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Tag Archives: Nature
The Color of Summer
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Forces in Nature
Along the rocky coast on Maine, you see cobbles, large weathered stones. These granite cobbles are on a basalt dyke on Little Moose Island. They have obviously been rounded by erosion. And they are big—I doubt I could lift the larger rocks in this image. The amazing thing is that these cobbles did not fall onto this spot—there is no place from which to fall—but rather these were cast out of the sea by the force of the tides, currents, and storm swells. If you are thinking these are near the waterline, you would be mistaken. This ledge is about 5 m or 15 ft. above the water, not far below where this picture was taken. Click on the image for a larger view.
The Gods Roll Dice
Chance, luck, fortune—the building blocks of life. The gods cast the stones and the players fill the gaps. Chaos was the first Greek God. From Chaos, meaning gap or chasm, came Gaia, the Earth. Chaos and beauty seem to be eternally linked. Click on this image of Little Moose Island in Acadia National Park to see a larger version.
Little Moose Island
The southern tip of Little Moose Island off Schoodic Point in Acadia National Park. The Gulf of Maine is beyond that. Once exposed to air, the bedrock fractures and exfoliates like cells of dried skin. Click on the image for a larger view.
Double Rainbow
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Walls of Green
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June Forest
It was cool and windy yesterday. Click on the image for a larger view.
Oak Apple Gall
While clearing up some low hanging limbs on one of our oak trees, I found this under a leaf—an oak apple gall. The gall is created by a tiny wasp of the Cynipidae family that lays its egg in a young oak leaf. The secretions from the egg cause the leaf to mutate and create this structure—humans are not the first to experiment with genetic engineering. If you open the gall up, you will find a small center capsule that holds the larvae and is suspended by filaments stretching out to the thick walls of the gall. The wasp will emerge later in the summer. This gall is about an inch in diameter. Click on the image for a larger view.
Blackberry in Bloom
Our fruit plants are going through their annual flowering cycle. At the beginning of May, our wild plum was in bloom. The middle of may brought the blossoms out in our apple and peach trees. Now our blackberry canes are blossoming. These are in our field, but the blackberry under our forest canopy are also out. Click on the image for a larger view.
