Those stupid trees (11/21/2019)

It has been blowing like crazy this past weekend. There is a coastal storm offshore, and it is whipping up the wind to occasional speeds of 50 miles per hour or for you metric folks close to 80 km per hour. We could hear it howl around the house. Since it is mid-November there are a lot of fall leaves on the ground and they are blowing all over the place. It is interesting to see how we had a ridge of leaves at the leeward side of my car. When we left to go to a social at church in the morning it was there, when we came back it was gone, blown away. However, three hours later in the afternoon the ridge had returned.

Since it is mid-November, you think it would be an opportune time for all the deciduous trees to release their leaves with such a strong wind like this and set them free. But no, or better hell no. It is like they did not realize that in two weeks from now they will be doing this anyway, so why not now? Usually, at least all the past 19 years that I lived here; the trees have lost all their leaves by the end of November, if not the first week of December. We already had a good (early) frost, which also seems to be a signal to many of these trees that it is time. But hell no! They are not letting go. If they would drop the leaves, at least then all those leaves would fly to my neighbor and I would not have to deal with them. My neighbor on the side where the wind comes from does not have any trees, so I would be safe from that side. But now it means that I will have to deal with them after Thanksgiving. 

We have a lot of trees in our neighborhood. In the past I have written and complained how the folks in my subdivision build whole fortifications of leaves along the road <here>. They bag their leaves and then stack them three bags high along the road, somewhat in a display of “I can stack them higher than you” or “I can hide my house better than you.” These folks are mining nutrients out of their soil and sending to the landfill. Instead, they should be composting the leaves or at least grinding them up with a mulching mower. Moreover, I have also mentioned in my blog that last year in December we were out in our back yard at night with our headlights admiring all the small moving lights in the fallen leaves. It appeared these lights were reflections of our headlights in the eyes of minute spiders, it was absolutely magical. There seems to be so much life in those dead fallen leaves and that explains why all those birds in my back-yard hunt through them. Then to think that my neighbors haul them off to the dump. On the other hand, one of the advantages of all the piling along the road is that my male dog has something new to mark when we go for our daily walks. 

So, what is the possible reason for the trees to hold on to the leaves through this storm? One reason I think is our dry September and October; we did not have any rain for six weeks. Based on the ephemeral ponds behind our home, the groundwater levels are still very low; I would say at least 6 feet or more deep, while sometimes by now, it should be just a foot or two below the ground surface. Would it be that the drought we experienced caused this unusually late season? Is it caused by global warning? I don’t know, but all I know or remember from what I learned is that in some species the change in colors and leaf drop is caused by the change in day length or better night length. Here I am thinking about maples which usually start changing color by the end of September when the day and night length are equal. One thing we have noticed is that one of the maples in our yard that we have a love hate relationship with is finally coloring. This is almost a month later than normal. Our love of the tree is its bright yellow color in fall. Our hate for the tree is the sheer size, the fact that is seems to push out other plants and that it appears to lean in a direction that concerns us somewhat. In other words, we are watching it like a hawk. This tree is supposed to be empty by now, but no it is not. So, what the heck? 

Our maple is finally yellow.  As I mention it is approximately one month later than normal and I can only speculate that climate change and the drought this fall has something to do with it.

All that I can think is that nature this fall is all screwed up, and if you ask me this may be a sign of things to come. In this post, I will not explain how nature is supposed to act. However, nature does seem to be somewhat out of whack. I really wonder where things are going to end up, but I expect it is not going to be pretty. One thing I know, those darn trees are telling us something: climate change is accelerating, and I am not sure if we can turn it back.

Symbols, symbols everywhere (8/9/2019) (somewhat r-rated)

In the natural world there are only a few species that fight each other to death or what we could call intraspecific killing (that is the same species killing each other usually for food or territory).  Different species kill each other regularly for food or other reasons (that is called interspecific killing). However, within the same species we have crimes of passion as we see in spiders, where in some of the species the female will devour the male, but at least when that happens, the male has accomplished something: the male is either still actively breeding or he has just spread his DNA in the form of sperm and eventually offspring when he (the daddy) is being eaten by his wife. As a friend of mine called it, an existentialist's dream, going out in flames, sometimes mid-ejaculation. 

