Books for kids, teens, & those who are young at heart

Category: Nature (Page 16 of 20)

The Little Things That Bring Me Joy

Sometimes it’s nice just to think about the little things in life that bring you joy. Here are some of mine:

My favorite tea has a kick-ass name: Black Dragon Pearl (I always want to add “Coming to theaters this summer” after I say it and then do a perfect round-house kick). Plus the tea leaves come packed as balls, which only adds to my amusement.

Thunderstorms never stop being scary/exciting.

When it comes to my indoor co-ed soccer team, the “that’s what she said” joke never gets old…ever!

The spin-cycle on my Scandinavian dryer (maybe we’re somehow related!) sounds like a plane taking off. This one’s a double-edged sword because it can also be annoying…like when I’m trying to watch TV or listen to music, or you know, have a conversation or something…but it’s still pretty cool to have it sound like an airplane is taking off in your laundry room.

When my little niece and nephew say the word “rude,” it sounds like they’re saying “wooed.” And they’re still young enough to always be happy to see me.

My older nephew still likes hanging out with me!

I buy Land O’ Lakes American cheese from the deli and the package is labeled LOL cheese. How could you not smile about that?

I’m always wonderfully surprised at how tasty food is when you grow/pick it yourself.

And this is only a sampling of the little things in my life. It’s interesting how many of them are about food…maybe I’m just hungry. Oh, and in case you were curious, my soccer team won again yesterday (we crushed Danbury 6-1), so we’re in the finals next Saturday.

Celebrating Crashing Tiny Particles Together with the Large Hadron Collider

Today we celebrate! Scientists at the underground site of the Large Hadron Collider on the Swiss-French border cheered earlier today when the largest atom collider set a record by colliding particles three times faster than ever before. (This occasion was also worthy of celebrating because a. the collider didn’t break and b. it didn’t create a world-destroying black hole!)

For those of you who follow my blog (all three of you!), you may remember that I’ve been keeping my eye on this experiment. Crashing together subatomic particles is risky business and the project has been plagued with controversy since it started, including an accidental death, mechanical problems, and even a theory that scientists from the future are sabotaging the collider. But with today’s success we can look to the future.

An energy level of 7 trillion electron volts (TeV) was observed during the event. This seems like a big number, but when you consider that an ant can easily produce as much kinetic energy as 1 TeV, it’s actually a small amount of energy. So what’s the big deal, right? The big deal is that the particles in the collider are infinitesimally smaller than an ant, so when 7 TeV is applied to colliding particles (3.5 TeV per particle), they move almost as fast as the speed of light (note: not the speed of sound as the lyric in the title states!).

Scientists hope to eventually discover more about dark matter and the Higgs boson (or God Particle). If experiments go as planned (which they haven’t so far…and they almost never do), this collider could smash open (literally) new discoveries in the world of physics. Ah, what great material for science-fiction writers everywhere!

Partying In St. Lucia With The Big Bamboo

While in St. Lucia, the hubby and I did the Soufriere By Land and Sea adventure through Sunlink Tours. We traveled down the east side of St. Lucia by open jeep from Castries to Soufriere and back north by party catamaran. Al was our fearless driver and Thomas was our funny and knowledgeable guide (see below about bamboo for a taste of his trivia).


Here’s our jeep. Al is all the way to right (and yup, that’s the elusive hubby on the left). I’m very sad to note that I never did get a picture of Thomas. He was so busy making sure all of us tourists were taken care of that the only time he really sat down was when we were riding in the jeep.

The highlights included:

Getting pummeled by a waterfall, which was quite refreshing (yes, be kind…that’s me in a bathing suit!)

Driving into a volcano, complete with sulphur springs that smell like–you guessed it–rotten eggs

Being entertained by the Captain (that’s him jamming behind the wheel) as he sang along with Bob Marley and “Big Bamboo.”

Every time I hear the word bamboo, it just brings me right back to St. Lucia. Did you know that bamboo was the national tree of St. Lucia? That is until they found out bamboo isn’t a tree at all. Now bamboo is the national plant of the island and calabash is the national tree. All the Americans on the tour agreed that our country would have changed the status of the bamboo to a tree just to avoid having to admit being wrong!

A Winter Surprise on the Beach

Today the hubby and I were sitting on a bench at the beach (the same beach at which I did my listening exercise). We had just stood up to continue our walk when a woman hopped out of her running vehicle and said, “Excuse me.” I had my hood on, so I didn’t even hear her, but the hubby did. We stopped and she said, “I’m looking for Anchor Beach.”

