Hudson Valley wonderment, A doe's view

Red Spotted Newt

This is a Red Spotted Newt in its teenage form. They are found throughout New York State and the east coast. My first interaction with one was when I first formed memories. They used to live in the wet mossy underside of the rocks lining my parents property. I would overturn the stones after an early summer and late spring rain and watch them scurry in the light. I knew not to touch them, my mom would tell me that if I did, the salt from my fingers would burn their skin. I didn't want to hurt them, so I left them alone. Thinking back, I am not sure how gently I would place the rock back down on top of them.

My early memories about science are almost entirely from the natural world. I spent so much time outside, climbing trees, exploring the woods, and playing in the grass. I remember watching a tick crawl on me, bite then swell with blood and wondering why it wanted to do that and how it could get so big (this was before Lyme's disease invaded the population).

My family had a picnic when I was pretty young, and near our campsite was a large out of place rock. I spent the majority of the day climbing it, laying on it, and jumping off of it. up close, it looked similar to this right here:

I remember scraping off the lichen and seeing deep gouge marks in the rock. Later in elementary school, I learned a glacier had come through my home thousands of years before I sat there, and deposited it right there. The whole valley formed this way, and I was sitting on a piece of it, unaware.

The Hudson Valley is truly a unique place to view nature as a child. Everything around you changes dramatically, four times a year. Autumn is technicolor and vivid, then the acrid smell of decay hangs in the air before everything disappears under ice. Then, through magic, the world starts over and the landscape is transformed. The river thaws, and life returns.

The cycle we get to see every year

Foliage taken in Cornwall-on-Hudson 

It is a place in the world that invites wonder. As a kid I spent my summers in the woods, poison ivy covered, wondering. Sometimes my questions would be answered by the adults around me, "no Emma, the trees don't die in the winter," and sometimes they would be met with an "I don't know."

This landscape has always piqued my childlike curiosity about the world that continues to this day. I still love to examine the ground as hike, and stop at each spider web to see what kind of master weaver spun this web. I still wonder about the life I see as the season change and progress. We are fast approaching my favorite season, fall, and I cannot wait to climb a mountain in the chilly air to get a birds eye view of the foliage. Until then, this video will suffice.

I was pleased to read this article highlighting different scientists, how they became scientists, and the different work that they do. The author, like so many of us, had preconceived notions of science and scientists. They also thought lab coat and "smoking beakers" when they pictured a career in science. The author pictured something outside the realm of the everyday person, but when she got to know and understand real scientists, she found people from a variety of backgrounds, doing a variety of things to advance their field.

One scientists the author interviews is a wetland ecologist named Barbara Bedford. Her path brought her from humanities to ecology through a fascination in wildlife. A quote that particularly resonated with me was this,

"Bedford found that science and the scientific method were just the tools she needed to help her decipher the complexity embedded in the earth's landscapes. 'Science,' she says almost in awe, 'is elegant. It has the ability to get the noise and mess out of the picture so that the picture emerges cleanly and clearly.' "

This spoke to me because she can clearly communicates how important the scientific method is to discovery. The method is unchanged by politics, or opinions, it just allows objectivity that helps the world make sense.