The Stick Nursery

 Okay, so I'm now going to start referring to my collection of saplings and seeds as my Stick Nursery.

 Why you may ask?

  Well, you see my mom and my adviser gave me saplings.  These saplings, however, were kept in dark and cold storage areas... And they were asleep when we received them.  By asleep, I mean they were literally sticks with roots; so we now have these sticks planted in their giant orange buckets (which I drilled holes in for drainage) and seated on the deck in my backyard.

 They do not have leaves yet.
 It just looks like we decided to plant sticks in dirt upright and water them.

 Yeah, I feel really weird about it but we have trees, at least!

 In fact, one of the saplings is budding and showing green on it already.  Hopefully they will get more soon. ;-)

BIG NEWS! HUGE NEWS, ACTUALLY!!

47.5/80 (more than half-way there!!)

~*BIG IMPORTANT NEWS UPDATE*~

     Guess who just obtained and planted her American Chestnut seeds??!?  

     If you guessed me then you are 110% correct! :3

   

     My project advisor sent me the seeds that he had earlier purchased for this project in the mail; so, I received them yesterday and planted them today!! I'm very, very excited!  This is essentially the one of the highlights of my project as of right now haha

    I followed some instructions on the proper planting and care of the seeds.  I put them in potting soil in decent sized pots, put them around 2-3 inches below the surface, covered them and intend to keep them in some sunlight (since they cannot be placed in direct sunlight at all times...  Otherwise they'll get roasted... Get it? )  

Here they are!

The little cages we are putting around the pots are to keep squirrels and other little critters away from eating the seeds (they aren't very easy to get, as you now know!).  Those aren't the finished ones- the finished ones look like this:

We basically just wrapped the other skeleton structures with chicken wire.  Hopefully that will be effective enough at keeping little animals from eating them!!

   Anyways, this is a huge step in making progress on the action part of my project. I plan to organize more presentations... I just hope that can be done before and after finals.

Talk to you guys again soon!

40?/80

~*UPDATE*~

• I had my first presentation earlier this week!!  It was for my school's STEAM Expo, and it was pretty okay.  I really need on talking to people about this... I feel as though I was a little embarrassed. haha
• I'm still waiting to hear about these trees... But that's okay? I guess?

   Okay!  So AP exams are now over, and I feel pretty great since that stress is not in my life any more!  Not much has been going on with me. I've been getting outside a whole bunch, and spring is definitely in the air!  So is pollen... and my ever growing desire for school to be over. 

    I plan to email my advisor again for a heads up, but other than that not much else has been going on other than the fact that I have gotten in one presentation.  Exciting!

Keep it Going, Keep it Flowing!

I really need to check my hours list uhhhhhh

~*UPDATE*~

• Nothing new, really.  I have a meeting with my Gold Award Advisor tomorrow, Friday, in the first time in what seems like forever.  
• Things will clear up!

     So, last Saturday I had an interview at the American Museum of Natural History for he possibility of having an internship there over the summer... Very exciting!  All went well, I brought my mother, younger sister, and best friend with me, and we walked around the museum afterwards.  First of all, we went to their temporary exhibit about natural disasters which I loved! I've always been extremely interested in that kind of stuff.  However, later on while we were wondering, we came to the section about North American forests, and I, in all my nerdy-glory, got very excited and looked everywhere for a section on the American Chestnut trees!  I read every plaque and placement at the exhibits, looking in the windows...

     And I found nothing. I don't even think I found a single mention of the trees! I saw mentions of the American Elm and other Chestnut variations, but not the American Chestnut! :-(  I was actually pretty upset by this haha.  Just thought I'd bring this up. 

    Talk to you guys soon!

I'M BACK, SORRY

28?/80

~*UPDATE*~

• I just returned from my Easter break which I spent in Italy... I have quite a few stories from that trip. haha Yet I unfortunately had no internet, or very little internet.  Needless to say not much work got done at all in that time.  Even before the break I really did not have time to work on this- between my school play, SATs, ACTs, and various other projects; however, since getting home on Saturday I've done a sufficient amount of work on this.
• Working on my curriculum and I plan to email a few people within this week to see about setting up presentations! 
• I got offered by my advisor to speak with a woman about my Gold Award for my local newspaper... So exciting! I'm hoping that goes through! :3
• Since receiving a donation from the bird sanctuary, I will have to do less fundraising to obtain the trees (which I don't mind a bit)... Now all that I have left to do is get a supplier!

     Alrighty!! All things considered, my project really is going very well. As soon as I purchase trees and start presenting, I'll really have this process almost, if not completely, underway.  My only problem is that I've hit quite a few road bumps, and, if you haven't already noticed, I've been very busy and unable to keep up with this.  Not to mention, the weather here in NY hasn't been so great either.  I feel like it's only now just starting to feel like spring!  You know that feeling, right? I think people call it "spring fever." I just want to be outside everyday doing stuff instead of being cooped up indoors like I have been almost all winter!

     Now that I know I'm most likely going to have trees and start speaking about my curriculum by next month, June at the latest, (and because of the events in my school which are signifying the end of the year) I'm starting to become very excited for this summer.

     In other news, I plan to post my curriculum up here, and I feel like I've mentioned this before, for you guys to look at it and maybe even make suggestions.  I'm looking to show it to a few of my local Girl Scout troops, Boy Scouts maybe, even at my school or my younger sister's elementary school. 

     Again, sorry for being so inactive.  Entries should start to spring up more often now. ;-)

21/80

~*YET ANOTHER UPDATE*~

• Everything has been super busy lately, between all the work in school I've been receiving, the school play, and SATs.  I haven't really had time to do much work on this because my mind has been otherwise occupied.   I certainly will go full-speed ahead after this week is over, I hope. 

• My goal as of now is to get information and start raising to buy the trees and/or saplings.  I'll call Mr Nardone hopefully tomorrow, and send an email to the ACF guy.

• My curriculum needs a few touch-ups and information sheets, then I should be good to go in terms of talking to people and getting the word out about my project. I'll probably make a worksheet and a crossword... Something like that. :3 

AGAIN, I'm kinda bugging out because of all that's been going on.  I hope to get things going more fluidly when I have less work to do. 

So sorry, guys. 

- Elena

20/80

Okay, here's a little update on what's going on:

~*UPDATE*~

• Mr Nardone replied to me, and I plan on having a conversation with him either sometime this week or the following.  He said that he liked my idea and was willing to give me some advice! :3
• I also got a reply from the Saratoga Tree Nursery, and they gave me contacts to both David Lee and Allen Nichols from the NYS Chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation. (Ooooo~ that's exciting)

That's really all I have to say for now. School has been pretty busy lately, and SATs are next week.  

I hope to get back here again regularly soon!