World_Population_8B – Page 2

Earthworms on Parade

I could hardly believe my luck. On my morning science news from the American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) list was not one – but two articles on earth worms. I am a fan! I can’t remember the first time I picked up an earthworm from the sidewalk after a rain. Which, by the way, I still do. But there is no way that I can get them all, yet I hate seeing their little desiccated carcasses lying on the sidewalk the next day. It seems that they are often caught between a rock (the sidewalk) and a hard place (the dirt). After a rain the layer of ground which they normally inhabit can become saturated and the tunnels the worms make as they move about become flooded. Just like you and me, the earth worms cannot breathe under water. They breathe, as in taking in oxygen, through their skin, not through their mouths. So they will often come to the surface of the ground and wander onto the sidewalk. If they stay in the grass they are pretty much ok.

I decided to check some of what I thought I knew and ended up at the University of Illinois Extension Service where Herman the Worm holds forth on all things worm-ish, https://web.extension.illinois.edu/worms/anatomy/index.html . The site states that worms like moist environments as their skin must stay moist in order to be able to absorb oxygen. So, wet ground is good for their skin, so they can breathe easier. But saturated ground is not good; it does not allow air to penetrate to the levels of the worms. They will drown. They will escape to the surface. Earthworms also come to the surface to mate. Both are important functions for these little creatures.

But back to the main line. The first time my grandfather took me fishing, I wanted to look for worms. He took me out under a old sycamore tree on his farm and told me to dig. I was fascinated by the worms I uncovered in the dark moist soil. My grandfather told me to leave them alone, that he had other bait to use for the fish. So I took a parting look at the worms, and off we went to his boat on the river bank.

All of us have probably found worms when we have dug into the soil. And because they like to be moist it would make sense that they prefer shaded places where the earth is soft and not dried out. But where in the world are they all? Both of the articles in my AAAS science news link mentioned a coordinated study of scientists which included 6693 sites in 57 nations across the globe. The study asked about their work with earthworms. Personally, I have found that worms always show up to work on time.

And what an amazing amount of work they do. We all most likely remember a science class in grammar school in which we learned that worms are an important constituent in soil health. They aerate the soil as they tunnel about. Their tunnels allow the flow of water into deeper levels of the soils. Their droppings (known as castings) fertilize the soil. All of these; fertilizer, water , and air are important aspects of plant root growth for healthy and robust crop production.

We salute you, little worms, and out of respect I will continue to help you off the sidewalk.

Two sites with information about worms and agriculture:

University of Illinois: https://web.extension.illinois.edu/worms/anatomy/index.html

Pennsylvania State University: https://extension.psu.edu/earthworms

Information about extension services:

https://nifa.usda.gov/extension

First Drive Out

Not in ever, but today was my first drive-out since my accident and recovery. Under the laws of my State if a driver has a medical emergency of a certain type while driving, they must relinquish their driving privileges for six months. The first two months were spent in the hospital and recovering at home. But whether it is six months or four months, for someone like myself who is used to the freedom that a car gives; it was a long time.

Although I could get rides to the store or the doctor, I could not drive myself to the park for a morning walk or to the woods for a hike.

But today, the six months were done, and I could get into my car and drive myself out to the woods and fields beyond my City for a walk.

You may have noticed that I have not characterize the length or the intensity of my walk or hike. Right now, that is not what matters. I am preparing myself once again for a long hike. So, I need to engage in re-conditioning. I am preparing for a mountainous hike; a hike with both length and intensity. But I have to start with a simple walk in fields and wooded hills. I will build up to the longer, more arduous hike. My preparation is physical, and it is mental – and perhaps also spiritual.

My walk today, through woods and open fields, was my first in six months. And the drive by myself out to these woods was also my first in six months. My first drive-out was for my first walk-out. A drive in my car should not be just for the drive itself. In these days of changing climate, my drive should have a higher purpose. Each of us must be aware of and reduce our impact on the atmosphere which is driving the changing climate of our Earth. Does my simple drive out to the woods tip the scales? I don’t think so. But I must be aware that my short drive, added to your short drive, plus his and her short drives, multiplied by several billion short drives, has a significant, multiple, negative impact on the atmosphere and on the climate of our world.

