An Edible Poisonous Mushroom

Less than 1% of all fungi in the world are actually poisonous, but that stereotypical red one with white spots is one not to be meddled with, even in Maine. On its own, the genus, Amanita, is responsible for roughly 95% of  all mushroom poisonings. Even though not all of the 600 species found within this genus are capable of killing a person, and some are actually perfectly safe to eat, many share the characteristics of a red or orange cap with white spots, with only subtle differences between them. Therefore, many around the world risk misidentifying a poisonous species of mushroom for one to cook up and put on the dinner table when they go out hunting for the edible amanita mushrooms. 

On one of the wilderness trips I was leading, I found a large Amanita mushroom living beneath a tree at the center of my campsite. I am not good enough with fungi to identify this specimen to species, but if I had a chance to guess, I would say it was the psychoactive and eventually poisonous Amanita muscaria. 

This mushroom is native to the Northern Hemisphere, in the temperate and boreal regions, and since being accidentally introduced elsewhere, has become common in the Southern Hemisphere as a symbionts to introduced pine trees. 

Muscaria has many interesting entheogenic and culinary histories that come from all over the world. From being sold here in North America as a food source to being deeply imbedded in the cultural identities of Lithuanians, Vikings and communities in the far East, muscaria has a long history relating both to its toxicity and its edibility.

In places where the mushroom is eaten, it is first boiled in several waters to leach out the water soluble muscimol and then pickled or turned into a sauce. A mushroom guide may label it as edible, but not without a good parboil beforehand, to avoid the unreliable effects of its formidable neurotoxins. 

Tetragnatha viridis

This is a long jawed orb weaver common in the Eastern US and Southeastern Canada. I found it building its web on the front tire of my car this afternoon. I am in Maine getting lifeguard and wilderness first aid certifications so that I can be qualified and prepared for my job as a wilderness trip leader for a camp this summer. I look forward to being outside all summer long, learning about the wilderness and teaching kids what i know how to have fun in the mountains and on unpopulated rivers in central and Northern Maine. 

The Orb weavers are distinguished by their spiral webs and their long spindly legs. The long jawed orb weavers, which are extremely common in gardens and forests, are often found sitting in an elongated posture behind long, thin blades of talk grasses or other vegetation. The picture below shows their impressive jaw structure:

The Red Eft

Red Spotted Newt Juvenile ("Eft")
by Mary Furth

I was walking in Warbler Wood in Connecticut, searching for the owner of a raspy, but intriguingly varied bird call (turned out to be an Oven Bird) despite the muggy heat and the bugs that were almost oppressive.  Under the lofty canopy of this old growth forest, what little breeze there may have been was being absorbed by the old branches whose young leaves trembled providing dappled sunlight to the forest floor.  As I walked along the winding pathway, I noticed how large the wild violets were in comparison to the almost miniature scale of those found at this time of year in Maine.  I took a specimen to press and compare to my Maine specimens.  Around one bend, I noticed a small, bright red something sitting in the middle of the path in front of me.  It was a Red Eft making use of the shade provided by a cinquefoil leaf.  The bright red color and the bright spots outlined with black halos that lined its tiny back were striking. 

Red Eft
by Mary Furth

The Red Eft, also known as the Red Spotted Newt, or Notophthalmus viridescens, is the only newt found east of the Mississippi, and one of the two common newts in the United States.  Newts are far more diverse in Europe and Asia, and the Red Eft can be found in many of these places around the world.  In New England, it is especially common. 

(As an aside newts and salamanders are terms that are constantly interchanged, and have become confused.  It turns out, all newts are salamanders, because they are in the family Salamandridae, whereas not all salamanders are newts.  So it's ok to call a newt a salamander, but incorrect to call a salamander that is not a newt, a newt....)

Red-Spotted Newt Larvae
by George Grall

 When I think of a newt, I think immediately of a dull greenish or brown aquatic organism swimming around in a murky pond.  I never realized how different in appearance the three developmental stages of a newt are.  Newly hatched newts, (larval stage), look like delicate tadpoles with noticeably protruding, tentacle-like gills.  Just like tadpoles, newt larvae gradually develop four limbs, and the ability to breath outside of the water.  Soon they seek food and shelter on land, and with their newly found terrestrial livelihoods, they busy themselves with keeping spiders, flies, caterpillars and other bite-sized invertebrates in constant fear of their tiny lives.  And what's more, their bright orange color, which is only present in this juvenile stage, (in which it is known as an "Eft") reminds potential predators that they are toxic and inedible and thus perfectly invincible little critters.  

