Jameson Pfeil « The Echinacea Project

Andy’s Inspiration

Andy came back to the Mando today and he inspired us to create this
complete with swans
What is it you may ask? It’s a revolutionary multi-functional piece of living room furniture. The full implications of this exciting new gadget are not yet realized. As a chair it has two or possibly three settings. It’s great for playing guitar. It can be used as a planter. It also has ample storage space in the tank and in the bowl if desired.

Although Colin and I worked for hours making the wooden platform and fastening it to the bottom of new creation, I will give credit where credit is due. The truth is that if it weren’t for Dr. Andrew Christoper McCall, our toilet wonder would not be in existence today. Thank you Andy and everything that you have done for us. It’s quite special. I hope you think so as well. From all of us at the Mando, farewell Andy. We hope all is well at your new abode in Hoffman. If not we’ll always have a spot on the floor with your name on it; literally (just kidding). If you want we can write your name on the toilet though

herb & ray

We did herb & ray again today, which is short for herbivory and ray damage (i think), and afterwards to streamline the process even further for the future I took pictures of the different categories of herbivory/ray damage. The Main categories are Brown ray florets, Brown tips of ray florets, and straight, obvious herbivory of ray florets. I tried to categorize my photos into the different groups. There is some grey area between Brown and brown tips and there may be overlap of how those two conditions are caused. Brown tips are almost always associated with shriveling of the distal ends of the ray florets. We decided that brown area larger than 2X2mm area classifies as brown and less than that at the tip of the rays is brown tip. There are also sometimes small brown areas on the sides of the rays, which I think merits some attention. Another common anomaly is for the rays to have dark uniform spots on them. The last picture shows that condition

Herbivory:

Brown tips (bt):

Brown:

here is the spotted one:

Here are some other pictures I took today that may or may not contain herbivory/damage

Florivory

Studying and learning about insects that eat Echinacea and its seeds has been a sort of personal project of mine this summer. The other day I examined most of the inflorescences in the common garden that had been designated with disc florivory. I didn’t immediately find anything too interesting but I took some notes and photographs that may lead to a breakthrough later on. Today I found something that I thought was interesting and could lead in an interesting direction. See if you can spot it.

if you still don’t understand listen here

Jameson

I’m Jameson Pfeil, the hairiest member of team Echinacea. I’m a rising senior at Denison University in Granville, OH. At School I live at an intentional community called the Homestead. I’m majoring in Biology at Denison and I’m trying to specialize within Biology, but I haven’t settled on anything quite yet. I joined team Echinacea to get experience in the field and to learn a new discipline of biology. I’m originally from southeastern Pennsylvania, most recently Lancaster, PA, just west of the city .(and no I’m not Amish).

Go Team

Ian tries out his marking technique as he pets a bee with a brome straw

I took some cool pictures of Echinacea inflorescences and pollinators and other insects so i’m going to put some links to them here

Echinacea swaying in the wind
I found this bee hanging out under an Echinacae receptacle when we were doing herb & ray
Prairie Lily @ Hegg Lake
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I’m a little behind in my blogging so I’ll write yesterday’s blog today. I’m sitting here in my closet office. I have maps of Wisconsin and Minnesota hanging on the wall. Yesterday I cut them out and pieced them together. It looks pretty cool even though the maps aren’t the same scale. I put up a map of PA, my home state, on the wall above my desk last night too, before I went to bed. I took some pictures around Andes yesterday to show everyone what it’s like here. The top of the tallest part of the hill is the highest point in Douglas county. From the top there is a beautiful view of North Lake Oscar, which is just to the south, and all around there are rolling hills dotted with small farms and small patches of trees. The native landscape of this region, prairie, is hard to find. At the foot of the hill on the north side is our summer residence. They call them Condos, one has two bedrooms and the other three. The men got the three bedroom condo, which Andy has graciously named the Mando. The women have started calling their condo Raj Mahal. Except for the Andes employees who are there when we are at work we have the whole place all to ourselves. We have a pond that we can swim in. We have places of ride bicycles, and catch insects, and read, and dig gardens. I put in most of the tomato stakes yesterday. I think it gives the garden a lot of character that it was previously lacking. Living with so many Bio people is interesting. We have had a bowl of soapy water outside for a week to catch insects. This makes the fact that I’m using a plate to catch the water under one of my peace lilies seem normal. I brought a betta fish and a newt with me from school. Ian catches insects everyday and puts them in kill jars so he can pin them later. There are video cameras everywhere, that are solely for taking video of flowers to monitor pollinator activity, and then there is the garden, and several other house plants (including a small potted grapefruit tree).
Today I got my first verified case of chiggers. They are apparently burrowed in my skin, producing itchy raised red bumps.
Stuart came back today or last night with his family and two mattress-box spring sets from Chicago. So I upgraded my mattress from the one I had, which had to be the worst quality mattress that i have ever slept on. We started our group/individualer projects today. I’m supposed to be tracking insects that visit Echinacea with binoculars.

