Sunday - bees, weeds and flowers

After spending the entire day at school yesterday ... morning and afternoon on an AP Review session, adventure to Bowling Green HS and a PD afterwards, Sunday I was able to get outside for awhile.  Went to Sunday School this morning.  This afternoon checked all our hives ... most are good, about 6 are great and three are struggling.  I added some frames to four hives and will have to make some in the next week or two to stay ahead of the bees.  They have been busy and the good hives have over two medium supers filled ... two hives have over three.  Usually about 50 lbs of honey per medium super.

Mowed the yard at the house in Holland and sprayed some roundup around our barn to keep the weeds at bay late today.  

Tomorrow at school, it is plant day in AP and for Selected Topics, our amphibian dissection continues.  Year end exams start Tuesday so I will miss some AP time.

While visiting hives today, I looked to see if any of the dwarf irises were blooming and they were not ... picts below of the beginning of our frog dissection and flowers near the goat field ... bottom pict might be ragwort?

Amphibian Lab tomorrow ...

AP Biology is wrapping up our organ system study tomorrow with a study of the nervous system.  We have a review session on Saturday but, most students are not attending.  Not finishing is always a problem at our school.  We still have 10 days to go ... most will want review sessions the weekend before the test, by that time it will be too late for me to bail them out.  On the bright side, a few of the students seem to be loading in the information and should make at least a three.

AP students are will had in a sample test tomorrow in addition to their organ system review questions.

Selected Topics read in class today ... computer programming of Angry Bird and the physics simulated, honey be parasites and an article on surgery on a fetus.  Students wrote short summaries in the comp books.  We watched a video about amphibians and reptiles with a discussion afterwards in preparation for the beginning of our amphibian dissection tomorrow.

We had a faculty meeting after school.  Mike, Mark and Robert started practice on the field until they moved inside to hit because of rain.  We worked at four stations ... tee work, bounce ball drill, disc drill, and two machines ... fastball and curve.  Afterward I shoveled out some trenches to take the water off the field.

Tomorrow is our game at home against #2 Louisville Ballard ... a reprise last year's state championship game.  That are really good and we will have to play big to win.

Rained about two inches last night and again rained today.  Plants greened up and everything is growing again.  Hope our corn is up in the bottom.  Bees are working hard!

rr

Squid Lab ends, AP review and picts

Club Day today so students our and in during class.  We went over the immune system ... humoral and cell-mediated response ... antibodies and more.  Tomorrow, homeostasis, osmoregulation and excretion.

Selected Topics finished their squid dissection today by generating a table of measurement and graphing their results.  Tomorrow, the amphibian dissection begins.  Tyler did some great work the last two days!

During Spring Break, we took students on a hiking and wildflower trip to eastern Kentucky.  My camera dropped out of my pocket on the last day and today, it showed up at school.  A hiker from Danville, KY picked it up and tracked me down by the softball pictures on my camera.  THANKS!  It is just a point and shoot and six years old but, I had it when we went to Kyrgyzstan to she Hannah and it is handy at school and on the farm.  I was glad to have it back!

During this trip we went to Lillie Cornett Woods, Kingdom Come Park, Bad Branch Creek and Falls, Cumberland Falls, Yahoo Falls and Arch ...

Yahoo Arch with some of our AP Science Students ...

Trillium was blooming everywhere at Yahoo ... maybe Southern Sessile Trillium ...

Jack-in-the-Pulpit ... I love these!

Near Yahoo Falls ...

Yahoo Falls ... highest water fall in Kentucky ... about 120 feet.

Squid Day and more ...

Today in Selected Topics in Science we started our Squid dissection ... lots of measurements and drawings.   Tomorrow we will share data and graph our results.  Also a lesson adaptation.

In AP Biology, we are reviewing while finishing our study organ systems.  We have less than two weeks until test day ... lots of work to do before then.  We have a review session on Saturday at Bowling Green HS.

Tonight we played softball at Barren County HS.  We won in five innings 10-0.  Three players ... Sandy, Brittany and Erika hit home runs ... our big game on the horizon is Louisville Ballard at ACS on Friday evening.  We are playing a little better and have improved a lot since the season started.

http://scoreboard.12dt.com/scoreboard/khsaa/kyfp12/36847

Will take some picts tomorrow and post them ... it is colder her and tonight a little rain.  We are still very dry and could use the rain ...
Checked some bees on Sunday and they seem to be doing fine with much help from me.

rr

Long Weekend and miles to go before I rest!

Long weekend.

We took our softball team to Ashland, OH to play in the Wendy's Classic ... great competition but, terrible fields and poor organization ...

