Upside-Down Jellies

On my trip to Mystic, CT my friends and I also visited the Mystic Aquarium.  The Aquarium's largest residents are their beluga whales.

They also have tanks containing sharks and rays, a myriad of different kinds of fish, moray eels and touching tanks where you can pet small sharks and rays.  I pet one ray and they have amazingly soft bodies, almost like wet fur.

There is an area that mimics a New England marsh with huge water lilies, turtles and tons of bullfrogs. 

There are exhibits with sea lions, seals and penguins.

There was one tank with one of the most interesting species I had never seen before - upside-down jellyfish in the genus Cassiopea.  They are true jellyfish found in warmer coastal waters worldwide. 

They are bottom feeders, unlike most of their jellyfish cousins.  They extend their frilly tentacles up into the water column where they capture plankton and absorb light that is used by photosynthetic algae that are housed in its body.  Even though the upside-down jelly has a mild sting to humans, the sea urchin crab sometimes puts one on its back and carries it around using it as a shield and camouflage against potential predators.

Source:  Starfish

All in all a very interesting place to visit!




However, aquariums like this one and places like Sea World are not without controversy, especially those with large marine mammals like the belugas, orcas, and dolphins and whether it is ethical to hold these intelligent creatures captive.  You can read more about that here and here.  Here you can find out more information about the movie Blackfish.

Hemp and Manila (Hemp)

Hemp is famous for being part of the marijuana family, but has many uses.  Products from hemp include seeds, oil and fiber from which food, cloth, paper and building materials can be made.  A major use for hemp in the 16th to mid-19th century was in the making of rope, especially for use on sailing ships, and sail canvas. 

Hemp field

Raw hemp fiber

However, hemp rope needed to be tarred in order to protect its integrity from heat, rain and salty ocean water.  So in stepped manila hemp (called such but it isn't actually hemp) made from the fibers of the Abaca plant (in the banana family) and is the strongest of the natural fibers.  It is stronger, more durable, and more flexible than hemp.

Abaca fiber drying

I recently made a trip to Mystic, Connecticut to visit with my friends Rick and Lynne who drove up from New Jersey and we visited Mystic Seaport which exhibits a portion of the original buildings of the Plymouth Cordage Company's ropewalk built in 1824.  The original building was over 1,000 feet long (needed to make a 600 foot rope).  Natural fibers are first spun into yarn, many yarns are spun together to make a strand. then three strands are twisted in the opposite direction to form rope.

Yarns spun together to make a strand

Strands spun together to form rope

A lot of rope is needed for sailing ships - such as the Joseph Conrad, a square rigged ship, built in 1882 in Copenhagen.

The Joseph Conrad is also on exhibit in Mystic Seaport.  More about my trip to Mystic in the next post.

A $40 Woodchuck Dinner

And speaking of pests (see previous post) ...  No, I didn't pay $40 to eat a woodchuck. The woodchuck under my shed ate up $40 worth of new plants I hadn't even put in the ground yet!  I bought four perennials - garden phlox - to put in one corner of my garden that just seems to remain bare no matter what I plant there.  There used to be Jacob's Ladder growing there, but they've all but disappeared.  I planted other things there last year, but only one little plant came up with pink flowers which the woodchuck has also eaten.  The flowers, that is.  This particular woodchuck seems to have a taste for blossoms and not leaves.  Anyway, I left the phlox out in the area where they were going to be planted with the intention of going back out later in the evening to plant them when it was a little cooler.  Later in the day I looked out and thought they looked pretty sparse, but didn't realize how sparse until I got my shovel and went out to put them in the ground.  Then I really saw what had happened.  The woodchuck had eaten them while they were still in the pot!

A few days later I saw a woodchuck out in the garden eating everything in sight, but ignoring said phlox - maybe because there wasn't much left to eat.

It ate a ton of violets and other low growing plants.  Even weeds which I wholeheartedly support!

