jdixon08

I'm so happy the presentation is over! I had it yesterday. I spent my weekend going over notes, and cooking for the Exhibit. I needed a bit more time than I gave myself for setting up the day of the exhibit, Ms. Clark Evans and Ms. Nobles helped me with that. Overall it went well. I was pretty nervous, so I didn't speak very loudly, but they all said that my presentation and foods were good. From others that have gone I'd been told that time would fly by in the exhibit, but I didn't think that happened to me. I spent a lot of time talking about my plants, but other than that, I didn't have the same "time flying" experience everyone else had. I haven't had the euphoria experience of being done yet either, probably because I'm still working on the written document website. I'm basically done, I just need to upload photos. I'm thinking I'll try and get that done tonight and tomorrow, and then send the link out to my panel members so that they can look at it.

I said in my exhibit some of my plans for the plants now that everything is over, which was to turn most of my plants into remedies... but I've had a day to look at them again, and I'm already having a few issues at the thought of doing it. I think I'm going to plant most of them. Hopefully my grandparents won't mind... they might roll their eyes at me, but if my plants could still live on, that would be good. My grandparents also suggested I take a plant or two to college. I might do that with one of my more resiliant plants... Angelica, maybe. I like Angelica. Or Borage. I'm also thinking of giving some away at the final senior exhibit display, or giving some to Ms. Bergman, since I know she'd probably be really open to the idea of planting my plants there.

I guess I lied; I think I'm getting that euphoria feeling with being done with the exhibit now. Everything's coming to an end now, and I've really enjoyed it. I've gotten to study and do and learn about a lot of things I probably never would have done if not for it. I possibly even have a new carreer path/interest in this, or at least a new hobby. I never knew I'd like gardening or identifying plants so much. Perhaps botany is for me.

My herbal class went well! When it was over I sort of went into a nice state of euphoria (and it's not because we were "making herbs" as my friends like to tease, I promise!) because beforehand I'd been so stressed out. I've never really reached that point of stress before, and it was scary not being able to calm myself down, because I normally can. Lydia tried to help me out the day of during lunch, trying to help me clear my head, but all I could really hear was rushing, heat in my cheeks, teeth jittering, body shivering and hands shaking. I didn't feel prepared or ready to do it, but sure enough the moment came where everyone filed in. Most of the class were my close friends who'd come to support me, and I appreciated that. Most of the people who'd signed up didn't come, but people who didn't send an email ended up coming, so it balanced out to about ten-twelve people. I had everyone gather around the table with the remedies and herbs on it a.) to make sure everyone could see everything, but mostly b.) to make the class less formal, less students-in-seats-teacher-front-of-class. That also helped with the stress crisis I was having. I spent the first ten minutes talking about the herbs I'd brought and what properties they can have, but I didn't say a lot of what I'd written in my notes, mostly because I didn't feel familliar with them, so I was mostly going off memory. There were a lot of times when I was freezing, or felt like it... or stuttering. Or just feelings lots of panic. I felt wierd telling the students after only ten minutes of talking to start making their remedy, because I was sure it wouldn't take twenty minutes, but surprisingly it did. Everything from there went smoothly. They were able to follow the recipe, I had enough ingredients for everybody, and they seemed to like making it. I'm still hearing about it from my friends because they've left the pot-pourri in their lockers, and apparently ever since they have the senior hallways smells significantly better. At least it went to some use, right?

Well, leading that class was good in one way big time: it told me how I'll probably do when I'm up giving the practice presentation this wednesday. I know I can't really have students making remedies again; I've only got one that's a pot-pourri, and I'm not going to have the panel members in the final presentation do that either. So I'll have to rely on me speaking again... I'm going to use the notes I typed up for the herbal class again I think, but I'll edit them in a way that centers around my project and not just the herbs. I felt like when I talked during the class, some of the students were bored hearing me list off the facts, so I'll have to try to liven it up. I just hope I won't have such a panic attack like I did again... though I know I probably will anyway...

