admin

A New Hike

This week I did not go out to the hills of Virginia for a hike.

I didn’t go out the week before either.

Instead I went for a morning walk to a nearby city park.

Why the shift? Social distancing. Closure of state parks. The Corona Virus.

This virus is changing our lives.

I miss my hikes into the deep woods. But my walks in the neighborhood give me a new appreciation of the work my neighbors put into their yards. I’m not talking about grass being green. I am talking about the joy of standing on a sidewalk and looking at the arrays of azaleas that have burst open in their vibrant colors. I am talking about the vegetables gardens that peek around from the back of their houses or more prominently placed in the side or front yards in order to get better sun. I am talking about the joy I see in my neighbors’ faces as they see the joy in my own face at the beauty provided by their labor.

Let’s be real. A rough-barked Persimmon tree growing on the margin of a field of uncut hay has a stark beauty all its own. I know of the fruit I may find there in the Fall. There is wonder in the ancient Pear tree growing on the edge of a parking lot where a house stood 200 years ago. The tree may only have a few seasons left but in the Spring it blossoms, and in the Fall it still produces several hard, sweet pears. In summer the Chinaberry trees that line the old lanes provide their sweet fruit for me and the birds that usually get them first.

But here in our neighborhood, my pleasure in being outside is immediate. I see the daffodils growing nearly wild in more than one yard. I know that they will be gone soon, but they will be replaced by the later blooms of the flowering trees. I would see many of these same trees deep in the woods on my walks in past Springs. I have written about the pale green blossoms of the small Dogwoods that turn to a blazing white deep in the soon-to-be-shadowed depths of the hardwood forest.

These old places where I walk are like old friends. I know them well in all seasons. And likewise they know me. But now the sidewalks in my neighborhood are becoming my friends again. I had walked them when I was recovering from an illness two decades ago. I know the slender, twisted branches of the Quince bushes with their delicate pink blooms. There are several of these along my walk up to the park. I know the shade of Linden trees that are planted in the park at the end of these urban paths.

These places, the present and the past, all have a place in my mind. I derive pleasure in thinking about the old, and from walking the new. And when I get back home, I can relive those walks in the forest paths of years ago by telling tales of those paths. And the tales of today’s walk in the neighborhood? I can tell those stories as well, as together we build a sense of place for these, our shared sidewalks.

And there are the birds as well.

Bug on the Water

It is Spring. The rain is a bit warmer. The days are a bit longer. The early flowers are beginning to poke their heads up in the fields and in the yards.

And out in the woods the buds are showing on the trees and bushes.

In my neighborhood the flowers have paused for a moment. The Cherry blossoms were magnificent. Even the fall of the Cherry blossoms was nice; it looked like a late snow fall. Now we are awaiting the Dogwood trees which burst open, all in the same week, throughout the neighborhood.

Back to the woods the buds and nascent leaves are showing red and green throughout the undergrowth. The Persimmon trees still have tight buds. The blackberry vines are showing buds that promise a sweet treat in late summer. The Dogwoods in the deep woods are preparing, just as the ones in our neighborhood, to burst open in all their glory.

But what of the bugs. I have seen one or two of the bright yellow Cloudless Sulphur Butterfly (Phoebis sennae) of Virginia in the fields. And while on the trail I have been passed by several large bumble bees. But its not up, but down that I want to look.

In the stream that the trail crosses and recrosses I can see small bugs, True Bugs as it turns out, darting around as they chase and follow each other. They skate on the waters surface from the edge of the bank into the slight current of the small stream. These are Water Striders, insects of the Order Hemiptera, meaning “half-wing” due to their divided fore wings. But it is their feet that are the most amazing and which give them the ability to glide on the surface of the water.

These insects spend their life first beneath and later on top of the surface of streams and ponds. They are sometimes carnivorous and prey on smaller and less agile bugs that come into their territory. And they delight us with their quick movements as they sprint across the water’s surface. This ability is due to the size of their long feet/fore legs which rest on the water. Their long legs distribute their body weight across the surface of the water and at each foot they are amply supported by the water’s surface tension. They can glide across the water’s surface without breaking through. The Water Strider’s body and legs and feet are covered in tiny hairs which trap air bubbles when in contact with water. These hairs covering the little bug’s entire body are water repellent. These hairs not only help the Water Strider to distribute their weight on the water’s surface but allow them to quickly shed any water that might splash onto their body and weigh them down.