Did you notice the lime green plants in the first photo?  Those were also newly planted and it seemed to stay away from those.  I'll be buying more soon!

Then he proceeded to eat all the blooms off my beautiful purple columbine!

Before:

During:

After:

Then it went on to the hosta!  I had seen chunks out of the hosta leaves but have had so many bugs eating my plants (see previous post) I thought the bugs had done it.  Now I have proof it was not bugs but woodchuck cravings.

During:

After:

Needless to say, it must have finally been full because what was left of the garden got a reprieve as the woodchuck retired to the shed.

A few days later I actually did catch a woodchuck chewing on the phlox which I still haven't planted yet. Not sure it's worth doing at this point.  Yes, he was very destructive to my garden, but I had a riot watching it eat. There are actually two woodchucks around - one has a shorter tail.  I'm thinking that maybe this was a momma woodchuck that had been cooped up with babies since it ate so much.  All the columbine flowers are pretty much gone.  Hopefully they'll bloom again and I can enjoy them for a few days before the woodchuck makes a return visit.

Pests Everywhere!

Even though it has been a beautiful spring (see last post), it has been a very destructive one.  No, not the weather.  Bugs!!  Nearly all my flowers and trees are inundated with leaf-eating, needle-destroying caterpillars and/or worms.  They are everywhere!  My evergreen plant in the front has HUNDREDS of caterpillars on it.  This happened a year or two ago as well.  I looked up what kinds of caterpillars eat evergreens and found the most common ones are the larvae of the sawfly (never heard of it, let alone seen one??) or the gypsy moth.  Looked both up and none of the pictures shown looks like what's on my evergreen??

Here's what my evergreen is supposed to look like.

Here's what it looks like now.

In that first picture you don't notice there's anything wrong, but if you look closer, this is what you see!

And here's what some of my other plants look like.  The leaves on my big tree have holes where they've been eaten.

Some leaves have this 'thing' on them that look like something's going to hatch any minute.

There are little worms hanging from threads everywhere.  Here's all that's left of my azalea.

And the hostas in the backyard have little brown specks like dirt on their leaves.

Even the rhododendrons have chunks taken out of their leaves, even though they are blooming beautifully.

I sprayed the eco-friendly spray on the evergreen a few days ago, but it didn't seem to do anything.  Got a 3-in-one spray today and sprayed EVERYTHING.  Will see if that helps.  In the meantime, at least so far the columbine are going great guns and don't seem to have bugs on them (knock on wood).

Will keep you posted.

Spring Update

The first flowering trees are now just about done but the later flowering trees like the dogwood and lilacs are in their full glory now.  We're really having a spring this year and not just a fly-by-night spring that's here today and gone tomorrow.

The iris I planted last year are also in full bloom and because of all the rain we've had there are scads of little violets.

There were foxes under my shed (see Night Adventures) but I think they left the day after I put the post up.  Now the usual resident is back - a very skittish woodchuck.  It's okay.  I'm sure he'll/she'll get used to me.  I think it might be a she since I saw it collecting leaves and things to make it a little cozier under there.  There may be woodchuck babies on the way.  Or not.  Good to have one in residence again.

A really beautiful spring!

Wild Horses

Wild Brumbies Run
by Lee Emmett

wild brumbies run
rumbling hooves rush
through trees and brush
manes glow in sun

galloping, racing
majestic horses
on high-country courses
leaders out-pacing

nostrils are flaring
steaming out-breath
defying death
heart-spirit baring

sweat pours off flanks
taut muscles ripple
leaf-shadows' stipple
plunge river-banks

exhaustion depletes
graze, mild and content
all passion spent
placid day greets




Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary


Last of the Spanish Mustangs


The Brumbies of Australia are magnificent creatures, a symbol of the wilderness and a link to the past. However, they are also an environmental threat and an object of cruelty. Do these wild horses have a place in Australia’s future?  Learn more here.