Early Existential Experience Enriched Euphoric Ecologists

Hello again readers. Thursday was a big day. By big we mean enormous. Our morning was ignited by the presence of rock star science Dr.’s Terry Robison (father of Drew. Our BEHI sensei) and Connie Hausman (our everyday sensei). Side shoutout to Sara for being our hydrology sensei. The five of us scanned the Acacia grounds to find the drop zones for our deer exclosures. Have no fear the deer are not losing all of their food, because we are merely enclosing ten total square meters out of the many hundreds of acres of deer friendly roaming grounds on Acacia. Our first site was an appealing carpet of pin oak saplings that stretched farther than Chris Tatsuoka’s dumbfounded mouth after his beloved Baltimore Orioles could do nothing but watch Kenny Lofton steal five bases and send a bomb over the left field wall to seal the Windians 12 to 11 victory back in the glory days at Jacob’s Field. Sorry Progressive, but The Jake was magical. This magic was not unlike the wizardry of Dr. Terry’s hands as he nonchalantly tossed a research flag perfectly into the ground. He turned to look at us, and we didn’t even need to ask if he threw Javelin in high school. We became honorary dendrologists for the afternoon and learned about the many woody trees of Acacia. Epicormic sprouting aside, Acacia is a prime example of a diverse and healthy secondary succession pattern.  As the afternoon drew on we all shed a golden tear as we were once again left home alone in the shed. We then fended off two robbers who came to ruin our Christmas. That last part wasn’t real that is actually the plot to a movie…and it isn’t Christmas, we are just trying to keep our readers on their toes, but everything else was the truth. Shout out once again to the moms for being much better than erosion.

            Friday saw us once again without tripod leg Al Stotter as he had come down with a case of the make-up AP Bio test. Friday would have been much cooler if Dr. Sensei Hausman would have let us borrow her metal detector, but all in all it was a very productive day. We set out into the cesspool delta of Euclid Creek. Although we had the protection of the waders we still had to cautiously avoid floating food receptacles and petroleum slicks. The pollution was not all bad seeing as we found a lonely plastic Denver Broncos football undulating amongst the muck that made for some jovial afternoon entertainment. As we moved forward with our BEHI assessment of Euclid Creek the waters began to clear up, and we found solace amongst the cool clay creek curvature below the cantilevering canopy. The story of the afternoon became our battle against batteries as our GPS unit and science camera both tangoed with the last breath of their batteries. At the end of the day the score was one to zero in favor of technology as the batteries both collapsed and made us retire our BEHI sheets for the day. RIP GPS.

Hope you have a restful and barbecue fueled weekend,

Graham, Chase, Alex

Getting Up Close With The Oak