But I consider my drive worthwhile. For me it is part of my physical, mental, and spiritual recovery. My walk took me back into familiar patterns and into familiar places. I walked down to the foot bridge that crosses a stream that can swell in rainy weather, but is now a wandering rivulet. My return path took me past the small wetland that resides on the back side of the upward slope of a hill. On its upward slope the hill is covered in grasses and wild flowers. It is a browsing ground for the local white-tailed deer. At a point on the far side where the woods line the open field, a stream enters from the woods. This stream on the lower part of the hill has created a wetland. The wetland resides on both sides of the the course of the meandering stream. Horse Tails and Broom Sedge dot the wetland among the other wet grasses. It is is bordered with the last of the late summer flowers, Red Clover and Queen Anne’s Lace, along its margins.

My path takes me from hill top to stream to wetland to hilltop.

It was a grand, first walk-out.

The art work is from pictures I captured this morning. In it my shadow is superimposed on red clover (an introduced fodder plant) in the field.

There is also a picture of the Chinese Chestnut at the hill top.

Wetland plants identification using https://plants.usda.gov/core/wetlandSearch

Water Stress

Where I live, we have been without appreciable rain for nearly two months.

My garden wilted. My flowers wilted. The leaves on the trees started dropping early. But I have no real problem. I may be concerned for my garden, but I can take a hose and water it. I could do the same for my flowers, but I know they will survive and will return when the rain comes back. And I am sure the rain will come back.

Where I live, when compared to other places, we are water rich. We have clean water that flows from our taps whenever we want it. Where I lived before was along a wide meandering river that flowed down from up-state. My water came from a well. In my current location, I have water from the city. Both of these areas may be considered water rich. But where I had a well, I had to work at it a bit and have the well drilled deeper. Why? Because the water level of the native aquifer was slowly but continually falling.

Why was it falling? Was there less rain? No. There was plenty of rain throughout the state and the region. In many instances, it seemed there was too much rain. So why was the level of the ground water aquifer falling? Because there were more people. There were more people upstream and all along the river’s banks. There were more people taking surface water and ground water for their personal use and for industrial use, and in my state for agricultural use. So the aquifer level was falling – and it continues to fall.

About every five years I would notice my pump was struggling to lift water up the well. I would need to call a well-driller and have my personal well drilled deeper and deeper. This was not a solution. If anything, I was exacerbating the problem.

In that state, along the Atlantic coast, the total population of 24 coastal counties grew between 2000 and 2007. Several of the counties lost population or had a low growth rate, but half of the coastal counties had a growth rate greater than 15%. All these new people and their jobs were using more and more water. The counties up river were experiencing even more growth. The metropolitan areas drew in more and more people. And they took their share of the surface water and the ground water.

But compared to many places in our country and around the World, these 24 coastal counties were water rich. Some of the population increase was due to people moving into the state from other states. Part of it was the growth of the existing population. Both of these trends continue. It can be seen even on the state level that the more people there are, the more water is needed.

When you look at the World, our nation as I have mentioned is water rich. The September 14, 2019 issue of Science News, including an article , “One in four people live in a place of high risk of running out of water”. The article highlighted a growing, World-wide water crisis. It discussed a series of tools used by the World Resources Institute to calculate what is considered a high level of “water stress”. The article states that the World’s use of water increased 150% from 1961 to 2014. In that same time frame the World Bank indicates that the World’s population has more than doubled, from 3.1 billion to 7.2 billion. At a glance it might appear that the World’s population has learned to reduce their water requirement. But in actuality it indicates, that overall, the World’s people have less access to water.

In a water rich country like the United States, this is not evident, unless you have a well that you have to push deeper every few years. But for many people in the World safe and adequate water supplies is an issue.

As the World population grows toward 8 Billion, this issue will get worse. New methods of water use that conserve water will be needed, and new sources of water, such as the salt filled oceans, will have to be tapped. This will require improved – or new – technologies to prepare the water for consumption, including desalination of ocean water, and new distribution processes to get the water to the people, the animals, and the crops that need it.