As I stand on the edge of the bank, I watch these Water Striders dart across the surface of the stream. Their quick movements are mesmerizing as the bugs chase each other across the surface.

These are not the only insects in the streams. Right now the nymphs of the Mayfly (Order Ephemeroptera) and the Stonefly (Order Plecoptera) are beneath the water’s surface. They remain there for several years after they hatch. Then as early Summer warms the air and the water, the oldest class of these insects will emerge as adults and fly up from the surface in clouds that can easily be seen. The nymphs of these two insects are especially important indicators of the health of the streams as the insects are very susceptible to pollution. The clouds of these insects above the water are indicators of a healthy stream. And these clouds provide a tasty treat to the fish of the streams.

Below the clouds the Water Strider skates across his territory.

Wet Day with Grapes

In these days of the Corona-virus I don’t get out as much as I like to. But when I have an opportunity to get out, I usually go. Last Sunday I went out to a small National Park which has some good hiking trials. But it was so crowded that I did not even park my car. After visiting three trailheads I turned around and headed home. It’s not very far from where I live, so going out and coming back is not any trouble for me.

It was late afternoon when I went out as that is when I like to hike. When I got to the entrance road, I could see there were cars parked all along the drive. This meant that at some point in the day the main parking lot had been full. And it may have still been full. When I saw all the cars parked along the road, I knew that part of the park was more crowded than I like it. So I drove to another area in the park where there are some excellent trails. Here again the same thing. Cars and trucks parked all along the road up to the small parking area (3 spaces) at the trailhead. When I saw this, I passed it by. The third area was the same. At this area I could see down the paths that cross the mown fields, and I could see large groups that I would likely have to intermix with. That’s was my last chance, so I drove on home.

Although I was disappointed in missing my walk, I didn’t mind because I was taking charge. As Dr. Fauci has told us time and again, we are not in charge of the timetable for transmission of the COVID-19 sickness. This new virus, the novel Corona-virus, is in charge. But we can be in charge of what we do, of how we react to the presence of the virus. As he tells us the best thing we can do right now is do your best to prevent the transmission to ourselves and to others. We must follow the social distancing guidelines. We must avoid public areas as much as we can. We must protect ourselves, and thereby protect the hospital workers who we might pass on the trail or who live in our neighborhood.

But what about the grapes? Was it raining last weekend?

No, it was not raining last weekend. I took this picture of the grapes dripping water last year in late summer. I was in the same park but down by the broad creek that forms the boundary of the park.

The grapes were just beginning to grow, and so were quite small. I doubt that they would have grown to full size fruit as there are many animals and birds that enjoy the grapes, at whatever stage the fruit may be. I don’t eat them since wild grapes can be rather sour if you get them too early. And even if you wait until they are fully developed, they are still rather tart. As the grapes ripen the blue jays and other birds will fly in and sit on the thicker parts of the vine while they eat the grapes When the grapes are a bit riper, the raccoons and possums will climb up and pluck them off the vines.

Up in the woods of the Virginia foothills, I use to walk in a State Park in the Blue Ridge where there was a big grape vine there that the kids could pull themselves up on. I imagine that it was decades old. At my home in North Carolina there was an old grape vine that had been growing and hanging from a tree deep in the woods for as long as I could remember. The tree was toppled by a hurricane several years ago and the grape vine which was about 6 inches across had to be cut so the tree and its branches could be removed. I’m still hoping that the shoots I have seen on that stub will continue to grow for another 50 – 100 years.

These vines of wild grapes are all through the southern woods. They are a welcome sight as I know that the birds and the beasts enjoy them. And seeing the big vines hanging from the trees always make me smile as I think back to the first vine that I ever swung on.

