Daniel Boone Native Gardens

Yesterday, our class visited Daniel Boone Native Gardens to hunt for (in a scavenger hunt way) all of the many kinds of plants and plant parts that we've been talking about in class all week. This field trip was easily our most relaxing one to date. It was a whole 0.2 miles from campus (which meant no getting lost en route or stressing about timing), the gardens were a self-contained, mere 3 acres (which precluded the possibility of someone escaping or wandering off unintentionally), and the site included no trails with steep cliffs, caves with bottomless pits, or waterfalls with slippery rocks (which meant, barring someone touching poison ivy or eating something, the dangers were few, so I could let my class roam at their leisure, and that meant we all enjoyed a bit of freedom). Twas a nice change.

Are you ready for more pictures of plants, lovely plants? For what else do you find in a 3-acre garden in the middle of the Southern Appalachians? Just plants. And bugs. And me. And we can't forget those 16 teenagers whose educational enrichment is my responsibility this summer. For pictures, though, I'm afraid we'll be sticking mostly to the plants and the bugs. 

I don't remember what this is, but it and its resident critter were my favorite sights of the day.

Heart-shaped yellows.

Stonecrop - a cool little succulent, whorled plant.

Flaming flowers.

Maidenhair fern - perhaps my most favorite of the ferns.

Catawba rhododendron.

The parasitic squawroot - it can't photosynthesize for itself, so it steals its dinner from the roots of oak trees.
Everybody's gotta eat...

Pretty purples.

There is fungus among us and it's always fun to find.

Winsome whites.

Blending in. Sort of.

Blues. Blue petals. Blue eyes. And maybe some minor stuck-in-the-mountains-by-myself blues. Maybe.

This day was nice enough for its peaceful morning in the gardens, but it also marked the half-way point of my first term of TIP. The first week was far from easy, and complaints have flown freely from me this week, too, but it is getting better. I'm learning how to play an unexpected disciplinarian/entertainer/gear-in-a-machine role on top of and often in competition with the preferred educator/enlightener/friend role that I expected and welcomed when I undertook this summer undertaking. Halfway done feels good, and with next week choc full of activities and field trips and already planned discussions, the end is indeed in sight. The job's not all bad, I promise. There are plenty of moments of brilliance and insight in our days that provide me with a dose of faith in my students' hipster-Justin Beiber-iPhone generation. Still, I will savor the day when these kiddos take all of that uncovered brilliance and insight home, and I move on, closer to part two in Florida, closer to some quality time with ma familia, and closer to Drew. For now, here's to smooth sailing in the second half of my adventures in the boonies of Boone.