Big hopes, a little hike (a little vomit)

Greenbrier Learning Center's students stare at a grasshopper in the mitts of Master Naturalist Alonzo Abugattas. Grasshoppers will projectile vomit a brownish liquid when committing to their escapes.

There is no instruction manual on how to lead a symbiotic life. I find myself in a society that is packed with good souls, but derided by circumstance. Even if the wealthiest of us wanted to lead a carbon neutral, positive-impact life, it would require a time machine to transport us to a time where our electrical current flows from clean sources, our materials maintain their integrity as they are recycled for perpetuity, and our food nourishes us as well as our landscape.

Until the day where our survival off income becomes irrelevant, as solar powered wonder-bots take care of our subsistence and we spend our hours doing what our souls yearn for…sailing into the moonlight with the people we love, parachuting into gorgeous gorges, or walking the world to take in her resplendent beauty and countless founts of energy…Until that day, we have to scrape by as a civilization, pretending things like the beach houses and motorcycles we dream to buy could actually fill the void of longing for discovery and adventure, pounding at the nexus of each and every one of us.

While I scrape by, I remind myself that even though I am not an engineer for Vestas or Big Belly Solar, the Secretary of Energy, or the Administrator of the EPA, as a peon I can do little things. And other peons can do little things, and soon enough the minions can maneuver into masters living symbiotically with really cool stuff.

Anyway, as a peon for Greenbrier Learning Center I wanted to get our kids involved in some experiential learning. Because Long Branch Nature Center is la shiztatah and is extremely easy to work with, I facilitated an insect hike with a crazy-interesting naturalist named Alonzo, who turned out to be a human encyclopedia.

Our kids range from inconsolable pricks to the sweetest children on earth, so when seven out of the 18 kids on my team decided to defiantly abstain from the hike, I shrugged it off and was glad that the other kids truly seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Alonzo possessed extraordinary bug catching skills as well as a vast knowledge for all of the creatures he caught. He showed us how to yo-yo a jumping spider. You wait for the spider to hop, because as it does so it releases a thin strand of web. You can grab hold of the web and keep the spider air-bound as it makes its descent.

He caught a sand wasp in his net and then transferred it to a transparent tube, so that we could see one up close. During the process he explained how the sand wasp stung small insects and brought them into their underground holes they’d burrowed in the sand. After the sting, the small insects would be paralyzed and the wasp would lay her eggs inside of the insects. The eggs would hatch and the wasp larva would then feed on the insects. YUM!

My favorite thing that Alonzo showed the groups was grasshopper spittle. When grasshoppers are trapped, they vomit out the grass they’ve eaten as this murky brown liquid.