Constellation

 Astronomer lichens.

On a rock face, lichens paint a picture of a blue-white sun surrounded by lesser stars.

I'm naming this constellation Great A'Tuin, The Discworld Turtle

I couldn't get closer to examine the lichen shapes more closely, not without risking my neck, but these, in all likelihood, are Bull's-eye lichens, Placopsis gelida.

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Líquenes astrónomos. En una roca grande, unos líquenes han pintado un retrato de un sol azul rodeado de estrellas menores. He bautizado esta constelación con el nombre de Gran A'tuin, La Gran Tortuga del Mundodisco.

No me pude acercar más para observar mejor la forma de las partes del liquen, pero creo que son, probablemente, líquenes Placopsis gelida.

"Some hard philosophising"

 

Face over McCreight Lake.

When a troll gets old and starts to think seriously about the universe it normally finds a quiet spot and gets down to some hard philosophising, and after a while starts to forget about its extremities. It begins to crystallise around the edges until nothing remains except a tiny flicker of life inside quite a large hill with some unusual rock strata. ...

Last night Rincewind had looked at cracks in stone and seen them become mouths and eyes; now he looked at the great cliff face and saw the features become, like magic, mere blemishes in the rock.

(From The Light Fantastic, by Terry Pratchett.)

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Cuando un troll se hace viejo y empieza a meditar profundamente sobre el universo, suele encontrar un lugar tranquilo para dedicarse en serio a filosofar. Tras un tiempo, comienza a olvidarse de sus extremidades. Empieza a cristalizarse por los bordes hasta que no queda nada más que una tenue chispa de vida dentro de una colina bastante grande, una colina con estratos rocosos insólitos.

... los ojos de Rincewind empezaban a jugarle malas pasadas. La noche anterior, al contemplar las grietas en la piedra, las vio convertirse en bocas y ojos; ahora observaba en la cara del acantilado cómo los rasgos se convertían por arte de magia en simples protuberancias rocosas.

(De La Luz Fantástica, por Terry Pratchett.)

Did Terry Pratchett watch barnacles?

Searching for one thing, I stumble upon so many distractions! Like these tiny aquarium residents, seen while I looked for snail fur.

Miniature orange-striped green anemone, Diadumene lineata

This was taken under the microscope, hiding in a dimple in a small snail shell. One of many, almost invisible to the naked eye. And each one, as I watched, never stopped moving, swelling, shrinking, waving, closing and opening the tentacles.

Another barnacle.

Feeding barnacles have their own special form of camouflage. They spread out their cirri (those modified legs), sweep them through the water, pull them back, close, open, spread out the cirri again ....  Say you're a fish, wanting a mouthful of barnacle legs; just wait and catch them open. Or a watcher with a camera; should be easy, right?

But no: the barnacles have no rhythm. Just when you think they should be opening — now! — and press the shutter, they hold back a half-second. The next sweep is just a tad early. Then a toe sticks out, right on time, but the pesky critter aborts the sweep. The fish goes hungry. I am stubborn, but mostly, I give up, too.

Was this where Terry Pratchett got his idea for Vetinari's clock?

The clock in Lord Vetinari’s anteroom didn’t tick right. Sometimes the tick was just a fraction late, sometimes the tock was early. Occasionally, one or the other didn’t happen at all. This wasn’t really noticeable until you’d been in there for five minutes, by which time small but significant parts of the brain were going crazy. [Going Postal by Terry Pratchett]

Tiny, tiny, really tiny shrimp-like thing.

This little critter kept dashing across the shell under the microscope. The head on the right is of one of the isopods that I found a couple of weeks ago; they measure about 2 to 3 mm. long. That makes the little shrimp thing a bit under 1 mm. long.

The inner tube of the large moon snail shell, against the backdrop of the outer shell. (Camera)

Here you have to look closely; along the edge of that tube, the worms that are everywhere on this shell, stand up against the green background, each one spreading its two tentacles out into the water. On the far right, the tentacles belong to another of the orange-striped green anemones.