But be careful; don’t grab hold of a poison ivy vine. They are in the same woods. Know what you are grabbing hold of. If the roots of the vine and where it is attached to the tree have “hair” growing out onto the tree the vine is climbing don’t touch it. Its poison ivy.

I hope we are all back in the woods soon. And please remember to always wash your hands.

I believe the grapes pictured are Riverbank Grapes (Vitis riparia).

DINO Tracks

On a recent trip to New Mexico, before we had to hustle back home, we visited an exposed dinosaur trackway in the north-east corner of the state.

For me visiting these sites is an experience in time travel as much as it is in science. The tracks at Clayton Lake State Park were made in the early Cretaceous period about 100 million years ago. At this time in Earth’s geology, the main continents that we know today had been separated from the Pangea supercontinent of 250 million years earlier and were roughly in shapes that are recognizable today. At the time the tracks were made the current continent of North America was divided by a shallow sea that ran from the Arctic area to the current Gulf of Mexico. This sea is known as the Western Interior Seaway. Its western shore ran along the eastern area of the Rocky Mountains. The western portion of the Seaway covered the states of Texas, Colorado and Wyoming as well as much of Montana, Utah, and New Mexico. Throughout the 79 million years of the Cretaceous period the seaway rose and fell, receding from and later re-covering areas of shoreline.

Along this shoreline walked the dinosaurs. They lived in what was likely a marshy area of damp soils in which their footsteps would create massive footprints that can now be seen in several areas along what was the western boundary of the Western Interior Seaway. This western boundary now contains what is called the Dakota Group of rock which was laid down by the silts of the Western Interior Seaway.

The trackway at what is now known as Clayton Lake State Park was discovered after a large rain event in 1982. The dam which forms Clayton Lake was built in the 1950s and improved in the 1970s. The dam captures the water of the Seneca Creek which is held behind the dam. The dam is 92 feet high and 150 feet long with a broad walking path on the top. This path leads to the dam’s spillway on its northern end. This is where the dinosaur footprints may be seen. When the dam was built a spillway was cut out of the adjacent hillside so that the dam would not be damaged by heavy rain events. In that type of rain event, the lake may become filled to near the crest of the dam. The adjacent spillway allows water from the lake to be channeled around the side of the dam so that it is not over-topped by the rising water. In 1987 as the water rose it flowed over the spillway in torrents large enough to carry away the layers of rock and dirt that overlay the bottom of the spillway.

I imagine that I can see that storm and the rising water in the lake. The overflow from the lake flows across the spillway, cutting away material above the dinosaur footprints and exposing them. Now as I look out, I can see the herd of dinosaurs moving up the shore of the lake. Large hadrosaurs, believed to have been Iguanodons, slowly walk past me moving north along the shore of the Western Interior Seaway. They browse on the vegetation that grows along the shore . Some splash out into the shallows of the water to eat the submerged vegetation that grows there. A baby Iguanodon scurries past me looking around for its parent. As it passes, a crocodile, swims up through the shallows looking for a meal, perhaps something about the size of the small Iguanodon that just passed. The crocodile is too small to be a threat to the adults, but it is large enough so that as it lies in the shallows, watching, the adult Iguanodons move around it. As I stand watching, the beasts in the herd flow around me, large bulls, adolescents, females, and scurrying so as not to be stepped on a number of the baby Iguanodons. They move past me on their way up the shore of the vast inland seaway.

In the failing light of the day they continue their trek. I can barely see them through the mist and slight rain that seems to continually fall. Suddenly, ahead, I hear excited chirps and calls from the herd. A great roar is heard ,and the Iguanodons can be heard splashing in the shallows as they surge into the lake. A carnivore, a meat eater, known now as an Acrocanthosaurus, can be seen coming out of the taller vegetation farther from the shore, and moving slowly towards the herd. It moves north following the herd of herbivores, plant eaters. Soon the herd and the stalker disappear into the mists and failing light.

I find myself still standing on the walkway that surrounds the dinosaur footprints, looking down the footprint left by the Acrocanthosaurus. I am back in the present. I look out across the arena where these creatures walked over 100 million years ago.

