Which Of These Objects...

Day 138: Which of these objects isn't like the others? Yep, that's right...the shiny white smooth one. I have had very little dental work done compared to most people, the exceptions being the extraction of two impacted wisdom teeth two years ago, and earlier extraction of two lower molars plus three tiny fillings. However, about ten days ago, a piece popped off the back of one of my front teeth while I was brushing them, and I knew I had no choice but to go to a dentist. Today, I had a temporary crown installed. The permanent one will go on in two weeks. Obviously, this wasn't my ideal way to spend a Monday morning, but it was far less painful than I'd anticipated. I've spared you the colour version, but I am not inclined toward chasing after a "blog shot" on this drenching afternoon.

Separating Sheep From Goats

Day 137: Seeds have a shelf life. Some are only viable in the first planting season after harvest. Others may lay dormant for years, even though buried in soil. That said, because dates printed on seed packets are generally quite conservative, you can always plant a "test run" to determine the germination rate of seeds stored past their recommended pull-date. I wasn't sure how long cilantro/coriander would keep, so I planted my "leftovers" in a flower pot and set it in the kitchen window two weeks ago. Within a few days, I had sprouts. However, they didn't look like coriander. After a few days went by, I recognized them as sunflowers. I shouldn't have been surprised. The squirrels get in my garage and hide their gleanings in the open bags of potting soil. I dutifully pulled up the "volunteers" and waited for something else to pop up. The next thing to show was a monocot, i.e., it had a single cotyledon leaf, again not cilantro. Cilantro is a dicot. When it sprouts, it exhibits a pair of leaves. Weeding out the monocots, I discovered that they were attached to millet grains, more bird seed stashed by gardening rodents. Now I am left with a potful of dicots which should produce true leaves shortly, and if they don't look like cilantro this time around, I'll have to buy a new packet.

Legend Of The Pysanky

Day 136: Ukrainian folklore tells us that at the edge of the world, the beast of Hate lies imprisoned in chains. Yet his servants walk among us, spreading his works and causing the chains to loosen, thereby allowing him further reach into the lives of Men. It is also told that for every pysanky made or given, a new link is forged and added to those which bind the monster. While I can only give you this pysanky virtually (I created it and dozens of others some forty years ago when my hands were more steady and the world was a better place), take its love into your hearts and drive the beast back into its den.

When Life Gives You Fungus

Day 135: They say that when life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade. What course of action is recommended when life gives you fungus? Having no idea how much cloud-ears would swell when rehydrated, I broke off an ambitious half of a block which when whole measured 2 1/2" x 1 1/4" x 3/8", to reconstitute for my hot-and-sour soup. The resultant expansion filled a quart jar! Not one to waste a single scrap of fungal material, I did a quick assessment of the contents of the fridge to see what other main dish I might make to include them. A stir-fry of carrot, napa cabbage, green onion, bamboo shoots (also left over from the soup), barbecue pork and fungus quickly came together, flavoured with soy sauce and brown sugar, and topped with a garnish of spring onions and sesame seeds. This was served over white rice with a snowskin mooncake on the side for dessert (let it be noted that these mooncakes freeze beautifully with no loss of taste/texture to the skin or the custard filling). Even after preparing enough for three meals, I still have a pint of cloud-ears in the fridge!

Cold Toes

Day 134: Have you ever wondered why birds' toes don't suffer from frostbite except during extreme freezing events? The major arteries (carrying warm blood from the heart to the extremities) and veins (carrying cooled blood back to the heart) split into multiple smaller vessels at the leg and wing joints nearest the body and are closely intertwined to form a "re-heating" network. Outgoing blood transfers as much as 85% of its heat to the chilled blood returning to the body. This process is known as "countercurrent circulation." It has also been noted that birds in colder regions tend to have smaller beaks and feet, reducing the amount of exposure they receive. Some small birds (hummingbirds, for example) may enter a state of torpor to survive cold nights, with their normal body temperature dropping as much as forty degrees! In torpor, a hummingbird's heart rate may drop from 500 beats per minute to 50 or less. The bird may look like it's dying when in torpor, but in fact, it's executing a physiological strategy which helps it survive bitter weather.

Spring Thrush

Day 133: Typically, male Varied Thrush (Ixoreus naevius, shown here) arrive ahead of the females, hoping to establish exclusive territory which they will defend against rivals for the same turf, often locking beaks with their competitor during a struggle for dominance. He voices his call both to alert other males that he has taken possession of an area, but also to attract potential mates. It is thought that nest-building is the domain of the female, and Varied Thrush are known to be monogamous, at least through one season and possibly longer. If two broods are raised in a single year, it is likely that the father of both is the same bird. The female lays up to six eggs. The young are altricial (nidicolous), i.e., naked but for patches of soft down (and here I must voice my obligatory qualifier: "there is nothing...absolutely nothing!...cuter than baby birds"). In summer, the Thrush's diet consists largely of insects which it scavenges from leaf litter. In the winter, the birds eat fruits and nuts.

Too-too-too-too-too Snowy Day

Day 132: The internet has gone a bit overboard with palindromic numbers and "special" days like Pi Day (3.14, or better yet, 3.14.15), but I figured I might as well jump on the bandwagon because this morning was "2-22-22" snowy for late February in the Pacific Northwest. A major cold front has dropped down out of the Arctic, so vast that it is affecting the entire northern portion of the US, and extending as far south on this coast as northern California. We're to have possible record lows here, although they missed last night's forecast by ten degrees Fahrenheit. I have no objections to a little snow, but if it really does hit 9 degrees (that's minus 12 Centigrade), it will be a record for the last week of  February at my station, established over thirty years ago in this location. Previous late-February lows have been 11 F. in 2006 and 14 F. in 2018. Thanks, but that's a record I'd prefer not to break!