Played two games on Friday afternoon and evening ... beat Shawnee (Lima) from Ohio and lost to Neuqua Valley (enrollment = 4000) from outside Chicago ... 3-0, all runs unearned and we only got 5 hits.  Stayed in Mansfield, OH and returned to play the next day but was called off ... long trip home, getting to the house at midnight.  Worked to get ready for Monday today after church.

Tomorrow in AP ... the endocrine system and AP review. We are getting ready for dissections in Selected Topics ... still prepping tomorrow.

We got about 1/2 inch of rain over the weekend that greened up the plants ... still in need of a good soaking rain.  Hairy vetch, clover and asters are blooming.  It only got up to 60 today ... windy.

Busy, Busy

Sorry I haven't posted must over the last week ... lots to do at school and softball is going dark to dark.  I have been having to drive the bus to a few of the freshman/JV games which leaves no time for schoolwork at home.

Today in AP Biology, we added all curriculum question card to our review game and played a couple of rounds.  The tournament was really competitive and some people that rarely answer questions are now answering a few ... congrats to Conner!

In Selected Topics we continue to prepare for our Cephalopod dissection on Monday.  Squid are in and ready to go.

Tournament won, Trip taken and some video!

Sorry for the lack of posts since Spring Break began last week.  Last Saturday our softball team played in the single-elimination portion of the Marshall County Slugfest ... played a good Goreville (IL) team (Won 2-0) to begin,  then host Marshall County (won 10-1) and Grayson County (Won 5-0) in the finals ... to win their touranment.  Got home late.

Sunday went to Sunday School then worked most the rest of the day to get ready for our AP Science trip to Eastern Kentucky to hike and see the wild flowers.  Monday, left for Hazard at 5:00 AM.  We visited and hiked the Lilley Cornett Woods, Raven Rock at Kingdom Come State Park, the Bad Branch Trail near Cumberland, KY, the Eagle Falls trail near Cumberland Falls and Yahoo Falls Trail (lots of wildflowers here) near Whitney City, KY.  Lots of hiking, lots of waterfalls and lots of plant identification ... wild irises, jack-in-the-pulpit and trillium ... many more.  Got home about dark today.

Some video from our trip below ...

Wild Irises

Top of Raven Rock at Kingdom Come State Park

Yahoo Falls

Sleeping in Class, Bones and Muscles ...

In AP Biology, we worked on our last required lab of the year ... Circulatory System Lab.  Student groups tested a member in each group for cardiovascular fitness ... taking BP and pulse rates reclining and standing, baroreceptor response and a step test ... most students tested average or good.  Pictures below are of that lab ... sleeping class, what some students have practicing for all year!

In Selected Topics we worked on bones and muscles of the body ... should know some to be a citizen of the USA!  We will continue our human organ systems study tomorrow.

Tomorrow is the last day of school before Spring break ... most students are ready for a break!

Softball practice after school ... some fielding, older players hit indoors, our younger players worked with Coach Carter and I on fake bunt slap, bunting and going short on two strikes ... we seemed to make some headway in these areas.

Next varsity game is Saturday at the Marshall County Tournament starting vs. Goreville, IL.

Came home and was going to mow but saw a small swarm of bees.  Put them in a hive box with a frame of honey ... we will see if there was a queen present.  Set up a couple of swarm boxes ... one on a deer stand and the other in the barn.  Caught a swarm in the barn last year, maybe I will get lucky again.

Circulatory System Lab tomorrow ...

In AP, students will be doing the last AP lab of the year ... Circulatory System Lab ... #10.  This lab measures blood pressure and pulse rates of standing and reclining students, baroreceptor reflex and a step test.  Students the calculate their cardiovascular fitness level.

My Selected Topics class is also working on organ systems.

We played Edmonson County in softball this evening ... winning 10-0 in five innings.  Kelsi notched her 1000 strikeout of her career ... we stopped the game for a short photo shoot ... she ended up striking nine batters out for the game.  Only 14 players in the history of fastpitch in Kentucky have struck out 1000 batters and Allen County has had two.  Congrats KP!

Pictures below is from our early Spring ... Sunday morning John and I moved three hives down at the end of long field.  Lots of flowers blooming ...  below ... hairy vetch (purple), yellow rocket (creasy, upland cress) and the paulownia trees that my father-in-law spread around the farm ... an invasive plant but beautiful blooms (bees love them!) also called princess tree.  Seeds were used as packing for china and glassware from Asia years ago.  Not as bad as invasive as the "Tree of Heaven" which is also on this farm and I am trying to eradicate.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulownia