A History Lesson

Scottie Willey visited the Rangers.  Her memories of RMBL go way back and her storytelling skills are top shelf.

 

 The Rangers particularly enjoyed the part of the story that involved the Donkey and trail mix.

 Owen was listening and typing in Bee data for his end of the season presentation.  He gave a power point talk on his Native Bee data, a project he did with Shay's guidance.

Coming Soon!  The first RMBL Ranger book "A Rumble in the Clouds"

First Rmblings.

7/27 in review

 Savannah , Owen's big sister is a research scientist working at RMBL and she took the Rangers on a bird walk.

Listen and you can hear what you may not see so easily.

A baby Marmot watches the Rangers as they pass.

Savannah explains her work.

Cliff Swallows at RMBL

Small mammal display at the Town Hall.

 Sky Rockets

 

Bear with me as we experience technical difficulties.

Crossing Ninja

7/20

 Beca, Connor, Nola, Kat, Gracie, Oliver

Len, and our Host David Lopez.  David explained his work on the effects of road dust on SkyRockets. The rangers took copious notes.

David points out several of his research specimens.   

Thank you David, for taking the time to impart some of your knowledge!

Gracie, Nola, Kat, Connor, Beca, Oliver, and Len take a relaxing few  moments by the river to reflect on what we've learned.

Nick Wasser and Denny Ramirez discuss the black flies and their relation to Skyrockets.

Kat did this field study of the trees just outside and across the street from the the town hall.  Another candidate for the cover of this years book. 

Weather Link Gothic

http://www.gothicwx.org/

Wing of a Fly - Nola

Wing of a Fly

By Nola

Usually a menace

But when stilled

And magnifyed

An incredible sight

It's wing

Is like

A puffy mattress

Covered entirely by

Tightly stretched

Plastic wrap 

Infused with silver

And the sheets of this

On each side

Are pinched together

With luxurious blue thread

The Bees - Gracie

buzzing around from a to b and all the way to z people think I will sting you but I will not it is time you realized you depend on me.

My Morning - Connor

        9:05 AM, I arrive at the town hall of Gothic . Then I am told that we are going to meet Mr. David Lopez and learn about his project. I was very exited at this because I'm interested in the relationship between people and plants, his project is about the effect of road dust on plants.
       9:45 AM  we are at the river, we see the black rock Mr. Lenny tells us about and we sit on it. We fill in the new ranger (Kat) about ourselves and the camp. We are directed back to town hall and when we get back we eat our snack and discuss our findings and teachings on our expedition this morning.

This Morning July 20 - Beca

This morning I walked into the town hall but there was only one person form my group. Once everyone arrived it all went by fairly quick. Everyone got ready to go meet Mr. David Lopez, he works for Dr. Nick Wasser and Dr. Mary Price. We were seeing if road dust would affect the           polyngrains on the plant we call Skyrocket. We learned that the furthest the plant is from the road, the more polyngrains the plant would have. The closer the plant is to the road the bigger the chance the plant has to die. 

7/13 Galls, Sloths, Photosynthesis, Cliff Swallows, Fossil Beds.

 Ian Billick visited with the rangers to discuss his job as the director of RMBL as well as his work with ants and mutualism..

Ian left our rangers with a research question.  Are Sloths able to photosynthesize or is the photo synthesis process occurring on their backs a case of mutualism?  

 Our field study today was concerned with drawing and watching our resident cliff swallows.

 The willow tree between the town hall and the visitor's center is host to several types of plant galls.

 Mites will hatch from these, more later.

 After lunch the rangers hiked up to the fossil beds, Oliver is preparing a photo exhibit of the fossils the rangers found for his Gothic Geology study.

Invasive plant Pics

All in a days work for a RMBL Ranger

Field Studies

Very well done acrostic poem

July 6th Pics

RMBL Rangers Removing Invasive plants on the road to the billy barr center.  Summer intern Marcus shows the RMBL Rangers the right technique and which plants to pull out.

Jenny was very generous with her time, she talked to the Rangers about her restoration work in downtown Gothic,

July 6th Ranger Activity

Journal Entry July 6^th – Emma P.