The picture of the map is taken directly from World Resources Institute, https://www.wri.org/aqueduct/ .

The Science News article may be found at, https://www.sciencenews.org/article/one-4-people-lives-place-high-risk-running-out-water .

3 BILLION

Three Billion birds are gone. And all in just 50 years. It happened in the trees and fields. It happened where there were no longer any trees and where the fields had been treated with pesticides. It happened when a cat left out at night brought home a bird it had killed – as a gift – but in this reckoning it might as well have been in a tiny body bag. It happened without much notice. It happened in our yards, at our offices, along our streets, on our favorite country road. It was happening all around us. But it happened without much of a hue and cry.

There might have been a Fall when you said, “That “V” of geese overhead looks smaller than when I was a child”. But geese have found places to stay without going farther north.

And your cat seldom brings home birds, and then its only one. Its not only roaming domestic cats; its the wild, feral cats. The lower end of the estimate for feral cats in the United States is 65 million. If that number of cats each dropped one bird per year at someone’s doorstep that would surpass the 3 Billion count over the 50 year time frame.

And Dogs are not free of the blame. Ground dwelling birds and their nest are particularly susceptible to dogs. The dogs may catch the bird and will most often eat the eggs if they are in the nest. I’ve seen both of these events happen.

Another ferocious animal that can decimate bird populations are feral pigs. A pig will eat anything, acorns and other nuts, snakes, lizards and other reptiles, young dogs, eggs in ground nests, and birds. Feral pigs are worst in the southeast United States from North Carolina to Texas and Oklahoma. And California has a large population of feral pigs as well. These wild pigs can decimate wildlife populations. They can also severely damage the habitat for birds reducing nesting and breeding area.

These bird deaths can invade your home and office building. Did you hear that thump? It was a bird that thought the sky reflected in your penthouse window was a space to fly through. The bird flew right into the window. Buildings, especially high rise building, end up being death traps for bird. The light of the big cities compound the problems for birds on their historical migration path. Studies by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the University of Michigan, reveal the scope of these issues. The Cornell study named Chicago as the worst city for bird deaths from flying into windows. This is chiefly because the city and its tall buildings, including the tallest in the U.S., is on the historical Mississippi flyway. The flyways are highways in the sky that birds follow on the migrations.

Birds in the United States are in trouble, animals, construction activities, wanton destruction of breeding and nesting area, office buildings, confusion due to lighting; all these are playing a role in the loss of bird populations in the United States.

What will we miss? We will miss the sight of birds wheeling in the air. We will miss their song in our yard, in our city parks, out in the countryside. Insects will be less in control and will feast more freely on our plants and crops. A fictional movie from 1971 played on this idea. The Hellstorm Chronicles, implied that the results of insect populations breeding without any natural check on it and the horrifying results. A loss of birds can result in the loss of a lot more.

What is it that we have lost in the 50 years since 1970? We have lost 3 billion birds. We have lost their song, their beauty and their economic benefit. It has been gradual, but it is real. According to an article in Smithsonian magazine, the loss of 3 billion birds equates to a loss of more than 29% of the bird population in the United States.

Take four quarters out of your pocket and throw one away. Every time you want to buy something for a dollar, you only have 75 cents in your pocket. You go away unsatisfied. That’s where we are heading.

Quoting from To a Skylark, by Percy Shelley.

Hail to thee, Blithe Spirit!

Bird thou never wert,

That from Heaven, or near it,

Pourest thy full heart

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher

From the earth thou springest

Like a cloud of fire;

The blue deep thou wingest,

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

How, knowing this, could we ever let it pass?

The Cornell study and that of the University of Michigan mentioned about are summarized in an article that may be found at https://www.dezeen.com/2019/04/08/skyscrapers-usa-birds-death-studies/
Both the article in Dezeen magazine and on the Cornell Lab for Ornithology website present actions that can help stop the decline.
The Smithsonian article may be found at https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/north-america-has-lost-nearly-3-billion-birds-180973178/.
The art for this article is a modified version of he art on this catastrophic loss of American birds at https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/.
The entire poem To a Skylark may be found at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45146/to-a-skylark .
Sign-up for Cornell Lab of Ornithology (Birds) eNews which may be found https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/enews .

