Resillence (3/2/2026

The other day, at our UU church we had a program on the resilience of nature or may be on how nature helped us with our resilience. This brought me back to my Ph.D. study, and particularly my research project. We moved to Las Cruces, NM in 1986 for my studies. Nine years married and yes, we had our occasional marriage spats. I think the issues were mostly my doing and most likely caused by my insecurity concerning my qualifications even to pursue a Ph.D. (imposter syndrome) and the decision we had made to finally settle in the U.S.A. (being a Dutchman who had traveled most of his life, that was an alien concept).

My research plots were in the Jornada del Muerto. It was at the southern end of the of an area in New Mexico made famous by the Trinity site, where Oppenheimer and his compadres detonated the first nuclear bomb. My site was far enough away from that area for any remaining radioactivity to ever have gotten that far south and have any effect on me. This was a good thing, since we (my wife) became pregnant in 1988, midway through my studies.

One of the things that stayed with me from that time were the weekly trips to my research plots. We had to travel about an hour into the desert away from all civilization. I was taking physiological measurements on broom snakeweed (Gutierrezia sarothrae); a common weed in this area of the country. I had to get there before daylight to take what are called pre-dawn plant measurements and compare them to changes that occurred during the day, when it got brighter and warmer. We got to the site when it was just getting light and stayed until two or three in the afternoon and took measurements on the hour. We hid in the shade under a shelter that we set up between measurement times. On some really hot days I would take a quick dip in a nearby stock tank if the water looked clean. Remember, the temperatures in southern New Mexico would easily soar over 100 degrees (38 Celsius) in summer.

At sunrise, exactly when the sun hit the site, the coyotes in the area started howling, just for a minute or so. It was absolutely amazing and, in a way, very moving. It sounded so wild and primitive. To think that there were all these eyes watching us and we hardly ever saw them. And then all the snakes (rattlesnakes) that were also observing us, the birds and other critters.

Recently I wrote a couple of posts about the more bashful coyotes in the woods behind our home. They excite our dogs, especially when they start howling at two in the morning. Hearing the howl or even seeing them brings me back to my studies in the Jornada desert and those early mornings when the coyotes graced me with their concert.

Coyotes are amazing animals. Persecuted and killed, they seem to survive, even in our urban areas. These are resilient species and fit into the discussions we had that Sunday morning. Resilience, we biologists sometimes used the word plasticity in place of resilience. At times this seems more appropriate, nature is resilient by being adaptable or what we would call plastic. An interesting concept to ponder.

The Coyotes behind our home (left and center)

Don't feed the wild animals (12/23/20224)

Again, we were traveling across the country and back.  As our way back we opted to take a more southern route in the hope to avoid cold nights.  These colder nights just do not work well in our small camper van.  While the van was converted from a passenger van into a camper, I do not think it was properly insulated as a regular camper conversion.  Moreover, it does not have a heater or air conditioner.  We invested in a backup battery bank from Anker.  This battery is 1800 watts and powers our coffee maker, microwave, lights and a heating pad for Radar who sleeps on the floor.  We can asl briefly run a space heart on the battery.  We used the battery three times during our trip across and it is a game changer.

After visiting Death Valley, we headed for the Big Bend National Park, via Sedona.  Camping in both spots was good.  However, I may write a little more about this in future posts.  We also enjoyed our very brief visit to Guadelupe National Park.

We were amazed and disturbed by what transpired in the Big Bend NP.  Going towards our camp spot at the Rio Grande Village we finally saw some of the park wildlife.  A coyote crossed between our van and a vehicle in front of us.  We slowed down to take a look at the animal, which we assumed would run off into the desert.  But no, it turned around and just looked at us from the side of the road.  Our first thought was rabis.  In our area that is what you suspect when you see a coyote or racoon in broad daylight.  Something wrong!  We went on our way after taking a few pictures of the animal. 

After a wonderful night of camping in the village (more about that in a subsequent post, hopefully), we set out to explore the park a bit and then go on our way to our next stop (Del Rio, TX).  Again, at the same location a coyote crossed the road to slow us down and here again stood by the road staring at us.  Then it dawned on us, the animal was begging!  We drove on to the visitor’s center and I asked one of the park officials about our encounter.  They acknowledged that the coyote was actually begging and was considered a nuisance.  They tried to move it to another part of the park, but it had returned to the same spot within a few days.

I guess we all know why this is happening.  Folks feed the wildlife and have conditioned this poor animal to live on handouts instead of hunting.   Why can’t people get it in their dense heads not to do that.  You read about folks getting killed by bison in Yellowstone; bears ransacking cars looking for food.  It is unnatural, probably a poor, but tasty diet.  We are doing a disservice to these animals and nature.  We know (or should know) how bad processed food is for us humans and that this is one of the reasons for our obesity epidemic.  Folks that feed the wild animals are doing the same to them.

This issue is not only occurring in National and State parks.  Our neighbor feeds stale bread to the dear in the woods behind our home.  Every evening a herd of 6 to 8 deer move into the yard next door and they wait for their handout.  In addition to the health issues for the deer, these animals carry ticks (Lyme disease), flees (tape worm), and you do not know what else to impact humans. 

People don’t feed wildlife.

The beggar in Big Bend National Park

 

Spring 2022 part 2 (4/7/2022)

As the pandemic winds down, and I whole heartedly hope it stays down, I am reminded that this is my third spring of teleworking or working from home. My department has decided that May 1 will be the date that things are going to go back to “normal.” Normal means working at least one day at the office and the other days are still allowed to be telework days. For me that means that on weeks that I do not teach or travel to teach (in May I teach in Williamsburg which does not require any travel), I need to show my face in the office one day a week. Our supervisor told us that if this would be the reason for one of us to quit or start looking for a different job, to let him know and we could talk about it. There is obviously some flexibility in the new rule. 

Working from home has become the new normal for me and I like it. While working I can bake bread, do the laundry, do some writing, explore the news, make dinner, and spend some time outside either looking at my bonsai or just looking and walking through the woods behind our home. Many of you know, I am a huge believer of the concept of forest bathing.

Forest bathing or regularly spending time outside in nature lowers the blood pressure and the general anxiety one has. Just looking around, spending time outside, and breathing in the smells of the natural world increases your immunity to diseases and most likely fight cancers as well.  Research in Japan showed that the volatile compounds or aromatic compounds released by the vegetation, called phytoncides, are responsible for all this and the effect of a one-time exposure to these compounds can actually last up to two weeks.  Naturally, movement itself strengthens your immunity, skeletal and your cardiovascular system.  I get a lot of creative ideas for new classes, for changes to my current classes or to the way I teach by simply walking outside in the woods meditating and thinking. This is where I get my inspiration. Thank goodness, my supervisor know this and he encourages this.

One of my more favorite areas in the woods behind our home.  Just past this crossing is a grove of very large yellow populars (or tulip trees).  I just love it here!

