Alas, Boys Closed Down Epic Fraternal Group, Having Indulged Joyous Knockout Learning Method. No Project Quite Rendered Such Tremendous Understanding. Vehemently Wishing Xperts Year-long Zephyrs.

Summer time and the living ain’t  that easy. The past few weeks were very impactful in changing how we view our city and our own lives. In case y’all didn’t know, the Emerald Necklace features a lot of natural gems. Our Tuesday started at the early time of 8am, but we didn’t fold in the face of a little morning drowsiness. We persevered through Graham’s allergy induced yawns and were given a VIP tour of Cleveland Metroparks’ new endeavors in the flats area by our amazing sponsor sensei Dr. Connie Hausman. After a quick detour through the Scranton road park that is in the process of being transformed into an environmental beauty that shuns the industrial mounds across the Cuyahoga, we whizzed over to the Metroparks’ new dining facility at Rivergate. Rivergate is still in the process of being transformed from a gravel pile scattered with the dung of geese into a marvelous park and restaurant with significantly less goose dung. Our first chore was to move rocks away from the trees on the premises, and layer on new topsoil.  Shout out to rake-man Graham Duff for wielding the dainty tool while Al and Chaz got to do the jovial shoveling and wheelbarrow dispersal of topsoil. There was almost no pressure doing this work in front of the Metroparks’ professional construction staff, but when Lolly the Trolly and the Goodtime III both passed by we nearly folded. Multiple second grade end of the year class trips were right there to notice any faults we made, but we stuck it to them by performing in record time. After our labor was done we took a second to converse about whether or not the heron across the river was real. It was! Great Blue Heron even fooled us with its stillness and patience in pursuit of a little fish or amphibian.

After slamming some preservative free sandwiches in the car we were re-energized for our afternoon activities in Rocky River.  None of us were expecting the fun we were going to have this afternoon.  In fact, it slapped us in the face like a caudal fin to the dome by none other than Dunkleosteus the prehistoric mascot of Ohio, and I bet you all didn’t even know it existed! In case you didn’t realize, Dunk can measure up to 33 feet in length. Wow. After a walk through the nature center we almost missed out on the once in the lifetime experience of the Rocky River treehouse, luckily Dr. Connie was looking out for our developmental needs and steered us towards the hand puppets that were strewn amongst the cozy arbors. Side note: make sure when crawling through the child tunnel to look up at the surprise…now you have to go check it out. Bet you thought it couldn’t get any better, it did. Sensei Hausman led us on a fulfilling exploration of the park as we checked up on her recently planted seedlings and newly acquired American Elms. We also experienced an amazing view of the Rocky River that you will once again have to go to the park to see, because we don’t want to give anything away.  Our afternoon in Rocky River concluded with a little weed stamping around another area of recently planted trees. We were trampling these weeds around the trees so the skilled natural resources crew could come in with their sprayers and put down a little herbicide that will givev the weeds an astute roundhouse to their stamen.

Wednesday, today, was our last project day, and we were all glum, but not too glum as our included exploring the Bedford Reservation with our vivacious sponsor sensei Dr. Connie Hausman; botanist, ecologist, and friend. Before our excitement we experienced the ultimate sadness of leaving our shed at Acacia behind. With the last pile of dirt placed in the trash and our golf ball collection loaded into the car we shed a sapphire tear and simultaneously pulled the cream colored door closed. We then spent an afternoon exploring Bedford’s architectural wonder, the Viaduct, and learning about trees. Sweet mother of dendrology are there a lot of sassafras trees in Bedford!  Now we shed our second tear of the afternoon as Dr. Hausman told us about the Chestnut blight that wiped these behemoth trees that once dominated the deciduous forests of North America. We are not infants, who cry all the time; we just get really emotional about the easily avoidable consequences of anthropogenic stress.  

We are truly going to miss everyone that made this project a major success and willfully guided us through to greatness. It has been the highlight of our school experience and has taught us the importance of allelopathy, epicormic sprouts, perched tributaries, Martha, meander bends, glacial till, thalwags, germination, depositional bars, deer browse, robust systems, science senseis, and much much more. Thank you for everything.

Peace,

Graham Duff, Alex Stotter, Chase Goldston