Small Adventures: Algonquin Park 2014, Pog Lake

     As indicated by the 40 degree Celsius with humidity weather of last week this summer seems to be running a little late and it's giving me some time to catch up a bit on what has come to pass this season.

     In all truth this is going to be a bit of an experimental balancing act for me. While this blog has been primarily centered around science, I also have a passion for creative writing that has temporarily been forsaken for the sake of reason and rational thinking that the environmental movement must rightfully demand. However, over the summer I have spent quite some time sitting on a rock scribbling non-factual thoughts, lines, and story segments down by the lake to my hearts content which admittedly has been a distraction, though one that has a re-inspiring recharge.

Algonquin Park 2014

     This year I stayed at Pog Lake for the weekend of July 12 with a close group of family and friends. Although my own stay was short I still got a chance to see many beautiful sights and get some photos and we shared a few mini adventures within the two-day span. Here are a few of the 'landmarks'.

A killdeer at the drive-through.

     Already eager to look for wildlife, we had our first spotting of the day long before we even arrived at the park when we saw a killdeer running along the side of a drive-through restaurant we went to for breakfast. The picture was crude through scratched, violet-tinted windows, but set a precedent for the rest of our journey.

Product placement not intended.

     The moment we arrived at the park my sister Stella and I hopped out of the car to search for wildlife. Stella has a fetish for mushrooms and was pleased to have an immediate spotting. 
     We wandered around the grassy areas by the washroom facility (as Dad jokingly called a hidden temple) watching crows and inhaling fresh air and sucking up the forest atmosphere both literally and mentally.

     The Saturday night had moderately cool moist air. As a mini pack from our camping group a few of us walked around the beach While we were walking through the campsite looking for walking sticks my friend called me over from where she was by the shore and said, "you have to see this!"

     I was still in 'fetch-a-stick' mode and went to pick up a few more, but the sight immediately commandeered my train of thought. There was a slight cool breeze but the lake in front of us shone like glass with layers of fog draped over it and across the trees. As usual pictures couldn't fully capture all the intricate details, but the feeling in the moment was incredible. 

A blue damselfly perched daintily on a leaf at our campsite.

Lichen...

... lichen...

This one could use a bit of explaining. A friend who was there brought a green laser pointer and this is the product of waving it over a smoky fire after dark.

We were fortunate enough to wtiness an Algonquin Park supermoon on July 12. No werewolves were spotted.

... and more lichen. Lichen holds a special place in my heart because it seems to have a magical ability to endow feelings of otherworliness, as if by peering into a patch of lichen you are peering into an enchanted,natural city.

     We accidentally went down instead of the actual hiking trail, but made a new winged friend. (S)he was found lying on his/her back on the pathway and at first we thought (s)he was dead, so I took a stick and brought it up to the legs. Sure enough, the dragonfly grabbed on, and then was brought over to some greenery at the side, making about a dozen human friends on the way.

This is one of many wildlife spottings I must get to uploading to Project Noah.

These were just a few snippets of the kinds of small adventures that can help reinspire us every day. If ever you find yourself feeling drained, numb, or muted here are 3 steps to get you started towards a closer connection with nature:

1. Go outside.

2. Feel the air, regardless of the temperature, and savor the sensation on your skin.

3. Look or hear up or down, and peer into every detail of the clouds or the sky or the texture of life underfoot you can see or hear. 

Whether it is through a picture, piece of writing, or simply memory, take in the experience and let it take you away to another world, a place of shelter within our world.

Heads Up For Tonight's Perigee Supermoon 2014

Admiring tonight's perigee supermoon.

Stunning!
Tonight the moon is closer to the earth than any other night this year and it catching the attention of skywatchers around the world. These photos were taken in my backyard using a digital camera, and I would just like to say how happy I am that there isn't any thick cloud coverage here.

This was last night's moon:

 

Note: Sorry about last month's lack of posts... the blog now has a twitter account in use and will hopefully keep more environmental news on a more regular basis. Feel free to follow @NatureNimbus for updates :)

Broadleaf (Plaintain) Backyard Bandaid

     In many parts of the world this plant is widely recognized. Plantago major's common names include broadleaf plantain, common plantain, ripple grass, white man's foot, and snakeweed to name a few, but other names also have meaning related to life. Where I live a lot of people would recognize it as a hardy weed that grows in between cracks and on lawns, and trails, and just about anywhere that is can pop up. Although not everyone appreciates broadleaf plantain's presence on the front lawn, it is sometimes selected for its elegant appearance with broad, symmetrical leaves and slender stalks growing out the middle. Matured leaves grow large and tough, and the parallel veins that run through them are strong.
     However, unbeknown to many who probably walk by them every day this plant has some practical applications. The young tender leaves make a nutritious salad containing vitamin C, and the leaves and seeds actually have medicinal properties. 
      It contains many different compounds with medicinal uses  such as:
(A more comprehensive list can be read at altnature.com in the sources)

