Heading to the mountains

We are getting ready to head up to the mountains for a week.  The weather here has been rainy and humid.  The wind that has been blowing since mid-February has become calm which adds to the feeling that the dog days of summer are here.  The forecast for the mountains looks to be chilly at night with the highs for the day around 70.  I can tell you that will be a welcome respite from what we have been experiencing lately.

I am taking along photography gear, of course.  There will be new terrain to photograph and hopefully some waterfalls will provide interesting and beautiful photos.  Hiking, relaxing and visiting sites in the area are definitely something we want to do as well.

Although I live on the coast and consider myself a coastal person, I do like the old Smoky Mountains for their weather beaten beauty.  I haven't hiked in the Rockies so I know that I would like their spectacular majesty as well.  There is something about the Smokies though that brings back many good memories of childhood vacations--a chance to get away from the coast and get into some cool, crisp air.

And their geology is fascinating.  Here is a summary from the National Park Service:
Between about 310 and 245 million years ago, the eastern edge of the North American tectonic plate collided with the African tectonic plate becoming part of a "supercontinent" known as Pangaea. Continental collisions take place at a rate of a few inches per year over many millions of years and are the result of continuing global-scale plate tectonics. Evidence of earlier plate tectonic geologic events are found in rocks of the Great Smoky Mountains, attesting to an incredibly long and active geologic history in this area. During one of these earlier continental collisions, tremendous pressures and heat were generated, which changed or "metamorphosed" the Smokies sedimentary rocks. 

The last great episode of mountain building uplifted the entire Appalachian mountain chain from Newfound-land, Canada to Alabama. These mountains probably were much higher than today, with elevations similar to today's Rockies. As the African tectonic plate gradually pushed against the edge of the North American plate, the original horizontal layers of the rocks were bent or folded and broken by faults. Huge masses of older, deeply buried rocks were pushed northwestward, up and over younger rocks along a large, nearly flat-lying thrust fault, known as the Great Smoky Fault. 

Following this final episode of Appalachian mountain building, the supercontinent of Pangaea broke apart, and the North American and African tectonic plates gradually moved to their present position. The new rugged highlands, the ancient ancestors of the Smokies, were subjected to intense erosion from ice, wind, and water. As mountain valleys were carved, tremendous quantities of eroded sediment were transported toward the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico by rivers and streams. 

As the mountains were worn down, the layers of rock most resistant to erosion were left to form the highest peaks in the Smokies........ Most of the beautiful waterfalls in the park were formed where downcutting streams encountered ledges of very resistant metasandstone that erodes more slowly than the adjacent slate or metasiltstone. Today, geologists estimate that the mountains are being eroded about two inches every thousand years.

Several of you asked about the movie that we saw.  It was Kon Tiki and was excellent.  I read the book many years ago and saw the old documentary film at some point when I was a child.  But this newly released movie is really worth seeing.  What an adventure to travel nearly 5000 miles on a raft! I could feel an urge to do something similar with my boat.  And there may be an opportunity for me to sail from the Dominican Republic back to SC later this fall on a friend's catamaran.  More will be revealed with that adventure.

Not much else is going on, except we are making plans to create an outdoor cooking and dining area in a wooded area near one of the outbuildings.  It will have a stone fireplace, with a wood fired oven, a fire pit, teak furniture, and containers of plants.  We are designing it now and that should provide some interesting DIY opportunities beginning in September, once we are finished with the staging of the parent's home for real estate listing.

So far, we have moved over 70 boxes from their house to a storage unit. Gradually, we will go through those boxes to decide what to sell and what to keep.  Much of what they had are antiques, including china, glassware and collectibles.  It has seemed like an overwhelming task in the beginning, but every day we are making good progress.  In about two weeks, we expect the house will be ready to list.

I have found great comfort in going to meetings and working with those I sponsor.  I have a list of meetings to attend next week.  I enjoy going to meetings out of town and find that most people are friendly and welcoming.  It's another way to practice the principles of the program in my life.

I had an opportunity to do that last week when I had a meetup with about 20 sailors at the marina, taking half the group out on my boat for a two hour sail. We also hosted a group of about 16 photographers from around the area at the house following a photo shoot in the historic village nearby.  Both events went well and gave me an opportunity to socialize with other people with whom I share a common interest. But now, it's nice to know that I don't have any further obligations for a long time.  I can retreat back to some relative solitude and look forward to enjoying time with just the two of us in the weathered mountains.