Because of their toxins, Red Spotted Newts have no predators.  The Western Newt, which is the only other newt found in the U.S., has one predator.  Incredibly, a few populations of garter snakes have developed a resistance to newt toxins.  A mutation in the snakes' genomes renders the newt toxin inadequate, which in turn applies selective pressure towards newts with higher levels of toxin.  In this "evolutionary arms race", the snakes continually respond to selective pressures which produce populations of continually more resistant snakes. 

Red Spotted Newt Adult
By Gary Nafis

In the third stage of the newt life cycle, a second metamorphosis occurs, and the newt returns to an aquatic lifestyle, rarely, or never again to venture back onto land.  At this point, the red spotted newt's bright orange/red skin has changed into a yellowy, greenish-brown.  It keeps it's limbs and develops external gills once more.  It is no longer called an "Eft".  Despite the fact that the adult stages has less than vivid coloring, the red spots encircled by their black halos persist to warn of their toxicity, which is lethal to predators who attempt to ingest them.  

The red spotted newt is one of the few that is merely toxic through ingestion.  Newts are often thought of as extremely toxic because in most cases,  one must only touch their skin to feel the effects of their toxins.  Therefore, Red Spotted Newts may be handled gently, with no adverse effects to a curious amateur naturalist. 

Red spotted Newts are pretty to see, especially in their juvenile, "Eft" stage, but they are also important as an indicator species.  Literature suggests that Red Spotted Newts are "area sensitive" (Hager, 1998), meaning that they were absent on smaller islands, but present on larger ones.  As a result, these newts may be a good indicator of habitat fragmentation.  As habitat is used for development and destroyed with deforestation and pollution, the land is in effect divided into islands. The presence or absence of the Red Spotted Newt may give scientists an idea of the extent to which habitat fragmentation is effecting wildlife.  

For more information, refer to this bibliography and the accompanying website: Notophthalmus viridescens

Mirrors and their Manifestations

Mirrors.  We've all looked in one, and many of us depend on our reflections to let us know we are presentable to venture out into the world.  But how much of what we see in that mirror can we really take at face value?  The folks on Radiolab (93.9 FM) have a thought provoking episode detailing what a reflection means, how it can fool us, and why a reflection is not what it seems to be.  Listen to the podcast before you read on:



On the podcast, we hear about the life changing realization of one man's perception of himself based on what he sees in the mirror and how different his perceptions are from those of everyone else who see only his non-mirror image self every day.  Throughout a long childhood of being bullied and belittled, the poor guy one day makes a crazy discovery--all these years he has parted his hair to the right, thinking it was to the left, which is how he saw it in the mirror.  The very day he changes his hair part, he is welcomed into society in a way he never dreamed could be possible for him.  Because a mirror reflects light, our brains receive an image that has the completely opposite orientation of what the actual object being reflected is.  Now, whether or not parting your hair to the right will make you a social pariah is another topic, perhaps best answered by psychology, but this one man's trials bring up a whole slew of fascinating points and questions.

One of these questions is: Are mirror images the same as the objects being reflected?   The answer lies in the thoughts and discoveries of biologists, chemists, mathematicians, authors, and philosophers who have all tackled this idea with interest.  From a scientific point of view, we can talk about the physical orientation of molecules.  The idea of chirality deals with molecules whose mirror images are not identical to the original molecule.  We assume a mirror image is just a reversal of orientation on a page like backwards text, or a film negative, but mirror images apply differently to molecules like the all important building blocks of life, amino acids and other proteins and sugars.  Here is a good time to bring in Lewis Carol's "Alice Through the Looking Glass and What she Found There."  Alice asks her ever present cat, "How would you like to live in a looking-glass house, kitty?  I wonder if they'd give you milk there?  Perhaps looking-glass milk isn't good to drink..."  In fact, it wouldn't be good to drink at all.  Lactose, the major sugar in milk, is L-chiral (left-handed orientation), meaning that if you take the mirror image of the molecule, you will find that you have something completely different, D-chiral which is in a right handed orientation and is called Beta galactosidase, which is not digestible, and is what many of us lactose intolerant people know as lactase.  (Lactase milk has added lactase in it to help us digest the lactose, but the difference is that all the lactose is not replaced by lactase).  Mirror milk, in essence, would be a different liquid (kliM), and would be awful and indigestible!

