Acrylic on canvas painting of a coffee plant that my brother painted. After a frame support repair, it’ll be hanging on the wall in our new apartment kitchen. Post-repair and installation photos will likely follow soon.

It’s been about 260 days since my first avocado plant germinated and almost 100 days since I last posted about it. Since both of those times, it’s come quite a long way and I’ve been impressed by it’s ability to thrive so well up here in Central New York when it is primarily grown in southern California, Mexico, New Zealand, and some parts of South America. It does surprisingly well indoors throughout the colder months, growing a new set of leaves every so often, but it really takes off up here in the late spring and summer. In the last few weeks, the plant has grown a number of inches and has produced two new sets of leaves and the third has already begun to emerge. Here are the photos of the plant that I took a little more than an hour ago.

As you can see from the photo below, the plant has added at least four new sets of leaves since I last posted about it three months ago and it’s stem has bulked up quite a bit and now dons some reddish speckles.

I’ve attempted to germinate four more avocado seeds since this one and so far, they’ve all successfully germinated and some have even developed into seedlings. The second seed that germinated and developed into a seedling was unfortunately eaten by a groundhog, but the third and fourth seeds have germinated and begun growing and the fifth is on it’s way. Here’s how the third plant is doing now.

More on the development of these guys and the rest of my 200+ vegetable plants of 2011 to come soon!

After dark tonight, a couple of my friends and I drove out to Labrador Hollow to witness the annual mole salamander migration. When the timing and conditions are right, mole salamanders migrate en masse from their underground burrows to ponds and vernal pools where they will reproduce.

This was the first year I’ve been out to witness such an occurrence and it was bittersweet. The mole salamander migration is the true sign of spring’s arrival, but it also signifies the impact we humans have on the natural cycles of nature. As we walked along the shoulders of NY-91, we saw many yellow-spotted salamanders that didn’t make it across.

We scouted with flashlights for other salamanders that were trekking across the road so that we could help them cross safely. Some conscious drivers traveled this route slowly, aware that their vehicles have an impact on the survival of many migrating salamanders. We know that we can’t save every one of these salamanders, but we, like others, did what we could to help improve their chances of survival crossing this major roadway on their journey.

Spotted Salamander by William Vann

I’ve neglected to post routine updates on this one, but the avocado plant I’m growing is now at day 168. Surprisingly, it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long. Since I started it back in October, I’ve started four other avocado seeds as well, but none of them have sprouted much vegetation yet, only small shoots with no leaves and lots of roots. As you can see in this photo, I transplanted the avocado plant into soil a while ago and it’s been growing very well. The leaves are huge!

The avocado plant I’ve been raising is growing so fast! Just a week ago, it was barely peeking over the top of the seed, but now look at it. Pretty soon, it’ll have to be transplanted into a flowerpot with soil.

I’m cultivating a baby avocado plant!

A couple of weeks ago, I decided that I wanted to try growing an avocado plant from seed. After a few friends and I made an excellent dish of guacamole, I saved a couple of the avocados’ large seeds. I did a little research prior to starting the seeds, so I knew what I was in for. All I really had to do was rinse the remaining avocado off the seed, insert three toothpicks into it to balance it on the edges of a small container, and submerge it halfway in water. This split seed is only one of three that I’ve started to cultivate and it got a head start because it had already started germinate while still in the avocado I used to make guacamole. It’s grown quite a bit since I first placed it in water and I’m hoping that it continues to do well.

Since arriving at the SUNY-ESF Cranberry Lake Biological Station this past Sunday, June 20th, I have already had a handful of new experiences. On the first day of the ethnobotany course I am taking here, my fellow classmates and I went out into the forests surrounding the field station to harvest young saplings for the construction of a traditional Algonquin wigwam. We had to work with and learn from the ecosystem to harvest saplings that would form to the correct hemispheric shape and flex without breaking. Nature was our teacher and we had to interact with it in order to learn from it. After some time, we were able to determine that the best sapling choices around where we were constructing the wigwam would be American beech (Fagus grandifolia) and striped maple (Acer pensylvanicum). Before harvesting, we held a ceremony where we discussed the Native American tradition of asking permission from the trees to harvest them. This kind of ceremony emphasizes the holistic respect that Native Americans have for all life on earth and how they treat living beings as relatives, not resources.

After ceremony, the relationship between ourselves and the trees was healed and we could then harvest what we needed. We harvested only as many saplings as was required to construct the dome shaped frame upon which the wigwam would be built. Each sapling was anchored into a hole in the soil, bent over, and lashed to one directly across from it. As soon as work on the structure started, it really began to take shape. It was an admirable amount of work that required a high level of group effort and cooperation. As you can imagine, improperly securing a flexed sapling is a recipe for disaster, so attention to detail and focus were crucial to the project.

One aspect of Native American shelter building that I found intriguing was that the entrance of every structure is always built facing due east. Native Americans hold the daily sunrise in very high regard. Every morning after awakening, the first order of business is to greet the sun and to thank it for bringing forth a new day and for sustaining life on planet earth. This happens before anything else at the start of the day and further strengthens the relationship between people and the natural world.

Our professor for ethnobotany, Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, said about our class’s wigwam that it was one of the most harmoniously shaped wigwams that she had overseen the construction of at the bio-station in all her years here. We didn’t fully appreciate what she had said until we visited one of the wigwams from a former class after constructing ours. Although that wigwam was still very well built, it had an odd pointed shape to it that Robin said made it very difficult to cover with birch and cattail mats. We have come to truly appreciate our wigwam building abilities.

As of yet, the frame of the wigwam is complete and all that needs to be done to finish the structure is to apply the sections of birch bark we gathered and the sewn cattail mats that we are going to make this coming Monday to the frame to create a water repellent roof. We spent all of yesterday canoeing out to a cattail dominated marsh to harvest cattails in muddy water that was at times chest deep. It was easily one of the most enjoyable experiences I’ve had here this past week.

The process of harvesting saplings, learning from nature and one another, communicating with each other, and constructing a wigwam this past week has brought the students in our ethnobotany class closer together and created a sense of close-knit community for us here at the Cranberry Lake Biological Station.

Day 8 of life. It’s evident that these chicks are doing quite well in our backyard and their parents are feeding them well. They’re only days away from their scheduled fledging time and they’ve already started to develop contour feathers atop their downy fuzz. They’ve become much more adorable in the last four days.