Thank you

Our old dog, Timmi, slipped away easily with just a few deep breaths at the end.  All of us, including the veterinarians, shed tears.  I don't think that anyone, no matter how professional and how many times this is done, can be devoid of such full feelings.  He will be cremated and then buried along with all the other animals that we have loved on the property.  The pet cemetery is a special place. Another good dog will be put there.

Thanks for your kind comments.  There are times when I write that I wonder what the purpose is to keep posting.  But this community comes through in comments and emails.  I used to think that it didn't matter about the comments.  I used to write because it was for me.  I still do, but something has changed over the years that I have been doing this blog. Your comments do matter to me.  Honestly, I like to hear from you, read what you have to say.  I do my best to reciprocate.  If you make comments and have a blog that I don't know about, please send me an email or let me know in a comment.  It is the back and forth sharing that we have that makes this a community.  I treasure that.

Today I have two barrier island tours to do back to back.  That's a good thing.  I will be on the water, talking to school children.  Some may be interested and some may not.  But just reaching one child who says to me, "I want to be a scientist too", is a success.  Stimulating their interest in the water, in nature, in being a part of the environment is so important.  I will do my best today to make them feel apart of something special. 

I hope that you know that you are special.  You are.

The God of my Understanding

I read yesterday that reknowned physicist Stephen Hawking said that God had no role in the creation of the universe. In his new book "The Grand Design," he says that given the existence of gravity, "the universe can and will create itself from nothing."  My first thought was that perhaps gravity is his Higher Power.

He further states, “Some would claim the answer ...... is that there is a God who chose to create the universe that way. It is reasonable to ask who or what created the universe, but if the answer is God, then the question has merely been deflected to that of who created God. In this view it is accepted that some entity exists that needs no creator, and that entity is called God. This is known as the first-cause argument for the existence of God. We claim, however, that it is possible to answer these questions purely within the realm of science, and without invoking any divine beings."

That's the wonder of this program--that I can have a God of my understanding that can be whatever is greater than I.  And that covers a lot of things, including gravity and many other forces of nature. 

Before Al-Anon, my Higher Power happened to be whoever I was in love with at the time.  I would spend most of my time thinking about that person.  That continued until there was irrefutable evidence that another person being my Higher Power was just not going to work.  For one thing,  there wasn't any unconditional love coming from people.  Eventually, even my parents couldn't give me that.  And relying on another person for my happiness turned out to be a big fiasco.  So I was left in disbelief and a whole lot of doubt. 

When I worked Steps Two and Three, the God of my understanding started out being the Al-Anon group itself.  I could see their collective wisdom for a long time, until I began to see that they too struggled.  I now have focused more on my HP as being a force of energy that encompasses all of those who are with me now and all those who have come before.  This "composite" spiritual being gently nurtures me and loves me regardless of my character defects. It is now a trust that I have and a confidence that no matter how bad things are, my HP that is something greater than me, will see me through. 

I feel closest to my HP when I'm near the water and watch the waves and might of the ocean. Even though there can be confused seas and turbulent times, there is an eternal rhythm to the waves given by the tides. Our lives will also ebb and flow but the HP will be there to keep us in rhythm.

A human tidepool

One of my favorite books is Steinbeck and Rickett's Log from the Sea of Cortez. For a biologist, it's a wonderful book. Ed Rickett's was an interesting fellow. Steinbeck used a lot of who Rickett's was in his great book Cannery Row, another favorite. Ed Rickett's worked in a wooden building, positioned between canneries. He stored the specimens he sold to school labs -- frogs and cats and the tiny marine creatures he collected during hours spent in the tide pools off Monterey. Ricketts was a character who more or less lived in his lab and in the company of caged snakes. He liked wine, women and song and he liked to philosophize. Steinbeck said the novel should be read as if set in a human tidepool teaming with life, fascinating in all its aspects.

Ed Ricketts made his first appearance in Steinbeck's 1935 short story "The Snake": "It was almost dark when young Dr. Phillips swung his sack to his shoulder and left the tidepool. He climbed up over the rocks and squashed along the street in his rubber boots. The street lights were on by the time he arrived at his little commercial laboratory on cannery street in Monterey." When I visited the Monterey aquarium, I spent about an hour standing at the exhibit about Ed Ricketts.  It fascinated me to be able to see photos of this interesting larger-than-life character. 