On a lighter side, I did a lot of plant transplanting this weekend. I put all the mallow and nasturtium into one pot, meaning instead of two pots for mallow and two for nasturtium there's now just one for each. That was probably the hardest transplanting, because they both had taken root where they were, and it was hard digging around it all, but I did. A little less than half of my garden is now in pots, and it's one pot for every plant. My grandmother's right; it does look better that way. It took me about three-four hours to do it all, and overall it was just a relaxing thing for me to do this weekend (and motivated me into a mega-room-spring-cleaning spree, which my room sincerely needed).

My main focus this week, however, will be on the presentation Wednesday. My grandmother suggested that in one of the presentations, practice or the real deal, I should make something like rosemary toast or thyme biscuts and turn it into a sort of tea party. I like that idea, but I'll probably save it for the real presentation. I don't want added stress this week again trying to make too many things. I saved my teas from the class that no one drank, and froze them to keep them fresh, though I don't think I'll offer them to the students just to be on the safe side. I'll probably make some fresher tea for them to try, and again I'll have ingredient lists and labels supposing they do try anything.

Until wednesday, I expect to be heavily stressed. But after wednesday, that will be nice for me... if the small euphoria of no worries was that good after the herbal class, I can't wait to see how the happy factor will shoot up after the ten-times-more-important practice presentation. Supposing I don't stress myself into a puddle before then...

I just finished creating my invitations, and I'm happy with them. They're written in cursive with a calligraphy pen, which is pretty fancy (and a tad difficult) for me to do, and I used flowers and plants I collected from ireland to attach into the invitations. Some of the plant identities I know that I put in the invitations, and others are just things I found that caught my eye in ireland. I didn't think I'd ever get around to using them because I thought I'd done such a bad pressing job, but this turned out to be the perfect opporutinity. Plus, I discovered that some of the things I pressed aren't that bad looking after all. So I might use them for something on display after all, like my foxglove sprigs. I'm debating whether or not to stick my invitations in their envelopes. I'm afraid if I do, the plants are going to break off from the page... and that would make the invitation look sloppy. Hmm... I think since tomorrow is just the Ms. Aldrow turn-in date, I'll show it to her the way it is, close it and put it in the envelope, and figure out of it works or not. It's not the fanciest invitation in the world, but it's nice looking and (I think) a bit creative.

My garden is doing swimmingly. Nearly everything is out of the ground now, minus one type of plant which I think isn't going to come up at all, ever. But everything else is flourishing, and some are getting quite large. I've had to move nasturtium and mallow out of the seed starter early because of it... the roots were growing right out of the container! It was impressive. I'm taking pictures every day or every few days of them now, and labelling the pictures so I know what's what. I think I might use those later.

Right now I'm trying to get organized and make a habit of storing things, like pictures and rough draft papers, or handouts and anyhting I can find that I have relating to my senior project. I figure, since my presentation is coming up soon, I need to know now what I have to go on.

There's a lot I need to do with my written document still. I've been pretty good about writing in my garden document every day, but I need to structure it in a way that makes it part of my written, and not just a side blog. I think I'll write an essay of some sort about my garden and what I've learned with it, and include my remedies in there somewhere. I'm still planning on turning it into a type of book, but I'll have to decide on what kind of book that's going to be. Fortunately, because I've been taking pictures of my garden, I can use those for it, so that's nice. But I need to work on the remedies part some.

My herbal class is in a week! And I'm assuming I'll give an announcement about it on monday in community meeting, so I'll have to ready myself mentally for that. I don't want to get nervous announcing or teaching in front of everyone and do dumb habits that make people annoyed and not care about what I'm talking about. I should also go over the herb classes I was given again, get all the information down in my head, make sure I have the supplies and everything.

Lots of work to do, but I can do it!

I started my garden yesterday! It took forever, but I'm proud of it. My grandparents took me to Lowes yesterday, and we picked out a 72 container seed starter that self-waters the plants, plus a six pack starter kit with three other kinds of herbs in them. My grandmother said I should plant all the seeds (despite still not knowing what some of them are) just to see what comes up, so I did. With the 72 pack, I divided it up so each type of herb gets four small pots in which to grow... I figured I'd have more of a chance planting this way. I decided not to grow celery and sunflowers, because I have celery in my house all the time to use and sunflowers get way too big and as far as I know, are more decorative and less herbal.