• antibacterial
• astringent
• anti-inflammatory
• antiseptic
• laxative

     Perhaps one of the most simple (but still effective) uses of plantain is as a poultice. Applied and bound to open wounds, insect bites, splinters spots, or blisters, it can help aid in the healing process. 
     A poultice can be easily made by using a mortar and pestle (or spoon and plate if you don't have a mortar and pestle) to crush the leaves to a pulp which can be mixed with a small amount of water. Unless you are at home it is likely that you may not have a mortar and pestle available at the time of a bug bite while walking in the woods. It is always best to clean a wound first, but if plantain is available you can actually chew or bite on a leaf (without swallowing) so that the juices are excreted and use it on scrapes or insect bites.

Sources
Lone Pine Ontario Nature Guide by Krista Kagume
https://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/p/placom43.html 
http://www.altnature.com/gallery/plantain.htm

'PET Peeve' - Disposable Plastic Bottles

Roderick Chen / All Canada Photo / Universal Images Group

PET stands for polyethylene terephthalate, a type of plastic which can be identified by the recyclable symbol number '1'. It is typically used for single-use disposable water bottles which are extremely commonplace in many parts of the world such as North America.

Because PET plastic bottles are not only convenient but also recyclable, it can cause a consumer of water to question the validity of the claim that they are not 'eco-friendly'. However, there are problems associated with their use for ecosystems which also includes humans.

The Issues

Disposable water bottles generate massive amounts of waste every day around the world. In fact, the project 'Watershed' by MSLK, a graphic design firm in New York, estimates that about 1500 plastic bottles are used per second in the United States alone. It would take a lot of energy every day to recycle all these water bottles into other plastic products, however, although they can be recycled, only about 23% of the bottles used in the United States actually are recycled.

PET plastic will take a very long time to decompose, at an estimate of 700 years. Most plastic bottles are not recycled but instead sent to ever-growing landfills which have other associated issues such as land space, effects on local communities, and leaching into water sources.

Many plastic water bottles unintentionally end up polluting oceans. There is a landfill, similar to a plastic island, in the Pacific Ocean estimated to be about the size of Texas, composed mostly of plastic water bottles that the current accumulated. Small plastics such as the bottle caps (which cannot be recycled) also often end up harming wildlife directly, as animals such as sea birds accidentally ingest them or feed them to their young, mistaking it for food.

The solution lies in using reusable water bottles that can be refilled with tap water.

5 Reasons to Use Reusable Water Bottles (Instead of PET Plastic)

1. Reduce waste produced from thousands of water bottles disposed daily, and reduce the energy required to process the ones that get recycled.

2. Save money spent on hundreds of plastic water bottles by making the one-time purchase of a reusable one.

3. Prevent pollution and plastic bottles from accidentally ending up in bodies of water, and bottle caps from being ingested by wildlife.

4. Don’t support water being taken from communities to be used in bottled water sold to other places where water is already available through a tap. Some large bottling companies even continue to take water during periods of drought when water is scarce.

5. Avoid ingesting antimony. Although levels are low, it can leach into water from PET bottles increasing over time in storage, and can be easily avoided.

At a first glance one plastic water bottle is easy to dismiss as a small thing that has no real significance in the grand scheme of things, but they accumulate with such mass amounts. A person living in America may use an average of 167 disposable water bottles a year, but could replace all of them with just one reusable one, which is a small change that can go a long way.

If you are looking for information on what type of reusable bottle best fits your purposes, feel free to take a look at this older post that compares two different types of reusable water bottles.

Sources

banthebottle.net

http://www.factsonpet.com/frequently-asked-questions/

http://stopnestlewaters.org/about

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17396641

http://www.treehugger.com/clean-water/the-us-consumes-1500-plastic-water-bottles-every-second-a-fact-by-watershed.html

http://action.sumofus.org/a/nestle-water-ontario/4/2/?sub=homepage

May it be Spring

     It has been a long winter for some people, so here are a few pictures to help put a spring in your step:

 Double-crested cormorants

Goldinch

A couple of purple Finches

Visiting Pied-billed Grebes

Migrating common tern