Ricketts followed a live-in-the-moment philosophy and he viewed everything as interrelated parts of a whole. This worldview also set Ed Ricketts apart from his peers in the world of marine biology. He was an ecologist who placed the organism in its natural habitat and looked at the relationship with the habitat. In 1939, Ricketts published an elegantly written textbook called Between Pacific Tides.

Steinbeck and Ricketts were not only friends, they were collaborators. Steinbeck and Ricketts embarked on a six-week marine expedition to the Gulf of California. During the trip, which covered 4,000 miles of coastline, they discovered 35 new marine species. The following year, the book based on their expedition, Sea of Cortez, was published.

Tragically, Ricketts died at the age of 50 when his car was hit by a train. In Cannery Row, Steinbeck left behind a poignant epitaph: "Doc would listen to any kind of nonsense and change it for you into a kind of wisdom. His mind had no horizon and his sympathy had no warp."

The quote that I put below sums up a great philosophy on life. It's about living life and not being afraid to venture forth, sometimes into unknown territory. I hadn't read the passage in several years and every time that I do, it resonates with me because I know and feel what they are writing about. Fear is an awful thing because it holds you back. It's a straight-jacket on the soul.

I guess that I'm in a great mood, albeit philosophical, because I've just gotten off the boat.  I seem to feel better when I've been out on the water.  And I walked several times on the beach each day, looking to see what had washed up.  There is usually something exciting about what the tide brings.

"We sat on a crate of oranges and thought what good men most biologists are, the tenors of the scientific world - temperamental, moody, lecherous, loud-laughing, and healthy. Once in a while one comes on the other kind - what used in the university to be called a `dry-ball'- but such men are not really biologists. They are the embalmers of the field, the picklers who see only the preserved form of life without any of its principle. Out of their own crusted minds they create a

world wrinkled with formaldehyde. The true biologist deals with life, with teeming boisterous life, and learns something from it, learns that the first rule of life is living. The dry-balls cannot possibly learn a thing every starfish knows in the core of his soul and in the vesicles between his rays. He must, so know the starfish and the student biologist who sits at the feet of living things, proliferate in all directions. Having certain tendencies, he must move along their lines to the limit of their potentialities. And we have known biologists who did proliferate in all directions: one or two have had a little trouble about it. Your true biologist will sing you a song as loud and off-key as will a blacksmith, for he knows that morals are too often diagnostic of prostatitis and stomach ulcers. Sometimes he may proliferate a little too much in all directions, but he is as easy to kill as any other organism, and meanwhile he is very good company, and at least he does

not confuse a low hormone productivity with moral ethics.

-- J. Steinbeck & E.F. Ricketts,

Log from the Sea of Cortez.

Compassion fatigue

AP photo/Charlie Riedel

I watched the news last night and felt myself feeling sick over the oiled birds that were dead or dying from being covered with oil.  I didn't feel anger but so much compassion for them and for all the other parts of the ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico.  I see the frustration on the faces of the people.  And I'm reading the reports that forecast the vast oil slick will move around the tip of Florida, after trashing the reefs along the Keys, and move up the southeastern US.

But what really struck me were those helpless birds--unable to move, simply trying to fly.  This oil pumping into the Gulf makes me feel defeated.  Granted, it has been a rough week.  But there is something about seeing the birds that made me realize just how much we have messed up this Earth.  We have ripped down old growth forests to make houses and put down asphalt. We have littered beaches.  We have destroyed wetlands because they were "worthless".  And now we have unleashed the worst ecological disaster the country has ever had.  In short, we have shit our own bed and will have to lie in it.

I am realizing that all the work that I have done and many others is meaningless because we can't keep up or combat the tide of humanity that wants to foul things.  The entire scope of the oil spill is hard to take in.  And I've come to the realization that my compassion is suffering from fatigue.  Granted, this has been a week where emotions have been raw.  But the feeling of total helplessness as I watch the underwater cam showing oil gushing forth has given way to resignation and self-preservation through disconnection.  Maybe that's what the constant bombardment of all things terrible on the news does--it wears us out and numbs us because the problem is so overwhelming that we feel completely powerless.  And so compassion fatigue sets in.

Until I saw those birds. And their helpless plight brought back how precious life is.  Every creature, every part of the ecosystem,  deserves better than we give it.  And we ourselves deserve better than what we are doing to each other. 

