A Walk in the Canyon

After a couple of warmish days the pussy willows were a delicate cloud of white buds inviting closer inspection.  Depending on their orientation to the brief moments of sun we have had over the past week, the buds are either in full fuzz or just emerging.

These are some tumbled seamarbles.  The collection pic was sent by avid beach wanderers Kim and Dave who are lucky enough to live in Hawaii near the beach.  Kim's theory on the marbles is: "The elementary school is on the other side of the highway, then nothing but beach on the beach side. There are a few underground drains that flow into the ocean by the school. So, we think, based on the kind of marbles they are, that they are from way back in the day...kids playing marbles on the playground. I only find them certain times when the sand is all washed away and the rock piles are what's left. This past year, it was only one time that those rocks were exposed."  

What wonderful anthropological wrack combing.

Andrew's Favorite

This is Andrew's favorite. All of these scallops are from the Outer Banks of North Carolina (thank you Sharon Gilchrest O'Neill). The tiny ribbed clam is from Pawley's Island, South Carolina. I talk about sorting and how sorting builds the fundamental skills of science--observing, comparing organizing classifying. But "how we choose which objects to group together is ultimately a creative act, the work of the artist. The beach becomes the locus of art and science to dance together, to intermingle and connect."

This is all hard to think about when the dire news from the school district came out today about the drastic budget cuts heading our way. Superintendent Garcia also wrote an impassioned editorial in our Chronicle which was well spoken. I am working with a great group of Lowell parents working to raise awareness and raise much needed funds to supplement the decimated school budget next year. I had a thought today: Public school is no longer free. It is ridiculously cheap, but our legislatures and state governments are telling us that it is no longer free. We MUST put something into the pot to keep it alive. It might be $20 or $200 or $2,000, but it is not free. This is a sad state of affairs.

A New Book

I received two advanced copies of my new book yesterday afternoon. I happened to be home when the FedEx guy knocked at the door. I opened the yellow manila envelope and there was the book, a foreign object to me, the author who had slaved over each image, cut out cardboard to determine trim size and worked and reworked every aspect of the text, photographs and design of the book.

The book, a real book, is an amazing thing and until you hold it in your hands, you cannot really approximate what it will be like. It is a great and surprising moment.

My book, Beach: A Book of Treasure, is 7” high and 11” wide. Despite all my Indesign and Photoshop and pdf files, with their ever present rulers, I can only truly feel these dimensions now with the book in hand. The added length of the page (from my previous books) gives a delightful heft to the 144 pages as you flip through from front to back. The blue case color and the soft beige endpapers are cheery and soothing--something we could not be totally sure of despite the back and forths and changing and choosing of color chip--until the book is in hand.

So now the book and I are getting to know each other all over again (I feel like a Sesame Street character) but its true.

The best endorsement of the book to me so far is that Andrew (age 12) came home tired and hungry yesterday evening, but on seeing the book sitting on the entry table had to go through the entire thing, clearly captivated, before even coming to the dinner table. He then went through the entire book again after dinner. His favorite page is a spread late in the book of a mass of grey-ribbed scallops with a single, small, white clam shell for contrast.

What more could I want from a book?

Someone else is thinking about all those lost traps

Finally, someone is thinking about all the derelict traps left on the sea floor. (NYTimes Nov 27) I wrote about these for Beach: a Book of Treasure in relation to all the buoys found on the beach: they all were attached to something that is now lost, left on the ocean bottom to corrode. Thinking of all these lost traps reminds me of how I feel when I see a map of all the space-junk out in orbit around our earth. "It would be interesting to drain the ocean and see what's down there," said Holly Bamford, head of the Marine Debris Program at NOAA.

Which way do you coil?

Great Science Times this am. There is a nice description of sinistral and dextral coiling of shells and how they need a similar symmetry to mate. Sean Carroll is a great writer. I guess he is now going to write a column. Good for us all. Happy Birthday to "On the Origin of Species"

Compost on the scanner.

Finally I have scanned some compost. I hope to do a series of these. Can squeamishness be unlearned just by looking closely at something, getting fascinated by the details. The worms move while the scan is being made generating a rainbow effect, which I usually take out but might use to some effect someday.

Everyday there are articles in the paper about fresh produce. Saturday it was a lengthy op-ed piece by the Nieman Ranch lady. Ending her treatise on grass-fed beef was the forever familiar eat local, eat fresh, shop at your farmers market. I want to add a footnote to every instance this is mentioned (or add the tiny figure at the bottom of the cartoon with cynical commentary): please compost what you have to chop off and throw away. Compost the leftovers that are not cooked or go bad in your fridge...it is a complete cycle. There was also an article about neighborhood grocery stores selling more fresh fruits and vegetables instead of cookies and chips: YES this is terrific, but when will the same grocery store have compost pails for sale next to the produce with a tiny explanation of what to do??

Someday I hope.