What! We're done with Core Sampling?!?

On Tuesday Megsie started off the day by having a little whiteboard session (sorry I don’t have any pictures for this part). We got to learn all about the organisms we collected in the core samples taken in He’eia Fishpond. It was interesting to learn about the different trophic levels. How the primary producers are at the bottom and the predatory animals up at the top. It was really interesting to see how the diets of the crabs we gathered got the tropic level they were at because of what they ate. The latter half of the day we spent collecting the cages used in Megsie’s project and cleaning them up.



Sam and Aukai beginning to take out cages

a cage control that has a  bunch of limu on it with what looks like  bivalves growing on the silver part on the bottom. Anyone got any other guesses?

 using the boat Megsie, Frances, and Erin go to the further plots to pull out those cages.

            Since we never touch the cages for a while they have had some time to rest and become a part of the pond… From what I saw there was a whole lot of limu growing on many of the cages. There were also crabs inside much of the cages, we think they could have hatched inside of the cages and just grew up in there. Also at the bottom of the cages there were some interesting organisms, I think they could have been some bivalves that could have started growing, and it was hard to say since they were clear, squishy, kind of slimy on the outside and full of water. Any way it was still very neat just to be able to see them.

 

Using team work, we moved cages into the boat. The boat is getting full of cages!

Megsie with all her cages ready to send them off!
Wooo Hoo all Pau!



Every body is working to clean up the cages to get all the gross stuff off and moving it into the truck to throw it away.

            On Saturday we had a community work day along with a little session with Aunty Donnie (sorry I don’t have pictures for this either). That morning beginning off with a pule (prayer) with all of the volunteers. This day we moved pohaku (rocks), to be more specific basalt rocks by forming a chain and passing them one-by-one. Luckily, we never had to pass any of what Sherril described to us as “eight-hand rocks,” where literally it would 4 people to move one rock, wooooooo good thing we never had to run into that mess. In our Aunty Donnie we talked about Makahiki season and how it is coming up soon. During this time everyone puts away everything that deals with Kū and war and worships Lono the god of agriculture, fertility, and much more. She shared a few items with us about Makahiki and even taught us another new chant! Aunty Donnie always has a way for making us think of how the ancestor Hawaiians were so in touch with the land and all that it does for us.

Just wanted to add this cause I think everyday is a beautiful day there!