The Australian Red Back Spider, is known for eating it's mate.  The males have two copulating organs and once the second one is inserted into the female he is in a convenient position for the female to start chewing on him and devouring him while he is ejaculating.

This reminds me of the story another friend of mine told about the time he served in the coroner's office of a major city. A city council member had died of a heart attack while having sex with his mistress. What a way to go! His mistress was testifying in court and crying, telling the judge: "Here I thought he was coming … <sob> … but … <sob> … actually, your honor … <sob> … he was going … <sob>." The city council guy went out in flames! But, can you imagine being the dead man's wife in the front row of that courtroom?

Wow, the symbolism behind these stories! It was probably not the existentialist’s dream, definitely not for the mistress or wife. For him, I don’t know, kicking the bucket this way; maybe it was?

These deaths are very different than those that resulted from the mass killings that we are seeing lately. This past weekend we had two intraspecific mass killings: one in El Paso, a city I used to frequent and love, and the other in Dayton, another city I visited quite often. Both killings were pure evil, no existential dreaming here, unless you are thinking about a nightmare. As of this writing, the El Paso massacre is the result of the racist hate speech being spread by the current occupant of the oval office and the refusal of his party to call him out on it.

We currently live in a time where symbolism is being used and abused by some folks like others use underwear, or at least I do. I change mine at least daily, and some throw symbols around like there is no end to it. What I am referring to are a lot of our politicians. I am so tired of all this political posturing in our country. We have gone through almost three years, where we have a president who is trying to undo everything that the previous president did. That is also all about symbols isn’t it? Just trying to make sure there is nothing of a legacy left; destroying everything, a scorched earth program. It is not going to work, people are smarter than that, so be it.

The first two years of the regime there was nothing the opposition party could do, and now there still is a Senate that can stonewall things. Now, this past nine months, the House can try to pass things, which they do, but it does not even hit the press or get published because the Senate (or let’s use our own symbols: Moscow Mitch) just ignores it. So it has gotten down to the only thing the House seem to be able to get noticed by is by doing its oversight and investigations; somewhat symbolic, as well.

However, for Republicans it seems to be all about symbolism:

• They are against abortion and protect the unborn child (the one you can't easily see and touch), but once the child is born, they don't want anything to do with it, to hell with the kid, ignore it, no health care, education or other protection for the child. Hey, we even endorse separating them from their parents and locking them up in cages.
• On morality, they were incensed when Clinton got his oral job from an intern, but now it is 18 or more and counting with their leader, we can even talk publicly about grabbing them by the genitals or rape them in a dressing room and they don't care.
• They were allowed to criticize the president and the country under Obama, but when the opposition does it, they call them non-patriotic, haul racial slurs at them and we need to “send them back” to their country.
• They call themselves “the Party of Lincoln;” however, they dogwistle to their white male voters and white supremacists at every turn and do not object or even say anything when the current occupant of the oval office makes either racist statements or obviously support racists or racist causes. Please, don’t even think that this isn’t the cause of, or catalyst for the El Paso shooting.
• They allow their leader to call countries “shit holes” and now we are in to calling our local cities rat infested and places no one wants to live. This is again used as a racial slur and to attack minority congressmen.
• They are pro-constitution when it comes to the second amendment, but freedom of expression or the press; the first amendment? It seems they have serious doubts about that. If you don’t agree with you, then you are the fake media. And, let’s forget the voting rights act.
• The deficit was purely self interest anyway and future generations were also just symbolism. Remember, they used to worry about the deficit but that has also gone out the window with the current occupant of the White-house.
• Finally, they seem to worry about their children and grandchildren but then don't pay any attention to climate change, a.k.a. global warming.

I will stop here, but as you can see they are so darn good at using symbolism when it is or was working in their advantage, and as long as the do not have to do anything for the regular folks. They are just looking out for their own self interest, the rich, their interest group. It just blows me away.

Our politics and politicians are for sale to the highest bidders.
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

Where will this end, I have no idea. One thing is for sure, we need to fight more, for a livable country and then a livable world. I am an old, angry, white guy, but for a good cause. I am a liberal, I am against the racism that is rearing its ugly head. I am not a socialist or a communist, but I do believe in a fair distribution of wealth. I have written about a lot of these issues in my blogs: for the environment and against a lot of what is going on in this country. I will continue to do so.

