of swimming through the water and growing bigger and bigger, he finally starts to become ready to go into metamorphosis and become an adult. “Just in time too! 3 years as a larva is very boring. I want to fly now!” The weather has to be just right, so Drake has to wait when he’s fully grown until he finds it suitable. It could take weeks until he is able to find a good day to shed his skin on. He tries one day, “It’s too dry! Must go back to water.” He tries the next day, “it’s way too hot! Must wait until it cools down.” And then finally, the day comes. “Perfect! It’s not too hot, not too dry, and perfectly humid.” Drake finds the stem of a nearby plant in the pond and starts climbing it, and once he reaches the top he starts shedding his skin and becomes a beautiful adult dragonfly. He emerges with black, wet wings with white tips and a tad of purple. Big, black eyes that seem to be bigger than his entire head. A long purple-black tail that gracefully fits with the rest of his body. His eyes are the most valuable, because he uses 80% of their brain on eyesight and he can almost see in a total 360 degree view. He is always living in the moment, always seeing everything that’s going on, missing nothing.

 But right when he sheds his skin is when he is also the most vulnerable. Drake’s wings are still wet from shedding his previous skin, and will have to avoid predators while still eating insects over the next few days if he wants to survive. “Yay! I’m finally going to fly!!!” He flies around, and the first thing he wants to do is eat. He wants to eat and reproduce, but he’s just so hungry, he hasn’t eaten in hours! He tries and tries but can’t eat mosquitos and flies, they are too fast for him due to his wet, newly formed wings. He finds out quickly that he needs to find some way to overcome his challenge, so he tries to wait. He thinks about trying to sneak up on the insects, but he is too big. He then flutters onto a branch and waits patiently to see if something will come close enough for him to eat.

But this was the wrong thing to do. “OH! Gotta move! Gotta move!” Almost instantly, a bird that was perching above him swoops down with its beak opened, hoping to have an easy lunch. But since Drake is so observant, he sees this and quickly dodges right, and lowers himself to his pond, so he could see if he could eat some of the insects that are on top of the pond. He is mere inches above the water and the bird gives up and goes back to its nest. But when he leaves one predator’s domain, he enters another’s. A frog sees drake and uses its tongue to attempt to grab onto Drake’s wings and succeeds. Drake ultimately lives to feed another. He leaves the world, his life, with no regrets. He doesn’t resent anything he has done and knows that most dragonflies die in his stage of life. He perishes, but he lived a happy life. He lived and ate, and all he ever wanted was to live, which he did. 

Day 7 - Vignettes

Today in the "to the woods" intersession, we designed vignettes. Vignettes are short descriptions of a picture or animal that describe them in the 5 senses in some way. They describe a story, something that comes alive and makes the reader feel something at the end of your story/scripture. It is designed to envoke some emotion inside of the person reading it.

                         The first vignette we did was with this picture, which was a practice vignette

My vignette: 

Swimming along the river,

Fish are aware that they may be dinner,

And then comes the bear,

The big, fuzzy and tall scare.

The bear tries to eat the fish,

And the fish are aware that they are the dish,

And try to leap from the bear’s hands.

The fish escape and squirm on the sands.

While the bear accidently bites his hands.

The bear howls a menacing roar

With its paws, now sore

 With the taste of blood in its mouth

The bear’s courage has gone south

And now it walks away, hungry and sad

A lucky day, the fish had

To live another day

Tis all life will say.

Then, after we did this we had to choose a picture we took earlier in the intersession. For this, I chose a picture of a bee and wrote a vignette about bees in general, not just the bee in the picture. 

the picture of the bee

My vignette about bees:

The greatest farmer, ‘tis the bee

Able to grow the flower, the bush and the tree.

With the superpower of pollination,

Mankind is its damnation.

For when people hear the buzz,

Or when they touch its fuzz,

Man gets scared and wants to rid of it,

The bee population getting reduced bit by bit.

Man destroys flowers and many a plant

The bees, with mercy they chant.

Man doesn’t listen to the yellow and black,

And so this furthers the attack.

The bees decline, honey gets rarer,

Mankind has to be the bearer.

The bearer of guilt and shame,

For we are the only ones to blame.

The bee, whilst simple in its nature,

The king of the plants, standing with great stature.

But man is evil and selfish,

Lawns becoming barer and barer, they accomplish.

With less flowers and plants the bee eats,

Its demise, the bee meets.

And ‘tis the reason the bee, the carrier of pollen,

Will, in due time, have fallen.

And so with it, the flowers, bushes and the tree,

For man was selfish, but this I ask of thee,

Don’t kill bees, don’t destroy flowers

For if we do, the master of plants we devour. 

Day 6 - Eastwood metro park -- kayaking and hiking

Today at the Eastwood metro park, you could actually feel life buzzing around. You could see birds everywhere, with chimney swifts flying around while you hear almost 5 different types of birds at once. You could taste the dew in the air, and while cold and humid, every breath you took you felt as if you were one with the plants, the animals and bugs around you. You were all experiencing the same things, and all sharing the same air. When you touched the trees and plants around you, you could feel the soft wetness of the leaves, and the wetness of everything intensified the smell you experienced. It was a refreshing experience, and it inspired me to write about nature and how nature feels to me.

Picture of a blooming flower

 Imagine yourself standing inside of your room. Now, instead of thinking of yourself in your room, think of yourself inside of your house. But you aren't just standing in your house either, you're standing on earth. You're true home. Often you don't truly realize this until you understand that all life on earth is equally as precious. You get to see things you didn't see before, like the daddy long legs crawling on the leaves of a poison ivy leaf, or that there are birds above you chirping gracefully and enthusiastically. 

