The Land Player

This week’s Featured Video for the “Your Parks Video Challenge,” is submitted from TheLandPlayer who made this acoustic riff about the Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons.

TheLandPlayer had set out to the Grand Tetons with his wife to celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary, when a simple sinus infection turned into pneumonia.  He says, “In the song presented here, I am reflecting on my surroundings and the recent events of my life - the anniversary, being sick, seeking beautiful places when your bank account says not to.  This is the only take, all the words are improvised, and I like to think that maybe for a second or two I was the voice of the scene around me.”

Continue to read the lyrics to this spontaneous and heartfelt song:

Water On the Edge
(Improvisation over Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone near the Lower Falls)
© 2009 - Mark Watson

you know I’ve been coming long way
even finding my own day
it’s back to this beginning before I came to my ending
you know I was thinking my way was one more than I could see
and I was only ending before I was seeing it now

so you run me over the falls
off of the brink the water goes
down into mist - it colors all the way down
and in the ending, in the old, gathers, surrounds me, me…

now I’ve been thinking that my own life is running down
in circles that I’ve been coming with my own wife
I’m turning ‘round
thinking maybe now it’s time to stop and set down
stop and set down
stop and set down

hold me now because I am leaning over the edge now
take me another shot because I am running all to death
and I’ve seen it all come back for me and all
and now clouds are breaking blue skies out

I say you have called me over one too many times
and I say this may all be over now
but I’m, I’m not forgetting
I’m not forgetting life

a brave man he say “one day this’ll be over now”
but I wasn’t believing him
I was running, running out
find me another wave
find me a path in the woods now
save me another day
run it over, over

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone
I am yelling for you
now I am coming back home
I am feeling it too
you have called me through
this world of legume

and I am seeking in it all
now you have run me through this heart
hold me one more time
baby I could stop
and if you love me now
will you love me in the end?
now I’ve come around to seek the beginning
over it all

so take me from youth
into my older days
from head to my feet - old and gray
don’t let me sit down
oh, don’t let me stay
don’t let me stay
don’t let me stay

I’m seeking worlds
I’m seeking universes now
I’m seeking reality
and the Truth now
I’m seeking something to see
that’s coming in the ground
oh so long without smiles to get us out

how is all that may be in my mind now
young pine tree sitting on this edge for life
unable to sing, unable to see through my eye

This ain’t the end of day
I just found purpose in my life
purpose in my life
purpose in my…

so I look at you and I say “baby there’s a door let’s go”
no more wine to waste me
we got to get moving on
traveling roads nobody’s been on
traveling places that no music is played on
traveling my mind before I am lost to life
traveling my mind before I am lost to light

oh I see, only this in me
folded universe coming for this earth
and now blue sky opens up with white cloud
and now water flows on the brink of my life

so sing me to the world
send me over before I go
come on man, no time left
it’s too beautiful to let go

how they take me
how they hold me in the running now
and in traces on the edge
it was looking down

down in roads
down in needs
down in old - did I see?
and in there, coming all back to me

yeah, I’ve seen this only one time in my life
and if it lasted at the Beginning, then it will end at the End

water flows down
I am how
and I have seen it now

The National Park Foundation was selected by Target to benefit from Bullseye Gives, a two-week long giving campaign on its Facebook page. From May 10th to May 25th, Facebook users have the power to decide how Target will distribute $3 million among ten nonprofit organizations - including NPF. The percentage of votes the Foundation receives will represent its portion of the $3 million.

So take a few seconds and lend your support for our national parks. Visit Target’s facebook page, click the “Vote” tab and cast your ballot for the National Park Foundation.  Vote today and every day through May 25th.

The 2009 Photo Contest will open on May 4, 2009. Get your cameras ready!

But from the blackfoot daisies and rock roses down to the mulch made of crushed pecan shells, the pair of 200-square-foot gardens are the culmination of 12 students’ months long study of South Texas’ native plants.

“That’s student empowerment: letting them make these decisions,” said teacher Elijiah Rios of the Southeast branch of the Boys and Girls Club, one of the instructors for the First Bloom program at the Missions National Historic Park. First Bloom is a nationwide program supported by the National Park Foundation to educate urban youths about the natural world. Former First Lady Laura Bush launched the program in 2007 to honor another former first lady, Lady Bird Johnson…

“A lot of San Antonians don’t know they have a national park in their backyard,” he said…

Although students will now shift their focus to beautifying their Boys and Girls Club campus, the remainder of the program will include periodic trips to check and care for the gardens they planted Friday.

“The process definitely doesn’t stop when they put it in the ground, and they need to learn that,” Rios said.

Other activities have ranged from explaining the parts of a plant to history lessons about the crops cultivated by Spanish settlers at the historic missions.

“We’ve taught meteorology and biology mixed in with colonial history as to why some plants were brought over,” said Castanos… Students have also taken field trips such as a Saturday morning spent locating invasive plant species near Mission San Juan…

Students cited learning about such things as the water cycle and soil types in their science classes, but added they liked that the First Bloom program gave them a chance to get their hands dirty.

“It’s kind of like the same thing, but a whole different kind of lesson with actual animals and actual plants,” Abigail said.

