Books that become part of you

Bookish Sunday – Tales in Non fiction

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I look thru my shelves of books

To realize most are non-fiction

Tales told of the world we live in

Stories built upon the past to the present

Earth and us as main characters

As it unfolds into the future

I pulled this book down to open the pages

“New England Forest Through Time” By David Foster and John O’Keele

The slideshow below are dioramas that show NE forest over the cost of 300 years

It book describes the changes to landscape, vegetation and wildlife that have occurred

It is a theme that is discussed in many of the books I have

Whether it’s NE or other parts of the US and the earth as a whole

This book I’m always opening, so it will remain on my shelf

To end this post I’ll add one more picture

In the slideshow we seen the changes that have occurred through our use of the landscape

Today many of our changes have much more long term effects on the landscape

For our use of man-made materials to alter the environment

Has changed the time-line for the environment to recover, if it can

This reminds me of another book ” The World Without Us” by Alan Weisman

Maybe to be looked at again in the future.

A Bookish Sunday- Sitting with Old Friends

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I’m sitting here on a Sunday morning surrounded by old friends and some just acquaintances

All in all, they have been part of my world, whether as whole tales or just footnotes in the tale of one’s own life.

As with old friends, some remain close

Others are thoughts and feelings of one’s past

And as time moves on, we have a chance for new friends

Some to stay and to share their stories

Many more will come and go, as our own time allow.

There are old friends, sitting on shelves collecting dust

Knowing that they won’t be pulled off the shelf

It is time to se you free

For the unopened, unread book

It just seems so sad

When someone else might be excited

To turn your pages

To view the world thru someone else’s words

So I may take another Sunday morning

I will sit here and open your pages

One more time

To share my thoughts of you

Before I say goodbye

Collaboration On Oldest Living Things

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Wonders of life
All around us
Even below our feet
Letting go of what we know
To begin learning all the unknowns
Feeling that there is
More to life
Than we ever imagined

Organikos

Thanks to Jonathan Minard for the short film above presenting Rachel Sussman , Carl Zimmer and Hans Ulrich Obrist, and the book that they collaborated on:

Since 2004 artist Rachel Sussman has been researching, working with biologists, and traveling all over the world to photograph continuously living organisms 2,000 years old and older. The work spans disciplines, continents, and millennia: it’s part art and part science, has an innate environmentalism, and is driven by existential inquiry. She begins at ‘year zero,’ and looks back from there, photographing the past in the present. Together, her portraits capture the living history of our planet – and what we stand to lose in the future.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Threshold

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Sometimes it is the the images and words of others
That are woven into ones’ own experience
Patterns are form
Never able to go back
A different view of the world
Beyond what any one person could live
Of good and bad, but hopefully never indifferent
Stepping over the thresholds
Knowing that one can never know all that is
Yet, maybe being able to see some things a little clearer

Weekly Photo Challenge: Inside

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Thoughts and imagines inside
Expressed on paper
To be opened
To look inside
The hearts and minds shared
Transformed by each one’s own life
To the world that is out there
That not one can fully experience
It is the bits of each combined
That gives each of us a fuller life

Weekly Photo Challenge: Perspective

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This winter I have taken two airplane trips to visit kids and as I looked out the window of the plane I was in awe of the beauty of the landscape with all of it changes and at the same time sadden by by our footprint in all of it’s environments.
As one stands on the ground you can’t always see the true impact we have had on natural wonders of a living earth, it takes that different perspective even though even flying is adding to the changes that are occurring.

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From my perspective that is the problem – that of human dominance and our ability to take it all for our own needs; like a run away train without much thought of the future for us and all living things

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My photos don’t do it judice, so I might recommend a book “Designs on the Land: Exploring America from the Air” for it is fascinating photos of America’s landscape

Designs on the Land Exploring America from the Air by Alex S. MacLean, Jean-Marc Besse, James Corner and Gilles A. Tiberghien
“Designs on the Land: Exploring America from the Air”
by Alex S. MacLean (Author) , Jean-Marc Besse (Author) , James Corner (Author) , Gilles A. Tiberghien (Author) , Alex MacLean (Author)

Weeds, Invasives and Books Part 2

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antilandscaper

 

 

 

