The Grand Experiment

I am creating a biosphere—arguably an ecosphere, but I’m calling it a biosphere because that’s what my old brain can remember. I’m using a jar that used to hold kimchi. I live near a branch of the Lynnhaven River, which stems from the Chesapeake Bay—Linkhorn Bay, I think, or something like that. Anyway, it’s a brackish swampy area with a lot of silt and similar features. Forgive me for being pedantic here.

I recently watched a video where someone collected native pond water and gathered all sorts of “junk” together in a jar, then watched it over the course of a year or more. It was absolutely fascinating. If you get a chance, check out “Life in Jars.” The creator is an Irish fellow, very cool, and his content on life in jars is just fascinating.

My goal here is to see what kind of life I’ve captured in this biosphere. The area I collected from is constantly in flux—sometimes it smells awful, sometimes the tide is very high, and there is the occasional worry about flooding. Collecting a good sample wasn’t easy. I took a bucket and tried to drag it across the bottom because I couldn’t wade out into the water—I’d sink up to my neck in the silt and mud. So, I picked an area where I noticed fiddler crabs and waited for high tide. I managed to get some water, clay, and dirt from the shoreline, and I crumbled a few leaves into it as well.

Another reason I chose this spot is the diversity—both in the ecosystem and the community. Unfortunately, there’s also a lot of trash. For example, someone tossed a shopping cart into the water, which is a recurring problem. Nearby, there’s a low-income housing area—maybe Section 8—and while it isn’t a bad place, many people don’t have cars. They walk a mile to the grocery store, bring their groceries back in a cart, and then leave the cart at the edge of the woods, in the bay, or stacked somewhere nearby. Sometimes, people use these carts as trash cans—just city life, I guess.

Anyway, back to my experiment: I hope to see what kind of life emerges in my biosphere by chance. I plan to continue blogging about it here and copying my posts to my Facebook Critter page. Until the next entry, thank you for reading. I appreciate your support on my Critter page. Maybe I should start a YouTube channel… although there are already too many YouTube channels. Okay, bye for now!