I'll explain the setup of the system a little bit. The cartons where the plants are have holes in the bottom, and they sit on a mat that's draped over a platform in a larger container. You fill the bottom container with water and the edges of the mat soak up the water and deliver water to the holes in the cartons. Then the dirt soaks it up, gives it to the plants, and you have an all-day watering source. There's a cover for the top as well, so it's a greenhouse on top of being self-watering. I have it set up in my grandmother's sewing room, since that room gets the most sunlight and it's near the heaters, so it's generally the warmest room as well as the sunniest. I'm using the table directly in front of the windows, and I pretty much just open the curtains and viola! The smaller greenhouse is a little trickier, I actually have to remember to water those, and since it's smaller than the giant 72 pack, I have to sit it in front of the window (on the windowsill, actually) by day and move it away by night. My grandmother's worried that the plants being so close to the window will freeze because the window gets really cold at night, so I've been moving the plants as far away as possible when it gets dark.

Planting was fun, but long. Making the dirt expand was cool. Finally opening the Ireland seeds I got was especially intriguing. Some seeds are incredibly small, some looked like dandelion seeds, others were shaped like cashews with geometric oval bumps covering their sides. some looked like thorns. I opened a few because I thought they looked like dead twigs, and found some stank horribly. Since there was no guide on how to plant them, I pretty much planted them close to the surface and packed them in equally. This is the official day one, I think, since it was about 24 hours ago now that I planted them. Now it's just a waiting game. I've labeled each plot, drawn up a graph in case a label might go missing, and I'm keeping a journal noting what goes on in the garden. I think I'll use the log as part of my written document, and if anything comes up by next month when my class is, I might bring it in to show the students.

My grandpa suggested that once the plants get bigger, we should go back to Lowes to get larger pots. Then when they've outgrown those, we're going to build a big wooden container outside in the backyard for them. I will take pictures along the way as well, as more info for the written and presentation.

And that's the big news of this week so far. Yay!

My meeting with Ms. Rizzi was great! She gave me so much information to think about, and suggestions on what to incorperate into my herbal class (and if not the herbal class, the written document or the presentation). She gave me lots of her old herbal class outlines, and she's got one in particular intro class that I like. There's so much I could do with the students that I'm kind of hoping a lot of students show up to my class, so I can arrange holding another one! She was very easy to talk to, and offered to help me out with anything at all. I even got her phone number just in case I'm at home making something and I'm having trouble. We talked about buying builk herbs for me to use. She used to order from a certain website but they've been bought out, so she hasn't gotten any herbs in a while. We looked up a few places where I could possibly order herbs, but they weren't really things I would be looking for, or it was sold by the pound, which is WAY to much bulk herb. She gave me a website some friends of hers have who sell herbs and things they grow on their farm, and told me to call them and see if they'd be selling the kind and quantity of herbs I'd need. I think I should determine where I'm going to get my herbs over break, along with other things.

I haven't been terribly productive this week, sadly to say. I'm counting on break to catch me up. I'm going to plant my garden over it, I know I have to do that. My grandparents are going to help me out there in the way of what I should get when I go shopping for everything. I'm going to look for beeswax too, which Rachel's mom said is probably at Lowes, right where all my other garden materials will be. I want to get a solid start on my written document, not just an outline, but a good solid rough draft started. Ordering more herbs and seeing where I can get more is also a goal over break, along with more herbal class preparation and reading over the information on the herbs I'm going to use. That's the plan...

Well, I definitely had an interesting week concerning senior exhibit. Help flew at me from everywhere! Shortly after my meeting with Mr. Durso (which went very well, I had nothing to be stressed about) I got an email back getting an okay on the herbal class. Mr. Durso said it would be extremely hard to get the class in before winter break, so the date for it now is March 12th or 11th, but most likely the 12th, since that's a wednesday. I agree with him. There's a lot of work still to be done, but fortunately, help really did come from everywhere. First Mr. Durso talked to Ms. Rizzi (FA's financial director) who then emailed me saying she'd love to help me on my class and my project is I needed it. Apparently she used to teach herbal classes as well, and even owned an Herbal shop! How amazingly lucky is that for me?? So I emailed her and we're going to meet during third period this tuesday to go over my ideas on how I'm going to run my class. Did I mention how extremely lucky I am?? I have full confidence that my herbal class is going to be amazing, now that I've got this kind of support behind me. No room for doubting anymore; I've got my back covered by a professional.