Sometime beyond 30,000 years ago the climate had changed, and the cold and ice advanced out of the arctic covering a large portions of North America, Europe, and Asia. The ice sheet was estimated to be a mile thick and with so much of the water of this planet frozen, the oceans were as much as 450 feet lower than they are today. As the ice sheet advanced to cover what we now call home, it had scraped and scoured the earth carrying soil particles, boulders and anything living in its’ path that couldn’t flee its’ approach. The areas south of the major ice sheets were what might be considered sub-arctic; a tundra and open boreal woodland with very little rain. Around 13,500 to 11,000 years ago the ice sheets receded and the flora that had managed to survive south started to advance north and grow in…

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Pillows and Cradles

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Have you ever travelled thru the forest and have come upon the terrain that had pits and mounds that is sometimes referred to as pillows and cradles which is the result of a tree or trees being blown over by wind sometimes by thunderstorm microburst or straight line winds when the soil is saturated or hurricanes. The cradle is the depression caused by the roots torn out of the ground and the pillows is the soil around the roots that drop to the ground as the trunk and roots decay.

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This area of pillows and cradles might have been from 1938 hurricane that came thru New England and cradles have flatten out over the course time.

In areas where there is a few or more of pillows and cradles you can see if each are in the same direction this might indicate a single event or are they different directions which might mean different trees were blown over at different times with winds from different directions.

I might suggest an interesting book called “Reading the Forested Landscape – A Natural History of New England” by Tom Wessels published by The Countryman Press

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In the book Tom Wessels has drawings of different forest scenes and then goes into discussions about what is there and indications of what it might have look like 100 years ago.Such as stone walls and rock piles which suggest that this land was once open farm land and if the walls were just large stones, it might have been pasture land. The rock piles or smaller stones pile on top of the walls would indicate that the land continually tilled for food production rather than for just livestock.

Onesies, Twosies and IPM

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Sadly, this post isn’t about fashion, for when I created this title I learned that ‘onesies’ is also a garment that is wore by babies to adults, but opinions I leave to others
Let’s end this fashion scourge once and for all
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/11/anti-onesies-petition Onesies:
One Direction at Battersea, London, Britain - 08 Nov 2010

This about while I’m working or just wandering about taking pictures I come across something that I haven’t seen before or only on rare occasions. Many times I see something that I’m not sure what it is.
I try to click a picture to help me later ID it, which most times isn’t easy to do. I try to use Bug Guide.net as my first source, but I’ll say there are so many creatures out one can help stand in awe.

The lighting isn’t great, they’re on the under side of a leaf or it goes to ‘flight or fight’
For I’m sure a camera lens looks like something that wants to eat it. So trying to move slowly trying to do the best I can, only to learn after that the shot didn’t always come out that good.

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I find one of something that is new to me, but I figure there has to be more of them, for as it is with almost all living things it’s a matter of surviving, thriving and reproducing.

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One has to wonder is it a beneficial or is it a pest and might that sometimes be a judgement call. For what if that what we consider a pest, might it be a beneficial to some other species’ as a food source or in other direct and indirect ways?

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And when I see them are they associated with that plant, does it serve as its host plant or was it just by chance that it landed where it did?

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And if it might be a host plant, how is it that insect knew that it was there.

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We get excited when insects come to pollinate the flowers of our plants, but not that excited when they decide to chew on its’ leaves.

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This brings me to the last part of my tale that of IPM
“Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is an effective and environmentally sensitive approach to pest management that relies on a combination of common-sense practices. IPM programs use current, comprehensive information on the life cycles of pests and their interaction with the environment. This information, in combination with available pest control methods, is used to manage pest damage by the most economical means, and with the least possible hazard to people, property, and the environment.

The IPM approach can be applied to both agricultural and non-agricultural settings, such as the home, garden, and workplace. IPM takes advantage of all appropriate pest management options including, but not limited to, the judicious use of pesticides. In contrast, organic food production applies many of the same concepts as IPM but limits the use of pesticides to those that are produced from natural sources, as opposed to synthetic chemicals.” EPA

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Just because we find an unknown insect on our plants or leaves being eaten do we have to react to it? In the evolution of plants and other species hasn’t it been built in to each of their survival The interaction and dependence of each in ways we may not understand.

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There are plenty of products out there that pretty much can kill anything – insects, fungus and plants, but is it that selective to kill only what we want and nothing else? What about those chemicals that remain after our targeted pest is removed?
And are we wreaking havoc on the whole ecosystems by introducing chemicals we surely don’t know what they are?

And the one thing I think we all need to understand is that “Life is a Buffet” and that it isn’t or should be only about “Us”

A book that might be of interest on the subject is “Bring Nature Home” by Douglas W. Tallamy published by Timber Press