Lenny in the Sky with Cookies by Anjali D.

Lenny in the Sky with Cookies

Picture yourself in a boat on a marsh, 
With no trees at all and cloudless blue skies 
Somebody calls you, they’re going quite quickly, 
A guy with binocular eyes. 

Fuzzy marsh grasses of yellow and green, 
Towering over your feet. 
Look for the guy with the sunglasses on, 
And he's gone. 

Lenny in the sky with cookies 
Lenny in the sky with cookies 
Lenny in the sky with cookies 
Ahh... 

Follow him down to a swampy manmade pond
Where slimy froggies eat disgusting pies, 
Every fish smiles as you drift past the flowers, 
That grow so incredibly high. 

Magazine deer appear on the shore, 
Waiting to take you back there. 
Climb on theirs backs with your head in the bushes, 
And you're gone. 

Lenny in the sky with cookies
Lenny in the sky with cookies 
Lenny in the sky with cookies 
Ahh... 

Picture yourself on a car in a parking lot, 
With careless drivers with looking glass tires, 
Suddenly someone is there in the mirror, 
The guy with the binocular eyes. 

Lenny in the sky with cookies 
Lenny in the sky with cookies 
Lenny in the sky with cookies 
Ahh..

July 8 by Orion D.

Today was a sunny day around 70 degrees. When I got there, Raymond was taking out his minnow trap. I threw my backpack into the garage and ran to see what he had caught. He caught some minnows. Raymond swept the bucket into the water to gather some for the minnows. While he was doing that he caught 2 sunfish. We brought them up to Sarah. She said we should probably start working on our tank. We asked Lenny if it was ok. Lenny asked how long it would take. Sarah said Not that long. Ok because we have a walk to take and a little competition.  I couldn’t wait for the competition part. I didn’t know what it was but I knew if it was a competition, I knew it would fun!

Sarah went up to the attack and got a tank. Lenny poked his head into the lab and told us it was time to go. Sarah said she would finish up the tank. Lenny brought us to the shop and told us about the competition. The teams were boys against girls. Each of us had to start out with three trash bags, we will be collecting trash from the beach. Each team will have one robotic hand. We ran down to the beach. We went onto the beach  to pick up trash and Lenny walked over and told us where there was a lot of trash. He told us to walk over to the big old lobster traps full of trash. We thought that would be a good idea. We knew we wouldn’t need the robotic hand so we left it on the bench. We started picking up trash from the sides of the lobster traps. We then had to get a lot of trash. We took a lobster trap off the pile and stuck our hand into the hole and pulled trash out of the pot. We got so much trash out of the lobster pots that we had to get three more trash bags! We knew we had won because the girls hadn’t come back for more bags. We already had 6 bags of trash!

The girls found a bottle with a bottle with powdery stuff in it. It looked like sand but it turns out that IT WAS ASHES. You could see a note in the bottle too. Lenny said he would walk it back out to the ocean at high tide and put it back. It was only from May, the note said. I don’t want to write about that because it is creepy.

After that we went to the beach to swim and wash the trash off us. We went back. The agreement was whoever won would get Italian Ice. The final score was 6 to three boys. Since we won. Lenny lied though. If you won you got Italian ice, if you lost you got Italian ice.

Then we lead a walk.  we told them about position ivy and walked them down to the broccoli trees – golden arborvitis. The trees look like broccoli because they eat the branches and will actually stand on their back legs to eat it. They love it, it tastes like popcorn to them but to use it tastes like pepper. 

We then brought them through the sand plain grasslands. That is the most endangered habitat in the whole world. It is flat and by the ocean so people like to build their houses on it. 50% of the stand plain grassland that is left is on Nantucket. We then showed them smooth sumac and told them that you can make tea out of it. We showed them fox grape; the leaves look like the head of a fox. We took them down the path and showed them the vernal pool. We went back up the path and ate some Italian Ice. Afterwards we went tot the beach. It was a long but fun day. 