But I had even more luck. I was at Rachel Bergman's house on friday and mentioned my senior project to her mother. Ms. Bergman jumped up from the dinner table and led me to her massive bookshelf, where she proceeded to stack several huge volumes of herbal and gardening books on the floor for us to look through. I'm only borrowing them, of course, and I've only leafed through them so far, but from what I gather there's a lot (and I mean a lot) of interesting information to pull out and use for my project. Ms. Bergman gave me tons of advice and pointers concerning gardening and planting herbs which I should keep in mind, as in a few weeks I can pretty much start the seed planting. I'm thinking over winter break, along with written document and my herb class work, I should see if I can start up my garden then. It'll be ambitious, but I'm hoping that's what I can do.

I'm starting to realize it takes a long time to get work done for senior project. For example, even just outlining ideas for herbal classes, surveys and written document can take up to an hour or longer, for each! I'm not used to putting so much effort into this sort of thing. Well, I always put effort into work, of course... but with this kind of work, all the rules and guidelines are pretty much set by me. It's not like schoolwork, where you're going to write an essay on this certain excerpt and how it conveys tones of this and that. With senior project work, what'll happen is you'll set a small goal, but while you're working you add onto that goal. With me, I look at what I have when I've reached the point I wanted to get to and think I should add more, or reword more and more things, or put it into a nicer format, etc etc. It's all the little things that make working on the project great, but it's also those little things you never think you're going to end up spending so much time on when you start working. Of course, a part of things taking a long time is because of my own procrascination, but I've noticed it's also something else. It's not a bad thing, it's just something I should be aware of in the future, so I can get the most out of the time I use to work on the project.

Conclusion to this blog: I still have much to do, but I have a lot of help on all sides if I need it, from the best of the best!

So I've been thinking a lot about my application, and how I want to go about doing it. That's my main focus for this week. My last meeting with Ms. Clark Evans really put things into better perspective for me, with deadlines and what I should have done and all. It's a lot of pressure, but I'm determined to do something amazing with it! And the first step is to get the application part underway, and begin typing up my written document ideas later this week. I went shopping for proper containers with Matt Hussmann the other day, and we found a few bottles but not many. I'm planning on going out again with a real shopping list this time this week, maybe on wednesday or thursday. I sent an email to Mr Durso asking if I could meet with him, and he said I should try to catch him at breaktime. I didn't talk to him today because he was already talking with Chris and I wanted a bit more time, so I plan to meet with him tomorrow.

The application idea has progressed a bit.Originally I'd thought I'd make some remedies and sell them to the students, but after talking about the legalities and such, and hearing my grandfather's opinion, I realized it's not about making money off the project. My grandpa suggested not charging for the remedies, and to have a table out and let students choose the things they want to try at will, but that still seemed a bit too unstable. So I talked to Ms. Aldrow today about my idea, and she gave me some good suggestions that I think would go over well with Mr. Durso and be easier overall to do. She suggested I lead a class during an activities period where I'd talk about all the different herbal remedies you could make at home, and let the students try some of the things we all made together during that thiry minute period of time. I thought that'd be a great application idea, because it'd require me to do public speaking and talking about what I've learned, which would sort of be pre-practice for the March practice presentation. The only difference here is that the objective in this class would be to teach the people who came about a certatin amount of remedies, how to make them and use them. I talked to my grandmother about the idea when I got home today and she suggested that I should lead the class more as a "watch me do it vs. all of us do it at the same time" simply because she's worried supplies will be wasted, there won't be enough to go around, people will goof off with them, etc. And she's got a point. I'm a kid: I know if I were given a station with all those supplies, no matter how interesting the class may be, I'm still going to be tempted (and probably will) goof off. So the idea is now that I'll have all my supplies up, and perpare the remedies and talk about them during the class and let the students just try what I've made, and maybe fill out some optional surveys on what they thought about the remedies. Or, for a remedy or two, I could have the students come up and we'd all participate in making just one remedy. It'd be more like a seminar sort of structure for anyone who was interested, and depending on the interest level and what I would want to prepare for the students, that would effect if this would be just a one-time class or if I had maybe more than one.

