After checking out the bears and salmon and other wildlife at Taylor Creek I drove out around the lake to visit the Bonsai Rock. The next day I'd head down I-395 to check out some fall color in the Eastern Sierra near Bishop.
* * *
After checking out the bears and salmon and other wildlife at Taylor Creek I drove out around the lake to visit the Bonsai Rock. The next day I'd head down I-395 to check out some fall color in the Eastern Sierra near Bishop.
* * *
I was still out on my morning walk when I saw the rising crescent moon, picking up a little earthshine, centered between the Twin Peaks. I knew it would move out of position by the time I could get home, but I dragged out the camera and snapped this shot anyway. Maybe I would take little gifts like this for granted if I lived in a place where the sky was generally visible, but I definitely cherish these little reminders of what shines above the fog.
* * *
Elementals is another name for nature spirits, but I like to think we're all elementals, tracing our lineage to a moment when time itself mysteriously began almost 14 billion years ago.
* * *
From Liebenberg's introduction:
In this book I will address one of the great mysteries of human evolution: How did the human mind evolve the ability to develop science?
The art of tracking may well be the origin of science. Science may have evolved more than a hundred thousand years ago with the evolution of modern hunter-gatherers. Scientific reasoning may therefore be an innate ability of the human mind. This may have far-reaching implications for self-education and citizen science.
The implication of this theory is that anyone, regardless of their level of education, whether or not they can read or write, regardless of their cultural background, can make a contribution to science. Kalahari trackers have been employed in modern scientific research using GPS-enabled handheld computers and have co-authored scientific papers. Citizen scientists have made fundamental contributions to science. From a simple observation of a bird captured on a smart phone through to a potential Einstein, some may be better than others, but everyone can participate in science.
Today humanity is becoming increasingly dependent on science and technology for survival, from our dependence on information technology through to solving problems related to energy production, food production, health, climate change and biodiversity conservation. Involving citizens in science may be crucial for the survival of humanity over the next hundred years.
Scientific reasoning was part of hunter-gatherer culture, along with music, storytelling and other aspects of their culture. Science and art should be an integral part of human culture, as it has been for more than a hundred thousand years.
* * *
Eighteen minutes later.
Too smoky to drive all the way out there this year.
* * *
If I remember right, this is Ellery Lake. The rabbitbrush is pretty much done at this altitude, but monarch butterflies are sipping nectar from their flowers down the hill.
* * *
The gate to Rock Spring was closed all weekend, but you could still park and hike in. Pam and I were surprised and a little pissed off to encounter about a dozen mountain bike riders illegally descending the very narrow Old Mine Trail. Farther up the hill you could see where bikers have been abetting the erosion of a hillside by carving their own routes. Even on the trail, they managed to knock out a couple of wooden water bars, abetting erosion there as well.
It was smoky when I drove up on Saturday, but the air was supremely clear when we hiked up on Sunday. Despite the lack of smoke, the fire danger remained.
Speaking of fire danger, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry last night when I watched a 60 Minutes segment where a scientist put in layman's terms to the President of the United States a very clear and rational explanation of how global heating works and the dangers it presents to our way of life, and the President's response was that the Earth will cool off soon. Does he mean because winter is coming?! Is he telling us some kind of inscrutable coyote story? To see the President of the United States engaging in magical thinking to guide national policy on the defining threat of our time was just mind-blowing.
And the owl too. I've been catching this owl for a while, but the old camera location was too far away to see it very well. Unfortunately, I don't know owls well enough to do more than hazard a guess as to what this guy is: screech owl? saw-whet? spotted? I doubt I'll ever get a daytime image of it, but hopefully I'll get another chance without a honeysuckle vine obscuring the view.
* * *