iron extraction experiments

Experiment No. 1: Find drinkable iron in juice

What you need:

1-pint glass jar

3 tea bags

Pineapple juice

Apple juice

White grape juice

Cranberry juice

4 clear cups (glass or plastic)

Tablespoon

Step (1) Make a strong tea solution in the 1-pint glass jar. Allow the jar to stand for 1 hr.

Step (2) Pour 4 tbsp of each juice sample into a different cup. Make sure you label each cup so you know which sample you are observing.

Step (3) Add 4 tbsp of tea to each cup and stir. Allow the solutions to sit undisturbed for 20 minutes.

Step (4) After 20 minutes carefully lift each cup looking up through the bottom.  You should be able to see dark particles (solute) settling on the bottom of the cup.

Step (5) Allow the solutions to sit for 2 more hours and recheck the bottom of the cups for more iron solute.

[After 20 minutes will you see the small dark particles of iron in the pineapple juice. After 2 hrs it will be visible in the white grape and the cranberry.  But no particles will form in apple juice.] 

 Experiment No. 2: Extract the element iron from a breakfast cereal.  

What you need:

2 cups of a breakfast cereal with iron

a large bowl

enough water to cover the cereal

wooden spoon

at least 2 strong magnets

hand lens

Step (1) Place 2 cups of cereal in a big bowl adding just enough water to cover it completely.  Let sit until the cereal is mushy.

Step (2) Stir for 5 minutes. 

Step (3) Add your strong magnet stir for 3 minutes then let it rest with the magnet in the slurry for 10 minutes. 

Step (4) After 10 minutes carefully remove magnets to a clean plate pouring as little water as possible to remove extra slurry.  Make sure not to rub the magnets or you will lose the iron sample.

Step (5) Examine the magnets for 'fuzzy' looking slivers of iron.

weekending in meadow

straws of gold

The woman leaned over to ask me, “Is your daughter still in gymnastics?”

Worn out from a long busy last 2 weeks most of it gym/work related I misunderstood her question, “She was this morning at 6:15 am for bars, then they have a ballet class, and yesterday they had a mock meet where a judge came in….”

She hadn’t meant is she currently in the gym at this odd hour on a Saturday night, she was simply asking if she was still doing it at all. 

The woman smiled kindly at me over her plate of delicate baby shower food; good salads and steaming soups. “My granddaughter she quit gymnastics… just like she quits everything.” She sighed. 

Until that moment I had forgotten her granddaughter had even tried gymnastics at our gym.  It had been a few years.

“You know,” I said from a very tired place in my heart, “with my older kids they were good at lots of things. I remember wanting them to find their one thing. They never did.”

I paused to take a glance around the room of young woman, young mothers, a few young children dancing through the crowd. A room accented in soft pink- warm and floating on the dreams of future daughters & all that they will become.

I remembered being them, young and dreaming about a life so perfectly set and cast. I thought about my advice card that told the new mother-to-be to sleep whenever she could.  Perhaps I should have said: Be careful what you wish for. 

I looked back into the kind eyes of the woman. “When you have a kid who does that, who finds one thing and won’t let go, what no one tells you is it really sucks.” 

I could feel my own mother sitting on the other side of me. “I miss the smell of the swimming pool, and Saturday morning soccer games, trying basketball and dance. All those little adventures ended at 6 years old when she walked into that gym.”

From over my shoulder my mom chinned in, “Misty played soccer her whole life and coached for so long.”  I knew she understood me. 

“Fifteen years,” I said.   

“All her kids played until Beach…”  

The woman took a sip of her drink, “Well you need a lot of…oh, what’s the word?”

“Time?” I mumbled.

“No.”

“Dedication?”

She shook her head.

Determination?”

“No”

“Money?”

“No.”

“Commitment? Sacrifice? Passion…endurance…perseverance?”

She laughed, maybe uncomfortably, 
“No, consistency is what I was thinking. You need to be consistent.”

I nodded and smiled. “Yes. You need to be consistent.”

She tilted her head, “I suppose you need to do other things too unless you are raising a superstar...”

I rolled over my answer but decide it was too much to translate, “We try but there just isn’t time.”

When the baby shower was winding down I said my good-byes and my congratulations. My mom followed me out to my car. 

“You know it is so hard what you do, both of you. I don’t think most people have the experience to really understand.”

I thought of all the other moms and dad who go down this same road.  

   

I stood in the street and told my mom the same worries generations of woman have passed back upstream to each other. I am worried my child is too thin, that she hasn’t had enough sleep, that she will get hurt or sick. 

Then I got in my car and drove home alone carrying with me 2 fancy drinking straws for Beach: one pink and one gold.

the new kitchen table

We acquired our last kitchen table to fit BC and me, 2 arguing young boys, a 13-year-old girl, and a baby.... Now that baby is a 13-year-old girl herself. And  she is the only one of the siblings left at home. The old tall gathering table has simply stopped fitting our lives.

BC was given this table for free. It was in bad shape. He replaced the glass with stone and refinished the wood. Although according to Beach he didn't fix the ugly. The new table is low and sleek. She doesn't love it or even like it but she had to admit it feels right.

Growing up isn't easy <3 

The Door In The Wall

we are here: big

At home Beach looks very big. Long legs drip from short-shorts. Lean bird-like bones peek out from wide neck shirts.  Sometimes I catch a glimpse of her out of the corner of my eye, her big glasses and her light hair escaping a bun a top of her head: she looks like a dancer. It's probably best if you don't tell her I said that....   

Beach grew 3 inches over the last competition season.  For a gymnast growing is a naturally occurring obstacle.  It throws off their center of gravity, hard fought for skills crumble beneath the weight of it, and it hurts.  But of course you want them to grow they are kids... 

All through last meet season you won't have known by her performance that Beach was struggling against her own body. Even her coaches were surprised to hear exactly how much she had grown. 

Her bars have been moved to the wide setting. Her leo's and warm-ups exchanged for 2 sizes larger. 

Sometimes timing is everything.  It wasn't until summer training that she lost control of some of her twisting skills, lost the powerful Fulls she had competed all season. She worked hard and has it back. In fact it looks like she will be competing not only a Full but a 1&1/2... 

 Yes, at home she looks larger than life.
Thirteen. 
Still under 5 foot, well under 100 pounds.  
Training for level 9; competing a 2nd year of Level 8 with upgrades everywhere they are allowed- and some that are not. 

The competition season ahead of her looks hard and exciting and crammed full of travel.  It looks as big as she does. But when I see at her there in the gym she still looks so very small.