I think if I did the application in this way, that it would be more of a hands-on learning application experience, and the idea might be more easily approved. I think I'd stick to mostly tea making for the first initial class, since that's easy and shouldn't be too hard to pull off at school. I'm sticking to the simplest teas, of course, made with items that are usually in anyone's pantry. That should reduce a lot of the potential risks involved in letting students drink the tea. I think I should probably go about seeing if an adult could be in the room to supervise the class, to be extra safe. I think that's a requirement anyway, having an adult there. But anyway, those are my thoughts for the day. Now to write them up and practice saying my points, so when I talk to Mr. Durso I'll be prepared!

I've discovered something about myself: writing my own project, directing it, assigning it, and doing it is something I really have trouble with! I have a tendency to get caught up with schoolwork, and push off doing senior project work and thus, not much gets done. I've decided that I need to start working on Senior project for at least thirty minutes a day, whether it be blog writing, remedy making, buying supplies, working on a rough draft of a written document, or just plain sitting still and thinking about the project. If I can force myself to do that, maybe working on this project won't be so intimidating.

As of right now, I don't know what I want to do with my project still. If I wanted to start a full out garden, I could potentially begin growing some of the seeds right now. I don't know if I want to plant all 22 types of plant seeds I was given, since they all require different conditions (for example, some bloom a year after planting, some need warm climates, or certain amounts of sunlight and water) and that might be difficult to upkeep in my house. I want to grow at lease three plants, I've decided, if nothing else. I want to keep them in pots, because I'd like to use them as items for presentation for the final Senior Exhibit presentation, and pots are easier to move around then planting outside and transplanting back into a pot later. Over this weekend, I thought I might actually plant one of my plants.

Remedy making is getting harder. The basic types of cures are easy: I've got the art of making teas and pot-pourri down, for example.  Making things like tonics, lotions, or ointments takes a lot more. I need beeswax to make lotions and ointments, and I'm not really sure if I have the skills to melt down beeswax, oil and herbs without ruining the pots and pans and setting fire to the kitchen. I was talking with Desiree about it the other day, and she suggested that I make as many of the simpler remedies as I could, ring samples to school and have a "pot-pourri" sale, to raise money and to use as an easier learning activity. The idea was that the students could sniff the samples and if they liked it or wanted something, they could place an order and I could make it for them. I liked the idea, except for two things. One was how to figure out the price the remedies should be. The second was doubt, since I'm not sure if Mr. Durso would be happy with me selling remedies to the students, especially if they're ones meant to be ingested. I should probably meet with him and ask once I've gone through my books more and decided what it is I'd be making and selling. If I was allowed, however, could that count as part of the application part of the project?

My final thoughts were to go out this weekend and stock up on supplies. All the herbalist books say you need lots and lots of dark jars to store your remedies in, and I've been scraping by using see-through glad containers and hiding them in the back of the pantry. Obviously tupperware's going to run low if I keep that up. Desiree said that the dollar store most likely sells dark glass containers cheap, and I'm wondering is maybe they'd sell some basic lotion, honey and beeswax too. I could also buy some cheap pots and pans, maybe, so if I attempt making a lotion or cream of sort at least it wouldn't be a good pot getting ruined. If the dollar store doesn't sell any of those things, there's always other stores I could check. I'm sure Wal-mart has something. I'm running lot on herbs too, and I'm hoping at those stores I'll find some of the herbs cheap. And to make sure I don't procrascinate on this, I've told my grandparents about my plan, so if I try pushing it off, they'll nudge me back on track. I'm guessing I'll either do this all on friday, or saturday. Hopefully on friday, that way I'd have the whole weekend to practice!

Over the last weekend, I got in trouble for putting on too many miles on my car, so I decided that visiting the farm was a bad idea for right now, and decided to stick to something more local. I reviewed one of my remedy books and made a list of ingredients I needed, and fortunately most of them were basic enough that I had no problems finding them in Ukrops. The things I didn't get were mostly the herbs that go bad quickly, and since I only plan on making one or two remedies a week, it would be silly to buy all those herbs now. I did get fresh sage though, and I experimented in preparing that remedy.