Sweeping the Sky

This morning was a wonderful Fall morning. It was clear. It was cool. As the sun came up it burnished the tops of the trees down in the woods. Some high, thin clouds were out to greet the sun. And as they passed overhead they were swept by the top most branches on the sun-lit trees.

At least it appeared that way.

But these trees did not touch the clouds. As the clouds drifted by they only appeared to be swept by the upper branches. However, this is not always the case. On mornings when the day is foggy, the clouds can engulf and move through the trees, and the trees clear out lines in the fog.

But today it appeared that the trees might be touching the clouds. Yet this was only my perspective. In reality, the trees did not touch the clouds. They touched the sky.

The real effect of the trees extends way beyond their height.

The leaves on the trees are the main component in clearing the atmosphere of carbon dioxide (CO2). The leaves absorb the CO2 and use it in the photosynthesis process. Photosynthesis, roughly translated, means, made from light. The light provides the energy of the sun to the trees. The trees use the energy from the sun to change CO2, absorbed from the air, into glucose (C6H12O6) for the tree’s metabolism. Through photosynthesis the tree manufactures C6H12O6 to enhance its own growth. This process uses water (H2O) drawn up from the soil in which the trees roots are bound. From the process glucose is produced, as well as oxygen (O2). But more O2 is produced than the tree requires of its own use. The excess O2 is released back into the atmosphere. There the oxygen is available for our use with every breath we take, and for all other creatures. It is not only the trees that carry out photosynthesis but all plants with chlorophyll use this process to enhance their growth. And thereby they all release the excess O2 into the atmosphere.

The basic chemical reaction that takes place using the energy from the sun is shown as follows;

This is the respiration of trees. Through this process we are supplied with the oxygen that we need for life, to run our own metabolism, and by which we grow and succeed. This is true for birds, for creatures in the trees and creatures on the ground, and for fish in the sea. The trees support us all.

The pumping of O2 into the atmosphere can be seen on the Keeling Curve (see article dated 02/15/2019, the Keeling Curve). The level of CO2 is measured and shown on the curve as a saw tooth edge. The rise and fall of this saw toothed edge come about as the leaves on the trees open in the Spring, and the CO2 falls. Then when the leaves fall from the trees in Autumn, the CO2 rises.

The trees sweep up CO2 from our atmosphere and replace it with oxygen, O2.

The trees hold our atmosphere in place. They are “sky anchors” which bind the chemical makeup of the atmosphere close to the earth where we can all use it. We must treasure our trees and protect them.

However, as the world population soars, more land for farming is required, for both subsistence farming and large scale farming. The land is also required for living space. As whole forests are cut down and burned, each of us needs to work to replace the trees. The Nature Conservancy is leading a campaign called “Plant a Billion Trees”, https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/plant-a-billion/. Its goal is to stimulate reforestation. Large scale efforts like this and even individuals planting trees in their garden can ensure clean air for all of us. The trees are “sky anchors” that can hold the sky in place.

Road Side Apollo 8

When I have a chance to drive across country I look for new roads and new sights. That’s part of the fun of traveling, to see and learn about new places and ideas. But I also look for remembered sites, places I have seen before and remember with enthusiasm.

On a recent trip into the mid-west, I drove across Ohio on Interstate 70. Not always the best way to see the country, but I was in a hurry to get back home. While I was on the road I looked for a remembered place. I would often drive that road in the 1970s. I had favorite places along that route that I liked to see. There was a campground outside of Indianapolis, where I could stop and pitch my tent and spend the night. I often stopped there back in those days, nearly 50 years ago. I looked for it on this trip and may have seen it on the south side of the road. But now it was more modern, and there were more recreational vehicles than there were sites for tents or small trailers.