I gestured to the beach and around the corner and said, “I believe this whole stretch is Anchor Beach.” (Apparently she didn’t believe me because as soon as we turned the corner, we saw her asking someone else!)

It seemed weird that she was looking for a specific beach in the middle of winter, but we soon found out the real reason she was there. We rounded another corner and a news truck and a bunch of people were milling around. Cones and police tape had been set up and signs were posted.

At first I couldn’t figure out why all those people were there. I turned to my husband and quietly asked, “Do you see anything?” Just as I asked, I realized the rock I was looking at wasn’t just a rock. A baby seal was laying on it. He was so well camouflaged that he was hard to see. Can you see him lying there on the rock? (Scroll down to the bottom of the post for a hint.)

At first he looked dead, but as we watched and listened we found out that he was just basking in the sun and wasn’t hurt or anything. He was young but old enough to be out on his own. Our little visitor made the local news! Here he is.

I was so happy to have this little surprise spotting today that I did my own banana pose! (Okay, here he is one more time…this time I’ve circled him!)

A Writing Exercise in Listening

Do you ever get the feeling that you are screaming in a crowded room and are just being ignored? That even you are ignoring yourself? How often do you really listen without once thinking of how to get your own two cents into a conversation? For that matter, do ever just listen to hear what’s going on in the world?

Sometimes the noise pollution of music, television, trucks, cars, conversations, fluorescent light bulbs, even my own thoughts get so crowded in my head that I can’t think anymore. I recently decided to embark on a daunting project in self-introspection and in preparation for that, I have taken a few quiet walks in an attempt to unplug my brain from the normal noise pollution and tune into some new sounds, namely, those of the beach in wintertime.

In winter, the beach whispers to you. It’s miles away from the cacophony of the beach in summer. The subtlety is refreshing (as is the blustery wind). The more I listen, the more it’s like a drug. I want to push the tolerance of my hearing further to hear deeper. Then I want to specifically identify each sound and search out its source, my head bobbing back and forth in an effort to catch each with my eyes (oh, how dependent we humans are on eyesight). Here’s some of what I observed:

  • My mouth smacking my gum (admittedly, it wasn’t very smart to chew gum on a sound-seeking walk). Luckily that was one noise pollutant I could easily get rid of.
  • At low tide, the soft lapping of the waves. Their gentle swooshing fading into the background. The bubbly fizz as algae and grass dry in the sun, like I can hear the water evaporating.
  • At high tide, the louder breaking of slightly bigger waves (still not a crashing–it’s only Long Island Sound after all). The slap of water against the concrete tide wall.
  • A rush of wind in my ears, which fades and rises with the mood of the ocean. The sniffles of my own nose.
  • The harsh squawk of a seagull. A cry of alarm at the approaching stranger (that would be me). Another seagull’s high-pitched whine, sounding over and over again, maybe seeking attention from the stranger.
  • The melodies of the songbirds, present even in winter. Their cheeps soft and sweet compared to the crude cries of the seagulls.
  • The quiet tread of my sneakers on the sidewalk, the crunch a little louder when I walk over sand.
  • Louder than the crunch of my sneakers is the crunch of car tires on asphalt. Some cars purr, other squeak and clank in protest.
  • The swish, swish, swish as the sleeves of my coat brush up against the coat’s body. A few minutes later, a new swish as a man in warm-up pants jogs by. Who knew clothing could be so loud?
  • The rwor, rwor, rwor of an airplane (my head tilts to the sky to see it), distinct from the whir, whir, whir of a helicopter.
  • The jingle of a dog collar, a muted cousin to the metallic plink of a flag flapping against its pole.
  • A drip, drip, drip as ice and snow melts. Even more drips as a man takes advantage of the (relatively) warm day to wash his car. His low car radio, which would be common in the summer, foreign in this winter world.
  • The diesel roar of an oil-spill response truck as it sucks someone’s beach house clean. Its rumbling a blight on my experiment as it drowns out all other sounds.
  • The quiet crunch, crunch of another person. Soft hellos exchanged by strangers bound by a mutual interest of walking on the beach.
  • A carefree wak, wak, wak of a duck. Is it laughing? Another duck certainly not laughing as it quacks at a seagull that gets too close.
  • The frantic chirps of songbirds taking off in fright. The rustle of dead leaves, almost imperceptible in the wind and waves.

There’s more, but I’ll leave you with that for now. It’s amazing what you can hear when you’re actually listening.

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