Red Squirrel's Bark and Cheetah's Trust

Here's what Red Squirrel (from Laurelwood School) offered to future groups of students:

Red Squirrel's stand for peace, trust, and kindness in the world

It's a piece of bark from a tree.  He said, "Every ridge and ripple on this bark represents a future group that will achieve the Quest."  Wow!  What a powerful and positive image to focus our intentions on!

Also, I want to share with you what Cheetah wrote in her journal, about the night hike. 

During the night hike, I felt scared because I thought something was going to jump out and eat me.... Maybe it would have been better if I believed in myself. I felt like I trusted in [Red Tail], and I trusted in everyone.  I knew we had a family that was connected. I knew that we had something in common.  I knew who I was and what I believed in - I was something, something that cared about me. I knew who I was. I knew I would trust in myself, my friends, and my parents.  I never found anyone like them. I trust in everyone, and I hope they do too. 

                   - Cheetah. 

Thanks for a great week, kids from Laurelwood and Norwood Creek!  May you take all this back to your communities and enrich the world in joyful ways!

Lichens! And a Flicker Feather!

Wow, we saw some really great lichens this week!

Our Mystery Lichen!  (Eagle from Cadwallader School in background)

A closer look at our mystery lichen! 

Above are two photos of the lichen we found this week. Lichen (pronounced "LIE-ken" in the U.S. or "LIH-chen" in England) is a wonderful symbiosis, or cooperation, between a fungus and (usually) an alga (algae).  The fungus provides a structure and a place to live, and the alga does photosynthesis and shares the glucose it creates with the fungus.  So both organisms benefit, and they live together, helping each other out.  How cool is that?

Here's a little story to help you remember all this:

Alice Alga and Freddie Fungus took a "lichen" to each other, and decided to go out on a "limb" and get married.  Alice made the food (by photosynthesis) to feed both of them, and Freddie built the house that they both lived in.  It was a great arrangement, and they lived happily together for many years.  Now I hear that their marriage is "on the rocks."  (Get it?) 

Now a little interactive quiz - can you tell which type of lichen ours is?

All the thousands of types of lichens are grouped into just a few categories based on their morphology, or shape, kind of like vertebrates are grouped into five categories (fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals).  Here are the lichen morphologies (with photos from the internet):  

Foliose lichen is "leafy" like lettuce

Crustose lichen is like a thin, tough crust, often on rock (or tree trunks).

Fruticose lichens are "shrubby" like a bush. 

More info on lichen morphology types here.

Here's our mystery lichen again.  Can you tell what type it is?

So which type is ours?  Come on, take a guess.  (Then check your answer with Red Tail's guess, at the end of this post.) 

We also found this feather: 

Cool feather (from a flicker) with Red Chipmunk (Cadwallader School)

I don't know for sure, but I think our feather is from a Red-Shafted Flicker (one of five types of Northern Flicker - the Red-shafted Flicker lives west of the Rocky Mountains).  More info on Northern Flickers here.

Here's are two pictures of Northern Flickers from the internet:

Red-shafted Flicker (a type of Northern Flicker) in flight, showing the tail feathers

Northern Flicker in a more typical position

This was a really cool week despite me being gone for two days due to illness.  Thanks for all the fun, kids from Clark and Cadwallader Schools! You rock!  I am so proud of you!

My group!

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot!  My guess is that our mystery lichen is.... FRUTICOSE!  Wow, that's so cool!

Great week Jan 3-6, and Night Hike reports from some students

Jan 3-6 was a great week. We didn't hear any owls, but we did hear Red Tail make some owl calls during the night hike.

Here are some student quotes:

"Cool air prickling my skin as I slowly put one foot in front of the other, which made a leaf-crunching sound.... Trees that were surrounding me looked as if they were encouraging me to go farther and farther.... An occasional bird tweet seemed like a song with notes softly prancing in the air. The moon's bright light was only partly blocked out by the trees, [accompanying] me the whole long way through the calm, alive forest...." - Tree Frog (Guadalupe School)

"I was scared at first, for this was my first night hike, but soon I wanted to go on another hike just like this.... We also learned about the moon phases. I learned a lot of things in only ONE night. This experience changed my life." - River (Guadalupe School)

who also shares this picture:

And another student:

"... we stopped at an open spot on the trail ad we had a 'Thank-you' circle.  Red Tail taught us about moon phases, solar eclipses, and lunar eclipses.... We looked at the stars and we found Cassiopeia and we used it to find the North star or Polaris.... I learned what fractoluminescence means [light emitted from the breaking of a crystal]."  - Squirrel (Guadalupe School)

Finally we have a nice picture from another student:

- Gray Squirrel (Guadalupe School)

Thanks for being your wonderful selves, kids! Keep being amazing in every way! Let me know all the things you're doing to help each other and the world.

-Red Tail.

Creek Hike

A field class hiked up Todd Creek.  It's still pretty dry up here this year - not much rain yet. 

Wow, a family of raccoons!

These raccoons were hanging out beside the road at our Cupertino site.  My entire hiking group got to see them on the first afternoon at Walden West!

Here's a video of the same:

The Bounty of the Walden West Garden

I picked all this stuff from the Walden West garden today!  (Not the bread, though!)  It's pretty amazing to think we could almost live on this stuff... ok, well almost.

Clockwise from lower left:  Strawberries, figs, (some unknown green and purple leaf), chard (the leafy vegetable with red stalk), (arrugula?), Asian pears, apples, pomegranates, eggplant, and lemon cucumbers (round and yellow, center).

PS- Happy Mole Day!  (10/23, as in 6.022x10^23)

Cool piece of wood with moss and lichen

The moss is dark green, and right now it looks like little leaves that are rolled up tight.  The lichen is more of a gray-green color, near the moss.  Moss is a plant, and lichen is (usually) part fungus and part algae (algae is basically a plant).  The fungus and the algae share resources together: the fungus makes the structure, while the algae does photosynthesis and shares glucose with the fungus.  What a brilliant arrangement!