The other place I looked for along that road was a barn. It was an old barn even 50 years ago. I would see it whenever I drove back and forth to Chicago. This barn stood out from the others I would see along that rural route. It was not big, but it had a mural painted on the side that faced the road. The barn was less than 500 yards from the road and was well cared for as were the house next to it and the fields surrounding it. What made this barn stand out was the mural of the Earth rising over a lunar landscape, as seen during Apollo 8’s 1968 orbit across the far side of the moon.

At the time it was a very famous picture. Its image or images based on it could be seen in many places. People were fascinated by it. It was views like this that caused the popularization of the phrase ”big blue marble” as that was what the earth looked like from space. It was also pictures like this that tugged at the American consciousness, and perhaps the international consciousness, of how beautiful, and yet how fragile, our home, Earth, actually might be. These were the early days of the environmental movement. The government of the United States worked with the people of the United States to pass legislation to improve and protect the environment in which we all live. The Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act were all enacted in the 1970s. The people wanted these laws enacted to improve and protect the environment and human health, and the government responded.

When I would see that barn, well into the 1970s, I would feel pride in our accomplishments in space and in protection of the environment. And I knew that the people who had painted this mural on their barn felt a similar pride. We accomplished a great deal in the 1970s and into the 1980s. The environment is now cleaner. Pollution is now less. And yes, yards and roadsides and the air and water are now cleaner than they had been in the 1950s and 1960s, because of environmental action. It was a great time in which improvements were everywhere. And it still a great time, and the potential to change and improve continuous all around us. It is on our curb, in our front yard, in our town, in our nation, and in the international community at large. But each of us must still act to protect it! It is our responsibility.

On this recent trip. I did not see the barn with its iconic “Earth-rise”. I may have been removed or it might have collapsed due to age. It might be a parking lot now. But the image with always be with us. That picture of our fragile home hung in the blackness of space can always remind us of the necessity to keep it clean and to improve it for its growing population.

Thank you to whoever you were that painted that mural. Perhaps I will see another on my next cross country trip.

Permian Basin Texas

There are plenty of sights to see on the road through Texas. The country is starkly beautiful. It’s early Spring and some color is beginning to come to the grasses that line the roads and cover the fields. But one thing that I thought I would see, cattle, well I don’t see too many. But what I do see in the area around Midland Texas are pumps. I am driving through the area of the Permian Basin. Rank upon rank of oil pumps as far into the distance as I can see. If I use Google Earth I can see the area is covered with white specks. Each speck is an area around a pump or derrick where the grass has been beaten down and trucks are parked and various pieces of support equipment lay about. One thing of note is there are a lot of pickup trucks on the road and most are towing an open bed trailer. And they are all in a hurry. They are not being driven unsafely, just in a hurry. Out here time is truly money. it’s the ranks of pumps that draws my attention. As I drive down Interstate I-10 most of the pumps are nodding up and down driven by a massive cam and engine. Each one pulling crude oil out of the ground.

The Permian Basin contains more crude oil than any other location within the United States and is one of the great oil resources of the world.

Like it or not oil and gas extraction is part of our world. It drives industry. It enables us to get around. And this will continue until a different economically dependable energy source is developed. What is the good of extracting and burning the essence of years that passed millions of years ago? The resources that lie in the Permian Basin under Texas and New Mexico were lain in that place during the Permian age. This age preceded the time of the dinosaurs, and ended approximately 250 million years ago. Its end came with in a mass extinction of more than 90% of the species on earth. Then as the continents separated, the remnants of the age were overlain by the sediments of the following eras and were compressed onto the hydrocarbon slurry that is drilled for today.

That drilling provides jobs in Texas. The taxes derived from those jobs built the road I drove down. But the economic reach of the oil extracted from the Permian Basin extends well beyond to local area. It enables many American to drive and to produce and to build. It enables us to create and to sell. But this comes at a substantial price. The burning of the refined extract causes pollution in our neighborhoods and smog in our cities. It pollutes the air and dumps chemicals into the atmosphere. These chemicals included CO2 and other “greenhouse gases” which are causing global warming and causing the acidification of the oceans.

