Greetings! I'm sure you're thinking, "It's been a week! You had best have something interesting to write about, young lady!" Well, convieniently, I do. While last week was slower I still got quite a bit done.
Accomplishment #1: I took pictures of half of OWC watershed and GIS'd their locations. It was a lovely 2.5 hour trip around the area. I saw quaint little areas like this quaint little ditch, alluring locales, and this groovy little spot in Berlin Heights. A lot of the places I took pictures of I couldn't actually get down to because of slope and vegetation but that last site in Berlin Hts. I was able to get to.
It's totally hidden and it's a great secret. Frank told me the gorge is a glacial remnant of the Canadian Shield. There were a lot of great flowers down there and dragonflies zooming about. It was all very picturesque. Most of my sites got 2-3 pictures, this one got about 10. This pretty little spot, though, apparently has issues with raw sewage and trash. How sad.
Accomplishment #2: My next adventure happend on July 4th. I decided that it'd be a great day to go to Sheldon's Marsh. I arrived and began to walk the paved path. Apparently, this was the site of one of the first paved roads in Ohio and it took you to Cedar Point. I guess the paved road itself was just as much an attraction as the amusement park. When Dr. Sheldon purchased it in the 50's, people thought he was crazy and called the area Sheldon's Folly. It was just a mucky wetland afterall.
It's a good thing he did because now it's a phenomenal place to go brid watching. You can also visit Shelly the Sheldon's Marsh squirrel, the amazing headless swallow, and even an occasional water snake.
As I continued on, I got to the beach. My first stop was the NASA pumping station. (If you look at page 5 of that PDF, there's great pictures of the erosion between 1968 and 2001.) I enjoyed several of the signs that they had on the fence.
I wandered down the beach and spent about an hour and a half poking at the various rocks and carcasses that littered the beaches. There's been enough erosion that you'll find areas where the peat is washing up on shore. Piles of black stuff everywhere. I got some pictures of some random things I thought were neat. Towards the end, I acknowledged that I was on a reeeeealy long beach and headed back. On the way, I took more pictures (of course).
Semi-Accomplishment #3: The rest of the week was spent working on lesson plans and scratching my eyes out over Ohio educational standards. (I'm accepting defeat at this point and will ask for help.) I also plotted my course for the other half of Old Woman Creek watershed pictures. Then, I fled to spend a lovely weekend with friends. (You don't get to hear about that, that's for another blog.)
This week so far has had me in a kayack twice now. I almost did a face plant into the creek yesterday. It was great. I got to learn a little of the physical science of the preserve from Joe Ortiz as he lead his class from Kent State. Dr. Doug Kane came by with his class from Stone Lab. We also had the Stream Ecology for Teachers class from Stone Lab too. We even had educators from Soil and Water Conservation groups. (It was a slightly busy day for us yesterday.) I'll get to go back on the water again Thursday for the public canoe trip.
Other interny type news:
-I get to teach a session from Project Wild at a training in August.
-I get to coordinate the conceptual design for two of the display windows here.
-I'm going to start making themes for the weekends. This weekend: microhabitats!
Before I go, I forgot to give you the update on the mouth of OWC. It closed about 2 weeks ago after making a sharp swing to the west thanks to wave action and the movement of sand. Here's a pic:
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