It was supposed to be a Sage and Nutmeg infused oil, which is good as an ingredient in soaps and lotions and things, but also as a massage oil for twitchy, overexcited people and for numb and paralyzed limbs. I cut the recipe down to one fourth of what it was supposed to be, because the recipe calls for large amounts of fresh herbs and frankly, that's a lot of money to spend on herbs for a first experiment. Anyway, it didn't work, because I didn't have the right containers. What was supposed to happen was this: The mixture was to sit in a container all sealed up, and float in a pot of water that was simmering on the stove for two hours, before I had to swap the old herbs out with the new ones. This is what happened in reality: The mixture floated in a plastic container in a pot of water, the heat made the cap pop off, the oil and the herbs spilled out into the water, and by the end of two hours I came back downstairs to greet a merry mess of bubbling charcoal. What I learned from this? For one, you shouldn't stray away from a simmering pot if you're a novice in herb making. I'm glad I only made a fourth of what the real recipe said because of that, since it was only a small mess versus a potentially huge one. I also know now not to use containers without completely solid lids, and that what kind of pot you're using, and the water level, matters greatly in remedy making.

I still have about half an ounce of chopped sage that I hadn't gotten to using in the remedy yet. I can either save that and use it as an additive in another remedy, or I can go get more sage and try this experiment again. I know I want to try an infused oil again... I'm disapointed my first try exploded on me, but I'm determined to get it right. I might even make two remedies over the next two weeks instead of just one.

I have a paper version of scrawled notes I took on the experiment while it was going on, and a list of herbs I might need later and the ones I have and don't have. I'm planning on getting those into my computer at some point. I've also been getting some requests from my friends to make them some remedies for colds and sinus infections. I told them it'd probably taste nasty, but the ones that asked said they were so sick of their illnesses that they didn't care. So I'm thinking I might try those kinds of remedies next. It is the cold and flu season, after all. And... that's what I've done thus far!

My last meeting I had with Ms. Clark Evans about senior project was quite inspirational. When I went into the meeting, I was worried because I'd talked to some gardeners around my neighborhood, and everyone had told me that growing a garden in pots in the middle of winter wasn't a good idea. Apparently it's okay to start off your plants inside when they're seeds, but once they've reached a certain point indoors, they'll stop growing, or won't grow properly. So I was worried about that, since that's a big part of my application for this project. Instead, Ms. Clark Evans and I discussed what I should do as a new game plan. We decided that my project's going to be in reverse, sort of, by ending with the garden and starting with the written document. My idea for my written document is a guidebook to basic knowledge about herbs and what they can be used for, as well as a recipe book for some of the things I want to learn how to make. I'm planning on also having a part where I tell how to grow certain plants too, by keeping notes and taking pictures from my own learning experience later when I can start my garden.

 Ms. Clark Evans gave me a flyer from a place called Miller Farms Market, and on the flyer it was mentioned that they sell various herbs, which made us think that maybe I could go check this place out, and maybe buy some supplies from them. I haven't called the phone number yet on the flyer, but I did go to their website and tried to find more information about it that way. It said that they start selling plants and all the items I'd need for starting the garden in March, and the fresh herbs come out in the month of april. The website didn't say if they sold the supplies for starting seed growing during january or feburary, but since the items are pretty standard and can be easily stored, I assume they're sold all year around. The fresh herbs they sell in April seem pretty extensive; they had a picture up on their website of rows and rows of labelled trays full of plants next to the information. My plan is in april to buy maybe one or two of their plants, since I'm guessing their plants will mature and be raised better than mine will, and it would be nice to have a comparism for my project, no matter how badly it might make my own garden look. I called Miller Farms and asked about their plants, and they told me that most of the herbs they have are common ones, for household purposes. Fortunately, most of my remedies only require the things they probably have. I'm still going to seek out the odd herbs, but for basic needs, I think this place will be good. I'm planning on visiting sometime this weekend, probably on saturday.