Creatures Past and Present An Autobiography of My Love for Animals By: Halcyon

Introduction

For as long as I can remember I have loved animals.  I have had some interesting and odd encounters with them that have made a big impression on my life.   Sometime during my life my love for animals changed from an interest to a care and compassion.  My interest also included prehistoric beasts and gradually became a career choice.   

The Salamander

When I was four years old my family was taking a walk at Lake Needwood.  It had recently rained so the ground was covered with mud and the air smelled wet.  As we were walking I kicked over a rock just in time to see a small black tail wriggle into the mud.  Before it disappeared I grabbed it and pulled out a small lizard.  I called after my parents.  My brother Jonah wanted to touch it but my dad told him not to.  I felt proud there holding this tiny creature.  Dad said that it was a salamander and that they usually lose their tails on purpose in incidents like that.  That was just one of several experiences I’ve had with animals.   

Loving Animals

When I started attending Oakland Terrace they took us to the Media Center once a week.  In the beginning we were only allowed to go in the fiction section but when we finally were permitted to check out nonfiction I discovered a book called Animal Encyclopedia.  It had lots of large detailed illustrations of almost all the animals I could think of.  I never read what the book actually said, for I was more interested in the pictures.  When I entered first grade my interests expanded to the love of dinosaurs and other prehistoric beasts.   I checked out nearly all the books on dinosaurs that I could get my hands on from both public and school libraries.  My mom even bought me a Discovery Channel video on dinosaurs, which I watched over and over again.  One day on my way to Ms. Marshall’s first grade I decided that I wanted to be a paleontologist.

Nightingale

Although I loved animals, my parents said that we would never have a pet.  So you can imagine how excited I was when my mom said that my brother (who reminds me a lot of a wild ape) and I could get a goldfish.   We decided to get a fish tank because a fish doesn’t get much oxygen in a fishbowl.  When we arrived at the fish store my family realized that the cost for the tank was too much, so instead we got two brightly-colored beta fish (one for my brother and one for me).  Mine had a pitch-black head, an aqua blue body that shone a tinted green, and scarlet fins.  I decided to name him Nightingale, a beautiful name for a beautiful fish.    He would get excited, but never too hyper, and never too calm.  I loved him very much so my heart was broken when he died.

The Robin

 My family goes on walks often.  One day on this particular walk my Dad started yelling at something invisible to me from behind a car. A pitch- black cat with green eyes streaked out from the side of the car.  Before I knew it a young injured robin was jumping around in one of our neighbor’s yards!  It had gray feathers with white feathers on its belly and beady black eyes.  My mom ran back to the house and shortly returned with a teal laundry basket.  After a little bit of a struggle Mom managed to catch it in the basket.  Instead of finishing the walk we turned around and went back home.  We knew that the robin chick would die if it didn’t eat, so my Dad, my brother, and I set out to get birdseed.  Apparently there had been a heavy rain so the power had gone out.  So my mom was stuck in the house with a chirping baby bird and no electricity.  When we returned the robin wouldn’t eat.  Luckily our next door neighbor, Mrs. Benefiel, came to the rescue!  She told us about a place called Second Chance Wildlife that took care of wild injured animals.  Happy to get the robin off their hands, my parents called and made an appointment for the next morning. 

As we neared Second Chance Wildlife, the roads were lined with fences that farmers use to keep cattle in, and in some areas the roads weren’t paved.  Second Chance was located in a white house with a front porch.  The inside was filled with animals in cages.  There were small critter carriers for baby birds and huge barn owls with bath towels over their cages.  The first thing that the volunteer did to the robin was to give it a shot.  Afterwards they labeled it and put it in a paper toweled strawberry carton all alone in a critter carrier.  Later, when our business with the robin was done, we looked around.  I saw a snake with a huge bite out of its back, containers holding litters of baby opossums, and a large tank holding a flock of ducklings.  In the backyard there were mainly tiny ponds which looked more like enormous puddles with adult ducks, tiny birds in big cages, and another cage of Baltimore Orioles.  We never knew what became of the robin.  This was the first time I had ever experienced helping an animal in distress, but the event that followed made an even bigger impact on my life. 