During these two years working from home, I have been able to come much closer to the natural cycle of nature and how it affects my bonsai trees, my yard, the natural area and the woods out back. It has helped me to become calmer and more accepting of who I am and everything going on around me. I would say that I have become more introspective. More and more do I realize that I am me and no one can take that away from me. I have gone through a lot of tough times in my life (personally and with or because of my extended family), some of which I have chronicled in these postings; someday I will post some more. However, I am happy with where I am and where my life is heading; I would not want to change a thing right now.

As I write this the redbud in my backyard is blooming profusely. The honey bees that we keep in the back yard are all over it and so are the chickadees. The chickadees are eating the small pink flowers which must be loaded with vitamins, flavonoids and all kinds of micronutrients. Or are they eating insects that feast on the flowers? Those small observations are so enjoyable and keep me going, that sapsucker I can see working the tree right outside my window, the lemon tree seedling in my office that are rapidly growing towards the light. It is almost time for the tropical to go outside and make an attempt to rig up that irrigation system. Summer is rapidly approaching.

The view from my home office window.  You can see the redbud in its full glory.  Other trees are starting to leaf out.

Bonsai spirituality (10/14/2021)

A recent bonsai YouTube video that I watched was somewhat different. Peter Chan from Herrons Bonsai was interviewing an ex thug or reformed criminal about his path to bonsai and nature combined with it his straightening out, and finding of religion. Claud Jackson wrote a book about his journey: “From Guns to God.” While I am not going to discuss the book (I have not read it), religion (I am not particularly religious or believe in their or any god, regular readers know I am a Unitarian and more a pantheist), I do have a couple of issues I want to discuss here. This discussion just brought some of these thoughts to mind.

Now I am a great fan of Peter’s videos and instruction, and while this video was not about trimming or working on plants, it was the second or third one that he has done on the connection between the mind (or soul) and our hobby. This one disappointed me a bit and that was because in my eyes, he did not go deep enough. Understandably so? Maybe, Claud is 6’8” and Peter is only 5’7”. Be your own judge and watch it yourself.

Many of you know, I am a naturalist, biologist, a person who strongly believes in forest bathing or Shinrin-yoku. I have written extensively about it and even presented a sermon in my church about it. I actually wrote a draft sermon that compared growing a bonsai to growing a church.  Being out in nature helps me meditate and so does working on my trees. During those times I just live in the moment and lose my perception of time and space. Being a biologist at times I cannot help trying to find a scientific explanation in my mind to the phenomenon that I am seeing or try to identify a plant or a fern that I stumble upon. But that is living in the moment and not thinking about the other things in life.

This was what was lacking in Peter’s interview with Claud in my eyes. They were dancing around the subject and never getting there. For someone who is studying to get ordained as a minister of the church of England I was disappointed by the lack of spirituality during the discussion.

Why the hell am I growing bonsai? It is something I have asked myself many times over the years. Is it a spiritual thing? Probably not; at least not when I started. I was just fascinated by the fact that you could make trees look so miniature. It all started with a visit to Longwood Gardens in late 1977. We were just married, and it was our first visit to the in-laws in Delaware. Longwood has a nice bonsai exhibit and I fell in love with the idea of growing miniature trees. I remember visiting the National Arboretum a few years later and that did it.

My spiritual journey with bonsai started a lot later. It was not until we settled here in Virginia (2000) that I was really bitten by the bug again. I started to take it serious again eight or so years ago. Yes, I had trees ever since we finally decided to “permanently” settle in the U.S. in 1986. As a good Dutchman we collected a few houseplants, and I befriended a guy who ran a nursery and off I went. I still have some of the trees I acquired at that time, although, as I mentioned in at least one of my posts, since I ignored them for some time on top of not knowing what to do with them, you would definitely not know that they are more than 30 years old. For one, I am not going to let you cut them and count their growth rings. However, they did not have YouTube at the time and the magazines and books did not push me hard enough to be that adventurous or extreme in cutting roots etc. Despite all that, I still love to tell visitors that these trees are older than or as old as my daughter.

Whether it is working with miniature nature or walking in big nature, I enjoy it and it all has become somewhat spiritual to me. Believe it or not, I talk to my trees; I tell them what I am going to do to them. Maybe I am going insane, and I am talking to myself, but it is a good way to remember things, thinking out loud. While pruning and discuss choices with myself, it is meditative.

It is not different when I walk in the woods. I love to linger, stop for a second, look at a trunk of a tree, touch it, feel it, see how the roots spread; take a picture of a mushroom, a sign of a symbiont, a perfect union. Now I need to start thinking about creating some bonsai forests. One of my favorite YouTubers Nigel Saunders from the Bonsai Zone is really into that, and he has some really cool forests or landscapes. He put in pathways and imagines people walking through the landscapes. I am still too timid to do something like that, although I have plans with a set of crab apples plants that I have.

Just a trunk of a dogwood tree that I walked by during a hike last weekend.  I love the bark of dogwoods and I am planning to dig up a seedling this winter and will try to grow one in a pot.  Wish me luck.

If you are just starting out on a bonsai journey, on a forest bathing journey, or even a spirituality journey, check these two bonsai guys out. Peter has at least two discussions on spirituality, while Nigel used to take you out on his walks and bike rides through the woods near his home. Nigel would explore trees and landscapes during outings but has not done this much lately. He has been way too busy building a greenhouse or his plant room. Explore my blog posts and check out the keywords root, nature, forest bathing, trees, bonsai, spirituality and alike. Come back, as I mentioned before, I will try to be less political and concentrate more on bonsai, and be more educational, environmental, and spiritual.

Westmoreland State Park (10/28/2019)

This weekend I spent some time in a cabin in the woods at Westmoreland State Park in the Northern Neck of Virginia. It is one of the state parks we visit fairly frequently for a weekend in the off season, to get away from it all and relax. As we sometimes do, this year we were sharing our accommodations with Betsy, a high school friend of my wife, someone we have been friends with for more than 40 years.

It is just nice to be away from home and be out in the woods, sitting on the porch of this small cabin in the woods that supposedly was constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps sometime between 1933 and 1942. There are newer cabins in this row, but it is nice to be in an historic one like this. It surely is cramped and somewhat primitive (or read not well stocked), but so be it. I live in motel rooms for luxury.

This morning we had a big storm roll through and right now it is sunny and somewhat windy. The temperatures are unseasonably warm for this time of year, but so be it. We are living in the years of global warming, and we will just need to learn to live with it.

Why am I not out there, strolling through the woods? We brought Jake, our old dog with us, and probably because of all the driving and excitement his tummy is somewhat upset. Since the girls are such old friends (50 years and counting), I have no problem “dog sitting” while they have fun and are out visiting a winery or two. I have been reading my Kindle and just breathing in the nice mild air sitting on a rocking chair here on the front porch. I may go for a brief walk while Jake is sleeping. 

A great walk after the rains were done.  It was unseasonably warm of the 27th of October.  I was in shorts and t-shirt.

Westmoreland State Park is on the Potomac River. It is sandwiched between the birthplaces of George Washington and Stratford Hall, the birthplace of General Robert E. Lee. We have visited Stratford Hall; it is surprisingly non-confederate and they do not push the civil war there at all. It is really worth a visit. The park itself has some great trails and the bluffs are full of fossil shark teeth that are there for the picking. 