Mosquitoes

I am sitting here feeling the pain of many mosquito bites on several different parts of my body. I want to scratch them but I know that will only make them feel worse. The mosquitos are terrible here and at dusk you have to go indoors to avoid being eaten alive. I stayed outside to finish planting my garden. After I put on long pants and a long sleeve shirt I thought I could brave the outdoors, but after putting 4 plants in the ground I was forced inside by the relentless attacking horde. I’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

Today we went into Alexandria. Alexandria in the only town around with more than 1,000 people. I don’t know if that number is exactly right but it gives you an idea. Kensington is the closest town and it has a population of 286. Alexandria is a big deal around here. It’s right off of I-94. It’s motto is Easy to get to. Hard to leave. We went there to go to the grocery store and the laundromat. It’s about 30 mi away. The grocery store is pretty cool -you can go to the website petescountymarket.com. They even have a link to a live webcam of Alexandria there, which you can control yourself with the click of your mouse. To get there click on the bell at the top of the page in the banner. I bought some tomato plants at K-mart today while we were in Alexandria too. I asked in the grocery store if they had seeds but he thought I meant seeds for eating and directed me to the produce department. I asked where i might be able to get seeds to plant a vegetable garden and he directed me towards Wal-mart. He said, and I paraphrase, ‘If you’re looking for anything, Wal-mart’s probably the best place to go’. I have a nice vegetable garden here now at Andes Tower Hills. Andes is a winter wonderland, except that the downhill skiing is a bit lacking. Now thought is hot and stuffy and mosquito infested. There are some beautiful lakes on the property as well as some cool forests that the cross country trails go around and through. I’ll put some pictures up later.
Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes. It certainly seems so when driving around here. We probably go by 10 lakes on the 8 mi drive to work everyday and we see many more went we’re out collecting data at the prairie remnants. Nearly every remnant has a lake next to it or in it or at least in sight of it. There are lots of wetlands and wetland birds. Everyday while working we see groups of pelicans floating in the sky or cooperatively chasing fish in one of the lakes. But enough of that, this place is also infested with mosquitoes, ticks, chiggers, non-native cool-season grasses, and it’s freaking hot. The temperature has been approaching 90 for the last two days and will for the next two. it’s not supposed to be so hot in Minnesota. It is? As I sit here scratching my mosquito bites. It’s 22:44 and I have to be at Stuart’s by 8 tomorrow. The Echinacea are flowering early this year. There is a lot of data to collect. I really need to get to bed.

Colin

here is a series of photos that I shot of colin

Colin would like you to know that he was very angry at the time these photos were taken even though you may not be able to tell from his facial expression

i actually just decided that I am going to put every picture that I have taken of Colin so far this summer in this flog
ok not every picture but almost

Here Colin is bending over to pick something up

Here Colin points awkwardly

Here Colin searches for Echinacea plants

In this series Colin emerges from a dense forest still carrying a large storage container

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photos best viewed in rapid succession

I don’t remember what Colin was doing in this photo

Colin reads a compass from nail to Echinacea

Colin with flags