Intervallo

  Throughout this project I discovered new things as well as confirmed and opposed what I thought I knew. Some things, of course, were surprising simply because I hadn't noticed them before even though they had been visible for the last couple of years. Us, as soccer players also played a huge role into some of my findings: whether it was someone noticing that the grass was finally starting to look ugly, it being cut, painted, or just flat out a puddle my observations were intriguing.

  One thing that is for sure about our field is the fact that it is horribly taken care of! The grass honestly never seems to grow to its full capacity. It most definitely has nothing to do with the way the custodial men care for it...  but is rather OUR (the teams) fault. Or Jorge's (our coach) fault. The man is nuts. The field can't make it to the first damn game without having cleat marks deep into the soil. We run basically all over the field and never leave it to rest, not to mention, there are four teams on the field 5 days a week for two hours and possibly a sixth day if any home games on Saturday's. So that gives it one day to fully recover from a week full of cleats and sudden turns. This one day thing is not good for the grass. The most common used grass in Northern  Nevada is a fine fescue Kentucky bluegrass mixture ("Recommended Grass For Nevada Lawn"). Assuming that the grass at our school is this Kentucky blue grass mixture, I was curious to know if this would help me understand why the grass never seems to grow correctly. According to Cornell University "Most lawn grasses grown in New York -- Kentucky bluegrass, perennial, ryegrass and fescues -- are cool-season grasses. They grow best in the spring and fall." So this got me thinking, if our grass is really that fescue Kentucky bluegrass mixture this is that answer to the lack of growth. But sadly as I read on, I came to find that the grass also needs to be cared for in such a delicate manner. From the amount of water put into it to the seeding and fertilizing. I didn't have the opportunity to ask Carl (custodial worker) how it is he cares for the grass which somewhat leaves me at a dead end with nothing but my supposition that we (the team) are responsible for our poor looking field.

    The next thing on the discovery list and perhaps one of the two which sparked my curiosity the most. This freaking 3 inch, white feather!

    Learning that we weren't the only living thing that visited the field was very surprising yet should have been very obvious. I've talked about this feather and plenty of others that were also on the field for pretty much my entire time of observation but never got to meet its owner. Which is very upsetting. Not the fact that I didn't get meet this creature is what upsets me but rather the lack of effort I put into making that happen. I only have this feather and some very inaccurate research on what this bird could be and will have to live with that until next season (if I get lucky) or if I decide to go out and find this creature on my own time. But sadly after the season I was all talk with my observations and made no real improvement or new observations making this very unlikely. Whatever I decide to do the field will always provide it's service.

Works Cited

"Explore Cornell - Home Gardening - Lawn Care Library - How Grass Grows." Explore Cornell - Home Gardening - Lawn Care Library - How Grass Grows. Cornell University, 2006. Web. 17 Dec. 2014.

"NEVADA LAWN GRASS." Nevada Grass|Nevada Grass Seed| Grass Seed Lawn                                        Plugs|Lawngrass.com. Seedland.com, 1999. Web. 17 Dec. 2014.    

Unravelling

  This week I made only two trips to the soccer field. One of my observations was used in my last blog since I had no other observations for the prior week. Thanks to this I made sure to observe everything as closely as I could in order to jot down everything and anything that caught my eye.
  This being said I (once again) noticed the fallen leaves all over the field and the exact same question popped into my head "where do these come from?" I took a lap around the entire field hoping to find a hidden tree releasing all of these leaves, sadly I had no success and really gave up trying. This time unlike the others I picked up some of the leaves in order to classify them as coming from the same tree or not. There were two types of leaves: a brown, widely spread and a burgundy small crunched up leaf. This helped me realize that there are two trees providing the field with these leaves. Perhaps the trees across the street. 
   Remember those mysterious white feathers that appeared on the field and suddenly disappeared a week later? They're back.
   As I was looking around for a tree to my leaves I was surprised by not one but four white feathers (not exact but somewhat similar to those in my field notes from October 6th) just sitting so calmly on the dead grass. So I picked one up. Went home and did some research. It was sort of difficult to find a website that helped me narrow down my bird options since I had not seen the bird and only had it's white feather as guidance. I did some research that isn't very convincing (speaking for myself)  but regardless came up with a bird species. 

     My result was a Western Gull. Although I have not seen these birds at the field, I am sure I've seen them around town. I have not been to the field in quite some time so I have not been able to confirm this but will definitely go out there soon and do so. 

                                                                      Works Cited

Picture: Pickering, Phil. "Herring Gull vs. Western Gull." Herring Gull vs. Western Gull. Greg Gillson, 2000. Web. 30 Nov. 2014.

"What Was the SIZE of the White Gull-like Bird You Saw in Nevada?" Identify a Gull-like               Bird Seen in Nevada by Size. Mitch Waite Group, 2005. Web. 17 Nov. 2014.

The End

  Everyone knows we were eliminated from the High School soccer season much earlier than we hoped.
  Due to this I have not made many observations in the past two weeks, since I have now been going home right after school. I have definitely strayed away from my observation and lack much motivation.
  Last week I finally decided it was time to go back (not alone) in order to carry on with my project. Tuesday, November 11th 2014 at 2:40 p.m.  Although I only visited the field one day, I noticed many things that were rather startling. The vibe given off by the field was very depressing. It felt like a cold school morning accompanied by annoying loud kids (the cars exiting the freeway played that role) making you regret waking up and being there. After the warm welcoming I noticed that both sets of bleachers were still up but was rather surprised that the goal boxes were put behind the fence closest to the rode by the freeway. If I'm correct around this time last year we had already take them down, providing help to the custodial staff and the softball team.
  Once I walked passed the bleachers I was stunned by how much healthier the grass appeared "looks like a very poorly cared for garden with green, yellow and brown being it's focal colors. Yellow is actually a nice welcoming yellow, and doesn't look as dead  as before..." Field Notes Tuesday Nov. 11, 2014 2:40. This was very surprising to me as I honestly did not think the field would not improve in condition after the season. As I walked around I noticed some green sprouts unfolding within the brown dirt patches we had helped tear up with our cleats. This brought a smile to my face. Being that the grass was so pure just sprouting, it resembled turf. Very short and fake, plastic looking. I've never really watched grass grow and was eager to observe it's process throughout the next couple of days but I sadly gave up and didn't go back that week...
 