Fossil Beach at Westmoreland State Park.  This is a very picturesque area with a large wetland to the right.

What was the Civilian Conservation Corp that built the cabin that we stayed in this time? During the depression, President Roosevelt established the Corps to get the unemployed off the street and back to work. These young men were put to work for the good of humanity or the country by doing public works projects mostly to protect and develop natural resources including the development of state parks, building reservoirs and other public projects. Westmoreland State Park was established during that period and I am not sure if these were worker’s cabins or meant to be used for recreation. However, now they are.

As some of you know or could conclude from a recent post, I am currently reading some of Wendell Berry’s work. His latest work was a little rough, and I will get back to it, but I am reading his collection of essays “What are People for?” I hit an interesting quote that he has of Wallace Stenger, a writer, naturalist and birder who I had never hear off. Mr. Stenger was a professor at Stanford University, and wrote that thought “thrives best in solitude, in quiet, and in the company of the past, the great community of recorded human experience.” This is the reason why I do not mind sitting on this rocking chair being left alone to think, read and to record my experience. Mr. Berry goes on and writes that the recorded experience does not need the Pantheon of Great Writers, but that it includes us all rather than the “Harvard Five-Foot Shelf.”

As I mentioned in my post entitled “Remember Nature” recording my opinions, feelings and experiences as described by Mr. Berry has been the intention of my blog posts all along. In my blogs I try to record what I see, write down my feelings and opinions, part with some of my education and experiences, show some of my photographs, and maybe even have some fun as well. My writings will never win awards or be included on that shelf, and that is okay; I just hope that some folks read it and are entertained and maybe learn something from my musings.  And so, I hope that you enjoyed this post.

Remember nature? (10/8/2019)

The pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus is believed to have said “It is not possible to step twice into the same river.” The reason being that even seconds later conditions in that river have changed. Different water molecules would be running by and touching your legs, aquatic organisms have moved and even particles of sand and sediment have been washed away, down stream. You yourself have aged and you are not the same as a split second ago. This may be scary when you think about it, but on the other hand it could also be comforting.

I was thinking about this when I finally dared to venture out into the woods behind our home again. The night-time temperatures finally dropped below 60° F (15.5° C), which means the chiggers go into hibernation and it gets less uncomfortable to venture into the woods. 

The woods have definitely changed over the past half year. For one when we last walked outback (as we call it) is was very wet and we had to dodge puddles. However, we have been in a drought, lately. I do not think it has rained for at least a month and instead of coloring, the leaves are shriveling. I am just hoping we don’t get a forest fire back there. While it would be good to have a good ground fire in the woods behind our home as I discuss in some of my posts, it is so dry that I fear for a crown fire and our homes.  It has really become a climate of extremes.

It has been so dry that the ponds have dried up, and even the puddles in the road which usually stay wet throughout the year are dried up. The largest pond behind our home has just a little pool left in the middle.  I am not sure if it has fish in it, but it usually has a healthy turtle population and I wonder how they are faring.  All ponds behind our home are ephemeral (with the possible exception of the large one) and they are fed or reflection of the groundwater levels.  This means that the levels usually fluctuate 5 to 6 feet every year; however, this year they seem to have dropped more than that.  Surprisingly, some of the grass along the trail was still green, while the grasses in the lawns in the yards of our subdivision are browning up. The entire south-eastern U.S. appears to be drought stricken this year, and the temperatures are way above average for the year. 

This is a picture that I took two weeks ago of the large pond and the water has dropped even more.

During our car ride back from our Century bike ride on the Eastern Shore of Maryland (which was fun, by the way), we were listening to NPR’s Weekend Morning Edition Sunday. They interviewed Larch Hanson, a seaweed harvester in Maine. Larch quoted Wendell Berry from one of his essays in “What are People for?” Berry wrote: “People are for preserving memory of place!” I guess that is what I have been doing with my blog posts over the years; trying to document the subtle changes in the woods behind my home. However, at times, while blogging, I can’t help myself and I also try to document the changes in my thinking and the society and of course in the politics around me.

A photo of my wife and I taken by fellow cyclists during the century ride this past weekend on the eastern shore of Maryland.  We had a lot of fun.  It was cold and very windy (first cold day, hence the packed in look).

Hanson said in his interview: “The water remembers us!” I would like to make an argument that nature remembers us, as well. Whatever we do to her will come back to haunt us, as we are currently experiencing with global warming. Yes, what we are seeing will likely accelerate, and Heraclitus’ philosophical outlook on life will become more and more apparent. Nature around us will start changing faster and faster and not for the better, and soon we can talk about the good old days. This is why, as Wendell Berry mentioned, we better preserve the memories of how nice it was back then (read now) by documenting it in our writing and photography while there is still time.  This is what I try to do in my writing and I hope you do that too in your form of communication with your friends and loved ones.

Plant a tree and fight global warming (7/17/2019)

I wish it was so easy!

Boy, it is getting warmer on this blue marble floating in space. During the women’s soccer (or football) championships in France, they were complaining about record temperatures in Europe, and by this weekend, our temperatures are going to reach close to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, or 37.8 Celsius. As I write this (July 17, 2019), there was a news flash that Miami recorded the warmest low temperature early in the morning (84 Fahrenheit or 28.9 C). 

Thank goodness, nature is still able to cope with these extremes in our area. Where we live we have had approximately 6 inches (150 mm) more rain than average by this time of the year. At least there should be enough water in the deeper layers of the soil for at least the trees and other deeper rooting plants, but I may have to supplement the shallow rooted plants. 

Our ferns underneath the dogwood in our yard.  These ferns were dug up (saved) by my wife at a construction site she was permitting.  These ferns would have been destroyed if she had not dug them up. Now they are protected by our gargoyle and thanking us for our effort.  This is an example of plants that need supplemental watering because they don't root very deeply.

One way plants deal with the excessive heat is through evaporative cooling. Plants sweat, just as we do. Except with plants, we call it evapotranspiration. With us, sweating is an active thing, or at least with me it is. I actually get really wet when it is hot outside, and that is a great way of cooling, albeit somewhat embarrassing in public at times. Plants do not get wet, but they open their stomata (small mouth like openings) on their leaves and water evaporates though it, thus cooling the warming leaves. Most plant leaves are also very thin and small, which keeps them close to the air temperature prevents them from heating up in the direct sun light (like your car) and burning up. Pine needles are very good at this, which is why they grow throughout the southeast US. However, different plants have different ways of doing this. Some of you may have heard of quaking aspen; leaves from these trees start to shake (or quake) when the get too hot and they cool down that way. Cacti in the desert have a lot of water in their flesh that helps them in heating up very slowly. Moreover, the spines of cacti serve as suntan lotion and absorb radiation. The saguaro cacti also have fins that serve as cooling fins on the sides that are not hit by the sun. 

