A UVM blog Isabelle Collum’s Wonder Journal

Wonder Blog – Assignment #2 – Sketching

By icollum

Thursday 6/29/2023 6:30 PM

Outback Road, Fairfax, VT

Hazy from wildfire smoke, occasional light showers 74 °F

Part 2: Site Exploration

My dad implored me to check out the garden when I got home. He was concerned about one of his tomato plants. He had six plants, but one of them was severely stunted in growth compared to the rest; at least a foot or two shorter. He asked if it was dead, but it was still completely green so I didn’t think so. Besides the height issue, I noticed that some of the leaves were folding and becoming harder. On the underside of these leaves, I found a bunch of aphids. I know that ladybugs ate aphids, along with some other insects, but I didn’t see any around and I was not about to tell my dad to release ladybugs in the garden. I have a lot of houseplants, and if any have pests, I treat them with a bath, a fancy one including soap and oil (neem). My dad does not have fancy neem oil, so he sprayed them with soapy water and we’ll see if that works.

I continued to wander around for a bit, noticing a bunch of new milkweed sprouting up in the flowerbeds. I heard (and saw) a bunch of birds and decided to make a list:

  • Song Sparrow (seen and heard)
  • Red-eyed Vireo (heard)
  • Northern Cardinal (heard)
  • Common Yellowthroat (seen and heard)
  • Gray Catbird (seen)

I also heard a few spring peepers that I’ve heard here since I was a kid, so that was comforting and familiar.

I noticed a bunch of little brown mushrooms which I’ll follow up on in Part 3.

The brook is high and murky, with a bunch of water striders, but too opaque to see any fish. There was a small snail on the bridge across the water.

Smaller than my pinky fingernail.

There was a lot of clover popping up everywhere, which I’m sure the rabbit I saw when I drove in was quite pleased about.

Most of the clover was white but this one was purple.

My final observations were a couple of large, palm-sized brown/orange mushrooms by the tree line.

They kind of looked like pancakes.

Part 3: Deep Dive

I decided to research the small mushroom I saw a bunch of all over the lawn. I looked up a mushroom identification key and it took me a while as I do not know the parts of a mushroom to find my way to the right one, but I believe what I found were Panaeolus foenisecii or “mower’s mushrooms/haymakers”.

Here is the link: https://www.mushroomexpert.com/panaeolus_foenisecii.html

It is one of the most common and widely distributed mushrooms on lawns in North America. It contains the chemical serotonin, but it is not psychoactive or hallucinogenic.

Crucial identifying features for Panaeolus foenisecii include its small size and habitat in the grass, along with the lack of a ring and the hygrophanous cap, which means as the cap dries out, it changes color drastically. However, it is mainly brown with the spore print (the underside of the cap which looks like gills) a darker purplish-brown.

Quick field sketch of the mower’s mushroom

Part 4: Sketches

Trifolium pratense, Red Clover. I though the shapes of the tiny flowers were very interesting.
Dumetella carolinensis, Gray Catbird. I loved watching this guy and he was watching me back. I love the little cap on their heads and I had fun playing with the somewhat unrealistic texture pattern here.
Some type of ambersnail (I think). This one was hard to ID, but I wanted to sketch this because it was so small and adorable and it was fun to exaggerate the different textures of the shell and body.
Water strider. There were a bunch of these zipping over the surface of the brook. I’m not usually a big fan of bugs but taking the time to sit and sketch this made me more appreciative of their talent (and their crazy legs).

Conclusion:

I love sketching. It was nice to just sit and zone out and just focus on what was in front of me. Like I mentioned with the water strider, I noticed things I never would have if I was just casually looking at something, For example, that the clover is made up of a bunch of mini flowers or that the water strider has stripes on its back. 3/4 of what I chose to sketch kept moving, so that was challenging but more fun and interesting, I think. On my next visit, I’d like to go back into the woods when it isn’t raining and see how many kinds of fungi I can find, since I didn’t expect to find two just in the grassy lawn today.

Skip to toolbar