'Old Familiar Faces', Pt. 1 - Nature Journal, July 2014

The title 'Old Familiar Faces' comes from the poem by Charles Lamb. It popped up a few times in my college class study on Frankenstein, since the phrase is used in the novel. I'm using it here because July of last year and July of this year were very similar. Looking through my nature journal, July's studies were from the little creek at my job at the garden center, and from camping at Pymatuning Lake. I'll be doing a second post, with the entries from July of this year.

I've tried to copy the format of my journal entries here, and added a few [bracketed] phrases for clarification.

July 1st, 2014 Tuesday
Half of the year has gone by!
We will go camping this month, on the 17th & 18th, at Pymatuning Lake. I will definitely have to bring this [journal]. Last year we saw so many neat things!

Twig from a

tree by my

lunch break

area

The berries

have a thin

fleshy layer,

and then

a hard

pit

July 2nd, 2014 Wednesday

I know this isn't a true statement, but it seems the only color in summer is green!

Let me list what isn't green:

-Brown of dirt

-Brown of bark

-Blue of sky

-White of clouds

-Gray of storm clouds

-Yellow of sunlight

-Clear-blue of water

-Rainbow of flowers still blooming

So, it isn't all green, after all!

July 3rd, 2014 Thursday

Much cooler today!

There's a grape vine growing

on one of the trees

by my lunch area

July 6th, 2014 Sunday

Dad put out a double-hook stand for the bird feeders out back. So many birds go to it! Cardinals and mourning doves and purple finches and house sparrows and goldfinches and red-winged blackbirds and starlings! Squirrels like it, too, of course. Most of the birds browse under the feeders. Interestingly, I don't see any robins at the feeders. I guess they prefer soft, juicy worms to nuts and seeds.

Stevia rebaudiana

grows 10"-12" (shown is about half of its height)

edible leaves are very sweet

July 17th, 2014 Thursday

We are at Pymatuning Lake! We got the exact camping site we had last year, right by the water.

It hasn't been very warm today (it started out rainy), cloudy and a bit breezy, maybe 70*. Jeff and I went swimming, anyways.

Before we went to the camping area, we went to the Spillway, where you can buy bags of bread and feed the giant carp. Hundreds of gaping mouths, bodies swirling in a mass - it's a sight to see! We threw chunks in the air for seagulls to catch - sometimes they actually caught them!

6pm, we got a fire started. It smoked a lot; I think the magazine shreds were to blame.* The fire is absolutely mesmerizing to watch. *No, some of the wood was damp.

At night there were fireflies and bats fluttering around. The lights across the lake made for a pretty scene.

Dad burned one of his magazines, and it made the flames green!

At night Dad shined his flashlight into the water. We saw a few crawdads, tiny fish, and HUGE spiders! Dad slipped on a rock and ended up in the water! Thankfully, he didn't land hard on any rocks.

We didn't see any little sharks, like we saw last year.

July 18th, 2014 Friday

Whenever a boat passes on the lake, a series of small waves splash at the rock with a gentle sound. Sometimes fish splash up in the lake for bugs and leave a ripple. A few times really big ones halfway leap out of the water.

A nice warm morning, no clouds in the sky!