These are what we biologists call some of the different strategies that plants use to deal with heat stress. However, plants can only adapt or strategize that much! Eventually it gets too hot! In the tropics, some plants have adapted to that as well. They drop their leaves and go dormant, just like our trees do in winter when it gets too cold. However, there has to be enough water in the soil and they have to have stored enough energy to grow back when the temperatures get more hospitable, otherwise, they die. They usually grow back in the rainy season. Finally, here we have not even talked about how increased temperatures may also cause an increase in pests and diseases. You get the message. 

So, what is going to happen to the natural world or plants in our times of climate change? Alternatively, am I allowed to call it global warming, which is what it is? I frame this question this way, remembering that every time I mentioned global warming 10 or even 5 years ago in my workshops, I had students either rolling their eyes writing terrible reviews of my classes. There were at least one or two students that complained how I was “pushing my liberal agenda.” So I changed my tune and called it climate change and the complaints lessened over time. Guess what? Nowadays, I can talk about global warming again! 

For someone like me, who grows bonsai, life becomes more challenging. We use a much more porous growth medium that does not hold water. This means that we may need to water two times per day. Then those small pots can warm up very quickly and cook the roots, or at least give a leg up to mold and diseases. As you can see, it can be a challenge. 

For nature, it is another thing. I am only briefly going to write about plants and forest today and actually, we are not completely sure, but we can make a very solid educated guess. Plants in the northern hemisphere that live on the southern margins are going to have a challenge. What I mean is that they are already being challenged by the heat and cannot handle it much hotter. They will eventually disappear from the heat. This could be because they can no longer produce any viable seed, or because they simply die from heat stress. Somehow, nature will need to replace them and the problem is that native plants cannot move north fast enough to fill in the spots that have been opened up. These spots are often filled by invasive alien species. It is expected that invasive alien species will be able to take over larger tracks of land. The problem is these plants are often not very nutritious for local wildlife and insects. 

So what can we do about global warming, that is in addition to being political active and voting? The New York Times published an article not so long ago where they estimated that the planet has room for about 2.5 billion acres of forest that can be planted. While this will help in removing some carbon and reducing global warming somewhat, it is not enough. Can you imagine planting a forest of this size? So what can we do? Well, we can plant trees around our homes. If you are a loyal reader, you know I have been on a crusade against folks who cut trees around their home as soon as they move into our neighborhood. Trees are so much more efficient in fixing carbon than lawn. In addition, they modify the climate around your home. There is another interesting article about all this in a recent New York Times. So yes, in addition to growing my miniature trees, I also grow large trees in my small yard, although this makes it often difficult for me to find it difficult to find a sunny spot for my miniature trees.

The threat of extinction (5/8/2019)

(if you allergic to the F-word ... you better turn around, I don't usually do not employ it much in my blog post but I could not help myself here in this post) 

So this week the word came out that more than one million species on this earth face imminent extinction. Over a hundred scientists from 132 countries concluded this in a 1,500 page report which will probably not be read by many people, very much like that other report that recently came out (but more about that some other time). The major conclusion of the report is (and I am putting my own spin on it) that in the current times that we are living, or the Anthropocene, we have such a huge impact on the world’s ecosystem that the abundance of native plant and animal life has fallen by 20 percent or more. Moreover, this is just the beginning and lot more of a decline can be expected. The current decline seems to have happened mostly during the time of the massive population explosion of the past century, during which we passed the 7 billion number when it comes to counting us people on this earth. Now combine this with global warming and you get the message. Folks we need to do something about this! It is not appear to be slowing down. 

When I say that we need to do something about this, I am not spouting some leftist socialist propaganda or ideology. Remember, we only have one small blue marble that floats in space where we can live on, if we screw this one up, we have nowhere to go! Even worst, if we fuck this one up, our spawn and their spawn have nowhere to go! It does not matter if you are rich or poor, republican or democrat, liberal or conservative, religious or atheist, Catholic or Baptist, Muslim or Buddhist, black or while, brown or yellow, straight or gay, male or female, tall or short, thick or thin, you get the message, there is no escaping this. We need to take care of the place we live in or on. 

A photo I took early April at Sky Meadow State Park in Northwestern Virginia.  Pictures or sights such as this are under threat of climate change. 

So what is happening? Well I have not yet read the 1,500 page report, neither have I read the 38 page executive summary. Then, who the heck am I daring the write about it? I am a biologist, an ecologist and someone who knows a little bit about the environment. I have written many posts about the issue already in my blog (just scroll through the labels), although of late it seems they have gotten the least attention of the posts that I publish. Oh well, I will not give up. 

My understanding from folks, who have summarized the summary, there are a few things going on: 

1. For one, our little blue marble is rapidly starting to exceed its carrying capacity. This simply means that there are too many people on this earth. We all need to eat, and what do we do? We clear more natural areas, more nature. Eventually we are going to run out of land and we will not be able to feed everyone (Malthus predicted this already in 1798). However, in the meantime all that clearing is causing that crash in abundance and biodiversity that is being reported. Plants and animals need a certain minimum area to survive, and when the area gets to small, it becomes susceptible to invasive species that kill the natives. If you have ever been in the southwest U.S. you should have seen what Kudzu can do. There are many other examples like the brown-headed cowbird that I write about in this bog post. In addition, Driving back and forth to work it seems that I have much less bugs crashing into my windshield than 5 or 10 years ago. Where have they gone? It seems, that they may have been replaced by the ticks and mosquitoes in my back yard.
2. Eating animals in particular cows (beef) is very inefficient. I once learned that approximately only 10 percent of the energy that is stored in the plants is past on in the meat of animals once it reaches us. So when we eat plants we can get a lot more energy out of the same acre of land than when we eat a hamburger (we would need 10 acres for the same energy we get from one acre of plant based nutrition). This is an argument often made by vegetarians, I am no vegetarian, but I do try to eat meatless at least one to three days a week, and eat seafood at least once a week. 
3. Global warming does not help either. First, we thought that the warmer climate might actually increase crop production. However, what we are finding now is that the nutritive value of these vegetables is much less than plants growing under conditions without global warming (or fertilizer for that matter). 
4. Global warming has another effect, some native plants that grown near the southern most limit of their range in the northern hemisphere or at the most northern limit on the southern hemisphere are not be able to survive when it gets much warmer. The question becomes: “what will replace them?” Native plants from warmer regions might not be able to travel fast enough, and the replacements may be invasive species that contribute nothing to the local insects and animal species, which will starve and die off. There are actually experiments underway in Minnesota and Rhode Island where they are planting southern trees in the forests and watching them thrive.
5. Finally, let’s not think about what the warmer climate will do to diseases and pests for all the plants and animals and maybe even our crops and livestock. But then, maybe there is hope and it will kill off some of the population and restore the worlds balance (that makes me a fatalist doesn’t it). 

I know that there will be folks who will tell me that the climate of our blue marble has been changing ever since the earth was formed so many years ago. The issue is that at no time was the change anthropogenic (or human caused, or at least human accelerated or magnified) and in this case the scientists are unanimous. Others tell me that their god (note I am not capitalizing god) has given them dominion of the earth and that they could do with her what they wanted. As I mentioned, I do not think god gave them permission to fuck the earth up the way we are doing it at the moment. I think we were tasked to take care of her.