Pictures of these dinosaurs may be found at; Acrocanthosaurus at http://www.emnrd.state.nm.us/SPD/claytonlakestatepark.html and Iguanodons at https://www.newdinosaurs.com/131_iguanodon_raul_martin/

Information on the New Mexico Clayton Lake State park may be found at http://www.emnrd.state.nm.us/SPD/claytonlakestatepark.html , https://geoinfo.nmt.edu/tour/state/clayton_lake/home.html , and https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/mesozoic/cretaceous/clayton.html .

Moon Bowl

In 1990 Science News printed an article which told of the Mimbres culture of what is now southwest New Mexico. The Mimbres people made black-on-white pottery adorned with intricate designs and mysterious animal. Of particular note in the article was a shallow bowl with the figure of a rabbit painted on the inside. According to the article the rabbit is an animal associated with the moon in numerous indigenous cultures of what is now the Southwest United States and Central America.

Upon close observation, the image of a rabbit on its hind legs can be seen in the dark areas of the full moon. Which might have led to the link between the rabbit and the moon.

The article concerned a study led by astronomer R. Robert Robbins and student Russell R Westmoreland then of the University of Texas in Austin. In studying the pottery of the Mimbres culture, they happened upon a specific bowl which pictured a rabbit “clutching” a small circular image with 23 rays. They proposed that this bowl was a record of the explosion of the supernova which created the Crab Nebula. The explosion was recorded by Chinese astronomers in the 11^th century Common Era (CE). This would make the bowl, now known as the Supernova bowl, the only known record of the supernova that created the Crab Nebula outside China and Japan.

At the time I found the story intriguing and started a search for more information on stories from indigenous peoples related to a rabbit on the moon. I was also curious about the shape of the shallow bowl. It was round but quite shallow and would not be able to hold much inside, whether it was water, or grain, or sand. I was not able to find much information on either, but I was also wrapped up in my work as an engineer – and camping along the unpopulated portions of the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

Several decades later I was sitting on my screen porch at night. I might not have been in the wilderness, but I was outside enjoying a very pleasant evening. The light that entered the porch was from a single streetlight across the street. I happened to look up at several items we had hanging on the wall of the porch, one of which was a large, shallow bowl I had bought in street market in Morocco in the 1960s. We had two of these bowls hanging on the wall as they are well made and have a colorful geometric pattern. As the light from the streetlight hit the bowls at a shallow angle the side of the bowl cast a shadow across the curved depth of the bowl and created a pattern of a waxing crescent moon, as it proceeded to a full moon. I was amazed. I carefully removed the bowl from the wall and turned it so that the light of the streetlight hit it a different angles and created a shadowing affect that appeared like the changing phases of the moon.

I found this interesting and wondered how ancient people explained the phases of the moon, or whether they might have thought of the moon as a bowl. Of course, we now know that the moon is not a bowl but rather is a sphere created around the same time as the Earth. As both revolved around the Sun and each other they became more and more rounded from the effect of the rotating motion.

Several years later while looking for a space-related gift for a colleague who was retiring, I came across a “moon bowl”. It was made of metal with an acid-etched surface. It was very shallow and looked very much, in its general shape, like the Mimbres bowl I had read about so many years before. I gave the gift and told the story, or what I thought was a plausible story, of how ancient people might have used a bowl to explain the phases of the moon.

Recently, I went in search of more of these metal bowls but was disappointed to learn that the foundry in Vermont was no longer making the bowls.

But the story does not change, and now when I stand outside and look up at the night sky. I wonder what ancient people thought the moon and the stars and the wandering planets might be. Some stories have come down to us, from when those people, our ancestors, stood outside and gazed up and the night sky and marveled at its beauty.

The Science News article from 1990 may be found at; https://www.sciencenews.org/archive/astronomy-71

Dr. R. Robert Robbins remains on the staff of the University of Texas in Austin where he teaches the history and philosophy of astronomy and archaeoastronomy; and science education.

The picture of the “Supernova Bowl” below is from a copy of the Science News article. I will post a better one if I can find it.

Four-Points

WOW! I am still excited, even two weeks after my wonder-filled find.