So what do people in other disciplines say about mirrors and their manifestations?  Leave a comment about things you have heard or read about.

Some Pictures from the Field

A Day as a Tourist

The Monteverde Institute

Monteverde, Costa Rica

1400ft

Strangler Fig (Ficus)

I am living with a Tico family and so I am experiencing Costa Rican culture right in the family center where many traditions in cooking, story telling and daily life are practiced.  Each morning I wake up to the sounds of a neotropical forest--parrots, motmots, robins, cicadas, and wind.  The wind blows almost constantly here, because we are directly in the path of the trade winds, and sometimes at night I wake thinking for sure the roof will blow away.  We wake early to take advantage of the beautiful mornings, and walk to our research sites, which is always a pleasure.  There is plenty of birding and plant spotting to be had, and each of us in our group of seven stops periodically to point something out.  As a result, we never get places quickly, but there is so much to see and hear and experience that it is impossible to simply pass by.

Yesterday we went to Curi Cancha, which is a preserve about a twenty minute walk from the institute.  We decided to take a break from our work (i.e. bushwacking through dense jungle, complete with Tarzan vines, I must add, and setting transects and counting fruiting plants) and be tourists for a day.  We had a guide who could mimmick bird calls very well.  I kept reaching for my binoculars to look for a motmot or a quetzal that I thought was very near, but it was just our guide attempting to attract one of these territorial birds. (Sometimes you can hear a distinct call coming from the forest, and you get excited about the prospects of seeing an awesome bird, but you can't help but wonder if it is just another guide trying to attract one for tourists).

At the end of the hike, I came round a bend to see our guide hugging a huge fig tree.  "Mi abuelo!" he said.  Fig trees were clearly his favorite thing in the reserve.  He pointed out each one we passed, as if it was the most amazing spectacle we had seen all day (some of them pretty much were).  "Es increible!!!" he would say at a tree not a stone's throw from the last one we had experienced.  And by experienced, I mean, standing inside the hemiepiphytes and looking up through the hollow middle and seeing all the life that consider this impressive plant to be "their bed and breakfast" as our guide put it.  The strangler fig is an epiphyte in its early life, which means it does not depend on the ground soil at all to live.  Instead of sending roots into the soil, it has adapted to germinate at the top of the canopy and therefore receives light that below the tree tops is a resource well competed for.  Once established, it becomes a hemiepiphyte, sending large roots down to the soil, and anchoring itself around its host tree.  At this point, the host tree is ancient history, as the strangler fig has cut off both its supply of sunlight and its ability to grow.  The host tree rots, leaving an empty space inside and all the way up the fig tree.  The effect is an entanglement of roots that have grown into each and formed buttresses and windows and criss-crossing patterns that make some of the older figs look like nature cathedrals in the woods.  This phenomenon is truly a wonder to see.

Our guide's "abuelo tree" had a smooth, round section towards the bottom and it did look perfect por abrazando.  "If I hug a tree all the monkeys will climb off my back, because this is my grandfather!"  It was funny to see how genuinely sure of his statement he was.  but i also admired his positivity--that he could find a psychological place to put his daily burdens and be mentally free of them at least for the time being.  I need to find a place to let the monkeys off my back too!  After some of us finished tree hugging, we swung on a long vine and felt like George of the jungle for a few seconds.  It was great!

When the day was nearly over and after walking all through the busque again, on our own, and covering such topics as our plant taxonomy, JFK's assassination from a conspiracy theorist's pint of view and favourite movies, we walked back to an open field with citrus trees and purple stachytarpeta bushes outlining a gorgeous view of the sunset and the valley and water below.  What I enjoyed most about our day of walking through the reserve was that we were in no hurry, had no destination, and Professor Stone would stop periodiclly to teach us about a particular plant or tell an awesome story.  There is no better place to learn than outside while walking.  We completed our fulfilling day by playing hacky-sack in the dazzling sunset.  "What a terrible Jan Plan!" somebody exclaimed.  We all hurriedly agreed and wished we were in our dorms looking out our windows at coldness, and classrooms, and computer screens.  