So be it.

Forest bathing II (12/22/2017)

The other night we went out into our back yard after dark to show my wife what had excited our dogs today.  We put on our trusty head lamps and went to take a look.  Right on the other side of the fence, in our neighbor’s yard were the dismembered guts of an animal and some fir laying in the leaves.  We surmised it was most likely a rabbit or a squirrel that had become prey of a hawk or an owl.  We do have coyotes in the woods behind our home, but they would have had to jump over the fence and there was very little disturbance of the leaves; much more likely that the guts were dropped from the tree above.  I am not sure if either a hawk or an owl does not eat the guts or if they simply had their fill.  Anyway, the smell of the (rotting) guts had excited the dogs earlier in the day.

Turning around, my wife spotted two very bright emerald sparks in the leaf matter at her feet: “Wow, crystals?”  On further investigation, there was a small black spider scurrying around the leaves and the light beam from our headlamp reflected from its eyes and those were the sparkles that she saw.  It was 38˚F (3˚C) and the spider was still active in the leaf litter.  I don’t know what the little guy was hunting for, as I write in my spider blog, most spiders are hunters, but he or she was pretty safe.  Come day time the spider may become the hunted by all the birds in our back yard that scurry through the leaf litter.  As you know that makes me so frustrated watching all these people bagging leaves.  They are so important in our ecological cycle.

One of our bagging neighbors.  In addition to mining nutrients, getting rid of nutrients for birds etc, they also are exposing their topsoil to erosive forces.  Yes, they may have less mice, ticks and chiggers, but at what cost?

 I have learned a lot of things in 2018.  I have learned a new term: “Forest Bathing.”  I used to use the term “Nature Deficit Disorder” and while they are closely related, I think forest bathing describes a more intimate nature experience.  You linger in nature, absorb it all, take it in.  I guess you can forest bath to take care of that nature deficit disorder; although I read that even nature wall paper on your computer screen may take care of the disorder to some extent and that is not forest bathing.

That little spider with its reflective emerald eyes was part of such a forest bathing experience.  So were the guts of a dead animal.  It can really only be 5 minutes of observations, but longer would be better.  When walking through the woods behind our home, I always discover something unique, something different; at least when I am not in a hurry (see the photos below).  Even our dog Jake finds new things.  He often happens to roll in something very stinky in these woodsWe regularly flush a barred owl in the area and now I wonder if an owl discards the guts of its prey and that is what Jake rolls in.  He also feasts on deer pellets or as we call it deer pro-biotics for dogs.  Oh well.  

Regular readers know my writings about the discoveries in woods behind our home.  I have written about Washington’s shovel.  Well, it is still there, I saw it this morning.  I wrote about the over population of deer and signs they leave behind, but just look at my keyword on deer and there is much more.

The photos below were taken on this morning’s walk in the woods.  Just a quiet slow walk, observing what is around me.  It is just great to be out there, to take it all in.  We were not in a hurry.  Jake (the dog) was apprehensive this morning, "what was daddy doing, just standing around looking at things, taking pictures and taking his time?"   We were observing.  Just read the caption with the pictures.  Go do your own forest bathing, it does not have to be spiritual or mystical to enjoy it or to learn from nature. Remember any nature is good. 

Lastly, if you enjoy this and some of my more naturalist posts, I am reading a great book by David George Haskell called “The Forest Unseen, A Year’s Watch in Nature.”  It is a great read and even this biologist is learning a lot.

Most of the trees in the woods behind our home are sticks, indicating it is a fairly young forest, but this oak was able to take advantage of an opening in the canopy to spread out wide.

This pine appears to have been hit by lightning but as the next two pictures show it is holding on to life, unlike many trees that are hit do.  However there is a dead streak going up all the way.  The bark is pealed off and woodpeckers have been busy.

The dead streak going up.

And up.

I am not sure what happened to this maple but it is holding on too.  The hardwood is dead but it seems to be doing fine.  You can see the live vain thickening on both sides of the cavity.