I was out in the open fields and forest edges on a warm Saturday, hiking and enjoying being outside. As I crossed a field, I saw something sticking up out of the grass ahead of me. It was about 50 yards away. The sunlight highlighted it so it stood out from the surrounding grasses even though it was not much higher that the brown stalks.

The area where I do most of my local hiking has a rather large white-tailed deer population. There are several herds that populate the area with numerous males of all ages.

One of the aspects of the white-tail deer, which every school child knows, is the male’s antlers are shed each year in the late Spring. Each year, each male deer will grow a new set of antlers. The antlers grow through the Spring and Summer, reaching their full size at beginning of the deer’s mating season known as “the rut”. As the male deer grows older his antlers grow larger with each passing year. A young male may only grow antlers that come to a single point. These are also known as spikes.

An older male will grow more massive antlers with numerous points. The antlers remain on the male until after the mating season is over. At that time the male deer’s body chemistry begins to change which signals his body that the antlers are no longer needed. His antlers become less firmly attached to his skull, and they prepare to fall off. This physiological change takes place in the late Winter and early Spring.

The antlers may fall off as the buck is walking through the woods where the antlers may be brushed off by low branches. They may fall off due to a jolt, if the deer is involved in a late season battle with another male deer. They may fall off as the buck runs and jumps across a field.

In the part of Virginia where I hike this change and the shedding of antlers generally happens after mid-February. If you are out in the woods and fields where deer roam and browse, you may find a single antler, or in some cases a pair of antlers. Finding a pair is rather rare, as the antlers fall off at different times. The pair may be far apart across a field or patch of woods. Sometimes though they fall off on a used trail, so that even if they are shed on different days they may be found at locations on the same trail. It’s a random pattern depending on where the deer goes, his body chemistry, and whether there is an event that causes the antlers to be knocked or brushed off his head.

Then the forest or field takes over. These “sheds” are not just useless bone. Small forest creatures will gnaw on the antlers as they are a source of phosphorous and calcium and other minerals for these creatures. These may be mice emerging from their winter tunnels, or foxes and coyotes.

And of course, there are people who may pick them up. These people, like me, enjoy walking across the fields and up through the woods looking for whatever they might see and enjoying the peace of the natural surroundings.

I have found small sheds before, but this find was certainly different with its polished four points. When I picked it up, I was surprised by how heavy it was. It weighed about four pounds. I have been out to the area where I found it twice more to see if its mate will turn up. It has not. It might not have fallen off yet. Or it has fallen off and some forest creature, or another walker, has carried it off.

BRIDGE

During this “Winter-Without-Snow” I have taken advantage of the record-setting weather to wander fields and forest lanes which I would not usually go onto. Many of these places are not available to me Spring through Fall when the hay is growing and the ticks are more active. Right now, the hay has been cut and most insects are dormant due to their season .

Last week I went to what was for me an unexplored field surrounded by woods. I intended to walk the perimeter which was two miles around its full circuit. When I added in my excursions into the woods surrounding the field, my walk was a very pleasant three miles – and maybe a bit more. As I walked the edges of the field, I would walk down into the surrounding woods to look at some item that had caught my eye. Perhaps it was an old bottle reflecting the sun, or a particularly interesting shape of a tree, or a stand of bushes full of bright red winter-berries.

I was drawn further into the woods by a stream that flowed near the edge of the woods. The rains of the week before had mostly drained out of the hilly woods surrounding the field. The stream was flowing quietly. It carried a sparkling brightness in the filtered sunlight and was worth exploration. The woods were not dark like northern coniferous forests full of evergreens. This was a bright, southern mixed hardwood forest of bare branches and filtered sunlight. The branches, bare of leaves, allowed the sunlight to penetrate through what in summer is a darkening canopy and brighten the area below. It was bright and inviting so I directed my trek along the course of the stream.