Today filmaker Ken Burns will receive a tour of the new gardens from the kids. Burns’ upcoming film, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, was sponsored in part by the National Park Foundation. The six-part, 12-hour series set to air in September 2009 on PBS explores the history and heritage of America’s national parks.

Kids and adults across the nation are working with the National Park Foundation to preserve Lincoln’s legacy. At St. Stephen’s Regional School, Port Carbon, students are participating in “Give A Lincoln for Lincoln,” an initiative introduced by the National Park Foundation, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and History that asks all American’s to help preserve six key historical sites national parks and historic sites associated with Abraham Lincoln. Over the weekend, city officials in Pittsburgh, PA have also joined the cause, encouraging local citizens to give. The campaign encourages people of all ages to donate Lincoln-head pennies, five dollar bills, or make larger donations online.

The national parks supported by Lincolns For Lincoln include:

• Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site (Hodgenville, KY)

• Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial (Lincoln City, IN)

• Lincoln Home National Historic Site (Springfield, IL)

• Ford’s Theatre National Historic Site (Washington, DC)

• Lincoln Memorial (Washington, DC)

And there has never been a better time to Give A Lincoln For Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln Birthplace in Kentucky has been battered by snowstorms and ice since January. As John Friedlein writes in The News-Enterprise of Harden County:

“For the second year in a row, officials planned to celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s bicentennial birthday at the site where he was born. For the second year in a row, an ice storm laid waste to those plans.

‘It’s just unbelievable,’ said Sandy Brue, chief of interpretation and resource management. Now a mess of broken trees, her park didn’t regain power from last month’s glazing until Thursday….

The National Park Service had planned to dedicate a restored cabin replica at Lincoln’s Knob Creek Boyhood Home. But the site is not safe to open and cleanup will be extensive, Brue said. The dedication will be rescheduled.”

Through Give A Lincoln For Lincoln, the History Channel has already pledged $20,000 to Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site, and with the help of the students at St. Stephen’s, together we will raise much more.

To give your own Lincoln for Lincoln, click here.

‘Adolfo Guzman, 13, is already becoming a green thumb, recently instructing his uncle in how to plant a potted coneflower. “He was doing it all wrong,” Adolfo said.’

Read the entire article here.

I just wanted to pass along a couple of thoughts I had after the workshop that might be of use to other First Bloom participants.

1) SEED CUPS
For groups that will be using ecocups with their students - you might want to consider having students plant both seeds and seedlings in different cups. Many seeds (some might say most) have a relatively low germination rate and thus planting a seed or even several seeds may not result in an actual plant. You can get an idea of the germination rate if you purchase seed by looking at the number for pure live seed. If this number is low, you might want to have the students place many seeds in a single cup (like 5-10 depending on Pure Live Seed amount) OR have them both plant a seed and a seedling in two different cups.

This should reduce John’s experience of dead plants or no emergence killing one’s joy in growing plants. Also this is an opportunity to talk to students about what a seed is, why many of them don’t germinate (seed bank and/or unfilled seeds resulting from unpollinated flowers or not enough resources), and compare and contrast plants and animals (plants typically have low investment in a single offspring (seed) while animals have both high resource investment per individual (e.g., humans, elephants) and low resource investment (e.g., mice)).

2) PLANT SELECTION
If you use the wildflower center’s wonderful webpage to select native plants for your garden, please double check your species list with a local expert (like your NPS liaison or a local native plant society). While this website is awesome, it is very general. For example, many of the species listed for southern California do not grow in the Santa Monica Mountains or anywhere near here. While this generality is fine for many home gardeners, it is insufficient for national parks.

Good luck with your projects and I look forward to keeping in touch,

Christy

It is so very right, so very just, that the National Park Foundation has honored Lady Bird Johnson with what was most precious to her - helping boys and girls fall in love with our national parks and our native land.

First Bloom combines my mother’s dreams for the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, her lifelong enjoyment of national parks, and her belief that children will make a better world if we give them our time, talent and treasure.

What greater testimony could we offer to a Lady who loved our native land so thoroughly!

Lady Bird Johnson spurred our nation to beautify its communities, highways, and parks by planting and nurturing native flowers. To honor her legacy, the National Park Foundation created First Bloom - a project that helps kids get their hands dirty.

On Sunday night, the opening “First Bloom Workshop” began with celebration and humility as Boys and Girls club leaders, plant conservation experts, park biologists, foundation officers and education specialists gathered at the Lyndon Baines Johnson National Historical Park in Texas.

Luci Baines Johnson, the daughter of the former President and Lady Bird Johnson, offered a special tour of her family home - now a national park - known as the “Texas White House”. She also shared her hope that First Bloom will inspire a life-long love affair with nature for today’s children, the same love affair her mother began as a young girl in Texas.

Through First Bloom they will learn how to protect fragile ecosystems by planting native species in our national parks and how to create and tend gardens in their own neighborhoods. This opening Workshop is designed to provide all members of the First Bloom team with the knowledge and skills necessary to assist children in their own communities with their gardens.

Workshop attendees come from the first five cities that will host the First Bloom project: Austin, TX; Los Angeles, CA; New York, NY; Philadelphia, PA; and Washington, DC. During the workshop, participants are learning about native plant gardening, garden design, native plant resources, and garden installation. The Workshop continues thorough Thursday.