Itsy bitsy spider (11/7/2017)

As an ex-field person, fall always reminds me of the times when I did field surveys in the woods and ran into spider webs or at least threads that were strung all over the woods.  The best were always running into nearly “invisible” webs, and them ending up on my glasses and having an imprint of them on my glasses for the rest of the day.  Something like a badge of honor.  Sometimes, at lunch time you took your glasses off and had a perfect imprint of a spider web on your glasses.  Also in the fall, you had these huge yellow garden spiders hanging around in the woods that everyone was afraid off.

A spiderweb in the woods, so difficult to see, so easy to walk into and get an imprint on your glasses or get the threads in your hair.  Here the sun angle was just right to see it and avoid it.

Arachnophobia or the fear of spiders affects approximately one in ten persons in the world.  That is kind of amazing when you come to think of it.  Why would people be afraid of spiders?  Some think the reason is that some spiders are venomous or poisonous and that this is why people are afraid of spiders and part of the population have become afraid of spiders over evolutionary time.  But there really does not seem to be a good reason for why some people are afraid of spiders when you look at their size.  The Goliath spider seems to be the largest spider in the world with a leg span of 12 inches (30 cm); maybe that is a reason to be scared of spiders.

Just a little spider hanging out on a thread in the woods, with all the leaves in the background it would be relatively easy to walk right into this gal (why gal? because a lot of gal spiders seem to consume their male mates after mating). 

I have been bitten by a black widow when I lived in New Mexico and picked up a six pack of beer.  As some of the websites about this spider describe, the bite of a black widow is seldom fatal, but there was no internet back then, and we immediately called a friend in town who was the emergency doctor at the local hospital.  Allan assured me that I would live and he told me to watch my vital signs the next few hours, but assured me that usually nothing would happen and that I did not need to come in.  He also told me I may get a skin reaction, which I did.  I got a brown spot on my arm the size of a silver dollar that remained visible for a year or more, but eventually faded.  Oh well that was my experience with spiders, which really wasn’t that bad.  My father-in-law’s run in with a brown recluse was much more interesting.  He got a huge blister from it that looked like it was ready to explode.  While I am still not afraid of spiders, he is or at least he has a lot of respect for them.

 

My more favorite pictures of the last few days.  This leave seems to hang weightless in the air.  Well, it is suspended from a silk thread spun by a spider and just hanging out there in the middle of the path, perfectly still, like frozen in place and time.  The threads spun by spiders are so strong that the military has been trying to genetic engineer goats to produce it instead of milk so they can make fiber from it (you cannot milk spiders) to make wire and cable.  

Spiders are pretty cool animals, or insects, actually no they are arthropods.  They’ve got eight legs, that can grab things; they have fangs that can inject venom; with the exception of one species that is an herbivore, spiders are predators; and many of them make webs to entangle their prey in.  Others lasso their prey or run them down, actually really cool.  When they catch their prey they inject them with enzymes to liquefy their interior so they can suck the nutrients out of them.  No wonder some of us are afraid of them.

At my home we consider spiders a sign of good luck.  We usually do move them outdoors, figuring that there is more prey out there than indoors.  We get a glass, put it over them and gently slide a piece of (stiff) paper under the glass, trying not to hurt the poor animal.  Then we take them outside where we set them free!  Not good riddance, but good hunting you little guys.

The famous garden spider weaving her web.  She is slightly bigger than a U.S. quarter.

I love walking through the damp woods on an early fall morning in particular.  The early morning dew has accumulated on many of the webs and you can really see them: the beautiful webs spun over the paths; the messy webs between the branches; the funnels of the trap door spiders in the tall grass; the big webs with the thick fuzzy thunderbolt-shaped thread in it that the garden spider weaves in the middle of their web; it is absolutely amazing all the different types of webs they weave.  Obviously, they all work they all have their specialized goal and all capture enough prey for them to survive generation after generation (and scare the living daylight out of some).  Walking in nature is so important.  Whether it is to observe the habits of the spiders, to watch birds, the rooting patterns of the trees, the way the light falls through the leaves, to absorb the smell of the woods, or just the solitude, get out it helps you recharge it makes you happier, live longer and maybe even ward off the diseases of old age like Alzheimer.  

The sun, the dew and an early fall morning makes the webs stand out on the trail.