Cloacal Kiss

by | Dec 24, 2013 | Talk Dirt to Me

Aquatic critters usually produce jelly like eggs. Think frog spawn. A principle adaptation that allowed tetrapods to live on land was the amniotic egg. Tetrapods are the four footed vertebrate animals: platypuses, dogs, birds and even according to some definitions...

Tear into some lettuce

by | Jun 12, 2014 | Talk Dirt to Me

Garrison Keillor famously claimed that July and August are the only times people in Lake Wobegon lock their cars at church; this keeps the other parishioners from sneaking bags of zucchini into their backseats. Voracious stem borers keep this from happening to me. I...

Still Haven't Saved the World

by | Jan 2, 2014 | Talk Dirt to Me

We’ve had our first good snow or two, but a warm spell has left only a snowy patchwork. Two days before Christmas it rained all day so I opened up the hoop-hut to let some water in. For dinner I pulled a few carrots and radishes (we supplemented these meager...

Duckling

by | Jun 18, 2014 | Talk Dirt to Me

I went to high school in Athens Greece because my parents lived there and they were unable to lose me during the move. We lived on a quiet street near some open fields and scrub (Greece is full of scrub), but mostly the area was suburban. Domestic animals are not...

Fire!

by | Jan 9, 2014 | Talk Dirt to Me

According to an article in the October 28 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS – pronounce as you see fit) by Van Le et al, primates appear to be hardwired to react quickly to snakes. Macaque monkeys raised without exposure to snakes have...