Monthly Archives: January 2021

100 Word Challenge

100 Word Challenge 1/29

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I was riding my muddy yellow bicycle through the twisted paths alongside the road. I was getting close to the gates. I knew I had to get through. When I got to the station where the security guard was, I asked if I could get through, but he said no. He didn’t understand, but I was desperate. I tried to convince him, but he warned me that it was dangerous beyond the gates. That was the last thing on my mind. I greedily snatched the keys from his hands, let myself through the gates and biked off into the unknown. 

This was my third blog post for the 100 word blogging challenge. Thank you so much for reading it and I hope you liked it. Feel free to leave a comment saying what type of story would you write if you had to incorporate the five words that are in bold. Don’t forget to leave a link to your blog so that I can stop by. -Bella

100 Word Challenge, Creative Writing, Posts With Personality

100 Word Challenge 1/22

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One day after school I was walking my dog, on a trail through the forest and out of my peripheral vision I thought I saw someone. When I turned around there was a tree. Don’t get me wrong it looked like a person but there was more to it. Their arms tired from what looked like years of holding up other trees, patches with no leaves all  dry and slowly chipping away. This was a piece of art except it was different. It wasn’t the work of an underpaid artist spending hours for perfection, it was natural and was beautiful.

This is officially my second post for the 100 word blogging challenge. I hope you liked it. Feel free to leave a comment saying what you thought of this picture, don’t forget to leave a link to your blog so that I can stop by. -Bella

100 Word Challenge

100 Word Challenge 1/15

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When Covid-19 came to our area and it kept getting worse and worse everything stopped and nothing happened. That’s just it nothing happened whatsoever, kids stopped going to school, people stopped working, people would even die and we could do nothing about it. We just waited and hoped it would get better all while doing nothing. Then people started working from home or going into work some days and kids started doing school online, it still felt like we were doing nothing. To this day it still feels like we are doing nothing but sitting there waiting to do something.

This was my first post for the 100 word blogging challenge. I hope you liked it and feel free to leave a comment and make sure to add the link to your blog so I can stop by. -Bella

Animals, Posts With Personality

Pangolins

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Hey Everyone! Ready to learn about Pangolins. They need a lot more help than you think.

First things first. Let’s talk about what a pangolin is. Pangolins have been around for over 80 million years. As you see in the picture they kind of look like reptiles, but looks can be deceiving. Pangolins are actually mammals. They are the only mammals that are fully covered in scales. They use their scales to protect themselves from any predators they might encounter in the wild. When under attack, they will tightly roll up into a ball and wait until there is no more danger and the predator has left. Although they don’t look like it, many species of pangolin live in trees, hanging on branches by their giant tails. They can also swim for a long period of time and dig burrows more than 130 feet deep! These animals can almost live anywhere, their many different habitats consist of savannah grasslands, tropical and subtropical areas, flooded areas, and dense woodlands. Pangolins will eat termites, ants and larvae. Pangolins are also sometimes referred to as “the scaled anteater”. Since they have no teeth they use their sticky tongues which are longer than their bodies. The average pangolin consumes up to 70 million insects a year. Now that you know a little more about pangolins let’s get to the real problem. Pangolins are the most trafficked mammal in the world. Since their only defense mechanism is to roll up into a ball and wait, they are easy targets for poachers. Pangolin meat is considered a delicacy in some areas and their scales are used in some traditional medicines. Even though all 8 species of pangolins are protected under both international and national laws people still continue to illegally kill and trade them. In only three years an estimated 1 million pangolins were poached just for their scales. The rate that these pangolins are traded and sold across the world is continuing to rise. Prices go all the way up to $3,000 dollars per pangolin. The rate that these pangolins are being taken from their habitats and getting killed means the illegal organizations that are poaching and trafficking them are making a fortune from harming these animals. Like I said before pangolin scales are used in some medicines and that is necessary but not all the pangolins that are getting killed illegally are being used in medicines. Especially in China and Vietnam pangolin meat is a delicacy. Sometimes the pangolins are killed on the table right in front of the customers to ensure that what they will be served is pangolin meat. Although there is not a lot of it there is some good news for pangolins. In June of 2020 China increased protection for pangolins to the highest possible level. In addition, the Government is no longer allowing pangolin scales to be used in traditional medicines. This is a huge win for the pangolins considering that over 195,000 pangolins were trafficked in 2019 for just their scales. 

You may be wondering how you can help. Well you can go HERE and make a pledge to help the World Wildlife Federation get to their goal of 80,000 pledges to help save the pangolins. You can also go HERE to symbolically adopt a pangolin which raises money to help save the pangolins and you can get a few goodies. Thank you so much for reading this. I hope you learned something new and want to try to help pangolins. Feel free to leave a comment saying something new you learned or what you are going to do to help save the pangolins. Make sure to leave a link to your blog so that I can stop by. -Bella

Communications, Coronavirus, Middle School Musings, Posts With Personality

Holidays and New Years

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Hey Everyone! Happy New Years and Merry Christmas! I know this is a late post but read a little more and you will find out why. Before you start reading just look at how cute my dog is on Christmas morning.

My family celebrates Christmas on December 25 every year. One of our most important holiday traditions is that the day we get on to winter break we don’t have any electronics. We do this so that we can spend more quality time together while everyone is off of work and school. I thought that I would post my Holiday blog post late to represent that. One more tradition that my family does every year on christmas is have as much family over to our house as we can. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic we were not able to have as much family over as we usually do. My grandpa lives with us so we have to stay extra safe. If you want to learn some more cool facts about Christmas go HERE.

Now that I have talked a little bit about some of my family’s traditions over Christmas let me talk about some of the facts about christmas. You probably know the song “Jingle Bells”. That song was actually written for Thanksgiving and not Christmas. My dog that I got for christmas in 2016 is actually named Jingle Bell. One more cool fact about christmas is that the first artificial or fake christmas tree was not even an actual tree. It was made of goose feathers that were dyed green to look like a real tree.

Since christmas has passed and we have recently gone into the New Year let’s talk a little bit about what that means to me. As you all know it is now 2021. 2020 was not a normal year, it had many ups and downs and a lot of new changes. This year I am seeing 2021 as a year where I am really going to have to try hard to grow and make positive changes. A lot of families have New Year resolutions, including mine. Each year about 30 minutes before New Years, we all share our resolutions with each other and ask each other to try and help us keep them as long as we can. A resolution is a goal that you take into the new year, this is something you try to uphold for as long as you can. One of our last traditions for New Years is that we go bowling every year and party for new years. We could not do that this year because we want to stay safe but we still managed to have fun at home playing board games and spending time together.

Thank you so much for reading this and I hope you guys had a great New Years and were able to celebrate safely. Feel free to leave a comment telling me what holiday you celebrate and leave a link to your blog so that I can stop by. -Bella