A field trip!

On Tuesday, I went on a field trip to Brown's Bog, for my First Year Seminar Class. Normally you wouldn't expect a bog to be exciting, but this trip was pretty interesting, once we actually went into the bog.

I say it this way because after we arrived there, my class stood for roughly an hour, listening to our professor blabber about the history of the bog, and having a half-hearted discussion about a chapter in a book that is not remotely related to the location. I feel like this time could have been better spent exploring the bog, taking photos, and talking to friends in the natural setting.

Don't get me wrong, the bog was unexpectedly beautiful. Fields of red poison sumac, which is dangerous to touch, vines of poison ivy scaling the trees, and little cottonballs that are soft to the touch. There were even carnivorous plants: the pitcher plants that were small yet intriguing. This was the first time I saw carnivorous plants in the wild.

The pitcher plants can be seen a little above the center of the image. They are filled with a sweet enzyme-rich fluid that breaks down nutrients from flies and bugs.

During our trip to Brown's Bog, I made several interesting discoveries. First of all, the bog was not so swampy as I had anticipated: there was more vegetation and less desolation than what I had come to expect from the swamp detailed in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Second of all, there was an interesting acoustic effect at the center of the bog: an echo. Normally, I wouldn't expect an echo in a marshy environment, because I would anticipate the water, soft moss, and bushes to absorb most sound reflections. However, there was a distinct (albeit short) echo, most likely caused by the bowl shape of the area (sound reflected off the elevated ground to all sides of us).

Third of all, among the violent red sumac plants, there were tiny cotton ball plants! I took at least three, rubbing my thumb on them while the professor was enthusing about the bog. They were soft -- very soft. So soft they felt like fur, until a hard seed is torn from the core of the flower and touched my finger. Nonetheless, I felt like Lenny from Of Mice and Men, because I literally could not stop taking these white cotton balls and playing with them.