I promise that I will read the summary and provide you with a more detailed overview of what the report says about the state of our world’s environment. In the meantime folks be aware of what you are doing to the environment, recycle, reduce your footprint, if possible foster diversity of plants in your yard, use natives, and try to use as little pesticides and yard chemicals as possible.

The cheapo multi-disciplinarian naturalist (3/18/2019)

I often explain in my workshops that biologists would make the great economists. Or, maybe better that economy and biology are actually very closely related fields. On the first hand, you may think I am crazy, but that will be one of the arguments I will try to make in today’s post. Today’s post is also about the beauty of being multidisciplinary. I do not strictly believe that we all belong in our silos, but that our professions and specializations can benefit a lot from cross fertilization and interaction. For example, in my sermon last year, I argued that biology, or my observations of nature, reveal order, mathematics and rhythm. Nature or biology, I argued also has parsimony, she really has so much more to offer or to teach us than just biology.

Nature offers us:

• Food
• Shelter
• Fiber
• Peace of mind (or sanity)
• Health
• Art
• Wonder
• Spirituality
• And many more benefits

We are part of nature. We come from it and have evolved from it, whether we want to acknowledge it or not. Some may think we have outgrown it, but we all still have that animalistic (or natural) instinct in us, from birth, until we we die. We are created true the animalistic (instinctive or some call it loving) behavior of our parents and when we die, we again become part of nature; we even refer to it in our ceremonies: “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

But there is so much more. The natural world has offered us some magnificent art; it started in the old cave paintings, and then just think of the greats like the photographer Ansel Adams, writers like Thoreau, painters likes Monet, and I am just scratching the surface. Nature offers sanity to the forest bathers, the meditators, those folks who retreat to nature. They all offer nature something in return, their admiration, love and desire to preserve and protect it.

About once a month or so I see that picture on Facebook that offers you $3,000,000 or some crazy price to go live somewhere in nature without a phone and internet for 3 months or some period. I wish it was a true offer, I would jump at it, and disappear for 3 months, or even longer, a half year?

This photograph captures the beauty of nature.  We went for a walk in the woods behind our home and after some bushwhacking we found this little creek meandering through the woods.  Who could not just live here for 3 months (were it not for the bugs, but I think I would even be able to survive them with the proper protection).

Back to what I want to write about today! In my classes I talk about parsimony and how parsimonious nature is. Let’s look at the word parsimonious. It has become one of my favorite words and it means: “the quality of being careful in spending.” You may also call it stingy, miserly, cheap, frugal, tight, or penny-pinching. You get the idea. Not that I live that way, but nature does not waste a thing (unlike most of us humans). If you don’t live as efficiently in nature as possible you have less reserves as your neighbor, something or somebody will outsmart you, out-compete you, hunt you down and have you for dinner. It is a dog-eat-dog world out there and if you don’t do it as efficient as possible you are literally toast or at least the stuff they put on toast!

Nature is very supply and demand oriented as part of this parsimony. If you can do the same thing as your neighbor and use less of the resources available to you, you can literally do more with what is available and out-compete those guys. It is survival of the fittest, of the most efficient, or the strongest. This is the most classic Darwinian concept, but also classic economic model you can find: Supply and Demand.

The German scientist/chemist Justus von Liebig (1803-1873), also known as the father of the chemical fertilizer, developed the “Law of the Minimum.” He figured out that plants (and in his case crops) always had one limiting factor. Once you alleviate that limiting factor, say through fertilization, something else will become limiting (another element or chemical in the soil or something else like water or light). By the way, von Liebig also invented the bouillon block that we use in soup. He was supposed to be a great chemist, philosopher and teacher.

It was around that time that biology really took off, we had Darwin who really figured out this thing called evolution; then we had Mendel who figured out genetics. It must have been an exciting time to live and learn. But both Darwin and Mendel illustrated that there are other forces in play than just biology, or maybe that biology involves economics, mathematics and statistics, just to name a few. Von Liebig had showed it involved chemistry. I always tell folks that I probably came the closest to a religious experience when I studied cell biology and learned what all goes on at the cellular level, or maybe what can go wrong on a cellular level. To think we have all these people and other living organisms running around on this earth, each of which have million of cells, some of which have hundreds of processes going on inside those minute cells, was a religious experience to me. It was absolutely amazing and kind of scary to think that if one of those processes does not work that cell could potentially become a cancer cell. But then I learned we have little organs in the cell that can repair these mishaps and that we even have suicide organelles (or capsules) in our cells and if it really goes wrong, the cells can commit suicide (an interesting concept in itself). This works most of the time, but if not, we grow older and those cells may mutate and could eventually develop cancer. It is all amazingly complicated and it all works; most of the time. But no, I never became overly religious, but I did gain a heck of a lot of respect and love for biology and I retained my spirituality.

As you can see, biology can involve a lot of disciplines, ranging from spirituality to mathematics, to economics to actually life science. I do think multidisciplinary thinking is extremely important. We lose sight of the whole picture by being overly specialized. While writing this post I was going through my old posts knowing that I wrote about using old experiences in development of my classes. It was amazing when I reread some of my posts. There are a lot of reoccurring themes here, and I have always wondered if I label too much. However, this shows my multidisciplinary interests, my scattered brain and my love for knowledge (or the unknown). For example, I am currently studying about the construction of embankments and how to compact soil. This is something fairly new to me, I have learned a little bit about it when thinking about the rooting of plants, but never really about building dams. It is fun, and it will be something new to think about and to teach. Life is never boring this way, and all I can say is: go out there yourself, put yourself out there and don’t be afraid to learn something new, something you had absolutely no idea about; become an multidisciplinarian, we need more of them.

Wetland delineations (8/14/2018)

One of the classes that I teach introduces my students to wetlands, their value and how to recognize them.  Wetland regulations have been a contentious issue for quite some time here in the U.S.A., and I suspect it will not go away soon, although under the current administration things could change on a dime.  Wetlands always seems to cause a confrontation between the environmental community and sometimes the government on one side and landowners and developers on the opposite side: “Who are you to tell me what I can or cannot do on my property?”  This is partially because there are periods in the year that some wetlands can be bone dry.  Let me explain:  Here in the U.S. a site is usually considered a wetland when the soil is continuously inundated or saturated for more than 5% during the growing season (or when there are leaves on the deciduous plants).  In my neck of the woods of eastern Virginia that is as short as somewhere between 9 to 12 days.  You can see how this can piss off a property owner who claims that his property is usually mostly dry.

While this may not be one of the most photogenic pictures I have ever taken, it illustrates the point I write about above.  This is a wetland and in the winter and parts of spring and fall, you walk through water here.  However, on a warm summer day this is dry as a bone as you see here.  A property owner could easily say: "What wetland?"