Jerry by Nicholas M

    Jerry

            There once was a potted plant named Jerry. Jerry was just a normal plant doing what plants do best, photosynthesis. Although he had a perfect life on the windowsill with an owner who watered him daily Jerry wanted more in life than just that. He wanted to see the world so using all his will Jerry used his roots to climb out of the pot and walk away. When Jerry stepped out the door he heard a strange rumbling noise. He looked around the house and saw endless water and he thought “This must be the ocean my owner talks about.” He had heard other plants speak of a world of endless water but he thought it was a myth. He quickly ran over and dipped his roots in the splashing water. The water felt different from the normal stuff and was kind of tingly and then Jerry simply wilted. When his owner found him she was so devestated she had him cremated and wrote him a letter and poems and sent him out to sea.

Monday June 30 by Orion

Monday June 30 by Orion

Monday was an overcast day about 65 degrees when I got to the field station. We went down to the shop to see if we had any fishing rods so we could fish. We did but we didn’t have any bait. So we went down to a fishing store to buy some live bait, worms.

When we got back we put some chairs in the water and started fishing! After a while we used a quarter of our bait because the fish kept taking our bait off the hooks because the hooks are very big. One time, I got a big tug on my line and the little bobber went under. So I reeled it in. It was a sunfish!  Raymond and I took it off the hook and ran to the laboratory. We put the fish into the turtle tank. That was a bad idea! The turtle immediately started to attack the sunfish. There were 2 other sunfish in the tank but it was used to them. It thought the new one was an imposter. So then we had to let the fish go. After 5 minutes, I got another tug on my line. I reeled it in. It was the same exact fish! Raymond pulled it off the line and I tried to hold it but it slipped away. I put my line back out and I got another tug. You can guess what I did then, I reeled it in.  It was the same exact sunfish! I caught it 3 times. After that we didn’t catch anything else.

We went down to the marsh to catch some fiddler crabs, bigger crabs like rock crabs, spider crabs, and blue crabs.  Instead we stepped into quick sand and I sunk all the way down to my waist! Raymond helped me get out of it, he pulled me. If you don’t have help, the best thing to do is lay down and slowly inch your way out. It increases your body mass and it is like you are floating in water. After that we stayed clear of the quick sand. Then we went back into the marsh to get some pickleweed, a plant that grows there. We went back to the shop and put away our fishing stuff. Then we let Sweg out. He ran down the steps and got a stick. We threw it for him and he wanted us to keep throwing the stick. We did that for about half and hour. Sarah came over and asked us if on Wednesday we could make a tank for the sunfish. We thought that would be fun. That was a very, very fun day!

First post New Ranger Nicholas M.

Today I learned and did quite a bit. My favorite thing to learn about was the properties of plants.

I learned St. johns wort can make an effective oil that helps sore muscles.

I ate some plants that were edible but they didn't always taste good.

I also learned a lot about animals on the beach. I found a fly with a broken wing that I could calm down.

I enjoyed having a fly sit on my finger. I also found a lot of hermit crabs and looked into the burrows.

We also shaved the marsh and caught tons of fish and shrimp.

I am exited to learn more about nature.

Nicholas M.

A Poem - Anjali D.

"A silverside,

Comes gliding by,

Living his life to the fullest,

But the cycle of life continues,

As a green crab eats his breakfast."

Bio Inventory - Field Station Pond

In our continuing effort to assist Dr. Oktay in putting together a complete inventory of the fish living in the fresh water pond at the field station Jr. Rangers Orion and Raymond spent Monday doing some research (some people call it fishing) and report that science is very cool.  Here is a portion of the report Raymond wrote about that experience. 

On Monday we mostly fished in the Field station pond for sunfish also known as pumpkin seed or bluegill . we used an assortment of worms from Bill Fishers tackle we just placed the on the hook and let the sunfish do there work . sunfish are a very common species of fish on Nantucket. I learned that because fishing is a hobby of mine and I have been doing for a while.when we went I literally jumped out of my shoes . when we went we used an assortment of lures . I my self really thought that was cool the pond at the field station was originally a pond stocked with bait witch we think was because the man who owned it was a fisherman. 

Raymond M.