nature – Page 6 – Lee Duigon

The Persistent Squirrel

leeduigon(patty)April 7, 2014

Hi, Mr. Nature here again.

Have you ever wondered how squirrels can know how to build their nests, way up there in the treetops? I mean, I doubt the mother squirrel actually teaches them.

Well, today I found out.

I saw a young squirrel climbing up a maple tree with a twig in her mouth. What was she up to? She was building a nest in a crotch formed by three main branches–nice location, plenty of support.

A moment later, the whole kit and kaboodle fell apart and a mass of little twigs and leaves rained down to the ground. And as I write this, the squirrel is collecting more twigs and preparing to start over.

So that’s how they learn to build nests–by trial and error (in this case, rather a large error). As the saying goes, experience is a good school, but the tuition is high. Still, there she is, trying again. A human being would have just sat down and cried. But the squirrel only goes back to work, and she’ll keep at it until she gets it right.

And the next time she has to build a nest, she’ll do a better job.

The lesson to be learned is too obvious to need to be said.

Bombs Away!

leeduigon(patty)August 2, 2015

I like to write outside. It’s especially nice in the Fall. Except there’s one little problem.

Black walnut trees–there are at least three of them right outside our door. The nearest one produces big green nuts as big as baseballs, thousands of ’em. And all week long, the tree has been dropping them. You should hear it when the wind blows: it sounds like D-Day.

So I’m sitting in my chair, trying to write, and these large, hard nuts are falling all around me. Maybe I ought to get a batting helmet.

Are they edible? Sure–and black walnuts ain’t cheap, either. To get at the nut, first you have to get through the green skin and the green insides, which will stain you brown for weeks, no way to wash it off; and then you come to the actual nut shell, which is as hard as a rock. Inside that is a small, edible nut which will have cost you much more labor than it’s worth.

This year’s crop is infested with white worms that eat the yellow stuff between the outer skin and the inner shell. They make no contact with the edible nut, but the sight of them is not appetizing.

Meanwhile, it’s still “Bombs away!” out there. You can hardly walk across the yard for all the nuts, but the tree isn’t out of ammo yet. I dassn’t sit down to write without first offering up a prayer that I don’t get beaned.

So far, so good.

P.S.–The link to “white worms” has absolutely nothing to do with the worms you find in these walnuts. The Wikipedia article has to do with “white worms” used to feed aquarium fish. My white worms are merely disgusting.

The Mystery of the Ringing Rocks

leeduigon(patty)May 9, 2015

Here I am again as Mr. Nature, to tell you about a rare and mysterious aspect of God’s creation. It’s possible you’ve never heard of it before.

What would you think, if you tapped a good-sized rock with a hammer and instead of going “clunk” or “clack,” it rang out with a nice, musical “ting”–just like a bell? Is that cool, or what? I’ve done it. Wow!

They’re called “ringing rocks,” and can only be found at seven sites in all the world: one each in England, Scotland, Australia, and Mexico, one in Montana, and two in eastern Pennsylvania.

At Ringing Rocks Park in Pennsylvania, you find several acres of land covered with boulders. When I went there, years ago, you were allowed to climb and walk around on them. I don’t know if you still can. But the big thing is the way a rock will sound a musical note when you hit it–not all of them, but many. If you had the patience and the time for a trial-and-error search, you could play “Happy Birthday” on a series of boulders.

What makes the rocks ring? After a hundred years of study, nobody knows. Something inside the rock, some kind of energy, makes it ring when struck. If you break the rock, neither piece will ring anymore. It’s like something spilled out when you broke it. The rocks in one of the fields won’t ring individually if you remove them from the field; but this is not true of the rocks in the other field a few miles away.

What makes them ring? We dunno. Why is this so rare? No way to answer that. You never quite get to the bottom of anything that God has done.

I think He did it that way on purpose.

P.S.: The link I gave you only provides an aerial map of the Ringing Rocks Park area, and no further information. Grrr! Look up “ringing rocks” on Wikipedia.