Meadow Lake at Franklin D. Roosevelt Park

It was a beautiful day today! 

The sky was blue, and the wind was blowing! You can see the tree in the second picture tilting to the side due to the wind's breeze.

Photo taken: April 29, 2010

Location: Meadow Lake at Franklin D. Roosevelt Park

Mr. Spider

I was walking with a few friends towards Nesbitt Hall today at noon. As we walked up the steps, I noticed a black dot on the floor moving. At first, I thought there was something wrong with my eyes. But as I bend down to take a closer look---it was a little spider! I quickly took out my camera and took quite a few pictures. This was the only one that turned out well. It wasn't easy trying to snap pictures of a small moving spider.

Photo taken: April 29, 2010

Location: Steps to Nesbitt Hall at Drexel University

Louv

This week's reading of Louv included a lot of talk about being bored. I really appreciated the statement that bordem could be associated with sin. The relation is that if you are bored, you are not appreciating God's gift to the world. Many religions stress the importance of honoring God's creations and the beauty He has given. Although I am not a follower of religion, I strongly identify with this.

Without turning this into a political piece, I am curious about the kinds of progress that could be made all of the pro-life protesters focused their energy on encouraging their families and communities to enjoy the gifts of God and live a happier, more social life.

Wind Turbines

I know that this doesn't directly affect Philadelphia, but the Cape Wind Project was finally okayed by the government. 130 wind turbines will be put in Nantucket Sound, and this could become the nations first offshore wind farm. Some concerns about the project are the birds that fly in the area, the water life, and views of residents with shore homes. This idea could be useful however, it will generate power for the region and save money also. Atlantic City may also be getting some wind turbines, which would be about 17 miles off the coast. The master plan calls for 1000 megawatts of electricity to be generated by 2012 and triple that by 2020, which would be possible with the NJ, Massachusetts and Delaware projects that are being developed.

I personally don't understand why people think this is a bad idea, everyone always talks about helping the environment, but when it comes time to do it, people find reasons to halt the progress. I'm from the Midwest and there are wind farms every where, and nobody seems to mind them.

This is actually a picture of a wind farm about 2 hours from my house, there are hundreds of them, and it stretches on for miles, which you can kind of see if the picture was larger.

here's the article about the wind farms that will be put in off the Northeastern coast.

Blankets!

So we have all been walking through some part of the park and happened to come across people laying on blankets; whether a couple, a picnic, or just two people relaxing. Until today I thought they were, to be quite honest, a bit worthless. I have always passed people and simply thought... Wow, I would rather be on my bike or hiking through the woods. However earlier I was looking for a nice spot to read with my friend, and she happened to bring a massive blanket/towel monstrosity. I have now realized that not only is relaxing on a blanket (especially by the river) a great place to concentrate while reading, but it is a great place to simply look at the sky and realize everything taking place in your life. I highly recommend it! My life might never be the same.

Planting Trees

Chester High School did something green on Tuesday, they planted 35 trees on their campus, of various native species. I thought that this seemed like a great idea, it was partially funded by a national pilot program by the US Forestry Service. It took place Tuesday afternoon after school let out, and it was not just a school event. This was also a pilot program to help get Universities to get more involved in their communities, Widener University helped out with the planting. Other communities organizations helped out as well, the city streets department helped dig the holes, the city water department supplied the water, and a local Wawa even donated hoagies for the students and other volunteers who were there helping out.

I found this article very interesting. It made me think about all the schools near Drexel and how we could easily help them with projects like this, or even initiate something like this. I don't know how one would go about organizing something like that, but I think it would be a fun project and a good way to teach the students about trees and other native plants in Philadelphia.

here's the article.

New Trees!

Today I saw some new (for this spot) trees being planted. Sadly, people you don't know usually get offended when you take pictures of them. Therefore, my picture of the people actually planting the trees is a little distant. It was strange to see the wrapped trees just sitting there, waiting to be put in the ground. I saw some men digging holes with shovels that seemed pretty shallow for such big trees. They didn't appear to be using the clamshell diggers and dirt prodders that we got to use on our service project while building the fence; they were only using pointed shovels.

I thought about how the roots of these plants must take really quickly since the hole was so shallow. I also thought about if they had dug up old trees in order to put these here. It's rare to see things like this in progress. This is similar to watching someone change the letters on the glowing signs with the black words; it's really rare. I'm always excited to see the process of things of whose process we normally don't consider.