Today I started off my day by getting on the bus at 9:00 am, going to Gothic, Colorado. I was going to a camp called RMBL also known as the Rocky, Mountain, Biological, Labs. We started the camp off by picking invasive weeds. We walked around with Jenny Reithel who is a scientist here. We went around and picked the invasive weed Yellow Toad Flax. We learned how to get rid of weeds. You can pull them, use pesticides, or harmful pesticides, you can also use insects. One other way to get rid of invasive plants is called Bio Control. Bio Control is where you take native bugs to the invasive plant where they eat the plant. The cons of Bio Control are that the bugs might eat everything else before they eat the invasive plant. Some ways the invasive plants can get to other places are overseas, animal scat, can get stuck to clothing, and lastly can travel by car. While we were picking the invasive weeds the weather was very nice. It is a partly cloudy day about 60 degrees. It is just so beautiful here in Gothic Colorado. As I look around a see an abundance of wild flowers, yellow. Purple, blue, and green. I am just so very blessed to be here in such a beautiful place.


Two Poems From Connor

Haiku

When the plants come in

We have to pull them so they

Don’t come back again

Poem

You have to pull the bad weeds

Because it’s something we don’t need

It may not be their home

But they take over the small biome

We have to pull them out

So we can study about

What they do

So we don’t have to go through 

The pain to research

With using google search

                                        Journal entry. RMBL Sophie S.

                Today I started my day at RMBL getting off the bus around 9:00 a.m. We walked to Town Hall and met the scientist we worked with, Jenny Reithel. Jenny talked to us about invasive, non-invasive, native and non-invasive plants. After we took some notes and talked a little more, we took a walk and pulled the Yellow Toad Flax, which is an invasive plant. There are many different ways to deal with invasive plants. The first one is what we did, pulling them up, another way is weed killer, and insects actually work too. An insect like a caterpillar eats away the plant little by little. And the last way is Bio Control. After we helped out Jenny with the invasive plants, we came back and had snack, and started writing these journal entries. I can’t wait for what else we will do today! I have had so much fun already, and am so lucky to be able to have this experience.

A Poem by Nola

Paradise of Birds

Hidden just beyond sight

Is a metropolis

Of birds

Of all kinds

And they share

This paradise

Equally

All but the crows

And mosquitoes

Who interrupt

The finches

And red-winged black birds

And bluebirds

And all their friends

As they serenade

The community

In their

Mystifying

And glorious

Language

That has

Forever

Enchanted man

June 29th in review

Ari poses for a silly picture. He helped make the day fun as well as informative.

Gracie on the bus.  She's working on flower ID with Sophie today.

Dr. Oktay discusses soil properties, permeability, and porosity with the rangers.

One of the many flowers Sophie and Gracie are identifying for their summer project.

Owen overlooking the falls.

Oliver put together a display of the rocks of Gothic for the open house on June 30th.

Bee's

The Rangers assist Dr. Reithel in repurposing some old bee traps.  The lab needed cleaning and the Rangers were happy to assist.

This weeks writing prompt:  It's 1821 in Gothic CO. and that's your home.  Who are you and why do you live here?

?

Week Two

Hello, I must be going.  Beck out.

Field Report From Owen

Today we started off at the town hall like usual at the town hall. On 22^nd of june (2016) at 9:25 AM the temperature was 61 degrees F. Mr. Lenny told us we would be focusing on bees today. Yayyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love bees.

Today we had an additional instructor named Shay. Shay was studying bees for a citizen’s science initiative. Specifically, would bees live in a bee box wrapped in burlap or one that was naked. She has six bee boxes in Gothic, three with burlap, three without. This morning on the way back from some bee boxes, we saw a bee in the psithyrus family. We think it was a bumble bee.

When went on our walk, I identified six flowers. A lupine (blue bonnet), a mountain parsley, an Alpine Avens, phlox, showy milk weed, and a geranium.

This week we studied bees with Shay. 

Collecting data.

Bee Boxes.

Bees

Bees, bees,

Lemon, apple too,

Bees, bees

“somewhere, over the rainbow…"

wierd

By Oliver 

Bees #2

Weird

Bees, bees,

Orange yellow black

Bees, bees,

“valkerie, valkera valkerie valkerahahaha”

By Oliver

Making Music

Rangers working on an original song.

Eeyore's Cabin