I teach my students this and what some of the additional red flags are in recognizing a wetland, just in case a landowner forgets to report a wetland when they are about to develop their property.  I mostly teach folks who deal with projects that are at that (early) stage of development; it is therefore important for them to recognize them, so they can let us know before it gets impacted by the construction of a new building, a subdivision or parking lot.  I tell them that I can absolutely not turn them into wetland scientists or wetland delineators; I just want them to be able to recognize some of the "red flags."

I often start out with telling my students how wetland delineators do their jobs and the way I started out in this business back in the early 1990s.  I was a part-time assistant professor at the Gallup branch campus of the University of New Mexico, when the Chair (and only full-time staff member) of the biology department got a call from an owner of an old sawmill just across the border in Arizona.  The sawmill had shut down, but in the past, they had treated their lumber with arsenic to make treated lumber.  My understanding was that the soil was contaminated, and they were going to be required to clean things up, but the site drained into a wetland, and they were either supposed to stay out of a wetland that was below the site, or only supposed to clean up the wetland since that was the place where all the arsenic had ended up.  Either way, they needed to know the extent of the wetland and were wondering if there was anyone at the university that could help them.  I was hungry and wanted to start my own consulting business, so I went for it (the chair was a human biologist and could not distinguish one plant from another, let alone identify a wetland).  Truthfully, I had never done it either, did not know what the heck I was doing or what it was about.  All I knew was that I was an ecologist, so, I thought, it must not be very difficult to figure out.

Being at a university I was able to get a hold of the Corps of Engineers “Wetland Delineation Manual” and I set out to work.  It was a very isolated site on the Navajo Reservation, not too far from Gallup, kind of interesting an abandoned sawmill, eerie but still neat.  I figured that it would not be very difficult, here we were in the Four Corners, in the Sagebrush Steppe which can be considered part of the Great Basin Desert or if you are a splitter it technically can be called the Colorado Plateau (Desert).  Whatever you call it, the area is dry, and a wetland should be darn obvious.  Boy was it ever!  That is the nice thing about working in the desert.

A few years later, after moving to the mid-west and gaining more experience I became quite the expert wetland delineator.  I first lived in Cincinnati and ended up traveling throughout the U.S. to do delineations.  While living in Virginia I traveled all over the eastern U.S.  In my blog post that contains my sermon I discuss some of the perils of field work, including being hit by a cottonmouth.  

What I had learned during my career as a wetland scientist was that desert ecology and wetland ecology was not that different.  Plants were under stress.  In wetlands plants had oxygen stress in their roots because of flooded soils, and because of that could often not take up water unless they had very specific adaptations.  Being an arid land physiologist by training (who could not find a job and thus ended up in consulting), I found that this was not very different from desert plants who were also often under (drought) stress and had very specific adaptations to survive.  The issue is that plants only have four major hormones and only one of those four hormones, ethylene, mediates stress.  I spent a lot of time studying this hormone; in the past it was thought that is was released as an adaptation to flooding and it helped with fruit ripening (that’s how we get evenly ripened fruit like bananas on the shelves in our grocery stores); however, we were able to show in the lab that it also made plants more tolerant to drought stress.  Oh well, I will leave it at that.

When I started my career as a wetland scientist I learned that I had to look for three main characteristics in the field: certain plants that are known to grow in flooded conditions, while other plants absolutely could not; soils that showed signs of flooding; and landscape features indicating flooding.  We also call this the three mandatory wetland criteria: vegetation, soils and hydrology.  This is what we look for when we examine a site, we look if it is a wetland or has pockets of wetlands.  Over time wetland delineations got easier and easier to a trained eye, although it was always exciting when you got to a new area in the country, where you had never delineated before.  You got to see new plant species and new soil types.  I was always a bit nervous to start out in such an area.  I usually studied the soil survey of the county to see what kind of soils I may encounter, while in the field I often collected plants to take back with me to my motel room or to my office so I could take my time to identify them.

We sometimes joke that we delineate with our feet; actually, it is a combination of feet and eyes.  With a bit of experience, you start noticing subtle changes in vegetation composition, and the consistency of the soil under your feet.  The ground might just get a little softer and at the same time it feels like you just stepped one or two inches lower in elevation.  This may be important, for as I described in the beginning of this post, wetlands can be bone dry, especially in the middle of the summer.  But, together with a minor vegetation change like the entrance or disappearance of one specific plant species may be enough to make you stop and wonder.  Now it is time to examine the soil.  Has the soil also changed when you crossed that subtle boundary you think you perceived in the field.  At first, I would take several soil samples with a probe or an auger on both sides of the boundary to compare.  Once I determine that I may have a soil that is representative of a wetland soil I may use a shovel to dig a decent soil pit to get a representative soil description.  Subsequently, I determine the boundary of the entire wetland, flag it and describe it, after which it is ready to be surveyed.  I often survey it with GPS, although that is not as accurate as a survey done by a licensed survey crew.  After that it is often up to the engineers, the owner and the developer to decide what to do with or to the wetland.

One of these days I may write more about wetland plants, wetland soils or the more illusive hydrology.  Stay tuned.

A wide-angle photo of one of the ponds behind our home.  There is still a little water visible in the center of the pond which is 6 feet (1.8 meters) deep in the middle.  In winter and early spring the water comes all the way to where I am standing.  As you can see, at that time and in early summer these trees stand submerged in water.  Species include: black gum, red maple, tupelo and overcup oak. They are what we call wetland species. 

My sermon: Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world (7/18/2018)

It has been a while since I posted something in my blog. For my regular readers, I gave a sermon at the church I attend regularly the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of the Peninsula in Newport News or UUFP. That took a bit of my time. For some of my friends there and friends in Holland, I promised I would post my sermon on my blog. I will start out with the sermon, followed by the quote from E.O. Wilson’s book “Biodiversity” that I read as a preamble, and the closing words. Regular readers will recognize a common thread in my sermon; for new comers I have an extensive list of labels where you can hunt for more.  It is not great literature but a way for me to express myself.  But without further ado, here it is:

Sermon:

Hello everyone, most of you know me, I am Jan. I’ve been a member of the UUFP since the year 2000. I am a biologist, a naturalist.

My funny accent might give it away, but as a lot of you know, I am not originally from here. I grew up on the island of Curaçao in the Caribbean. As a child and teenager, I spent a lot of time in what was called the knoekoe (the local name for the bush) on the island, taking it all in; just moseying and looking around. One of my favorite things was looking for ball cacti, pulling out their little pink fruit out off the white pads, and eating them. I would also just fantasize about what I saw, about making trails so people could enjoy and appreciate nature more.

This carried on in my adult life, I first worked in international development, and then afterwards I had a 20-year stint as a field biologist. I loved being out in the field, experiencing nature in its fullest. I still do, you can try to take me out of nature, but I do not think you can take nature out of me; it draws me in like a magnet. Whenever I can I will be out there, find a tree I can hug and even kiss and be one with for a few seconds, feel grounded.

