May 3, 2014---a few notes from Lydia....Setting up a water garden/fish pond in a half-barrel..We talked about how to know if something is level. She used a level and I showed her how the bubble is within the marks when the surface is perfectly horizontal. The half-barrel we used is not on a perfectly level piece of ground (sorry, I didn't have time to make it a major project---we can perfect it later), and she noticed how the water was higher on one side than the other because it wasn't sitting level. When we put the water in, I told her to add the chemical to "neutralize" the chlorine and we talked about chemistry for a bit. She worked a while with a net to catch the fishes out of the other container they were in. She sliced her hand through the water several times and said, "You can't cut water." I was too rushed to expand on every interesting comment she made. She make several comments or asks several questions every day that I wish I had more time to explore with her. I had a water lily in another container that I don't think I have divided since before she was born. I guess it has been 6 years. The plant had grown out of the pot it was planted in and filled and conformed to the bottom of the square container of water that the pot was sitting in. We noticed several things that looked like pine cones. I told her that was a rhizome and showed her it was a big part of the root and the stems of the leaves (and flowers) grow from it. We noticed several different kind of roots. Some looked like matted dog hair and some looked like "normal" roots. I wish I had not been so rushed, but I intend to go back and study this subject later. One very interesting thing was how as I sliced into the mass of roots, in the middle were a lot of rocks. Kind of like a suprise! I told her how when she was younger, she used to throw rocks from the driveway into the water, and over time the plant grew around them till they were buried like a dinosaur bone, for us to discover years later! After I replanted a piece of the water lily into a new pot and explained to her how I needed to cover the surface of the soil to keep the dirt from muddying the water. I wish I had had time to talk more about how I had used soil that had a high clay content and how to know if clay has more sand or more clay. There are many lessons we can expand upon some other day. I want to study Monet's paintings of water lilies with her. I want to learn with her about aquaponics and natural, biological filtration or water instead of using pumps. I want to get her dad to buy a solar powered fountain to make a pretty sound in the back yard. And we want to make a solar oven or solar cooker to make beans and rice one day for supper.
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