Science stuff on a glass half full day

It's another rainy Friday here.  The rain is supposed to steadily increase throughout the evening with flash flood warnings out.  We decided to make it a boating weekend, regardless of the weather.  Tomorrow is supposed to be decent as is Sunday.  At least, we aren't getting the snow storm that is supposed to hit the mid-Atlantic.

The unusual amount of rainfall we have been having can be attribute to El Nino which is a climate pattern that began this year.  It is associated with floods, droughts, and other weather disturbances depending on the region of the world.  The temperature of the sea in the central and eastern Pacific region is above average which is bringing increased moisture across North America. The unusually warm sea surface temperatures in the western Pacific move east. That changes the heating pattern of the atmosphere, which in turn pulls the Pacific jet stream farther south. The interesting thing is that there will be below-average snowfall and above average temperatures through the central northern region of the US, excluding New England, while below-average temperatures are estimated for the south-central/eastern US.

I read letters to the editor almost every day saying that this has been a cold winter which is evidence that global warming isn't occurring. The cyclical pattern of El Nino has occurred for many years so even though there are colder temperatures in the South and more snowfall, the long-term trend in temperature indicates warming around the globe. However, it has been hypothesized that warmer global sea surface temperatures can enhance El Nino.  El Niños have been more frequent and intense in recent decades. There have been relatively more frequent and persistent El Niño episodes rather than the cool episodes called La Niñas. This behavior is highly unusual in the last 130 years. This is the strongest El Nino since the winter of 1997-98.

Anyway, when you are digging out this weekend or dodging a deluge, remember that this is a weather phenomenon that is cyclical.  Plus, it helps dampen the threat of hurricanes that are much more prevalent during La Nina years. 

My glass is half full today. I heard the spring peepers making their sweet sounds of spring last night as I drove home.  The freshwater wetland near the house is filled to the brim.  The cypress trees, the old snapping turtle, the bull frogs, and the snakes are enjoying having the wetland filled up. 

All the wetlands and their inhabitants in this state are rejoicing because the state Supreme Court dealt a smashing blow Monday to developers who have tried for years to overturn state rules that safeguard coastal freshwater wetlands from unchecked development.  If this had not been done,  potentially hundreds of thousands of acres of freshwater wetlands would have been open for development without state oversight. Chalk up a big one for the snapping turtles, frogs and friends. 

Hope that you are having a day of optimism too.  If you look closely, there might be something right there in front of you that makes your heart sing.

Sea creatures, cooking and sex

It's a beautiful Friday here. I'm glad that it's almost the weekend. This afternoon I'm going to give a talk on one of my favorite critters, the horseshoe crab. Sharing information on marine organisms is something that I look forward to. If I can impart some information that will help people to consider the estuaries and oceans in a different way, as a home to some interesting and important creatures, then I consider that a success.

The horseshoe crab, a humble prehistoric looking critter, has been around since the Ordovician period, which was about 500 million years ago. That's a long time. What's really intriguing is that the blood of horseshoe crab is used by the biomedical industry to detect bacterial endotoxins in catheter tubes and injectable drugs. So this ancient creature provides a very real and valuable service for many people.

I had to laugh about Mary's cooking experience with octopus. I've read of many methods to tenderize the rubbery cephalopod. If you ask five different people what these measures are you are likely to get five different answers, all arcane - which goes a long way toward explaining why no one cooks octopus at home. A Greek cook may tell you to beat it against some rocks. A Spanish cook will dip it into boiling water three times, then cook it in a copper pot - only copper will do. An Italian might cook it with two corks. The Japanese rub it all over with salt, or knead it with grated daikon, then slice the meat at different angles, with varying strokes. I have used a wooden mallet to beat the rubber out of the octopus.

But I read up after Mary's adventure to find that the best method which is often the simplest (Occam's rasor) is to cook octopus and squid slowly. Cook for under five minutes or so for salad or sushi. For deep frying, it would be best to do long, slow cooking to get a tender texture. I read in one book that 30 minutes per kilo (two pounds) is a gauge. But much will depend on repeatedly testing the skin with a sharp knife. When the knife blade splits the skin with little resistance, then the octopus is done.

And if all that isn't gross enough, when eating calimari look for the long tentacle that extends beyond the others. That is the hectocotylized arm of the male. He uses that to place a sperm packet in the female and thereby inseminates her.

Bon appetit.