Falling

  This past week my observations were quite astonishing compared to many of my previews ones. Or at least I thought so. Several of the features in my previews blog posts are still present and remain in obscurity. The owner or owners of the small white feathers that appeared on the field about a week ago, for instance, are a complete mystery. I have tried doing some research on any white birds that may roam through Nevada but have had no success in the process.  Not one new feather has appeared since and I've sighted no such creature that could have possibly left this sort of mark on the field. I sincerely do hope that by the time I have completed this project the creature behind the small white "pillow" feathers comes forward and allows me to admire as well as witness it's activity on the field.

  Now this week (on Friday) a not so large group of dead orange-ish, brown leaves joined the white feathers on our mud puddle. You might think "Well the season's are changing and that is what happens during fall." but the problem with this is that there are absolutely no trees anywhere near the field. This puzzled me and made be very curious. Although that day I had no clue where these leaves could have possibly come from, that night a numerous amount of explanations came to mind. I've decided that the most reasonable one is that the wind has blown then in from it's nearest leaf supplier, which are the four to five (not sure what sort of trees they are) trees that are across the street in La Quinta's parking lot. I came to this conclusion after having noted that the wind this week was fairly present and was very strong. One thing I will try to do in order to confirm this is to check out the leaves (if any) around the trees in their parking lot as well as the ones on the field and compare the two. Hopefully this will be the the answer to yet another unanswered visitant on our mud puddle. 

  To my surprise the mud puddle itself (sadly what I have chosen to refer to the field as) had a very drastic and strange modification over night or day (since were not there on Wednesday due to an away game). Monday and Tuesday afternoons the field was very wet and slippery. Grass (root and all) ripped off the ground very easily. Could be speaking for all fall student athletes that an end of season vibe is sprouting while their field is dying. But on Thursday it seemed as is if the field had been sucked dry. So badly, that the mud was drying and smelt horribly. Friday and Saturday were no different, the field was still very dry. This, I really don't have any explanations to other than the cold and windy days that came with the week. I will not be able to find an answer to this until Tuesday but will definitely be looking forward to gaining some answer about these observations. 

Half Time

   Not many drastic changes occur to the soccer field from day to day but on Monday October 6th, 2014 there was one change that definitely stood out from the rest. A very large quantity of white almost fake looking white feathers was present all over our practice half of the field. Looked as if someone had a huge pillow fight the night before. They stuck around for about four to five days and finally somehow disappeared. During the past few days I have noticed some of those white feathers still present. 

  On another note: now that we are half way through the season it'd be too much to ask for if the field was intact and as beautiful as it was at the beginning of it all. Sadly its change of appearance also is not good at all. Thanks to our cleats the left most near to the R.O building half of the field is completely torn apart. You should actually call it a mud puddle with a scattered amount of weeds peeking out like a clan of prairie dogs. I believe the cause of all of this was the way the custodial management watered the grass although it never looked wet and very dry. 
   
   This brings me to my next observation: during the last week and a half or so the grass has felt very damp as if water was leaving the soil in the field causing it to feel mushy as we run or simply step. Oddly, it feels like quick sand and is extremely easy to slip on. It's not the first time this happens but it's rather strange because it is not as wet as before (if that makes any sense). One thing that is definitely unarguable is that she needs a break. Although that break will most likely not help, I'm sure she is desperately waiting for it. 

Kick Off

  Throughout these next few weeks I will closely observe how well treated and mistreated our field is for the duration of the season. I've made a total of ten observations thus far that were somewhat interesting as well as not surprising. Thanks to these observations I have already gained some knowledge on the fields maintenance schedule, for example: the outline of the field is always painted a day before game day as well as cleared of any litter on the same day. Next, I noticed that the grass is is normally cut on Wednesdays during lunch but is rarely cut. I've noticed one thing out of the ordinary about three weeks ago. There seemed to be a leak coming from one of the sprinklers which caused there to be many puddles all over the field due to this in my opinion, an entire colony of mosquitoes was attracted. Although the mosquitoes only survived one day thanks to the smoke it was very strange to have puddles and such large quantity of insects at the field. As the seasons change the grass has become somewhat dry and yellow (our cleats also have a huge impact on this) so I will look out for any physical as well as surrounding changes in the field for these next couple of weeks.

  One thing many athletes experience during their season, is the enjoyment of their field/practice area. Creating memories and growing some sort of soft hate for the coach as he yells at you or makes you run for something completely absurd. So I have decided to focus my observation on the one thing that I have yet to closely admire. For past two, almost three years of my life I've dedicated two and a half months of my first semester time: each year, to the school soccer team. Practicing everyday and attending a scattered amount of home games on Wednesday and Saturdays I had yet to notice something so valuable and fundamental to my student athlete career. Our second home for two and a half months known as the "half softball, half soccer field" as well as our training and game field; is always there for us when we need it most. In hardship, whether it be personal or as a team as well as in triumph being on that field we always find a way to feel like nothing ever happened. Getting back on our feet from a loss and tearing the roots as we run our English miles or six to six, she never gives up on us. So thanks to this observation project I'd like to pay tribute to the one place where everything always feels right even when things aren't. 
First game of the season