   

What's so Fascinating about a Weed?

It turns out, a whole lot!  I won't even get into identification, which is certainly not so fascinating for everyone, but what prompts me to write today is not simply the interesting story the weed itself holds, but rather what happens on the weed.  But first, a little descriptive painting of the place I am lucky enough to go to school in:

The Autumnal Equinox doesn't arrive for another two weeks, but here in Maine, Autumn restlessly advances.  It has been my daily pleasure to stroll up Runnals Hill each afternoon after classes to see the garden vegetables and wild fall blooms that make home of this windy, exposed location.  Cherry tomatoes--red, purple, yellow and orange--fall into the hand at the slightest nudge and the winter squashes and rainbow kales add color to the brown hillside as they await the harvest.  Queen Anne's lace, yarrows, purple clover and chicory show their delicate blooms among the spent dandelions and drying grasses of the almost-fall landscape.   Milkweed, stunted by the exposure on the hillside, half heartedly relent their tightly closed pods to the cajoling breeze, as if they have forgotten their long-prepared-for cue to release their seeds.

Rainbow kale is almost too pretty to eat

Despite an overgrowth of weeds and choking vines, the tomatoes
 are abundant and immensely flavorful

The ants constantly tend the aphids
and check for droplets of honeydew

On my walks, I like to inspect leaves and stems of various weeds and wildflowers for aphids, for often one can observe the interesting dynamic of trophobiosis between several species.  One day, on a lovely warm afternoon, I noticed quite a few honeydew aphids, with their  stylets deeply imbedded in the phloem of a nondescript weed at the edge of my path.  These fat, soft bodied insects encrusted every section of stem and the upper- and undersides of many of the leaves.  They looked like ducks, simultaneously bottom-up in a pond.  They twitched and squirmed here and there, and a few wriggled out of an old skin.  The skins still stuck to to the flesh of the plant by the mouthparts, as if they hadn't quite got the memo that their owners had abandoned them, and that sucking plant sap would now neither be necesary nor possible.

I was lucky enough to witness a very vicious response on the part of the ants when this earwig accidentally stumbled upon the aphid/ant scene.  Though it had no interests in the aphids, and was merely looking for a dark, damp spot to hide out in during the light of day, the ants seemed to take no risk and set about altering its course by crawling all over and around it.  It was only after the earwig had slipped beneath the leaf out of sight that the ants were satisfied.

My gaze traveled up the plant, and I took note of the busy honeydew ants, which make their living by harvesting the honeydew produced by the bottom side of aphids in tiny droplets each time they stab their stylets into the flesh of a host plant.  In so doing, they unwittingly provide a complete source of nourishment to the ants which vigorously protect their stock from such animals which make it their sole business to prey on aphids, namely, Lady beetles and others in the coccinelidae family.  Thus, these two unlike species, aphids and ants, exist through a persistent mutualistic relationship which provides protection for one and food for the other.

Ladybirds are invaluable to us gardeners, as they routinely feed on the aphids that plague our precious plants, but honeydew ants vigorously protect their aphid "farm" forcing this ladybird to find another source of aphids nearby

So The next you see a weed, and you are not really inclined to grab your Newcomb's and try and identify it, then just peak between the leaves and at the stem and see if you can spot a terrific example of some awesome natural phenomenon!  I encourage readers to leave their own experiences in a comment below.

Midsummer Ramblings

It seems just a little while ago that exciting, new and strange, repIaced all I knew—or once thought I knew. The day I left my home for college was the day I put my younger self in a little box for safe keeping, and took what they call an adult out of a drawer where it had been hiding—or I had hidden it—and tried it on. It didnt fit well. It was too loose there, too tight here, WAY too baggy on that side and just looked funky in the mirror, as I looked at myself that first night, looked a stranger in the eye. Who am I? Who was I? Who will I become?

Maine is a beautiful state. Purple mist straggles behind as wild trees keep it tangled in their branches for an extra photographic moment each morning. Monday mornings bring frost, because I stumble out of bed early enough to see it. Looking down into the Kenebec Valley from the very top of Mayflower Hill, on the library steps (a view I saw for the first time on the tour more than a year ago) I think of why I am here. College, I have come to see, is most importantly a time and place set aside to learn about yourself. Who are you, whom do you want to become? What are your aspirations, your passions, your needs and your joys. Though all of these things haven't changed in name (I still want to be a scientist, I love animals, I want to raise a family) they do change in quality as I grow and learn.

