Nature Post!

[rubyelf]

Well, mostly a lot of mud. But mud is nature, right

Comments

[moominmuppet]

Yay, nature post!

[rubyelf]

:)

[vjezkova]

Hurrah! Your very first spring photo journal this year - and a great one. There are lots of interesting things, some of them we don´t have here

[rubyelf]

Horsetails and shrews are both living fossils, if you use the term to mean that they are very old and have changed very little. There were once much bigger and more spectacular horsetails, but the ones living today still show all the features that characterize the group.

A bird or shrew might collect a pile of snail shells (after eating the snails). And the "lid" is called an operculum... isn't that a wonderful name?

[vjezkova]

Ah, great! Oh yes ´operculum´ is lovely, almost like ´oraculum´!:-)

[tigtogiba34]

Ooo I take it classes have started sorry I am behind as per usual.

Dead trees make me so sad.

But life sprouting out of the ground is so exciting!!

[rubyelf]

They're not really dead... they're just in the middle of a process. That process eventually involves them not being a tree anymore, but it also involves all of their parts becoming parts of other things and sustaining other lives. And in a way, everyone and everything is somewhere along that process... I know people think it's morbid but I find it reassuring to know that the stuff that is currently me used to be other stuff, and someday it will be part of something new and new things will grow and live as part of the process.

[tigtogiba34]

Will they eventually become petrified wood? We used to have a petrified sea gardens where the tree turned to rock but did water have something to do with it? I never went there just heard about it.

[rubyelf]

Petrified wood normally happens under rather unusual conditions where the tree is covered by water or soil with a high mineral content and the minerals seep in and replace the actual structure of the tree, just like they do with dinosaur bones when they fossilize. What's left isn't the original tree but a perfect stone replica of it, right down to each individual cell. Silicon is particularly good at doing this to wood. Also, the conditions have to be right to completely isolate the tree from all microorganisms that would decay it... being immersed in mineral-rich water or being buried by a mudslide or volcanic ash works well.

[resonant]

Spring!

[rubyelf]

Just barely... but it's working on it! Around here skunk cabbage is our first harbinger of spring!

[ragnarok_08]

Glad that the new medication is working for you :)

[rubyelf]

All it's done so far is put me to sleep.