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Cuando ando buscando alguna cosa cualquiera, ¡se me presentan tantas distracciones! Como estos pequeñas criaturas que viven en mi acuario, que vi mientras buscaba pelo de caracol.

Primera foto: una anémona Diadumene lineata, la de las rayas anaranjadas. Esta la vi bajo el microscopio, escondida en un hoyuelo en una concha de caracol. Una de muchas, todas casi invisibles bajo el ojo sin ayudas. Y cada una, mientras observaba, nunca dejó de moverse, hinchándose, contrayéndose, agitando los tentáculos, abriendo y cerrándolos.

Segunda foto: otro bálano. Los bálanos que están buscando sus alimentos tienen su forma muy personal de camuflaje. Estiran sus cirros (esas patas modificadas), peinan el agua, vuelven a encerrar los cirros, cierran, abren, estiran los cirros ... y así siguen. Pon que eres un pescadito y se te antoja una mordida de esos cirros; solo hay que esperar a que estiran las patas y morder, ¿no? O que estás esperando con un cámara; fácil, ¿verdad?

Pero no. Los bálanos no siguen ningún ritmo. Justo cuando crees que se van a abrir —¡ahora! — e imprimes el botón de la cámara, se atrasan un medio segundo. La siguente apertura es un poquitito temprano. Luego se asoma el punto de un cirro, justo a tiempo, pero el animal infeliz se arrepiente y se vuelve a esconder. El pescadito se queda sin su antojo. Yo soy terca, pero casi siempre también me rindo.

¿Será aquí en donde el autor Terry Pratchett sacó la idea del reloj de Vetinari?

El reloj en la antesala del Señor Vetinari no hacía "tick" correctamente. A veces el "tick" ocurrió un segundo más tarde de lo debido, a veces el "tock" ocurría un poco temprano. de vez en cuando el uno o el otro ni siquiera salía. Esto no se hacía notar hasta que hubieras estado esperando por cinco minutos; ya para entonces partes pequeñas pero importantes de tu cerebro se estaban volviendo locos. —"Going Postal" por Terry Pratchett.

Tercera foto: un animalito estilo camarón pequeñísimo. Este bichito nadaba rapidamente de un lado a otro del campo bajo el microscopio. La cabeza a la izquierda es de uno de los isópodos que observé hace unas semanas; estos miden unos 2 o 3 mm. de largo. Comparando los tamaños, el camaroncito medirá menos de 1 mm.

Cuarta foto: hay que mirarla de cerca. Es el poste central del caracol "luna" visto en frente de la capa interior de la misma concha. Si ves de cerca, puedes descubrir los gusanos de tubo que viven en todas partes en esta concha. Cada uno extiende sus dos tentáculos al agua. El grupo de tentáculos a la izquierda es otra de esas anémonas de rayas anaranjadas.

Breakwater, inhabited

Walking along the shore, I set myself goals; I'll walk to that interesting stump in the distance, then turn back. Or, it's time to head home, but I'll walk to that erratic, then turn back. Often, I get to my goal, see something else interesting ahead, and keep on going; just to that next huge log, then it's time to go, I tell myself.

The other day, my third goal was the breakwater at the south end of Miracle Beach.

Formed concrete blocks.

I was intrigued by these blocks. Most of our breakwaters are made of huge natural rocks, of which we have no shortage. It's a rocky island we live on. These looked like pieces of some giant's board game, smooth to begin with, now eroded and barnacled. I stopped to examine them.

Each one is a fat X.

They're not as durable as our native rock; the edges are chipped and gouged, probably by storm-driven logs. And on the undersides and protected areas, the mussels have settled in.

Mussels, barnacles, limpets, and a snail or two. Nothing moving; no crabs or hermits.

Looking over the photos later, I noticed the little guy waving at me:

See him? On the leading edge, at the left. Looks like he's fishing. Or collecting seaweed.

One of the Wee Free Men, although he's not blue. Maybe the woad washed off.

There was another, on the fourth playing piece of the top row: I cropped him from the original photo and moved him up to join the fisherman. He's at the top right.

