The holly forest at Sandy Hook comprises some 264 acres and is said to include the largest concentration of American Holly on the east coast. I went on a NPS ranger-led walk this afternoon that focused on the ways the Lenape Indians used the natural resources available in the forest and salt marsh to survive. Sandy Hook and much of the mainland in the nearby Highlands was *bought* from the Lenape in 1678. The Lenape had used the area for hunting, fowling, fishing, making canoes, and harvesting food from the natural vegetation. The wild beach plums were one of the main attractions of Sandy Hook for the Lenape and the fruit was collected and dried. The photo above is the fruit of the Prickly Pear Cactus which is widespread on Sandy Hook. The fruit can be harvested (wear gloves to avoid the spiny parts) and made into jellies, dessert sauces, and one company even uses it to make lemonade. In Mexico, the fleshy part of the cactus itself is used in many recipes, including omeletes. The Lenape likely used the dried seeds to produce a product similar to flour. The fruit tastes somewhat like watermelon and is full of tiny seeds.
On our way to the holly forest, walking through the salt marsh, I found these Fiddler’s Crabs at low tide. They scurry about in the sand foraging for food and doing maintenance on their burrows. I wasn’t able to get a close pic, but the males are the ones with the large claws, which they wave around to attract a mate to their burrow. The Fiddler’s plug up their burrows with a ball of mud during high tide, trapping a pocket of air inside, and emerge when the tide recedes. Northerh bayberry, typical of coastal habitats. The tiny berries are a food source for swallows and catbirds (I’ve read that Rails eat them also) and are also used in candlemaking.
Some of the hollies at Sandy Hook are thought to be as much as 170 years old. This tree was large, but was not the oldest among them. I loved the knobby look of the trunk. Today’s walk was too short and quick for my liking, but it was nice to see this part of the holly forest. The area is normally closed to the public as it’s part of a large wildlife management area. I didn’t see any osprey or terns today, and the platform in the marsh was occupied by a greater black-backed gull when we walked past it. I saw a few migrating monarch butterflies, but the goldenrod isn’t blooming just yet, so I can expect to see many more in the coming weeks.

I stole this meme from somewhere in the blogosphere and reworked some parts. Thought it might lead to some interesting reading if anyone else wants to give it a try.



Are you satisfied with your blog’s content and look?
For the most part, yes. I would like to be able to change the image in my header once in a while, but haven’t figured out how to do that yet. I wish I were more comfortable with HTML so that I’d be willing to experiment a bit more. As it is, if I think it looks okay I’m hestitant to change anything. Even adding links to the sidebar makes me anxious. I tend to write about whatever is floating through my mind each day and like to have pics to go with each post. I really enjoy the visual aspect of blogging, and enjoy photos or illustrations on other’s blogs as well as my own.

Does your family know about your blog?
Yes, they do. Whether they read it or not is another question.

Do you feel embarrassed to let your friends know about your blog or do you consider it as a private thing?
Embarrassed isn’t the right word for it. It does feel a little weird to have certain friends reading this. My boss, for example, who was *alerted* (thanks Deb!) to my rant about work from last week. Luckily, she laughed and didn’t write me up for the comment about menopausal coworkers. A few other people from work read that post (thankfully none of the people I was ranting about) and I got some positive feedback from one coworker in particular who feels much the same and was glad to know she wasn’t the only one at the end of her rope with it. A blog can hardly be a private thing, but it can almost feel that way when the people reading it regularly are strangers.

Has blogging brought about positive changes for you?
The discipline of writing each day is a good thing for me. I spend way too much time at it, but it beats sitting in front of the television. I read a lot of great blogs each day and enjoy reading other people’s perspectives. I’m glad to have encountered people who appreciate some of the same things as I do.

Do you only read blogs of those who comment on your blog or do you also like to find new blogs?
I like to find new blogs, but also visit the folks who comment here.

What are your thoughts on commenting? Is it important to you that people leave comments?
I probably only comment on half of the blogs I read each day. I try to leave good thoughtful comments, but oftentimes I can’t think of anything intelligent to say. Of course, I wonder how many people read my blog but never comment. One thing that bugs me are bloggers who don’t acknowledge comments. I think it’s bad form. Of course, not every comment requires a response, but there are certain blogs that I hesitate to comment on anymore because my comments are ignored every single time. Why allow comments if you’re not interested in the feedback you get? The comments I get here are important to me because I like the sense of community and the exchange of ideas.

Does your visitor’s counter matter to you?
Not on a daily basis, but I do like to see that I’m not always talking to myself!

Do you try to imagine what fellow bloggers look like?
I admit to having a *picture* in my mind based on the *voice* they use in their blog, yes.

Do you think there is a benefit to blogging?
Well, it’s fun for me, so that’s a benefit. I’m using my camera a lot more and writing a little each day. Plus, I feel like I’ve made new friends and gotten to *know* people I otherwise would not have. A lot of the blogs I read relate to natural history in one way or another and it’s interesting to me to see how sometimes we’re all thinking about the same things. Blogging has also caused me to realize that I have a lot to learn and I’ve been lucky to find a lot of knowledgeable people.

