A walk in the park
Today, I saw tadpoles. Little ones and slightly-larger ones, but no bullfrog-sized tadpoles. (They're actually a little creepy-large.) I was kindof worried that I'd miss them, though I don't think I even cared last spring. I think I've grown up too much: the idea of reaching into stagnant water to catch a little half-developed frog so that I could feel it wriggling on my palm just wasn't as appealing as it was when I was a kid. I think watching them wiggle (because, to me, the "r" implies struggling, whereas without it implies fun) in their eggs just before they hatch is really the coolest part: they look like tadpoles, but they haven't come out yet. And I missed the egg stage this year because I wasn't looking in the right places at the right times. (I didn't find enough stagnant pools between winter and now.)
There were also some plants that scattered their seeds when I jostled them. That was a lot of fun to walk through! (Yes, yes, I know you shouldn't wander off the path and mess with stuff. But it was a farm less than a hundred years ago, so it's not like I'm disturbing virgin territory.)
I want to know what those plants actually are, the ones I call "mayflowers" but which aren't what most people call mayflowers. They kinda look like short green umbrellas. If the plant branches and has two umbrellas, it'll have a flower coming out of the crotch: they've been blooming for about a week now, and the flowers are relatively long-lasting. They smell faintly lemony.
I also saw a turtle swimming around in the pond... ducking under the lilly pads and sufacing to look around and ducking back under. He was just kinda hanging out, being a turtle, doing his turtle-thing.
And dude! robins have really spindly little legs. How the heck can they -move- legs that tiny? There can't be room for bone and movement-tissue in there!
And driving home, I saw a hawk and a black vulture. It's pretty cool that I can tell the large birds in the area apart by silhouette. Well, I think it's pretty cool.
But the tadpoles were important.
There were also some plants that scattered their seeds when I jostled them. That was a lot of fun to walk through! (Yes, yes, I know you shouldn't wander off the path and mess with stuff. But it was a farm less than a hundred years ago, so it's not like I'm disturbing virgin territory.)
I want to know what those plants actually are, the ones I call "mayflowers" but which aren't what most people call mayflowers. They kinda look like short green umbrellas. If the plant branches and has two umbrellas, it'll have a flower coming out of the crotch: they've been blooming for about a week now, and the flowers are relatively long-lasting. They smell faintly lemony.
I also saw a turtle swimming around in the pond... ducking under the lilly pads and sufacing to look around and ducking back under. He was just kinda hanging out, being a turtle, doing his turtle-thing.
And dude! robins have really spindly little legs. How the heck can they -move- legs that tiny? There can't be room for bone and movement-tissue in there!
And driving home, I saw a hawk and a black vulture. It's pretty cool that I can tell the large birds in the area apart by silhouette. Well, I think it's pretty cool.
But the tadpoles were important.