Journal Entry 1 Foxcroft Farm
Environment Observations-
As we arrived to Foxcroft farm for our second day of the lab, the sun just barely raised over the trees. As we entered the clearing through the woods to the swamp, my eyes first drew down to the grown. There was dead plant matter and a layer of thick wet mud layering the ground. Popping out of the ground all over the place were thick green leaves. Each plant wasn’t taller than six inches and had roughly two large bright green leaves. Some of the plants had bright purple lumps under the leaves that resembled garlic cloves. Then, we walked further into the swamp. There was a thin layer of ice coating the shallow ends of the swamp. As I looked closer towards the water, I noticed a tiny moth fluttering around. It was pure white and about the size of a peanut. The moth would flutter every few seconds, as it seemed to be stuck to the ice. I sat on a fallen down log for my fifteen minutes of silence. The log was covered in a green moss. The moss was fuzzy to the touch and was brown at the base, but the top was bright green. At the top of the moss, each green sprout shot out and made a star-like pattern. As I looked down at the base of the swamp, there was dead grass completely covering the floor. The grass was very long and each was a very thick blade that looked like straw. There were mounds of the dead grass piled together where small green blades of grass were sprouting. As I sat in silence, I could hear the wind blow the branches of the trees and blades of the dead grass. There was a sudden “flap flap” and then a faint splash of water. I looked to my left and saw a duck floating in the water. It had a green head and a gray body. It swam in circles until my group member starting walking and crunching through the dead grass. The duck quickly scattered and flew away.
Biocube Observations-
We entered the swamp located on the farm and went to the spot were we placed our biocube. There was a very thin frozen layer of ice covering the small shallow waters and our biocube was frozen and submerged. However, upon closer examination, it was not just under water but also broken into pieces. Our biocube was completely disassembled. At first, we thought it was just poorly made. However, each of the poles that formed the cube were bent to now make an elbow macaroni shape. In the very middle of the pole, where the bending was occurring, the green paint was chipped away. It look as if some animal attacked the cube and has taken several bites out of it. We hypothesized that it could have been a snapping turtle that either thought the cube was food or attacked the cube for being in its territory.
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