The Barreness of Winter

This afternoon I had to take a 2 hour drive through Iowa farm country, and the scenery was quite magnificent. For all of you who do not know, most of Iowa is covered in either soybean of corn fields which can make it all seem to look the same after a  while. That was not what I discovered on this beautiful drive, but rather a landscape always unique from field to field. One of the most apparent things about the fields of Iowa during the winter is that they look cold, empty, and unforgiving.

While this may sound boring or monotonous it has its own beauty: silence and solitude. These are traits that so often are not present in our daily lives, as many of us are going about like busy bees from one thing to the next, always some one to see something to do. When we are not going about the chaos of our work and school lives, we are most often on electronic devices-connecting with our friends, idols, games, music, and occasionally family. While these things make our lives quite enjoyable, and most often entertaining they do not give us the real break that we truly need.

The solitude that these lonely fields showed me was almost a wake up call. I love the outdoors, and I try to get out into them as much as I can, however the winter weather makes it very hard for me to do just that. I have been constantly been engaged in family activities, things with friends, electronics, or work that I haven’t had the chance to get out into the woods like I love to do. All of my busy things combined with the cold temperatures have successfully kept me out of the little patches of wild that we have in my city in Iowa.

In saying this I know that I am not holding up to the standard that I hope of myself, but I tell you so that you can join with me in setting a goal to get outside this spring. Spring offers a whole lot of freedom and life. As the leaves and the grass grow a whole new bright color is added to the canvas of the earth, in stark contrast to the previously mentioned winter. I will get out and enjoy spring time when it eventually comes around. It is my hope that you will join me.

 

Snails Are the New Heavy Weight Champion!

What comes to mind when you think of strong, natural materials? If you said spider webs, way to go! you are 100% correct, however there is another material that has taken the number one spot. Although Spider-man’s webs are SUPER COOL and are the second strongest natural material in the world they have been beaten by……..limpets, specifically their teeth. Limpets are a kind of sea-snail, with a shell like the ones below.

The teeth on the Limpets are “as strong as steel and tough as a bulletproof vest, capable of withstanding the same amount of pressure it takes to turn carbon into a diamond.” I don’t know about you but I am very interested right about mow. The Limpets use their teeth to obtain food, but most of all to cling to rocks and boats.

The limpet is yet another example of how miraculous and stunning nature can be, always throwing something else at us-never obeying limits. Nature also likes to throw some of the biggest things into the smallest packages. To put the strength of the limpet teeth into context imagine a piece of spaghetti holding up an adult female hippopotamus. So spider silk is kinda cool, but really???? The Limpet teeth are just going over board here!!!!

The thing that is coolest about the limpet teeth is not just that they are so strong, but that they would still be as strong if they were large too. So imagine that: we could use this amazing material for building safer cars, homes, even boats. The technological advances that can come from these amazing creatures cannot be ignored, however there are some major obstacles to overcome so that we can actually use them.  These include how to harvest the tiny teeth of this aquatic snail. The Limpet teeth are also super small, only visible under a microscope. How then are we going to use these snails in anything useful/industrial?

The same question could have been asked for tree sap from the rubber tree, which as we all know found great uses in the modern world of transportation in tires. Who knew that stuff that comes from the same place as does maple syrup could end up in such a different place, on our cars!

Similarly Escargot goes on our plates, but the teeth of a cousin of the popular french snail might end up in our cars. The point here is that we should never limit nature….or science.

 

School in the Winter?

An article by Jerry Lembcke on telegram.com discusses how unnatural our normal life in the winter is. As the argument starts out Limbcke describes a beautiful winter morning that the French Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau must have experienced while writing some of his greatest works. The morning is clear, cold, and most of all white. The whole earth appears to be blanketed by a thick layer of snow, but above all else there is quiet. Lembcke goes on to describe the scene outside of his apartment after a snow storm: “From my window I watch a front-end loader clear the snow left by the recent blizzard from our parking lot, its engine growling, its bucket clanging against the dump truck. In an hour the snow will be gone so that I and other drivers can get our cars on the road.” Lembcke has beautifully contrasted this harsh scene with the winter wonderland that he described earlier. This is an excelent way to make us think on how unnatural our winter activities are, going about life the same way we would if it were 75° outside. Lembcke then uses contrast again by comparing this behavior to the behavior of animals: who either move, hibernate or slow way down during the cold winter months. At this point he really has us wondering why we do what we do during the winter…and Lembcke anticipates this.  “We truck in fuel for machines to uncover our snow-covered cars that will get us onto streets and roads cleared by whole caravans of snowplows burning millions of gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel, all to get us to schools and workplaces artificially heated and lighted by oil and coal moved vast distances by trucks, trains, and pumps. At day’s end, we return to homes unnaturally heated and lighted by more fuel, where we eat food moved to us from where it was grown, hundreds of miles away.” Lembcke’s argument is that we need to start putting ourselves at an inconveinience in order to give nature a chance to recover from the harsyh abuse that we have put onto it. This can be done in a number of ways he says, and one of these is rethinking the schoolyear. How could this help the environment? many, including myself pondered this. The answer, like many from this piece, is simple. Fuel. Schools spend outrageous amounts of money on heating during the winter, and while school during the summer could prevent heating costs, would it solve the real problem?