Since that first day, I had grown inside tremendously, not changing who I am but, learning more so as to be wiser than before, and in this way, I am different in how I approach each problem and each joy alike, in my life.  I look forward to the coming years.

These are just some ramblings which flow from mind to paper as I take time to reflect back on my first year of college.

A Midmorning's Pondering

The following is a Post that never seemed to have gotten posted.  It is from just about this time last year.


I sit on a sun-warmed stone amongst garden flowers that hum with the sound of busy aviators and whisper with the delicate wings of such dignitaries as sport iridescent green coats and ruby neckties and powdery laces that flutter flower to flower. Summer is here, and the thistle family makes no small effort to be noticed by the commoners and aristocrats of the neighborhood alike, for, from the unweeded patch at the bottom of the yard their purple heads bob about in the gentle breeze, trying to outcompete the nearby wisteria I thought I eradicated last fall.

Orioles and finches, Robins and Doves, in faint hints of mockery to Merlin's simplistic explanation for the meanings of their calls, twitter and sing elaborately in the same tree above my head, conducting an organized, aural joust in the great Maple's acoustic canopy at as competitive a level as can be peacefully possible. I listen attentively for a breathless moment, trying to sort out their multitudinous syllables and define their intentions, but I leave it to the breeze that carries their voices aloft and settle simply on the usual explanation of primordial urges to defend territory and summon a mate.

Mr. McGregor would envy the thick radish patch untouched by furry things that ought to be turned into meat pie. Perhaps I planted them too close together, but they will soon be pulled to give the corn, that just now peaks above the tops of the radish greens, some elbow room. Double planting thus far seems to be a brilliant endeavor, especially for a plant enthusiast that has (very) limited cultivating space and an over exuberance when confronted with a catalog of seeds!

Camera in hand, I watch all sorts of colorful and monochromatic insects utilize the thistle plant--as egg-laying substrates for the Cabbage White, nectar source for the Fritillaries, stomping grounds for any number of the Formicidae family--and imagine the interesting variety of Coleoptera, that by sheer hinderance of their incapacitating larval stage, will not be arriving until later this summer.

My ponderings bring me back to my very organic and natural garden (live and let live is strictly enforced and so all sorts of things sprout up without my having anything to do with it) and I happen to notice a small rustle in what used to be a thick lettuce patch, but has recently been mysteriously disappearing. Since the lettuce went to seed a few weeks ago, I have given no thought to catching the thief and so I casually glance over the hot stone wall. Not surprised in the least to see it, and hardly phased to see me, I take a video of a young groundhog caught red-handed—well, green handed—eating my lettuce. Unlike an actual gardener, I can't say I care in the least that I have been sharing my yields with something that ought to end up in a meat pie, and since Mr. McGregor is unable to scold me, I stick to my principles and live and let live (rather happy on the side that I have a cute video to share).

A Ground Hog Enjoys Some of My Crops

A Fritillary (Great Spangled?) harvests nectar from a thistle flower

Returning

Dear readers,

So much has changed, and my life is now completely different from when I last posted.  In the next few weeks, I will share with you my recent happenings and stores of the exciting road that lead me to the present.  Please come back and read often, as I will be sharing some of the highlights of the past year.  Below are some teasers of stories to come:

A Stag Beetle I Happened Upon in a most Unusual Manner

I pin hundreds of Chrysalises a Week at Work!

One of the Highlights of my week is feeding the baby Cottontails

I think it is fascinating to study the differences and similarities of similar species

~The Naturalist

In January, we had a bit of snow. But it hasn't been much. I wonder at what effect this mild winter will have on the wildlife this coming spring.

Raspberries

This year's spring yielded a bucketful of raspberries on our two-year-old bushes. The berries were small, but very sweat, and the most delicious raspberries I personally have every eaten!

For any of you who know of the show, Numb3rs, in a recent episode, Larry notes that the chemical Ethyl Formate which is responsible for giving raspberries their flavor, was found in space by scientists looking for amino acids (a building block of life). I thought this was interesting, but the cosmos really doesn't taste like raspberries; it would take a great deal of other molecules to make outer space a raspberry flavored place!

