Nature

A collection of 29 posts

Garden

Not The Rabbit Wars

The war you are in is not always the war you think you are in. I told all my friends and relatives, “The Rabbit Wars have begun.” They knew what I meant. It was not exactly “news.” We’ve always had to share the garden with rabbits. That’s only

Nature

Exceeding the Limit

“There are three interesting things about NGC 5907 – the Splinter Galaxy,” said Max. “Oh, yeah? Like what?” I asked. We had cruised to rest in a vast interstellar region towards the outskirts of the Splinter Galaxy, just inside the circling dust and smoke lanes. A galactic park, in effect, where

Nature

Searching for a Splinter in a Smoke Stack

"I don't think we're going to make it, Max. I can't see a thing." That was strange. There wasn't a cloud in the night sky, the usual Spring humidity was uncharacteristically low, and the upper atmospheric currents were reported to

Nature

Keep It Forever With You

The wind whistled through the tack, rustling the straps on the luggage tied up top. It was not clear which was worse, the miles of rutted path, or the miles of mud threatening to suck the horseshoes right off the team straining to make forward progress. A sharp chill was

Nature

The Bee and the Ladybug

Today, May 20, is International Bee Day! In honor of bees everywhere, I present to you an image of The Bee and the Ladybug. As of February, 2021, Ellison Orcutt, of the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, has a “Bees of Virginia” list. It is a provisional list. He

Garden

Jumpin' at the Woodside

Growing eggplant is the very definition of optimism. Look at those eggplant transplants up there in the banner image! Beautiful aren’t they! I just set them out in the garden. So eager for life, for growth in the rich earth, to prosper and be fruitful. Ah, they are so

Nature

Lunatics

When you are trying to get to the Rosette Nebula, the Moon is an annoyance. A royal pain in the butt. The Moon is your father’s oncoming Oldsmobile refusing to dim its high beams. Worse. It is more like the high beams of an Oldsmobile driving in reverse such

Garden

Release the Garlic

A bit of gravity in ungrounded times The GreenJeans Enforcers burst through the gate. “OK, you Hay Seeds! Back off!” “Move away and nobody gets hurt.” “Release the garlic!!” Some garden chores I do because? Well, because they have to be done. The never ending war on entropy. But some

Environment

Zack Labe (NOAA) -- Just Fired by DOGE

I recently wrote a piece on this site that examined the concept of climate tipping points. In that piece I focused on two climate change features that have the potential to give us an early warning on climate disaster: the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, and Arctic sea-ice collapse. After a

Nature

A Billion Years

It is easy to picture our galaxy as just a bunch of static stuff. Where most of us live the night sky is a mild gray luminescence, polluted by urban light. Maybe the moon is out, behaving like the moon always does, in the same old, same old. There might

Nature

Galactic Pointillism - Gaia and the Milky Way

The year 2013 was odd. Both numerically and functionally. That was the year that “selfies” became a thing. Terrorists bombed the Boston Marathon, and George Zimmerman was acquitted at trial for the murder of Trevon Martin. The US Supreme Court struck down key parts of the Defense of Marriage Act--yeah,

Nature

Right on Time

The other night we had a colossal screw-up on a trip to photograph the Wizard Nebula. All because of time.

Nature

And We All Fall Down

The old dump truck struggled to make it up the grade. Long before it arrived I could hear it straining to maintain forward progress and not stall out on the slope, tires slipping on the gravel. The diesel engine growled, and the clutch complained, clanking from the pain of downshifting.

Nature

A Grand Design

“Tickets, please. Tickets? Tickets, please!” “Umm, I have it right here ... just a minute … Umm … Ah! Here you go.” Right ascension 09h 55m 33.2s Declination +69° 3′ 55″ “Oh! Bode’s Galaxy! Lovely this time of year. Sit back. Relax. We should be there before you know it.” “Thanks,

Nature

With Warmth the Twinkling Lights

Charles Messier was a comet geek. Perhaps the greatest of the 18th century. From 1760 to 1801, he is credited with discovering, or co-discovering, at least 20 comets. His observatory? The Hôtel de Cluny in downtown Paris, now the Musée national du Moyen Âge. Today, Messier is best known, not

Garden

The Great Squash-Up

“One of these things is not like the others” OK, that’s a trick header. Sort of like over-thinking an SAT logic question on the exam. It is supposed to read, “One of these squash is not like the others.” The coffee mug is just there for context. And caffeine.

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Nature

The Night Watchmen

The woods here are relatively young. Young in tree time, in any case. Their ancestors were felled long ago, cleared to make way for pasture. The rusty relics of barbed-wire fencing still wind through the forest floor marking old property boundaries, paddocks, and hay fields. Once strung to contain livestock,

Nature

Chasing a Second Blackout

It was always likely to be cloudy. We knew that going in. According to the climatology odds, we had only a 1-in-3 chance of clear skies for viewing the eclipse. And the Thousand Islands region in early April? Well, if it wasn’t freezing cold and raining, at least it

Nature

Winter Solstice Bonfire

Cold but calm. The moon waxing gibbous. A pretty nice excuse for a winter solstice bonfire. We toasted the season with a bottle of Blenheim Farm Red, sculpted a big pile of old wooden lawn furniture, and blessed the sacrificial offering. “To the gods of international supply chains!” But the

Nature

Hope

The mice and voles and chipmunks rule supreme in this kingdom. By their numbers. They are keen to recycle by chewing through the plastic covering on all the wires in the big tin spa that sits mostly parked. Ignorant, they, of the monstrous cost to the slow two-legged creature which

Nature

Searching for the Dark

The Bortle Scale A device for measuring the weight of Bortles? Buzzzzt! No, I’m sorry. That is incorrect. “The Bortle scale is a nine-level numeric scale that measures the night sky’s brightness of a particular location.” The scale was proposed by John E. Bortle in Sky & Telescope

Nature

Ophilia

It is not a hurricane, but still. That's a pretty impressive weather system, looking to drown all the hamlets in its path. Right now the center is sitting over northeast North Carolina with sustained winds of 45 mph. It looks like it is headed straight at Charlottesville, but

Nature

Talking to Toads

I confess. It’s true. I talk to the toads. Not that I go looking for conversation. But often, as I scuffle hoe the garden, a modest size clump of soil will suddenly take up animation and leap off to one side. “Well, hello there! I see you now.” “It’

Nature

Spring Winds

The spring winds blowing through the woods this evening are not conducive to peaceful thoughts. The tree tops are flailing about wildly, undoubtedly settling old scores with their nearest neighbors, shedding branches to the ground. An arboreal hair cutting. The house is reverberating with the sound of flexing copper roofing

Nature

Exchanging Places

Our crossover season is beginning. The first summer tourists, the Eastern Phoebe, have arrived with bobbing tails and eponymous song. While the Juncos, our winter residents, haven't yet packed their bags for the long flight north. A mid-day Saturday at the beach as the rental units change hands.