Food, Inc.

While browsing through documentaries on Netflix, I came across one titled Food Inc. It immediately grabbed my attention with a dairy cow that instead of black blotches had a bar code as shown below.

 

The picture caught my attention #1 because of how strange it looks. #2 is I have thought a lot about how people know very little about where their food comes from. As some of you might already know, I trap raccoons in the fall, and I do this for their fur. Once I obtain a raccoon I need to skin it, a process less than pleasant. my theory is that if people had to process their own meat, they wouldn’t eat it. As I watched this eye-opening documentary I wanted to be the only one to process my meat! While an unpleasant thing to do regardless, I would be able to ensure the quality and safety of my meat. This documentary shows how our chickens and cows are raised, and the conditions in which they are harvested.The most unnerving thing about how our food is produced is not how the animals are treated, but rather how the multimillion dollar companies treat the farmers. They treat them as you would another one of the animals, or a machine; by trying to get the most out of them with having to give the littlest. This means that companies like Tyson, Smithfield and many others pay their farmers very little, and at the same time changing regulations in order to keep the farmers under their control. In the case of chicken farmers this means that they need to go into vast amounts of debt in order to purchase the chicken houses required by Tyson and stay in debt to meet the upgrade requirements. In short I highly recommend the film to anyone who wants to become informed about the food that they are eating.

The Brutality of Nature

Yesterday in Zambia’s South Luangwa National Park a lion and cape buffalo faced down to the death. An article published online by the United Kingdom’s Mirror tells of the face off.

The Lion and the buffalo have engaged in a fight to the death, and neither of them are an easy component. Lionesses are usually the ones who hunt for the pride, and as we see this Lion is a male. This means that the lion is in this alone, for himself. The Lion is up against enormous odds to try to overcome the brute power of the buffalo, which can approach a weight of one ton. The struggle went on for quite some time, and the lion did not come out on top.

This is a testament to the fact that nature is brutal, and has no mercy. The lion died two days later from the wounds, and the buffalo two weeks later due to infection. Death is common for the animals of the vast grasslands of africa, while very uncommon for humans here in America. Why is it that we have progressed so far from the constant fight for suvival that still goes on in our world? Some might say society, others government, I say love.

While society and government do play a role in mainaining the style of life that we are so used to, I argue that they are possible because of love. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines love as-warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion. Humans enjoy peace, and the security and well being that comes with it. We thus love peace because we are attacked/enthusiastic towards the security and well being that it brings. This peace that we enjoy so much gives us chances to learn to love people, such as family and friends. Our love towards peace then becomes more deeply rooted as we strive to protect those that we care for.

This lion was cast out by his pride, and he fell to desperation. Acting in a way that was very dangerous in order to survive. This is aslo apperant in our society today. Some, who like the lion, have no family or friends to support them turn to other things to survive. Those things might include gangs, robbery, suicide, or other kinds of violence. As with the lion these quite rarely turn out in a positive but rather lead the individual to a similar dead end. Let us not turn to such desperate things in this modern and civilized world. Let us turn to those who are willing and able to help us for the things that can certainly bring us happiness. And, if you do need to take on the cape buffalo of life, make sure you have a pride at your back.

Snow on the Trees

On the first of the month, here in Iowa, we received quite the snowstorm. The snow was preceded by rain, which enabled a good amount of the snow to stick to the many trees that we have in the area. The  rain and the seven inches of snow created terrible roads, delayed flights, and a winter wonderland. 

I took this photograph while traveling back home from a trip to Minneapolis, a drive that while at times was slow, was very safe. While in Minnesota we received only one inch of snow, so there was almost a gradient effect as we drove south (as the snow got deeper and deeper). The landscape was wonderful, the many farms and forests all blanketed in a beautiful layer of white. The most beautiful thing, at least in my mind was this picture. It is a sizable creek, surrounded by large and plentiful trees. Due to the only recently dropped temperatures part of the creek, where the strongest current is, was not frozen over. This has a wonderful contrasting effect on the bright white snow that covered most of the creek, and many of the surrounding trees. The water looks so deep and dark, and the snow so bright, but both look bitterly cold.

The snow stuck to the trees for the next 4-5 days maintaining the “winter wonderland” look that I have grown to be so fond of. Many of the pine trees appeared to be almost frosted, with a great deal of snowy icing. I love the first couple of days when the snow is fresh and completely white, but then as we all know sand and salt are put on the roads and everything begins to turn dirty.

So it goes the cycle of snow, from pure and white, to half melted and dirty. This can be taken and applied to other areas, such as people. We all are allowed to start out pure and fresh, but as time goes on we can get dirtied by the happenings of this world. One might wonder, how can one maintain purity in this world of consequence and choice? The answer: to make the right choices. We need to strive to love, or at the very least respect everyone. There is nothing more powerful than the force of love, and so it is up to us to use it to make the world a better place. As you go out today into the busy world we live in, take the time to hold open a door, give someone your seat, give a little extra on that tip. Giving after all, will eventually mean getting back.