Bumblebee Buisness

While I was pondering over my very ponder-inspiring garden, I saw a bumblebee behaving interestingly on the lattice. With my HD video setting, I hurredly shot this video, but really didn't need to hurry, as it continued this rutine long after I stopped taking the video! Curious about this particular behavior, and not finding satisfactory answers online, I ordered a book that deals specifically with Bumblebees as apposed to honeybees, of which I have read much, and their ecology, evolution, and behavior.

I am excited to delve into this study, as bees fascinate me. Did you know that bees leave chemical signals on petals of flowers which are later decoded by other bumblebees that come to the same flower, letting those bee know that that flower is exausted of its supply of pollen, so that no prescious foraging time is wasted? What I found even more interesting than this, was that a Bumblebee that detects a chemical signal on some surface that was made to direct it to a newfound, and profitable foraging site, can not only find the new site with astonishing precision and speed, but also, durring its flight, can even account for wind drift that it encounteres!!! Awesome right!!! I mean....I coudn't possibly dream of doing something like that without the aid of GPS, and the world at the level of a Bee is so much more complex, vast and confusing than the world we humans think we have "discovered". These little tid-bits of knowledge never cease to astonish me, and fill me with awe..but then, I get thinking to myself...well, of Course, God is a genious, of course he could make a such a tiny, simple-looking insect capable of such complex tasks.

More to come later on this topic, once I dive for a few days into my knew Bumblebee book.

Change is in the Air

Independence Day rolled in and right back out, as it does every year, with it's fleeting moments of joy, and camaraderie as family and friends mingle as one over a BBQ and a rustic American Flag Cake. It brought with it a new type of summer this year, though, and it will roll in again next year to find changes that were impending since I came along, but never realized in full until the present. As I sat with the family on a picnic blanket at Tanglewood last evening, eating drippy watermelon and listening to James Taylor pluck his guitar strings tunefully and sing about "showering the people you love with love" and assuring his loved ones that he is always there for him I looked around me to all of my loved ones, knowing they would always be there for me, and hoping that they feel as showered with my love as JT sings about.

I was just getting used to being a high school graduate when the college paper work came in by the ream and the postman handed me stacks of Colby College Envelopes stuffed to the poorly sealed seems with an incredulous and inquisitive look on his face. Luckily for me, I found how much I hate administration. Not only do I question Colby's need for no less than 8 documents which all ask for my name, my DOB, my age, my nationality and my signature and suspect some form of scheme to mass identity theft, but I have become seriously concerned with the lack of usable pens in my home which are desperately needed to carry out Colby's redundant and ceaseless requests for information. As Dad so profoundly noted, "You'd better get used to it because that's the rest of your life." Well, if the rest of my life is going to contain sheets of paper that request all my personal information, then yes, and thanks Dad...I'd better get used to it.

College is just eight weeks away, and so is my step up to the responsibility that comes with young-adulthood. I am excited and nervous as anything I will admit, but I am ready, and that's what counts. I look forward to the people out there that I will soon meet and who will become some of my best friends, and I look forward to learning that one thing that will give me the spark that will grow into a passion and that will fuel my interests and career for the greater part of my future.


And just on a very ponderous note, though so much will change for me in the coming months, so much will stay the same, and I find tremendous comfort in knowing that the people that are there for me are the friends and family that built me up to who I am today. Thank you for making me possible!

A Different Sort of Beatle Mania

Hello everybody! For my english class, my final project was to analyze the album, Rubber Soul, by the Beatles, and create a blog for it. If you like the Beatles, I think you'll find my blog interesting. You can see it here. Hope you like it!

Not Just a Walk in the Park

At Rockefeller State Park yesterday, quite a few birds streaked by me, hardly distinguishable as their colors blended almost perfectly into the forest understory and the lofty treetops. I could only identify most of the birds by their calls, since, for the most part, all I could see was a small dark form flitting here and there. However, by the Swan Lake, the birds were easy to watch. I saw many Yellow Rumped Warblers, several Swamp, House and Chipping Sparrows, and countless Red Winged Blackbirds, Robins, Starlings, Swallows and Great Tailed Grackles.

