Tag: God’s stuff

I Won’t Touch the Nooze Today

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Scarlet tanager's startling red flash like fireworks in the forest | On the Wing | bayjournal.com

Instead of getting my hands dirty with the nooze, which will still be there tomorrow–and they will have added to it–let’s have a look at something beautiful. A scarlet tanager, for instance.

I have seen this bird in the wild only once in my life, when I was 12 years old at Y camp. Its range supposedly includes New Jersey, and you’d think such a vividly colored bird would stand out and be easy to see–nevertheless, I never see them. Mostly we have sparrows and starlings.

In an odd way, I’m kind of glad the scarlet tanager so rarely takes the stage. It’d be a shame to take something so beautiful for granted. If I see a goldfinch once a year, I count it a blessing. And I have yet to see a bluebird.

It’s something to look forward to: and nothing in the nooze can match it.

Mr. Nature: Ringing Rocks

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One of the coolest, most intriguing places I’ve ever visited is the Ringing Rocks Park in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. In this video you’ll see and hear that some of the rocks–but not all of them–emit musical notes when struck with a hammer. While I was there, another visitor worked out how to play “Happy Birthday” on the rocks.

There are not many of these sites. Ringing rocks are always found in boulder fields. If you break off a piece of one, it won’t ring anymore. There are all sorts of theories to account for this, but the long and short of it is, we don’t know why they ring. Why don’t they all sound the same? We don’t know that, either.

Secrets of nature–never let it be said that God is not a wildly inventive Creator.

Special Video Treat: Red Pandas

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There’s butt I could kick today, nooze I might cover–but I think it better to try to relax into a sabbath day of rest (if your sabbath is Saturday, that’s fine, too).

So! Has God ever made a cuter, prettier, more smile-raising creature than the red panda? Yes, we’ve learned to call them pandas, although scientists say they’re not related to the giant panda. Scientists can make up their minds about what animals go into which families.

Odd panda fact: Most animals–think mammals, reptiles, fish–are lighter-colored, or even white, on the bottom and darker on top. with the red panic, the opposite is true. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

‘Just In: Is This Shark 500 Years Old?’ (2017)

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Greenland shark is world's oldest

The Greenland shark, up to 20 feet long, lives in really cold Arctic water, sometimes under the ice, occasionally venturing up the St. Lawrence River. Not much point being afraid of them! You’d die of exposure before the sharks could get you.

Anyhow, certain scientists now believe these Greenland sharks can live preposterously long lives–up to 500 years.

Just In: Is This Shark 500 Years Old?

I have written thousands of posts for this blog. Would you believe that this thing about the shark is my all-time best-liked post? Well, OK, it only had to get 18 likes to do that.

But the important thing is, How old is this shark, really? And if there’s a trick to it, Heaven forbid anyone in Congress ever finds out what it is.

I Love These Lizards!

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I had three slowworms once; I don’t think you can get them anymore. They were about the nicest lizards you could ever meet. They had these bright little faces, grew to be really tame in next to no time, and seemed very quick to learn. Honest, they’re not a bit like snakes.

My slowworms died because of stuff in the environment. I fed them worms and slugs and bugs that I caught outside, never suspecting the ground was tainted with assorted pesticides from years back. Their appetite for pests is why they’re so welcome in English gardens.

Yes, I miss my good little slowworms. If it seems strange to talk about lizards having personality–well, no one who really knows lizards would think that.

‘The Freddy Kreuger Dinosaur’ (2017)

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See the source image

It would be easy, what with all the books and movies, toys and TV specials, to get the idea that experts really know what they’re talking about when it comes to dinosaurs. Easy, but wrong.

The Freddy Kreuger Dinosaur

The dinosaur pictured above, Therizenosaurus, is mostly guesswork. What they’ve got, all they’ve got to guide them, is a few scraps of broken bone, an extra-wide pelvis–live births instead of eggs?–and those extra-long, sharp claws. I haven’t read anything about live births in dinosaurs; it just struck me as an exciting idea.

Anyhow, as cool as this dinosaur is, the way scientists have reconstructed it, we really have no clear idea what it looked like.

We’ll have to wait for God to show us.

 

What Do Bees Do in the Winter?

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beekeeping. bumblebee. bee. Nest has queen, drones (males), and worker bees feed hatched larva and seal cells with wax. Honey bees, honeybees colony. Beehive, beeswax, honeycomb, brood. insect

These last few days around here have been quite cold–good thing I finished my book last week.

One of the pleasures of writing outside has been watching the bees–honeybees, bumblebees, and our little native bees–working on the masses of tiny white wildflowers that sprang up around my writing chair. These last two days, though, I haven’t seen any bees. Where are they?

Well, they’re in their hive, huddling together to “form a winter cluster to keep warm,” according to the Encyclopedia Brittanica. By doing this, they can raise the temperature inside the hive to 90 or even 100 degrees. And if the temperature outside rises to 50 degrees or more, the bees will venture outside to relieve themselves. Throughout the winter, they survive by eating stored honey.

Thus God has given bees the ability to survive through the winter, even when there are no flowers for them to visit. He has provided for them as He provides for us and all the rest of His creation. The bees, by working diligently throughout the summer and the early fall, have what they need to make it through the winter.

And so I’ll see them again when the flowers come back into bloom.

God’s Stuff: Cardinals and Winter

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Don’t look now, but winter’s coming and’ll get here soon. Don’t shut the door against its more charming aspects.

I can’t think of anything more beautiful than bright red cardinals in clean white snow. I could almost cry, seeing it: it’s that lovely.

Praise the Lord for His handiwork! Which tells us, again and again, that God is nigh. Always.

‘Are Cats “Persons”?’ (2016)

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My cats have always made me suspect they understand plain English. And they do things that convince me that they have their own reasons for whatever they do–reasons which will always be inaccessible to humans.

Are Cats ‘Persons’?

The closer we look, the more personality we can see in animals–especially our pets. After all, they live intimately with us and some of us is bound to rub off on them. A jolly home makes for a jolly dog. I can’t remember who said that, but it’s true.

A Spider Who’s Afraid of Spiders

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[Editor’s Note: Only the first 17 seconds of this video pertain to this topic. I don’t vouch for any of the rest.]

I’m rather fond of those little striped jumping spiders, “zebra spiders.” They’re about a quarter of an inch long.

Watch this. Confronted by an unfamiliar object, the spider first pauses to look it over, then ventures closer, and when nothing bad happens, explores it. Note that jumping spiders see much better than other spiders. When they see you coming, they will try to hide.

And… does this spider display curiosity? I think he does; and curiosity suggests the presence of a mind. Has God the Creator endowed even this tiny spider with a mind?

Now watch what happens when the smooth pebble is replaced by a giant spider model. How fast can you say “I’m outta here!”?