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Joseph Wood Krutch's Birthday is November 25

11/24/2022

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Literary Naturalist, and Pantheist Joseph Wood Krutch (1893-1970) birthday is November 25. Enjoy his reflections on celebrating life on Earth:

"It is not easy to live in that continuous awareness of things which alone is true living. Even those who make a parade of their conviction that sunset, rain, and the growth of a seed are daily miracles are not usually so much impressed by then as they urge others to be. The faculty of wonder tires easily and a miracle which happens everyday is a miracle no longer, no matter how much one tells oneself that it ought to be. Life would seem great deal longer a a great deal fuller than it does if it were not for the fact that the human being is, by nature, acreature to whom "0 Altitudo" is much less natural than ”So what!”. 

"Really to see something once or twice a week is almost inevitably to have to try - though, alas, not necessarily with success to make oneself a poet. For our natural  insensibility there is no permanent cure. One may seek new sights and new wonders, but that aid to awareness, like other stimulants, must be used with caution. If the familiar has a  way of becoming invisible, the novel has away of seeming unreal -more like a dream or a picture than areal actuality. And certainly no nan is less aware of things than the conscientious traveler who hurries from wonder to wonder until nothing less than the opening of the heavens on judgement day could catch the attention of his jaded brain. Madder music and stronger wine pay diminishing returns. 

"I have never practiced the swami’s technique for "heightening consciousness” and I doubt that I ever shall. For one thing, I am not sure I want to be so exclusively aware  of either myself or the ALL in the colorless essence of either. To put it in a dignified way, I prefer to live under the dome of a many-colored glass and to rest content with the general conviction that the white radiance of Eternity has something to do with it. To put it more familiarly; what I am after is less to meet God face-to-face than really to take in a beetle, a frog, or a mountain when I meet one. 

"Those who advise us to stalk, as it were, exquisite sensations, seem to warn us how alert we must be if we are not to miss one of those special moments when  something or other  in nature, or art, or music is reaching perfection, as though only a few things were worth  experiencing. But the rare moment is not the moment when there is something worth looking at, but the moment when we are capable of seeing. 

"The acute awareness of a natural phenomenon, especially of a phenomenon of the living world, is the thing most likely to open the door to that joy we cannot analyze. What is the content of the experience? What is it in such moments Iseem to realise? Of what is my happiness compounded? First of all, perhaps, there is the vivid assurance that the things of the universe itself really do exist; that life is not a dream; second, that Reality is pervasive and it seems, unconquerable. 

"The future of mankind is dubious. Perhaps the future of the whole earth is only somewhat less dubious. But one knows that all does not depend on nan, that possibly, even, it does not depend upon this earth. Should  man  disappear, rabbits nay welll still run and flowers may still open. If this globe itself should perish, then it seems not unreasonable to suppose that what inspires the stem and the flower may exist somewhere else.  And we, it seems, are at least part of all this."


  • from The Desert Year, by Joseph Wood Krutch, The Viking Press, New York, 1951. 

Learn more about Joseph Wood Krutch here:
​ https://planetpatriot.net/joseph-wood-krutch/

- Harold Wood

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Tardigrades

11/21/2022

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Picture
Photo:  A microscope image of a tardigrade   (via Creative Commons license.)


Tardigrades, otherwise known as Water Bears or Moss Piglets are 8 legged micro animals that grow from between 0.05mm to 1.2mm. They live from about 3-4 months up to 2 years and were discovered by scientists in 1773.

They are extremely hardy creatures that can be found all over the world from deep oceans, rainforests and in freezing snow covered climates.

Not only are they able to withstand such diverse climatic conditions they are also able to withstand high and low pressures, radiation and dehydration and starvation that would kill other life. Tardigrades have survived all 5 mass extinction events due to their extreme survival abilities. 

There are approximately 1300 species of Tardigrade with the modern ones going back to around 90 million years ago. 
They eat a variety of foods including algae, fungi, plant cells and small invertebrates.

They can be seen with a microscope and can be easily found in moss and lichens so perhaps you'd like to plan a field trip to see them always remembering to leave them where they are when you have finished observing them.

They are very fascinating little creatures and if you would like to learn more please click on the links below.

By Brendon Crook

www.marinespecies.org/tardigrada/

www.sciencealert.com/scientists-have-literally-unearthed-a-whole-new-species-of-tardigrade

www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXBkmLzBHZk
​
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National Bison Day

11/5/2022

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Picture
Photo: Plains Bison at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge (Colorado)



Today is National Bison Day.

Bison are the official national mammal of the United States and have played an important part in the history of North America.

The Bison is the largest land mammal in North America of which there are 2 living species, the Plains Bison and the Wood Bison.

They are believed to have descended from the Steppe Bison who appeared during the Middle Pleistocene age (now known as the Chibanian age) and crossed the Bering land bridge into North America between 195000 - 135000 years ago. 
The Steppe Bison survived into the early to mid Holocene age before becoming extinct.

Bison were a significant creature for Native Americans as a food source and spiritually and were treated with respect. 

During the 1800's Plains Bison were slaughtered in their millions by European settlers almost to the point of extinction. 

Plains Bison lived between the Appalachian Mountains in the east to the Rocky Mountain ranges in the west and as far north as Canada and as far south as Northern Mexico. 

The Wood Bison is the larger of the 2 north American species and ranged from Alaska and throughout Northern Canada. 

After near extinction both are making a slow comeback due to captive breeding however the DNA has become blurred in many cases and many are hybrids in the Wood Bison species. 
​
Life wasn't any better for the European bison which was hunted to total extinction in the wild. In the early 1900's they were returned to the wild, again via captive breeding programs. 

Some interesting links to more facts and photos on Bison are included below.

defenders.org/wildlife/bison

nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/american-bison


​

Brendon Crook







​ 
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