Even though I have seen many Pileated Woodpeckers before, I am always just as awed by their magnificence each time. The one pictured below was on the smaller side of the ones I have seen, but still it's size and colors are striking in the bird world! It was truly incredible to watch this large bird hammer the base of this termite infested tree with such precision and coordination and power. It's must have hammered at least 20 times a second, and the hollow sound reverberated through the forest. With such a large presence, this bird commands a lot of respect in the forest world--there were no other birds in the vicinity. The Pileated Woodpecker is a pretty solitary bird, and when it flies, it has such a slow, gliding flight, it almost doesn't look like a bird at all!

Shirley is pretty much under voice control now, so I let her off her leash in the quiet parts of the trail. Enjoying her new freedom, Shirley was tearing around and around the path ahead and behind us. Here, she reluctantly, but obediently comes at my command and moments after this picture, raced off again, crashing through the forest, and reducing my hopes of seeing wildlife significantly.

On a small island in the middle of Swan Lake, a family of turtles bathed in the first truly warm day of the year. Monica and I counted over thirty spread over this island and the bank of the pond just from where we were standing!

My First (Decent) Photoshop Drawing

I have always been interested in the capabilities of the computer to make art. Drawing in photoshop is not unlike drawing on a piece of paper, except for the fact that you can press "command z" and undo that stray mark or accidental smudge! Here is my first creation that looks like what it is supposed to. My logo is "Blue Rose Designs". This is because of my fascination with the fact that blue is such an uncommon color in nature. My goal, someday, is to be able to show fellow scientists how to genetically modify a rose to be blue, a feat which has proved impossible thus far. If we can genetically modify plants to 'naturally' produce true blue pigments (the only plant that is true blue is gentia), then we would have amazing insights into the genetic makeup of living organisms, and how they can be altered for the better. Who knows, maybe in the pursuit to make a rose blue someone will discover how to get ordinary stem cells (from bone marrow!) to differentiate on its own to become an arm or a leg, or a lung, so that amputees and transplant patients can have a body part that is of their own genetic makeup!

Homemade Sushi

There's nothing better than making something a little fancy, at home...especially when it's super healthy AND delicious! While at Mrs. Greens, I saw some Nori (a type of dried, pressed seaweed) and decided that I would make some sushi rolls. With very little to put inside, this is what I came up with:

Spreading the Rice

Adding Spinach and Avocado

Rolling and Cutting

Lunar Eclipse Early Tomorrow Morning

December 21st, the longest night of the year is rolling in faster than ever. The Christmas Tree is up, with all it's pointy little lights and seasonal fragrance putting us all finally into that once-a-year-Christmas spirit! Jessye Norman's "The Holly and the Ivy" is serenading the living room, the dogs are stretched out on the carpet by the gleaming coals of a fire in need of another log, but it's cold outside, and we are knitting, and sorting Christmas cards and ornaments in some cases and blogging and others, and mutually too cozy to get up to get one.

The sky is is blanketed in the deepest navy blue cloak which I would like to say is the Gown that Our Lady wears to Evening Vespers. But her pureness of heart radiates so perfectly that pinpoints of light poke through the velvet and shine all the way down from heaven!

Last night I woke up to find myself starring at a rusty orange orb, not bright enough to be the sun, but too strange to be the moon. An orange moon? But it was the moon. I slipped out from under my warm blankets into the annoyingly chilly air of my room to look more closely from the window. There it was, very low in the western sky, shinning a persistent, abnormal orange.

Unfortunately, it was 6:15 in the morning, and I was still bleary eyed, and foggy minded, and I could not remember where I had placed the battery of my camera, so I do not have any photographs to document the strange spectacle.

As I stared at the moon, with black twigs breaking it up like it was a gold disc with its paint cracking all over the place, it began to disappear below the horizon. I literally watched the moon set! In a matter of 90 seconds, the odd sight had left its small occupation of the night sky to be filled by a rising of a gradient of water-colors from an all blue paint set.

What makes the moon orange? I wondered, as I crawled back into bed. In bed, I did a little research. The answer is really quite simple and logical. Look at the diagram below, (which I obtained from

http://home.hiwaay.net/~krcool/Astro/moon/moonorange/).