It was easy to tell that the stream would sometimes run high and fast as the banks of the stream were steep and without much growth. Further up the hill into the forest I could see something that stretched across the stream. When I got to it, I found it was an abandoned foot-bridge. But it was not a bridge that could be used. It was missing boards. A few were in place, but other dangled above the narrow stream. Only one of the natural-timber cross-pieces was still in place, spanning the stream to the opposite bank. No animal other than a raccoon or a mouse would be able to cross it easily.

Once in times past, the bridge had spanned the stream. It went from one place to another. It had lain at some point further up the stream. Then a day of heavy rain and high water, perhaps in a hurricane, had lifted the bridge and pushed it to this current spot. On my side of the stream the bridge was open. On the opposite bank the timber span ended at the base of a large tree.

Even though the bridge could not now be crossed, it still caused me to wonder. What is on the other side? I could easily see the other side just across the small gully; the distance was less than 30 feet. But if I could have walked across the bridge, what would I actually see? I would see the same trees on that far bank that I could see from my current spot. But on that far side I would be able to reach out and touch those trees. I would experience that distant shore.

I have never seen a bridge that I did not want to cross in order to touch the other side.

And that has made all the difference. (1)

Borrowing the closing from Robert Frost’s, The Road Not Taken.

Stone Artifact – The Road Back

Continued from earlier article, “The Road Out”

When we last left our heroes they had made the trek out to the edge of the marsh and they were sitting on the shell bed next to the river.

The shells in the shell bed were mainly oyster shells that had been bleached white by the sun. The river was a tidal river so the banks were completely over-washed at high tide and the shells would be tumbled and top shells replaced by others. If I dug down seven inches there were only other bleached shells. There was no mud base perhaps until much deeper. The shells were often exposed to the sun so all the shells in these top several inches were bleached white. The oysters shells were large most of them over six inches in length and some might have even reached a foot in length. Mixed in with the oyster shells were other shells of snails and small bivalves that lived in the marsh grasses and in the mud. And there were other stranger items as well.

I stood up and walked to the end of the 30 feet or so of bleached shells to where the bank sloped down into the marsh. I walked back, shuffling my feet to move the shells around so I could see what might be buried in the shells. I knew if I went along the edge of the island causeway from the mainland I would find items dumped to make the road bed, old broken plates, odd items of military accoutrements, and other scrap metal and rubble.

As I shuffled through the bank I overturned something that was brick red, but not brick shaped. I picked it up and examined it. It was a handle from a clay pot made of red mud from some upstream clay bed. It was obviously a handle and still attached to it was a small piece of the jug that it once supported. The shape and thickness of the handle had strengthened and protected the handle from whatever fate broke the pot. On the handle there remained some of the old glaze that had overlaid the pot after its firing. It was a bright yet translucent yellow, like the sunrise over the marsh on a hot summer day.

I put the handle in my pocket and continued my search. I picked up a few of the snail shells and looked at their design and the coloration of the seams of the shell as they spiraled up from the opening to its peak. I dropped these small shells back onto the shell bed. They clattered as they hit and bounced to a standstill, caught in the cups of the larger shells. I picked up a large canine tooth from some creature. I looked it over and slipped it into my pocket.

Then as I pushed shells away with my foot I uncovered what I initially thought was a spear point. I was amazed at my good fortune, and I picked it up. It was about eight inches long. One end tapered to a point and other was broken off exposing the stone from which it had been made. I looked around to see if there might be other pieces lying among the shells. I did not see any. I looked back at my find and considered what it might be. The shape was certainly like a spear point but the item was nearly ¾ of an inch thick, and made of a soft stone. The soft stone had been likely been worked into a tool shape long ago. But what tool and for what purpose?

Liking my new treasure, I slipped it into my pocket along with the brick-red handle. My dog was still lying on the shell bed patiently waiting for me to be ready to move on to our next adventure. But first we had to re-cross the marsh. We stepped onto the boards. I turned and I took a final look back at the shell bed and the dark river flowing swiftly past. Then I turned back to our task of getting back to shore.