But today I see work and prosperity. I see people going to their jobs, being proud of the work they are doing, and doing good work. But beyond here, the same companies that are operating the wells and refining the oil into the world’s fuel, are also working on what may be “a different economically dependable energy source”, which may power people’s jobs and give them economic independence, and provide them with food, shelter, heathy lives, and pride in their existence.

All 8 Billion of us!

Imagining the New Year

New Year’s Day for me was not 1 January; it was 6 January. I consider New Year’s Day a movable feast. It’s the day after the turn of the year on which in the morning I can get out to one of the places I like to hike and there to imagine the world. While walking in the beauty of a sun-lit field I reflect on the past year and ponder the future. I imagine the future as a world with clear skies and balance.

When I imagine the future, I see it as an expanding microcosm with me at the center. Why am I at the center? It is not an over-blown ego, rather it is because I am the actor; I am the person, the entity, that has the power of imagining my place in the future and then taking steps to make it happen. I do not have power over nature or over other people, only some over myself. Perhaps I might have some influence on others. I can ask the most important question of all, “How can I help?” As the world moves to a population of Eight Billion, it will be in motion. There will be more migrant caravans, there will be changes in patterns of weather and wildlife, there will be changes to the average temperature, and the harvest and the sea will change. There may be multiple causes, but all will drive the movement of the burgeoning world populations as they seek safety and food and a meaningful life. How can I help?

A hawk rose from the stubble of the mown field and slowly flew to the distant trees. It perched high to catch the warming rays of the rising sun. I saw a quick flight in the tall grass and then a burst of energy to the high branches of a nearby tree. Eastern Bluebirds were searching for insects in the grass and then flew to the tops of trees where the morning sun was energizing creeping and flying insects that are around this time of year. Even though it was just after the turn of the year, it was like summer. The weather was cold, below freezing. But as the sun came up, it brought light to infuse everything with a brightness, causing the sky and the morning frost to sparkle.

A flock of blue Jays, oddly silent, flew around the chestnut trees, racing each other from tree to tree. They would drop to the ground to investigate something and then return to the lower branches to watch me and the hawk and the Bluebirds. A balance of movement and light and quietness.

This is why I come to these places. I come to see what the world is doing. I come to reflect on my place in the world and in the family of humanity. I come to think on what I can do/should do to help improve what I can, and try to improve even what I can’t. Reinhold Niebuhr spoke to knowing the difference between what a person can accomplish and what they can’t. There is serenity in that, and wisdom, but to fulfill my place I need to act, even when I know that I may not reach my goal. Today the sky was clear and bright; tomorrow it may be cloudy. But the purpose on which I act is a constant source of light. I need to rise to it.

I see one of the Bluebirds fly up and settle in the branches near the top of a china berry tree. The little bird’s red breast is turned to the morning sun. It sits quietly and perhaps reflects on its own purpose. And perhaps it has a knowledge of whether it is possible. It suddenly launches and flies to another tree.

The serenity prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr can be found at https://www.beliefnet.com/prayers/protestant/addiction/serenity-prayer.aspx

The picture of the child is based on a photograph at wallpaperbetter.com.

Haying Season

It’s haying time. But I am only an observer. Others work hard in the field to harvest the sweet grasses and the late summer flowers into large, round bales for winter livestock.

All summer I have walked the paths in the fields. The grass has grown up alongside and flowers have blossomed and faded. The meadow larks rise and fall into the depths of the grass as they lure me away from their nest. The red-winged black birds hold onto the tall, stiff reeds of grasses and bob with the wind, watching me as I pass through their domain.

But now the grass is ready to be cut. The bugs will fly up, and the birds will fly down to catch them. The young birds have fledged and are able to take part in the feast. But they will return to a strange earth cut from a sea of waving stems to a crackling stubble.

This is not a bleak picture but a picture of a cycle that has interwoven the grass, the farmer, and the meadow lark and the other birds that live in the grassy fields. It’s late summer, and it’s time to cut the grass.