When the moon is directly above the surface of Earth, you and I only have to look through a little bit of Earth's atmosphere, as the red line shows. But when the Moon is at an angle, you can see from the blue line that there is more than three times the amount of atmosphere (gasses and natural and artificial pollution) for light to pass through. This "shadow" of Earth's atmosphere that the sun shines through before it gets to the moon determines the color that the moon appears to be.

Coincidentally, tonight there will be a full Lunar Eclipse which NASA has reported to be the first since 1638 to occur on the Winter Solstice (the longest day of the year). The next time this will happen will be in 2093. (I will be 102 then.)

For all of you moon-oglers, here is the program for tonight's theatrical production starring Earth and Moon (and perhaps cloud if he is grouchy enough to intrude):

• 1:32 AM Moon enters Umbra (the shadow of Earth)
• 2:41 Totality (Moon is Completely Covered by Earth's Shadow and May look orange for exactly the same reasons I just explained)
• 3:17 Mid Eclipse (The Moon is at its darkest and hard to find in the Western sky)
• 3:55 Totality Ends
• 5:00 Moon Leaves Umbra

I hope all of you will be able to watch this remarkable sight, and have many pictures and stories to share. If you haven't been able to tell, I am crazily excited for this rare natural show and second only to the Northern Lights, this is something I have always wanted to see! (Big green check on my things to see before I die list).

The Most Terrifying Video You'll Ever See

Everyone's tired of hearing about climate change and global warming. It's one of those ceaseless arguments with indisputable facts on both sides. But before you leave all of this for the tree-huggers and weirdos who think the end of the world is coming, watch this video to see how this man's logic can a) actually save the world as we know it if it proves to be necessary and b) make all the arguments irrelevant to the decision.

Rising in the East- A little poem I wrote myself

The sun is low in the west
Red and yellow
Purple, gold
Fog bending colors
I lie down to get some rest
On the moist green grass
With drops of water
Refreshing on my hot brow
The day is over

The night cool and blue
But the sun shines still beneath me
Soon it will rise in the East
And that will be tomorrow.

A Particularly Interesting Prairie Home Companion Guest

Today I went to the Prairie Home Companion Radio Show at the Town Hall in NYC with Tio. He's a huge fan of PHC, and practically adores Garrison Keillor for his ingenuity and creativity as he spins out show after show each week, each as creative as the previous one. Today, one of the special guests was Billy Collins, the former Poet Laureate of the United States. He had some pretty funny poems. Here were two of my favourites.

(Before you jump to conclusions about the title of the first poem, read it!)

OH, MY GOD

Not only in church
and nightly by their bedsides
do young girls pray these days

Wherever they go,
prayer is woven into their talk
like a bright thread of awe

Even at the pedestrian mall
outbursts of praise
spring unbidden from their glossy lips.

When Mr. Collins read in a poetry book that that one should never use the word suddenly to create tension in writing, he decided, since, after all, he was a poet, he would ignore the rules. As a result of being a total nonconformist, he intentionally weaved the word 'suddenly' at least once into every stanza and of course had to call the poem "Tension".

Tension
By Billy Collins

Never use the word suddenly just to create tension.
-Writing Fiction

Suddenly, you were planting some yellow petunias
outside in the garden,
and suddenly I was in the study
looking up the word oligarchy for the thirty-seventh time.

When suddenly, without warning,
you planted the last petunia in the flat,
and I suddenly closed the dictionary
now that I was reminded of that vile form of governance.

A moment later, we found ourselves
standing suddenly in the kitchen
where you suddenly opened a can of cat food
and I just as suddenly watched you doing that.

I observed a window of leafy activity
and beyond that, a bird perched on the edge
of the stone birdbath
when suddenly you announced you were leaving

to pick up a few things at the market
and I stunned you by impulsively
pointing out that we were getting low on butter
and another case of wine would not be a bad idea.

Who could tell what the next moment would hold?
another drip from the faucet?
another little spasm of the second hand?
Would the painting of a bowl of pears continue

to hang on the wall from that nail?
Would the heavy anthologies remain on the shelves?
Would the stove hold its position?
Suddenly, it was anyone’s guess.

The sun rose ever higher in the sky.
The state capitals remained motionless on the wall map
when suddenly I found myself lying on a couch
where I closed my eyes and without any warning

began to picture the Andes, of all places,
and a path that led over the mountains to another country
with strange customs and eye-catching hats,
each one suddenly fringed with colorful little tassels.