Of course, you can take photographs of nature (as I do) or look in photo books, but as Annie Dillard wrote in her essay “Total Eclipse”: “Lenses enlarge the sight, omit its context, and make of it a pretty and sensible picture, like something on a Christmas card.” Being emerged in nature, living and breathing it, is so important. At least, it is to me, and I hope to convince you that it should also be for all of us. Only outside can you touch and feel the trees and the soil; breath in the smells and fragrance and feast on the views. As you can imagine, I really hated to go back to the office to write reports about my fieldwork, especially since it usually meant that my fieldwork would turn it into some subdivision and destroy some of nature's beauty.

Earlier on as a graduate student there was nothing better to take pre-dawn measurements of plants in the desert of New Mexico and then hearing the coyotes howling around me at sunrise the minute the sun hit the area. It was magical; you knew they probably had been watching you all along and you never noticed them.

Later on, as a wetland scientist working in the woods I could not just do my job. Especially when working alone, I just loved to take time out at a beautiful spot and just sit on a log or lean against a tree and observe nature around me for 10 or so minutes.

Field work was not without its dangers. I will never forget the day I was struck by a water moccasin also known as a cottonmouth in Virginia Beach. The snake shot out of the high grass and hit me in the legs. I let out a very loud high-pitched scream. Thank goodness it did not break skin but just got stuck in my pants. But that night, 12 hours later my heart was still racing. The very next day, I did come eye to eye with a timber rattlesnake in the same area. I noticed a beautiful skeleton of a possum and bent down to look at it when I heard the rattle. The rattler just stood there and warned me to back off, as to say “this is my carcass,” so I slowly backed off, turned around and walk a different way.

Did I kill the moccasin that bit me the previous day? Absolutely not! As our 7th principle mentions, we have RESPECT FOR THE INTERDEPENDENT WEB OF ALL EXISTENCE OF WHICH WE ARE A PART; or in other words, I believe that we all have our place on this little blue marble that floats in space and we need to respect it and take care of it and of each other. The snake defended its territory and I stepped in it. I did not get hurt and I know my heart was good, at the time. On the next day, the rattler just warned me to stay away. Not all snakes are bad, not even moccasins. A number of years ago I ran into two that were mating (and they were not aggressive), they were not at all interested in me.

You have to take precautions, during the times I've spent outside, have been bitten by so many ticks and have gotten rocky mountain spotted fever, one of the tick-borne diseases. And let's not talk about all those mosquitoes.

Did all this deter me from ever going out into the woods or nature again? Absolutely not. This was in 2003, and I still go into the woods for work and I still do it almost daily for pleasure. Am I more careful? Naturally, I am getting older you know. But I just love to explore, bushwhack and take it all in.

I think that I suffer from an extreme form of Nature Deficit Disorder. Nature Deficit Disorder is a term first defined by Richard Louv, it indicates the need of people to reconnect with nature at times to regain balance in their lives. Louv contents that a lot of personal inner problems, social problems and inner-city problems can be brought back to the disconnection from the natural environment.

The way I deal with my Nature Deficit Disorder has always been to go out in nature. I guess in the old days when I grew up on that tropical island you could have called me a loner. Being out in nature was my solace, and actually it still does. You could say that I could be considered an introvert. Later on, I learned by way of some psychological tests that I am truly an introvert among other things. However, as an adult I have forced myself out of my shell when I am in public.

Being an introvert does not mean that you do not like to talk to people or that we are anti-social. Every person needs human interaction and so do introverts. However, we introverts also need a lot of recovery time or me-time. For me it is so comforting to retreat into my own world and in particular in the natural world where I can be alone. That is my way of expressing and dealing with this curse of being an introvert.

So, when I am done teaching or interacting with people, my alone time is best spent outside hiking in the woods, on my sailboat on the water or in my kayak. Doing this alone would be great, but with my loved ones is great too, as long as they do not expect me to talk too much. I often just like to be in my own thoughts. However, when I am sailing I am just concentrating on staying on course and not running aground, but even that clears my mind.

I am not sure if he was an introvert, but the famous John Muir who hiked up and down the Sierra Nevada around the 1900s is credited as the person who initiated the Sierra Club, and was the impetus of the National Park Service wrote “the deeper the solitude the less the sense of loneliness, and the nearer our friends”. Muir also wrote: “In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.” I think he was onto something here.

Earlier this decade Japanese researchers introduced the term Shinrin-yoku loosely translated as forest bathing. No, it has nothing to do with an outdoor shower, although I am still trying to convince my wife that we need one of those too. The Japanese researchers showed that the volatile compounds or phytoncides emitted by the vegetation in a forest, in particular the conifers, lowered the blood pressure and slowed the heart rate of their subjects, and one exposure to these chemicals (or to the woods) could last as long as two weeks.

John Muir also wrote: “Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.” As our friends from Japan found, of all the trees in nature, pines are the highest emitters of phytoncides, those chemicals that are good for you.

Maybe this is why pines have a rich history in mythology. Of course, we use them in our Christmas celebrations and with good reason. Many cemeteries plant pine trees and other conifers as symbols of eternal life, they stay green throughout the winter. Druids in England lid bonfires in Scotch pine forests during winter solstice celebrations. The Romans worshiped pines during the spring equinox festival of Cybele and Attis, while in ancient Greece worshippers of Dionysus often carried a pine-cone-tipped wand as a fertility symbol. Even in Siberia and Mongolia, people there enter a pine forest in silence and with reverence.

Native American people see the pine tree as a symbol of wisdom and longevity. Its needles and sap are medicine that protects people from illnesses, witchcraft, and more.

In the Orient the pines are also associated with longevity, virtue, youth, masculinity and power. The Japanese word for pine is Matsu which also stands for “waiting for the soul of God to descend from heaven.” In ancient Shinto beliefs, gods were said to have ascended to Heaven on a pine tree, where they now reside on a beautiful volcanic mountain in giant or old trees. Pine trees are associated with the New Year in Japan. So much so that many Japanese hang a bundle of pine twigs and bamboo trunks known as a Kado matsu ("Gate pine") on their doors to receive a blessing from the gods.

This almost reminds us of Muir’s quote: “Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world,” doesn’t it?

While I love that quote, and conifers such as pines rule, I would love to expand Muir’s quote to: “Between every two trees in a forest is a doorway to a new world.” I strongly believe there is power in nature as a whole, and not only in pine trees.

For me, it does not matter how familiar or unfamiliar the woods are, every time I step outside into the woods the worries of the world fall off my shoulders; I can retreat into my own world and relax. Early on in my life, in Holland, Uganda, Nepal, Yemen, and New Mexico I was in my happy place when I was alone just strolling around in nature, looking around and sometimes studying the things I saw around me.

What do I look for when I retreat into the natural world? For one, I grow bonsai trees at home and it is great to study the canopy of mature trees in the forest for examples to style my little trees. In my reading by E.O. Wilson you heard me tell you that he considers that there is more order in a handful of soil than in on the surface of all planets combined.

To me nature is full of order; full of hidden patterns, and that is another thing I am always on the lookout for. It is survival of the fittest, parsimony, and full of those patterns waiting to be discovered and understood. That is what I do in the woods.