Last winter I was flying into Dulles airport returning from a job in California. I looked out onto the rolling hills of piedmont Virginia where the fields rise slowly up to meet the Blue Ridge Mountains. There was a dusting of snow over the landscape. Something caught my eye which I had not seen before. In several places dotted on the landscape below were large brown stars on the fields. There was a mixture of designs. Some stars had six arms radiating from a central point. Others had four or five arms. They were all somewhat symmetrical. But what were they? I could see that each star radiated from the crest of a small hill with the arms of the stars reaching out and down the hill. From my perspective of several thousand feet in the air each arm may have been up to 100 feet long. The arms were brown and textured and in some places the snow showed through.

“There’s another one,” I said to myself. Looking further out I could see others as they came into the view of the descending plane. Soon though, the open fields and winter wood lots gave way to suburbs with their tangle of roads and snow dusted roofs.

What I was seeing was the result of haying. The large round hay bales had been taken to the top of small hills and rolled outward to form the stars. The hay was now available to the livestock. Perhaps it was hay cut the year before from the fields I was gazing at now.

The grasses in these fields are harvested under a hay lease from the National Park of which the fields I walk in are a part. The farmer pays the Park Service for the right to harvest the hay which they then use or sell. The funds help support this park and other parks in the national system. And the haying keeps the historic vistas open. It is also part of the centuries old cycle of the ground and the grass and the bird and the farmer. I am a witness to the covenant between man and nature. We care for the Earth and nature, and it supports us in its growth and regrowth.

Robert Frost in his poem Mowing speaks for the scythe whispering to the grass. What secret do they share? It is the secret of the covenant. It is the tale of the blade returning to the grass each year and the rejuvenation of the grass to receive it. It is a promise to return year after year to the haying. And to whisper.

This excellent video tells of the hard work of the haying covenant between the farmer and the Earth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xwl-YLvru1s

The art work is based on a screen shot from the referenced video.

Robert Frost’s poem Mowing may be found at the Poetry Foundation site at – https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53001/mowing-56d231eca88cd

An Acorn in my Hand

When I walked outside this morning it was warm and humid but there was promise of change in the air. It is August, and we are well into summer so the temperature and the humidity were not a surprise. But I realized in my first few steps into the day that a change was coming. It was not as bright. The sun had not yet come up. The days are growing shorter. Soon we will have darker mornings and cooler nights. Then the moisture will slip away and we will enter Fall and Winter. There will be no more long, balmy days. But it will be a great time to go outside into the dark and to marvel at creation.

Any day or any hour we can look around and see creation all about us. Yet for me to look up at the clear night sky and see the stars and distant galaxies is always the most fantastic of moments. In the current summer nights Arcturus and Vega rule the night sky. The Summer Triangle of Vega together with the bright stars Altair and Deneb is clearly visible even on less than pristine nights. As we approach Fall, Orion with its brilliant display will rise in the night sky.

Each of these stars and the hundreds of billions of stars in each of the visible galaxies are part of the vastness of creation. Each of them – which we see as points of light of varying brightness – was born out of a cataclysmic explosion and a whirling vortex of hot gasses which coalesced to form stars, galaxies, and for us, our planet, Earth. This is not to imply that ours is the only planet. We know we reside in our star’s system with eight other planets (I am including Pluto) and a myriad of asteroids and comets and minor planets. And beyond the Solar system we have discovered there are a multitude of other stars with planets circling them. All of these are part of the vastness of creation. But we are on this one, and that makes it the most important planet in the universe for us. We are part of it. It is our home. It coalesced from the cosmic dust, and so did we.

When I lie down on the grass under a night sky full of stars I can marvel at creation. I look up and let my mind be swept away to amazing and far distant places. I wonder how we will get to there. Will we be able to wander across other worlds? I know that we will someday make that journey, and I am a little sad that I will not be on that ship. I am sure we will find unknown marvels in the vastness of creation.

I stand up from gazing at the stars and look around me. I see the forms of grass waving around my legs and the outline of trees in the darkness. I walk over to an oak tree, and I bend down and pick up a fallen acorn. I hold it up and study it and realize that inside this acorn are packed all the marvels of the universe, the galaxies, our solar system, and this Earth, our home.