You get to understand that this whole world is a part of the tree of life. But not above the ground, no, life is just the roots of the tree. The roots of the tree supply the base of the tree with beauty and elegance and you get to understand that all of this beauty that is expressed by all of nature creates the tree of life. Without every living being, every individual species, the tree would be very dull, very thin. The relationships of animals and the creations of man have all helped this tree grow into something marvelous. Many people don't see this tree of life, and it is a great shame.

Day 5 - Planning hiking trip (imaginary)

Today in the "To the woods" intersession, we started by learning about Cheryl Strayed and how she took a 94 day trip on the Pacific crest trail. We watched some videos about her and why she wanted to start on the trip, and how long it took to prepare. We recorded some of what she packed and watched a video of her reading and how she felt while doing it, and she described what she was going through and how she went through an "Internal transformation." She informed us about some of the things that happened during the trip, including how she started with a 70 lb backpack, which she didn't know was too large. She then reduced it to 50 lb and continued and finished the trip.

For our assignment we had to plan a trip to a trail and plan out all the items we needed, and then wore a bag with the weight of all of our items combined and walked around the school to see a small version of what it would be like to wear that much weight. For me and my partner, we decided to take a through trip of the buckeye trail, which is 1444 miles length. We decided that we would walk 14 miles a day to make the whole trip 103 days. For the items we decided to bring, we brought 20 pounds of dried stake+fish+pork, and 20 pounds of dried fruits+vegetables. We also decided to bring duck tape, water bottles, a tent, a sleeping bag, a Swiss army knife, a first-aid kit, a tooth care kit, a compass, a hand sanitizer, sunscreen, insect repellent, sunscreen, clothes, a solar powered stove, a poncho, and bags to carry everything.

In order to decide what we would bring, we had to go through the thought process of actually walking through the woods and what we would need or what we would want while doing it. For example, we knew it was going to be in the spring so we added insect repellent to prevent mosquito bites, and we added 40 pounds of different dried foods because we knew we wouldn't be able to conserve the food through coolers, so dried food was the way to go, and we brought a solar powered stove and Swiss army knife among other knives and forks for eating. For the other things we brought, it was for safe sleeping and bodily hygiene so we don't smell bad or grow weaker as we hiked, or it was for convenience to make the trip easier.

Day 4 - Aullwood Audubon

Today in the intersession "To the woods", we went to the Aullwood Audubon Center and Farm. The Aullwood Audubon is a place where there used to be a farm located, but the ownership of 70 acres were donated to the Audubon society and is reserved as a wildlife area. 

At the Aullwood Audubon, we started by separating into four groups and then going off in those groups with a guide to take us bird-watching and talking to us about the plants, animals, and birds that lived there. We got to explore down paths, identify different trees and we saw and heard different birds with binoculars and we also got to see many things that I haven't seen before, like an insect that makes sap on tall grass and that's how it survives.

We also went to a small pond, where we used small baskets to surface up small insects, animals, and bugs from the pond. We caught dragonfly larvae, tadpoles, and very small water skiers among others. We also got to see bird houses, and we learned about the birds that inhabit that area and saw a couple of territorial neo-tropical birds that migrate every winter and how they're different from birds that stay in Ohio all year round.

We then went back to the center to look at some snakes, frogs, turtles and other wildlife that Ohio has. Afterwords, we went to the farm and looked 

at some massive horses that can't be ridden but are used for pulling things. There were also goats, sheep, and some donkeys there. After that, we packed up and went back to the school.

Massive horses that cant be ridden at farm

Snake at the Aullwood Audubon center

Day 3 - Cox Arboretum

On the 3rd day of the intersession "To the woods", we had a field trip to the Cox Aboretum. There, we saw many things on many trails, including different types of trees, flowers, and animals, as well as a ton of butterflies and bees. There were many flowers there in the main area around the carousel, but in the trails there were a lot fewer flowers but many types of grass and weeds located all around the trails we walked through. We also climbed a tree house that was around 24 feet high and were able to see trees for miles in one direction in wilderness that man hasn't taken down.

We were given an assignment to find at least 5 different types of trees and take pictures of them. This required us to travel around the aboretum and find all the different types of trees and even travel into some trails to find different types. The types of trees we found were: Blue spruce, evergreen, maple, oak, and pine trees. There were other types of trees but we didn't take pictures of them.

blue spruce tree

Maple tree

Oak tree

Pine tree

Young evergreen tree with more evergreen in background

We were also required to take pictures of a creature. We found many creatures, but took pictures of turtles, squirrels, geese, and bees.

Bee

Second day -- Our small small world

 Today was my second day of the "To the woods" intersession. For my second day, my class went to Delco Park and listened to Rob E. Boley talk about how to write poems and haikus from getting words from an article or song. After we created the poems and haikus, my class then went out to the park to observe a smaller world and to take notes. 

My small world was on the edge of the grass and a pond. It was surrounded by large rocks and had water at the bottom. I observed many bugs and spiders in the small ecosystem, and tons of plants and webs for spiders. I also observed turtles, dragonflies, geese, ducks, and other animals and bugs around my ecosystem as well.

It was very interesting because I saw more life than i expected in a small crevice beside a pond. I managed to see a mix of life with water adapted species and land adapted species, and a mixture of ecosystems in the same environment. It let me realize that a mixture of life in any place can survive and coexist, and the ecosystem would be even more beautiful at the same time.