The Jamaican Sorrel

In order to balance out my previous, bird-related entry, I decided to post up another plant entry.  This one I also discovered by volunteering for Colloquium, which just goes to show you all the wonderful things one can learn by getting out there and serving the community. Anyways, this plant is called The Jamaican Sorrel, or better known as Roselle and it originates from the Old World tropics. All parts of the plant are eatable, and are mainly used in green salads and herbal teas since their leaves and flowers are extremely sugary and sweet.  That is what mostly caught my attention when I was shown the flower.  The volunteers were encouraged to tear off some of the leaves and try them.  Not only did that prove to us that the flower was in fact as sweet as rumored, but it also stimulated (or rather, will stimulate) the plants and encourage them to sprout more new leaves.  We could only try the leaves since the flowers weren't in full bloom yet, but I can testify that the flower is as good as it was boasted to be.  It tasted like cranberries, and I couldn't stop myself from slowly picking off a large amount of leaves in order to taste them again.  My briefly lived addiction to it might have also been because I was extremely hungry at the time, but the flavor was nevertheless wonderfully sweet.  I would buy a tea made from this plant any day; though, I might have to water it down a little so I'm not overwhelmed buy sugary goodness.

Dance of the Birds

Once again, I was not able to take a picture of the event I want to describe, but I tried to find a picture that was relatively close.  When I was volunteering at the Food Forest I saw another very peculiar event involving birds.  As my friend Marlena and I were helping a couple of the boys making a table with the scrap wood Erica, the Food Forest co-creator, had left over in the shed, a girl called everyone's attention to the sky.  When I looked, I was amazing at what I saw.  A massive horde of birds were dipping and swirling together as a giant flock over one area of the forest.  It was among the most strangest behaviors I have ever witnessed from birds before, yet it was also beautiful.  It looked like the birds were dancing with the wind, moving up, down and around while being perfectly in sync with one another.  At one point, they even looked like an enormous tornado, all spinning down at whatever their target was.  One of the girls helping us build the table told us that her mother explained the fantastic display as the birds chasing and catching mosquitoes for their lunch. Well, whatever had caused the birds to behave this way, it was definitely worth it to see such a sight.  The entire volunteer group, including Erica, just stood there for a couple of minutes and watched as the birds waltzed across the sky.

The Wandering Jew

I've realized that I have yet to post anything plant related on my blog, so I am going to post a very interesting plant that I learnt about during my service learning: the Commelina cyanea.  Some more commonly know names for it are "Scurvy Weed" and "The Wandering Jew."  This type of weed is native to the forests and woodlands of eastern Austrailia, and it's flowers is usually pollinated by bees and flies.  In addition to this, it was actually used by colonists to cure scurvy, hence it's name.  The problem with this plant is that it is a terribly invasive species and spreads like wild fire, which is why my friend Michelle and I had to spend most of our time volunteering trying to pull them out of the garden.  That is how I discovered the plant, my friend and I had been weeding at the Naples Botanical Garden.  When Michelle and I first saw the part of the garden invested with the weed, we had thought it was a plant in the garden.  It was actually quite beautiful, mixed together with the purple plant that was also growing there.  However, the woman directing us told us that the plants with the blue flowers were the weeds, the plants with the purple flowers were the ones that were actually supposed to be growing there.  The Wandering Jew was choking out the purple plant.  To even further our surprise, after we were done weeding out the Commelina cyanea, we discovered that the once lush and green patch of land was now 80% mulch and dirt.  Most of the area that we had seen before was all weed.  If anything, that was what shocked us the most.

Downtown Fort Myers Field Trip

The last field trip of the semester; man, how time flies.  It just seems like yesterday I was running around trying to find where the bus was. Anyway, I digress.  I think that this was one of the field trips I really enjoyed, and unsurprising as that is.  We got to walk around downtown Fort Myers and look at everything the urbanized world had to offer.  It was like a mini-adventure.  A lot of the sights my group and I saw really stuck into my head.  The first one that comes to mind was the Edison, Ford and Firestone statue by where the bus dropped us off.  That sculpture was absolutely hilarious, seeing such famous men just relaxing in the middle of a pond. In fact, I left the statue still pondering which one of the three men represented in the statue was the one laying down on his side.  In addition to the statue, I also found the homey feel of downtown to be quite surprising.  When I heard we were going to downtown Fort Myers, I was expecting it to be something downtown Miami. Yet, I was surprised to find all the structures had a old New England style to them.  It reminded me of my trips up to Connecticut, where structures from the beginning of the colonies still existed.  Not only that, but all the buildings were decorated for Christmas, giving the atmosphere a winter glow.  Despite the fact that the art museum was closed and my group and I spent most of our time inside the more obscure and tinier shops, I have to say that I really enjoyed myself.