I kept those treasures for years. But all except the tooth are now gone. I can recall their shape and their feel in my hand. But I am no longer sure of what happened to them. I think I gave the handle to a friend who collected old bits of pottery. The fashioned stone artifact stay with me for long time. I would find it in a drawer periodically and take it out and wonder at it. I finally came to the conclusion that it was some sort of tool for planting and cultivating crops in ancient times. It might have been used for digging or a seed drill for planting seed. Its pointed end was rounded from years of digging in the soil, or being twisted in the earth to make a seed hole, or dragged through the loose top soil to make a small trench. But I have lost that old treasure.

It came back to my mind when I read an article about a man in North Carolina who had found a similar item. He had talked with people at a museum and they concluded it was a hand adz. It was also probably used in agriculture. A sketch of my memory of my stone artifact is sketched below.

I never recrossed the marsh to search for more treasures. But I have continued to pick up odds and ends when I walk along a river shore, or in the woods, and I pick items up and wonder what they might have been and who was the person that used them when they walked this same way.

The article mentioned may be found at: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article238425048.html

Betelgeuse – Fading

So just what is going on with Betelgeuse?

That’s a good question, and no one seems to have the answer. It may not be possible to have an answer right now.

First of all Betelgeuse is one of my favorite stars in one of my favorite constellations. Betelgeuse is a red super giant star in the constellation Orion. For basic comparison Betelgeuse is 600 times the diameter of the sun and emits 7,500 times the amount of radiation as the Sun. If Betelgeuse were in the Sun’s position the red giant would engulf the planets of the solar system out beyond the orbit of Jupiter.

In the Winter, Orion is clearly visible at night in the northern hemisphere. Betelgeuse is the bright reddish start at the upper end of Orion on the observers left. That is considered the right shoulder of Orion. Just as when you are facing a person, your left side is opposite their right side.

We have all likely been able to see Orion at some time in our lives and are familiar with its shape. A visual aspect of the major stars is shown in the diagram above. There are many more stars in the constellation, but it is these stars that are easiest to pick out when looking up at the constellation at night. Betelgeuse is the star on the upper left. The brightest star in the constellation is Rigel which is opposite Betelgeuse in the lower right side. The other two stars that make up the “frame” of the body of Orion are Bellatrix and Saiph, in the, respectively, upper right position and the lower left position of these four stars.

But discussing the constellation cannot be done without expressing the beauty of the true jewel of Orion, the Orion nebula, the middle star in Orion’s sword that hangs from the three stars of his belt.

Recently there have been numerous articles about the dimming of Betelgeuse. Betelgeuse is a variable star known to dim and brighten over a period of time. However the current dimming is greater than those seen previously. In an article in EarthSky, there is a pair of photographs of Betelgeuse take by Brian Ottum in February 2016 and in December 2019. By comparing the two photographs, the dimming of the star can easily be seen. I found that scaling the picture down in size actually made the difference more apparent.

But can I see this in the sky?

Yes, relatively speaking. Relatively from having seen the star in previous winters as it crossed the sky. Whether out star-gazing on darkened fields, or going out well before sunrise to listen for owls or other birds, I will sit quietly in my folding chair and stare up at the sky. That’s a grand way to spend some time. From this I have a picture in my mind’s eye of the stars in Orion. To me the four stars could be separated as the diagonal pair of Betelgeuse and Rigel, and a second diagonal pair of Bellatrix and Saiph. The stars in these parings have always seemed similar in brightness to me. If you look the stars up you will of course find that the apparent brightness or the absolute magnitude of the two stars in the pairing are not close, but the pairing is the two brighter stars and a second paring of the two less bright stars. To me the diagonal pair of Betelgeuse and Rigel have always been somewhat matched in brightness in the night sky.

After I had seen several articles related to the dimming of Betelgeuse I went out and looked up to see Orion on several nights. But I did not have a picture of what I remembered seeing. I had to recall in my mind how the stars shone. And I could see a difference in Betelgeuse. It was still reddish but it was considerably less bright.

So why the dimming of this inconstant star. Again a good questions and the answer to which will only truly be revealed by the passage of time. Several articles speculated on the shrinking of the giant star as it prepares to blow off its outer shell and explode in a super nova. But I will not need to sit out each night and watch for this as an event like that might not happen for 100,000 years or more. But maybe I will sit out next week and keep my eye on it. That would be a spectacular sight.

