Journal Entry from Lab Day #2

It's been raining on and off, so the ground is over saturated and there are standing puddles. My boots are designed for wet and mud, but this is a little over the top- my socks are soaked. I can hear the water sloshing in my shoes, as well as my partners' shoes.
There's life in the little puddles, however. I spotted a tiny spider that seemed to dance over the surface of the water and, despite its diminutive stature, spun to face me as soon as I crouched by it. I'm sure it was preparing to fight me if I came too close.
I also spotted a little meadow slug, dark brown in the shade and lighter brown in the sunlight, and sat still as it crawled over my boot. Some of the organisms really don't care what we are, do they? It doesn't matter that we're humans, or how big we are, or what we look like- to some, we're an enemy or predator, and to others we are just an obstacle in their way.
I almost sat in a patch of thistle. This has happened far too many times in my life, so I should know better than to just sit on something that's green, but that's just how life is sometimes. Painful. Luckily, I avoided it- I took a picture and moved on to a sturdy looking stick on the ground. It promptly broke as soon as I sat down, but again, that's just how life is.
I stood in the middle of a few trees a fair distance from my group this time. I just stood there, listening to the little peepers peeping and birds chirping. The wind was quite strong, and made the trees and barbed wire squeak where they rubbed together. I can't help but notice how some of the trees have grown around the barbed wire until it's embedded in them; it would do more harm than good to try and remove it, at this point. Sometimes I feel like that- like the barbed wire. Like I've just grown in this little space I occupy that I don't belong in at all, and everyone has just gotten used to me and grown around me. It'd be too much trouble to change that now.

Posted on April 21, 2019 12:00 AM by growland