A Smal Tree in Our House

I was cutting up some cauliflower to eat as a snack, with, get this, cocktail sauce - you know, horseradish and ketchup!  I know, sounds weird.  But it tasted delicious, and we call it "poor man's shrimp cocktail."  Anyhow, I was cutting up these little florets, and some of the larger ones I cut in half to make them more bite-sized.  I happened to look down at this one and realized that it looked like a tree!  So I set up a little studio on the dining room table and got two pieces of black mat board to use as a background, and a small 150 watt spotlight and moved the light around until I got this!  So interesting how nature has these forms and sometimes giant objects are mimicked by tiny objects!

 

It Was Just Three Small Bushes...

I think when we moved into our house in 1970, there were some small pricker bushes growing in front of the latticework under our front porch.  I don't remember the details, but we eventually pulled them out and planted three small evergreen bushes.  They were only 18 inches tall.  

Well...  It turns out I was not aggressive enough in my trimming and over 50 years they just got taller and taller.  So we found a gardener who takes care of a couple of our neighbors.  He is a relatively young guy, but he really knows his plants.  So we asked him to trim these way back, which he did today.

Quite a difference, huh?  He couldn't cut them any lower, which would have been nice.  The hope is that in a year when they have filled in, we can cut them lower.  Or if not, pull these out and start with small bushes all over again.  Maybe the front porch with the relatively new latticework we had replaced about 5 years ago is pretty enough by itself, and we don't need any plants at all.

 

A Sky Full of Stars

Tonight's program at our astronomy meeting was a presentation by the director of the planetarium, Dave, under the dome of the planetarium.  This is a state of the art projector and the realism of the sky is amazing.  There are so many stars in the dark, that you can't find even the major constellations.  And that can happen in real life, as it did for me in Maine one year, when I went to a cemetery late at night to do some stargazing. But Dave took his time to show us individual constellations by projecting the lines connecting the stars of each constellation.  It was a joy to be under a dark skies filled with stars again.  When I was in Vermont this summer at the Stellafane Convention, we were rained out both nights, so it has been a while.  Being under a sky filled with stars is good for the soul - it connects us more deeply to the universe.  My spirits were lifted when I left the meeting tonight.

 

Prehistoric

It was high tide today when we had Dunkin' at the beach and so we sat at the water's edge.  We saw this dead Horseshoe crab in the shallow water.  We watched it and it didn't move and it was moved by the small waves coming ashore.  I just remember learning that these are prehistoric animals.  So I looked up what "prehistoric" means and it just means before written history.  So I came home and looked up Horseshoe crabs.  The modern Horseshoe crab made its appearance 250 million years ago!  At that time on Earth, all land masses were grouped together in one continent, and the dinosaurs were just beginning to roam the Earth!  The Horseshoe crabs pre-date the dinosaurs! Wow, THAT'S OLD!  Horseshoe crabs in the modern era are only found on the eastern coasts of North America and South Asia.  So we are lucky to have them here, to remind us of what amazing creatures they are.  Unfortunately, they are caught for their blood which has a chemical in it useful in detecting endotoxins in medical applications.  They are used as fishing bait in the United States, and eaten as a delicacy in some parts of Asia.  Their population is in decline due to coastal habitat destruction and over harvesting.

As humans, our blood is based on iron-based hemoglobin, but horseshoe crabs transport oxygen with a copper-based protein, giving its blood a bright blue color!  Horseshoe crabs are found on the ocean floor searching for worms and mollusks which are their main food and foraging usually occurs at night.  Their breeding season is Spring and Summer.  Nesting happens at high tide around New or Full Moon.  They spawn on beaches and salt marshes.  The female digs a hole in the sediment and lays between 2,000 and 30,000 large eggs.  I am completely blown away by this information!  I was unable to find out how long Horseshoe crabs live, unfortunately.