The Earth Charter

I had already presented my views on The Earth Charter in class, however, I feel like I should put it here too.  If anything, I found the entire document to be overly idealistic.  Maybe I'm just being a pessimist, but I can't see any human living up to the expectations that The Earth Charter seems to set.  There is no way that man-kind is going to give up their military prowess because we are all just too paranoid of one another.  Not only that, but being environmentally friendly is far more expensive than any government can afford, let alone the people living in it.  In addition to this, I have to disagree with The Earth Charter's statement "These trends are perilous—but not inevitable."  These trend are inevitable because it has been ingrained in human culture to live above nature and not with nature.  With so many of us being biophobic, there will eventually be a point where humans will turn back to the old ways and ruin what The Earth Charter started.  However, do not get me wrong, I completely agree with the values that The Earth Charter brings forth, but I see it more as a goal rather than a destination.  To think that the world will ever achieve the Utopian setting the document describes is to be idealistic.  But, to try and get close to this dream is far more realistic.  I agree with Dr. Otto when he says that The Earth Charter should be merely a compass directing us toward the right direction.  Though, this is not the message that The Earth Charter gives.  Thus, I have to say that the main problem with the document is not what it stands for, but how it was worded.

Animal Formations in Nature

The above picture is of a peculiar rock formation found in the La Maddalena Archipelago in Sardinia, Italy.  By the processes of nature, it has been shaped into the form of an animal.  Can you guess what it is?  I know that this seems a little random, but let me explain my thought process.  A few days ago, I was re-watching online the second season of an animated television show called Black Butler and came to the episode where the main character Ciel has to attend a fair with his fiance Lizzy.  I won't go into extreme detail about the episode, but, generally speaking, the entire thirty minutes comprised of Lizzy trying to find the legendary white deer.  The legend said that if a person seeso the white deer, they will receive never ending happiness.  At the end of the episode, Ciel, Lizzy, and Ciel's employees find themselves at the top of one of the nearby cliffs.  Ciel's bulter looks over the edge of the cliff, smiles to himself, then calls everyone to look.  The camera zooms out and the viewers, along with the rest of the cast, see a series of lakes bunched together to look like a giant, white deer (white because the light reflecting off the lakes make the water's surface look white.)  Thus, they were all able to get a glimpse of the legendary deer.  When I saw this, I couldn't help but wonder if such a thing existed in reality.  Not necessarily a white deer, but actually natural formations that could be clearly identified as certain animals.  So, I decided to do a little researching, and I found that there are quite a few of these phenomena all around the world, though most of them are found in rocks.  For the blog, I decided to pick the one I thought was the most recognizable. So, if you are stumped on what the animal shape in the rock could possibly, here is the answer: a polar bear.

Funny Class Quote

"In one breath, a person can say 'Oh homosexuality is unnatural, it should be banned!' while they are eating a Twinkie." ~ Dr. Otto

I'm sorry, but I had to blog about this quote.  It was just so funny and so true at the exact time.  At first, when I heard this, I had to admit that my mind went straight to the gutter, even though I knew that wasn't what Dr. Otto had intended when he said it.  But, when I really sat down and thought about it, I found that Dr. Otto was completely right.  There is nothing natural about a Twinkie.  It's made entirely of processed sugar and preservatives; it can barely be considered food let alone something created by nature.  If a person can consider a deep fried tube of processed fat, sugar and corn syrup natural, then there is no way they can't consider two boys making out just as natural.  Just like the heart-clogging ingredients in a Twinkie come from natural places, homosexual tendencies come form certain chemical balances in the brain, a very natural place.  That's the truth of the matter.  So, even though the analogy is strange and caught the class off guard, it is nonetheless perfectly logical.