Junior

My great-grandmother, Annie O. Sansbury Warman lived on Sansbury farm. Sansbury Farm is in Friendship, Maryland, a small town on the coast of the Chesapeake Bay.  There hadn’t been animals living on it for years.  There was only a large garden, a field which farmers were renting to grow soybeans, and several acres of woods.

Every November in Friendship, they have an oyster dinner at the Methodist church.  In the fall of 2005, my family and I were going to the oyster dinner, and as usual, we stopped by Great-Grandmother’s house.  The leaves on the trees were a collage of brown, gold, and orange.  Jonah and I played around in the yard and didn’t realize when our mother drifted off somewhere.  When we went to find her, she was crouched over something with our grandmother.  Mom explained that a baby mouse had been caught in a glue trap and they were attempting to set it free.  Mom held a stick in its mouth to keep it from getting its teeth glued shut, and Grandmother was trying to pry it free.  Since it was time to go to the oyster dinner, they left the mouse in the old meat house on top of a trashcan so the vultures wouldn’t get it. 

On the way to the dinner I saw my first stag.  He was a beauty, standing on a hill with sunshine reflecting off his golden coat. 

We had a great time at the oyster dinner, breading and eating the oysters.  I even had a slice of key lime pie, which is one of my favorite desserts.  We also discussed the mouse and how wicked glue traps were because they starve the mouse to death.  My parents expected the mouse to be die, but when we returned he was still alive.  I got a strawberry carton, and Jonah and I filled it with leaves and twigs to make the mouse feel at home.  Our family took it home since it was too young to fend for itself.  We stopped by a pet supply store to get supplies for the mouse, including bedding, a critter carrier, and a small water bottle.   I decided to name him Junior, and Dad said we could keep him.  Jonah and I were overjoyed.  After a few days, my Grandmother stopped by with an old aquarium for Junior.   To this day, Junior lives in my room, and I love him very much.

Assateague Island  

In the spring of 2006 my family went to Chincoteague Island in Virginia.  I had heard that wild ponies lived on Chincoteague’s neighboring island, Assateague Island where there was a wildlife refuge.  I was especially excited since I had been to horse camp over the past summer.  My parents had booked us a room in a small hotel called The Refuge Inn.  One of the first things that I noticed was a large fenced area with pine trees and several Chincoteague ponies.  Excited, Jonah and I raced over.  We spotted some corn dispensers that read $0.25.  Dad gave my brother and me each a quarter to put in the machine.  We watched as a nearby pony greedily ate the little bit of corn we had placed in the trough.  It looked up hungrily for more.  Eagerly my brother and I scavenged the ground for more.  We stayed there until our parents called us in.  Later that day we decided to rent a two person bike to ride over to the reserve. 

There were many trails in the reserve, but we decided to take the three-mile loop.  On the path we saw little elk that dashed away into the brush at the sight of humans.  We also saw swans, three kinds of seagulls, and many other water birds including blue herons.  Although I enjoyed the walk very much, I was disappointed that I hadn’t seen any wild ponies yet.  When I did finally see a herd, what I saw made me very angry.  Along the marsh area were long stretches of barbed wire, and it looked like the ponies were fenced in.  I was so furious, I threatened to write a letter to the park rangers about it.   In the end, I found out that the barbed wire just prevented the ponies from running into the roads and getting hit by cars.   Even though the Chincoteague ponies have freedom and may live a happy life in the marshland, every year they have a pony roundup in which mothers are separated from their children.  Overall, I think the Chincoteague islanders should do the roundup less frequently.