Does criticism of your blog annoy you?
So far everyone’s been really nice. Constructive criticism is good and welcomed!

Are there any types of blogs that you avoid?
I don’t know that there are any types that I avoid reading, but I do hestitate to comment on political posts or others where I don’t feel capable of contributing anything worthwhile.

Buddy doesn’t like to have his picture taken and will nearly always turn away when the camera comes out. Maybe he figures he looks best in profile. I had wanted to get a pic of his tongue, but he would have none of it. He’s a mix of Lab and Chow, so has black/purple spots on his tongue. That’s the only way you’d know by looking at him that he’s part Chow. He acts more like a Chow than a Lab; fearful of strangers and protective of his people. He’s only a *happy-go-lucky* Lab with my husband and I. He has at least a hundred squeaky toys – half of which are usually spread around the living room and under the bed collecting dust bunnies. When he’s not napping he loves to chase squirrels and bark at every person on foot that goes by the house. We call him “deputy dog” and he seems to like that name.

The Fall semester at the community college where I teach at night starts this Thursday. I teach the second of two courses in college reading and study skills that is a requirement for those students who are not reading at college-level. Many of my students are straight out of high school, some are *returning students*, some are English as a Second Language students, some have learning disabilities. Most are reading at about the 4th grade level when they enter college.

Yes, you read that last bit correctly. Reading at a 4th grade level in college.

I love teaching beginning readers. They are bright-eyed and excited. Their whole reading life is ahead of them and they are eager to figure out the puzzle that is reading. This does not describe my students at the college.

Many of them have been humiliated by their inability or ignored. They hate reading and they hate books. They hate that they have to take this class (for no credit) before they can take the classes they really want to take. Many of them hate school and are only there to prove as much to me and to their parents who force them to go.

Because I teach the second course in the series, the students know the drill and know what to expect. They’ve worked hard in the previous course (some have had to repeat it once or twice before passing) and are just beginning to see the result of their efforts.

Understand that these kids can read. They can decode the words on the page. They just can’t make any sense out of the words and sentences and paragraphs that are in front of them. They have to be taught how to make meaning from what they read. So in the first course they are taught what good readers do, explicitly. What you and I do naturally. They work on improving their vocabulary and increasing their reading speed. They learn how to find the main idea. They learn how to organize information into memorable chunks, etc. etc.

Then I get them and we work on applying these hard-won strategies to college-level reading material. We work on how to distinguish between fact and opinion. We work on inference and tone. We learn how to take lecture notes, how to annotate and outline, how to study for a test, how to write an essay. How to be a good student.

I try to make time to fit a novel into the course. I think it’s important they learn that reading is something that good readers do for pleasure and not just because they *have to*. Ideally, I would let them each chose a novel to read, but I’ve learned that they need guidance even to find what they might enjoy.

In the past I’ve used The Kite Runner and found that most of my students were able to enjoy it and understand it with a lot of guidance and class discussion. This semester, I’ve decided to to try a *hi-low* book – a high interest, low level book that shouldn’t necessitate so much explanation and chapter-by-chapter analysis on my part. The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom was suggested and I’ve decided to give it a try.

I read it a few years ago and thought it was a fun read. I hope that this group of students will find it enjoyable and that they’ll find something in it to make them think and want to talk about what they’ve read. Like good readers do.

Have you read it? What did it make you think about? What did it make you want to talk about?

“September is the year at the turn, a young mother sending her children off to school and wondering if she can ever catch up with Summer tasks unfinished. It is Autumn at hand and Summer reluctant to leave; it is days loud with cicadas and nights loud with katydids; it is beets for pickling and pears for canning and apples for pies and sauce and cider. It is hot days and cool nights and hurricane and flood and deep hurt and high triumph.

September is both more than a month and less, for it is almost a season in itself. It is flickers in restless flocks, readying for migration; it is goldfinches in thistledown; it is fledglings on the wing, and half-grown rabbits in the garden, and lambs in the feed lot. It is the gleam of goldenrod and the white and lavender and purple of fence row asters, with the bright spangle of bittersweet berries.

September is fog over the river valleys at dawn and the creep of early scarlet among the maples in the swamp. It is sumac in war paint. It is bronze of hillside grass gone to seed. It is walnuts ripening and squirrels busy among the hickories. It is late phlox like a flame in the garden, and zinnias in bold color, and chrysanthemums budding. It is a last gallant flaunt of portulaca and petunias defying time and early frost.

September is the first tang of wood smoke and the smolder of burning leaves. It is bass and perch revitalized in the chilling waters of pond and stream. It is the hunter’s dog sniffing the air and quivering to be off to the underbrush. September is time hastening and days shortening, it is the long nights of Autumn closing in with their big stars and glinting moon. September is the wonder and fulfillment and the ever amazing promise of another Autumn.” – Hal Borland, Sundial of the Seasons

I’m busy figuring out how to turn this lovely bucket of beach plums into jelly. I’ve never made jelly before. Neither me nor my kitchen is stained purple, yet. Wish me luck. Check back in a bit for the monthly Hal Borland interlude. I’ll probably be purple by then.