we went on a field trip this morning to central park. we entered on the west side at 81st street and walked to a bare dirt area on which sat a huge mulch hill. vanessa, our keeping it green environmental educator, was there to instruct us in our work project: spreading the mulch around! However, first she talked about the different animals that live in the park: squirrels, hawks, pigeons, sparrows, cardinals, titmice, scarlet tanagers (all in all, about 275 species, as it's a major stop on the atlantic flyway), raccoons (who like to sleep in tree hollows), opossums (who also like to sleep in tree hollows), turtles, fish (bass, carp, goldfish, koi), bullfrogs, bats, and many, many insects.
she also talked about the different trees in the park (there are about 24,000 with about 17,000 of them healthy american elm). we talked about how much of the recent mulch was from hurricane irene. however, the severe thunderstorm during the summer of 2009 was more devastating for the park's trees than irene. it's sad when trees are lost during storms, but new ones are planted and the park keeps evolving. (morgana and i noted how we could also smell pine mulch . . and we thought, maybe, it was from our christmas tree which we had taken to be mulched in washington square in january . . !)
here morgana is digging into the mulch pile. our job was to spread the entire pile over as much of the dirt area as possible. it would serve as a ground cover so the soil wouldn't run off, and keep it rich in nutrients. the inner part of the pile was very warm! all the bacteria were busy doing their job of decomposing the plant material.
after morgana and olga loaded up the wheelbarrow, i rolled it to tessa and chanda who raked it over the soil.
a stinkhorn! they spout up in the funniest places. we saw one once by our favorite boardwalk down in tribeca. we had no idea at the time what it was. we were very perplexed!
the pile is shrinking!
voila! job completed after one and a half hours of work! (and one blister on my right hand.)
cassius helps with the final raking . .
in the evening, after chorus at third street, chanda and i walked home along 13th, past the new school's parsons building. korrina was inside attending her costume design and history course.
before i left to take chanda to chorus, i had made stuffed peppers. when we returned we sat down to eat with greg and morgana (korrina had already eaten before her class). they were delicious! it was my favorite meal of the week.
my dad has a new toy these days. he's been wanting one of these for a long time.
we went on a field trip this morning to central park. we entered on the west side at 81st street and walked to a bare dirt area on which sat a huge mulch hill. vanessa, our keeping it green environmental educator, was there to instruct us in our work project: spreading the mulch around! However, first she talked about the different animals that live in the park: squirrels, hawks, pigeons, sparrows, cardinals, titmice, scarlet tanagers (all in all, about 275 species, as it's a major stop on the atlantic flyway), raccoons (who like to sleep in tree hollows), opossums (who also like to sleep in tree hollows), turtles, fish (bass, carp, goldfish, koi), bullfrogs, bats, and many, many insects.
she also talked about the different trees in the park (there are about 24,000 with about 17,000 of them healthy american elm). we talked about how much of the recent mulch was from hurricane irene. however, the severe thunderstorm during the summer of 2009 was more devastating for the park's trees than irene. it's sad when trees are lost during storms, but new ones are planted and the park keeps evolving. (morgana and i noted how we could also smell pine mulch . . and we thought, maybe, it was from our christmas tree which we had taken to be mulched in washington square in january . . !)
here morgana is digging into the mulch pile. our job was to spread the entire pile over as much of the dirt area as possible. it would serve as a ground cover so the soil wouldn't run off, and keep it rich in nutrients. the inner part of the pile was very warm! all the bacteria were busy doing their job of decomposing the plant material.
after morgana and olga loaded up the wheelbarrow, i rolled it to tessa and chanda who raked it over the soil.
a stinkhorn! they spout up in the funniest places. we saw one once by our favorite boardwalk down in tribeca. we had no idea at the time what it was. we were very perplexed!
the pile is shrinking!
voila! job completed after one and a half hours of work! (and one blister on my right hand.)
cassius helps with the final raking . .
in the evening, after chorus at third street, chanda and i walked home along 13th, past the new school's parsons building. korrina was inside attending her costume design and history course.
before i left to take chanda to chorus, i had made stuffed peppers. when we returned we sat down to eat with greg and morgana (korrina had already eaten before her class). they were delicious! it was my favorite meal of the week.