Think about it, every spring the leaves come back, the dogwoods and the redbuds flower and we have to deal with pine pollen. Let me tell you, I had the worst allergy season this year. In summer months, nature does its thing, I enjoy watching the adult birds raise their young, watch the skinks (or lizards) in our backyard, and just see everything grow. In fall nature is preparing for winter. In winter, you notice things you hardly see other times in the year, like when looking up in the canopy you see that not many tree canopies touch each other. Also, that there is a rhythm on the way the trees branch and the way side branches come off.

In her book: “The Solace of Open Space” Gretel Ehrlich wrote: “Autumn teaches us that fruition is also death; that ripeness is a form of decay. The willows, having stood for so long near water, begin to rust. Leaves are verbs that conjugate the seasons.” Yes, nature to me is very predictable and it helps me to sort my thoughts. So yes, a new door opens every time I enter nature, I discover something new.

Those snakes, ticks, mosquitoes and other varmints are not going to stop me from going out there. I take precautions, use bug spray, watch out where I step. I need to get out and be one with nature. The tall trees are my cathedral, my spiritual home. That is why all those parallel tree trunks in the forest are so important to me; they are my doorway to a different, a new world. As I said those forests are something we all need, not only for clean air and clean water, but also as a spiritual experience, for our sanity, our health and overall wellbeing. Once I enter the woods I need to become one with it and feel grounded, to touch the bark, feel the tree, like when I was young when I needed to eat those little red fruit in in those cacti. But most of all, I need to get out there and I urge you to go too.

----------------

Reading:

Organisms are all the more remarkable in combination. Pull out the flower from its crannied retreat, shake the soil from the roots into the cupped hand, magnify it for close examination. The black earth is alive with a riot of algae, fungi, nematodes, mites, spring-tails, enchytraeid worms, thousands of species of bacteria. The handful may be only a tiny fragment of one ecosystem, but because of the genetic code of its residents, it holds more order than can be found on the surfaces of all the planets combined. It is a sample of the living force that runs the earth – and will continue to do so with or without us.

Edward O. Wilson
The Diversity of Life

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Closing (Benediction):

Let us go out now into the sunlight filtered by the pine trees and oak trees. May the subtle fragrances of the woods bathe your body and your lungs. May this all bring you blessings and enhance your enjoyment of life for days to come, until the next time you can return to nature and experience it all over again.

Bless it be.

The Green Wall (6/7/2018)

Sitting in our gazebo and looking at the late May/early June woods behind our home, I am awestruck by what we euphemistically call our “green wall.” It is a pallet of different levels of green and different textures being contributed by different species of trees and shrubs. Sitting here I see a pyracantha that we are training up the gazebo. Behind it there is our red maple tree that survived hurricane Isabel in 2003 as a mere sapling, but now is a big tree. Next to it is a strange blue spruce that we got as a life Christmas tree one year and is completely out of place here in southeast Virginia. I also see azaleas, dogwoods, a redbud, a red tip, sassafras, a yellow popular (also known as a tulip poplar), white oaks, red oaks. more red maples, sweet gums, loblolly pines, American hollies, a winged sumac, beauty berries, paw paws, viburnums, one butterfly bush, a fringe tree, two magnolias, a Carolina jessamine, and a hawthorn bush. That is only in our small backyard; no wonder we had a shade garden. I am really hunting around to find sunny spots to put my bonsai trees. They really need sun to thrive. You can see that in the understory of our yard where we have a lot of ferns. However, in one sunny spot we have native sunflowers, goldenrod and milkweed. I hate to admit it, but we have a horrible invasion of Japanese stiltgrass.

Two photos from our back yard.  The bottom one gives the view from the gazebo.  As you can see it is pretty darn green out there,  with the sun peeking through the holes in the canopy, also known as sun flecks.   It is woods as far as they eyes can see.  The bottom photo may be a little fuzzy because the gazebo is screened in and I am taking the photo through the screen.

I am probably forgetting some plants in our yard, so be it. Our yard surely is not master piece of landscaping, that will come once we retire and can spend more time out there, and work on the design. But one thing will be for sure, I do not expect that we will change the aspect that our yard runs right into the woods behind our home. Having such a yard that runs into a forest, we hardly can see the edge between the two, and so does the wildlife and nature that lives in the woods behind our home. Although often frustrating, deer make our yard one of the first stopovers in their daily migration into our neighborhood. Tasty plants don’t stand a chance. Over the winter, they even pulled one of my azalea bonsais of the 5-foot-high table to nibble on. Oh well, they did to that tree what was long overdue and what I did not dare to do. In addition to all the plants and the deer, we have so many different bird species visiting our little plot; we have skinks everywhere, frogs, toads, a couple of snakes, bunnies, turtles, squirrels, mice, moles, voles, just to name a few. And let’s not talk about all those daddy longlegs that are out there in our yard right now.

This is the azalea bonsai that was pulled of the table this winter.  It is currently blooming, but as you can see the left side was completely defoliated by the deer that got to it before I got to the deer.  Anyway, the defoliation is probably long overdue.

But one thing is for sure, the green wall in our back yard is in contact and communication with the woods behind our home. Others in our neighborhood have cut all the trees in their yards, turned their yards into managed lawns, hit them with fertilizers and pesticides. They created a biological and ecological desert.

In his wonderful novel “The Overstory” Richard Powers writes a short story about a Ph.D. student who discovers how plants communicate with each other by releasing volatile chemicals in the air, warning each other of pending insect attacks. She gets vilified by the establishment to be proven correct years later after she has dropped out of science. While this is just a story or fiction, it probably comes very close to how communication between plants was discovered. It seems that the Soviet scientist Boris Tokin was the first to describe in the 1920s and 30s that trees gave off volatile chemicals. Boris had an inkling that this was for self-defense, but I do not think for communication between plants or as he called them “phytoncides.” On a side note, it seemed he was an interesting character and being a politically correct communist, he published about his effort of integrating the philosophies and thoughts about Darwin, Marx and Engels. As I mentioned in previous posts, researchers in Japan, among them Tomohide Akiyama and Dr. Qing Li discovered in the 1980s that some of these phytoncides were actually beneficial to humans and introduced the world to the concept of “forest bathing” or “shinrin-yoku.”

But it is not only through the air that plants communicate. We are finding that even through the roots and by way of mycorrhizal fungi plants can communicate with each other over large distances and even exchange messages and even food like carbohydrates with each other in times of need (watch this great YouTube video). I would therefore not be surprised if the trees or the plants in our yard are communicating with the others in the woods. I also wonder if people who put all those pesticides on their lawns, in particular fungicides are severing those connections and isolating the few remaining trees on their properties; making them weaker and more susceptible to insects and diseases, let alone weakening them by pumping chemicals into them.

I guess for right now I will not be able to prove any of this, but all I know, our backyard teams with biodiversity: the trees, shrubs, animal life, and as I described in one of my posts even the little spiders with their iridescent eyes that reflect light from our headlamps at night. I know that our backyard looks pretty darn healthy (with the exception of the stiltgrass); it has not seen many chemicals in a very long time and it seems that nature is thanking us.