A Murder!

Typically by this time the bugs are non existent. No flying pests bothering you when you eat or pollinating the flowers. Yet I saw the honey bees still carrying out their duties, quite faithfully as well. Visiting every flower, transferring pollen and keeping the lavender alive. Also a bug on my sunflowers. A green stink bug according to the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs. He was plotting murder. My bright yellow flowers were being murdered.

The little green leaf look-a-like in the center

According to the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs (or OMAFRA), the bug bites into the water lines and slurps the juice out of the plant. A silent killer, he doesn't leave a trace. I must have caught him in the act of his vampiric feed. The flowers are strong, though. I'm sure one little bug won't hinder their progress. As it stands now, they've survived harsh conditions, and it's only getting worse. I wish the best for my yellow troopers.

On a brighter note, the bees are active and can regularly be found in the bed of fake rocks and lavender. they hop from flower to flower, frantically, a neverending loop. It seems like these bees go nonstop. Do they ever get rest? Actually they do. According to a study by Barrett A. Klein, Kathryn M. Olzsowy, Arno Klein, Katharine M. Saunders and Thomas D. Seeley bees sleep in short naps. Getting more or less sleep based on their position in the hive. I've never seen this, though, and I will believe that bees are busy all the time. I caught one in photo, buzzing around the flowers. 

Seen on the flower in the middle is the bee, close to the top of the flower

It was a quick photo. It turned out beautifully, with the wide aperture. At any given time in that bed I can find 5-10 different honey bees all buzzing about and gathering pollen. I actually hate bees. But these bees I have an affinity for. Their hard work and how they don't just attack me for no reason is a big part of that affinity. I wish I could work as hard as them and actually be at the place where I want to be. But such is life. It goes on.

The Survivors of the Flower Bed

This week, I've made many more observations than I did last week. I've noticed many things in the past week, but I wanted to focus on one. While it seems everything is beginning to get a brown tinge and leaves begin to fall, I found one source of life that pursued, and it seemed to come up within this last week. Sunflowers. Four to be exact. A close knit group of survivors. Color in the brown around it. She pointed them out to me. I guess maybe I'm not as observant as I once thought. As soon as she pointed them out I immediately took out my phone and snapped a picture.

They were beautiful. They reminded me of my mom. We used to have the big sunflowers in our backyard, but we don't have them anymore. These were a blast from the past and reminded me of our accents of sunflowers all around our house. The next were some purple ones that I saw before her and I realized they were just weeds. 

They bloomed in a wonderful way, though. Like a flower my mom used to plant in our front yard planters. Anyway, the second week of observations turned out great. I'm going to keep a close watch of my sunflowers and hope they don't succumb to fall as the rest of the plants have. 

Late, I Procrastinate

I spent a lot of time thinking of an area or thing that no one else would observe in detail on a regular basis. Something that may be boring at a glance, but when everything comes together and all the details are seen, it is a rather interesting place. My final decision was the walkway between B and C hall. I can see almost anything imaginable on any given day; cars, people, nature, actually that's about it... Anyway, It's a great place to make observations because of the variety of things you can see on any given day. I can focus on Reno's extreme swinging temperature, the change of nature, the people I see, etc.

The whole scope of this project is based off multiple essays my class has read in our AP English class at Earl Wooster High School. After beginning observations on a chosen thing or place, our teacher decided to make this project into a blog. On this blog, there aren't many rules. Keep it clean, professional and related to the project; the rest is all up to you. The purpose means something different to everyone. Some in my class think it is completely, utterly pointless. To me, it's an opportunity to delve deep into a subject to focus and learn. It's a fun way to learn new writing techniques and I'm looking forward to it.

The whole theme of this first blurb is going to be the extreme laziness I've had within the past week of my observations. Day by day someone is almost always there to tell me that I need to work on my project. Mainly my girlfriend. But nonetheless, I am here, writing this blog. My first week has been interesting. I've seen everything from smoke to clear weather. Warm, cold. Wet, dry. Populated, empty. I've learned a lot about my new area. A lot of things that go unnoticed. Like the way the feather light breeze blows the newly changed leaves off of the trees. The trees that fight to hold on to their last leaves like their child. The flowers that go even when the going gets tough. The bees that continue to work, even in the cold. It's a buzzing community of wildlife as well as a lively place for the passerby and groups of people that are always there. I love my little area that buzzes with new things every day.

In my future posts I will have pictures of my new area, and all the things I see. I would love to track what happens through a photo lens.