However, the light from Betelgeuse takes a over 650 years to reach earth. So, it might have happened already and the light of the event has not yet reached earth.

And recently gravity waves were observed by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) that came from the area of the sky in the general area of Betelgeuse. What is that about? In reading information from the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) again we do not know the source, but it does not appear to emanate from Betelgeuse.

So we wait to learn. But in the meantime, we can go out on any Winter night and enjoy looking up at the stars of Orion. His frame shines out as does his belt and his sword. The constellation dominates the Winter sky. A bonus are his dogs represented by Sirius and Procyon. And if the night is dark and the sky is clear, below them hiding in the grass you may see Lepus, the rabbit.

The EarthSky article may be found at: https://earthsky.org/space/ligo-gravitational-wave-burst-near-betelgeus

A “tweet” from Dr. Stella Kafka, Director and CEO of AAVSO, on January 14, 2020, may be found by searching at: https://twitter.com

Stone Artifact – The Road Out

When I was younger my family lived at Parris Island, South Carolina. Its in the area of the Palmetto State that’s known as the “low country”. Its low in the sense that it is covered with the marshes of the coastal tidal rivers. Islands large and small dot the landscape and at high tides are surrounded by the brackish water. The area is rich in teeming aquatic life. The banks of the rivers are marsh and sulfur rich mud. Marshes grasses and snails and tiny “fiddler” crabs fill the marsh area along with many other creatures. On my river, the area between the flowing water and these marshes were lined with empty oyster shells. These shell banks were wide and deep. If you dug down there were just more shells. All were bleached white by the South Carolina sun. Today, when I look at those rivers on Google Earth I see the same brackish water and the banks still have some white borders but it’s hard to tell if they are the shell banks that I recall.

At this time in my youth these shell banks were my goal. I wondered what treasures might lie there among the bleached oyster shells. But between me and those banks lay a hundred yards of marsh mud. The mud would support a fiddler crab, but if I set my foot on it I would sink up to my knees in the soft “pluff mud.” At the same time I was rewarded for my effort with the stench of rotten eggs/sulfur from small air pockets formed beneath the surface of the mud from the processes involved in the decay of organic matter. It was a truly distinctive odor.

Neither my dog or I liked the smell, but we were drawn to the marsh and the distant river bank. We had tried to slog our way out but it was exhausting for both of us. With each step I would have to full my foot free of the sticky, smelly mud only to sink back up to my knee with the next step. My dog would be up to his chest with all four legs stuck in the mud, but together we gamily slogged on. But we were not to make it. I had to lift my dog out of the mud and together get back to the solid land beyond the marsh grasses. I clearly remember the reception we got at home when we arrived dirty and smelling of the mud. We had to clean up in the back yard with the hose.

There had to be a better way. After much thought I came up with a plan using boards that I could find washed up in the marsh. Using several boards, I could build a walk-way that I could move with me out over the mud to the white shoreline beside the river. It required that I move the boards with me. I would place the first board and walking along it place the second board at the end. Then I would stand on the second board and pick up the board I have just left. I would carry that board to the end of the second board I was walking on and place it into position. I repeated this process over and over. It took me half an hour to cross 100 yards of sucking mud and reach the shell banks next to the river.

My dog would walk on the planks as well -sometimes. A couple of time he jumped into the mud to investigate something, and I had to pull him out. This was no mean feat as he was a full-grown pointer, and I was just in my twelfth year.

I was difficult work, including a few slips of my own. But we made it. ¹

We stepped out onto the shell bed. The shells shifted and crunched with each step. We had made it to the river. The brown swiftly flowing water was only a few feet away. As I walked towards it, the shells would shift and slid into the muddy water.

I stood and gazed out across the river and savored my success. Then I sat on the shell bed and looked out across the broad river. My dog sat down next to me.

To Be Continued in a follow-on article, “The Road Back.”

1-Years later I would read Larry Niven’s science fiction stories and his Tales of Known Space, which included a planet of this name. I would recall my walk across the Mud.