Old Grandad

Sleeping troll*

Doing philosophy

*From Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic:

He awoke from considering quite a promising line of enquiry about the meaning of truth and found a hot ashy taste in what, after a certain amount of thought, he remembered as being his mouth.

Dauntless

"NEITHER RAIN NOR SNOW NOR GLOM OF NIT ..."* (Going Postal, Terry Pratchett)

... nothing fazes a yellow primula.

On a rainy afternoon. It's been buried under 2 feet of snow, blown about, snowed under again, and again. And kept on flowering. What's a bit of rain after that?

More snow is coming, they say.

*Terry Pratchett could spell, but some of the letters had been stolen.

Millennium hand and shrimp

Terry Pratchett has died.

A good man. A wise man. A gentle, angry man. And funny withal.

I can only echo Foul Ole Ron, railing at the injustices of the universe: "Bugrit. Millennium hand and shrimp. Bugrit."

Links: Neil Gaiman
Time
Foul Ole Ron

P.S. I hate Alzheimer's.

Rambling post, with lost monkey

It's been a bookish couple of days. I finished the Terry Pratchett book my grand-daughter brought me, got a few hours sleep, and then we went to one of our favourite second-hand book stores, Renaissance Books, where I bought another DiscWorld book. Thief of Time. I had forgotten reading it, until I was half-way through the first chapter, but these are always re-readable and thought-provoking; I finished it last night.

On that same outing, we dropped into Black Bond Books at the mall, where I picked up a good Rocks and Minerals guide; the one we had here was so old that the price on the cover was 60 cents (1955). Today's version cost me 15 times that.

And then I spent the better part of my so-called "sleeping" hours reading that. I learned a few things I should have realized years ago; I'll be writing about them soon.

And now, where was I before I got side-tracked?

Boundary Bay, while it wasn't actually raining. Besides fog and peeps, there were also (back on shore) mushrooms and other delights:

Cladonia lichen on rotting fence.

Same fence, same species, but in a different stage. Leafy cladonia.

On a wet driftwood log, there were three pink mushrooms. I can't remember seeing these before.

Next log over. Orange jelly balls. I haven't noticed those little greyish buttons on the lights streak just above them. I wonder if they're another stage in the orange jelly life, or something else altogether. So many mysteries in the 'shroom families!

Not a mushroom. This little guy was sitting damply on a blackened stump by the roadside. I hope his owner found him before he turned moldy.

And another mystery: about Blogger and photos. I resize all the photos to the same size and pixels per inch before I load them to Blogspot. Sometimes when I click on the photo, it takes me to a copy the same size as the blog post display. Sometimes, it gives me a humongous pixel-by-pixel photo, and sometimes about three-quarters of a screen. Deleting the photo and re-loading sometimes helps, but not always. In this post, I get all three sizes out of identically-sized photos, even though I re-loaded two of the smaller samples. Why? Does anyone understand this?

Or maybe it only happens on my computer. Does it work that way on yours?

The trouble with books of short stories ...

. . . is that at the end of each, you turn the page and there's another tantalizing title. And it's a short piece, so you may as well read it, too.

A granddaughter dropped in this afternoon with a Christmas present; Terry Pratchett's latest book, A Blink of the Screen. It's a collection of his short fiction, starting with a story written (and published) when he was 13, and continuing to the present time.

The topics range from sci-fi (virtual reality and time travel) to evolving chickens, to the national anthem of the city of Ankh-Morpork, and include another Granny Weatherwax story (Granny wearing pink?). Plus three sections of art by Josh Kirby, who did many of the covers for the DiscWorld series.

I've been reading all evening. Even did my cooking and dishes with the book propped on the counter.

Now, if you'll excuse me, there are still 42 pages left to read. See you tomorrow!

I have an excuse ...

... for not posting much earlier.

I picked up a Terry Pratchett book after supper last night. It was a thick one, "Monstrous Regiment".

Good thing I'm a fast reader, but now I'm 12 hours behinder. (That's a word, isn't it?)
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