Fossil Fest

Even though I loved modern animals my interest in prehistoric life never faded.  Over the years dinosaur excavation kits came and went.  Since my interest held firm my Dad took me to the Fossil Fest this past January being held at the Natural History Museum in Washington D.C.  The Natural History Museum is one of my favorite museums and I never hesitate to see the dinosaur exhibit one more time.  I even think about working there some day.  When Dad and I arrived at the museum it was packed.  I saw tables with prehistoric and fossilized seashells, looked at things through microscopes, and did several activities. But there was one activity that made me want to work there even more.  It was a behind the scenes tour. A man took us down an elevator and into a room full of file cabinets and fossils.  I got to touch a triceratops skull, a triceratops brain socket, a mammoth’s molar, and even giant sloth dung.  During the tour I learned how they packaged the fossils without breaking them and many other interesting facts.  I loved Fossil Fest, and I am still fascinated with dinosaurs.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I have decided to become a paleontologist and study prehistoric life or become a zoologist and study modern animals. Between which I have not decided, But I am sure my career will include both creatures past and present.

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Life Of A Writing Fan

By Abby

From the day that I was born, January 23,1998, I have always loved books. From the turning of the pages, to the pictures inside, it has all been interesting to me. In pre-school I always looked forward to bedtime, when I could snuggle up under the covers, and my Mom or Dad would read me a book.. When I was about 4 years old, I began to wonder how books came along anyway.  I asked my Mom and she explained it to me. I still didn’t get it.                              

I had often had stories in my head (good or bad) without knowing it.  Did that mean I was a real author?  I wondered.  When I started kindergarten in 2003, writing really unlocked for me.  At the end of the year, the kindergartners wrote counting books.  I thought I was just like the published author who wrote the monkey counting books. But I would learn there was much more to it.

In first grade I still loved to write.  I wrote Sun, Moon, Stars.  It went something like this: 

Once upon a time there were three rabbits, Sun, Moon, and Stars.  One day it said in the newspaper that a bad monster was going around.  He could only be killed by the diamond crystal, which was guarded by a dragon. 

“Oh no!  What will we do?” cried Sun.

“I have the diamond crystals,” said Stars.  So they went down, and destroyed the monster. Then they sold diamond crystals.  Then they bought a beautiful burrow.  And they lived happily ever after.

Pretty boring, huh!  But at the time I thought it was the best story anyone could have written.  Some months later, I reread it, and thought very differently.  “Gosh, this is the most boring book I have ever read!”  I thought.  I put away writing in my free time for an entire year.

It wasn’t until the end of the third grade that I started writing in my free time again.  The whole third grade was assigned to write fantasies.  I thought for a while, then it came clear as day, Newfunnia!  When I was four years old, and my sister was only one, I didn’t understand that babies need a lot of attention.  I felt as though she had stolen all the attention from me.  I thought it was time to speak up.

“If you don’t start giving me more attention, I’ll move to Newfunnia,” I stated.  Everyone in the room laughed.  I indignantly stomped up the stairs.

I gave up the idea of going there, but I’ve never stopped adding to the world of Newfunnia.  So, again I started another failure, even though, again, I thought it was marvelous, for a time.  One problem with the story was that Nora, the main character, was like an angel because she never made a single mistake so there was no conflict.  I didn’t describe anything either, so it was only ten pages.  When I finished it, I read it and it wasn’t until then that I realized the problems with my book.

“Maybe I’m just a bad writer,” I thought.  But then, it seemed like the magic of writing called, “Abby, Abby, read it again.”  I did, and my idea of the book changed.

“This could be a very good story,” I thought.  “If I revise it a bit.” 

So I changed the plot, Nora’s character, and Newfunnia itself.  After a couple of revisions (mostly in my head) I got it right!  Right now I’m working on The Silver Bow and the Ruby Arrows.  You can tell how much the story changed by the title!  I’m also working on three other books for the Newfunnia (now known as Nerania) series.

One thing I’ve learned is revision is the key.  I learn from my books, which is why my writing has changed over time.  When I grow up I do want to be an author. I must say my life as a writing fan is a wonderful life, and it will always be.