A day after I roto-tilled the garden we had a warm spring rain, after which I saw many long, thin worms on the loose soil. Each was waving its body in the air in a circular motion. What surprised me was not the worms’ behavior, but the number of them — this small garden plot contained […]
Life + Outdoors
Posted inGet Out
Crabs Walk Off Eagles, Then Sweep Storm
After handily sweeping through week 1, the Humboldt Crabs opened the second week of the season Wednesday night, challenged and pushed to the brink by a somewhat unlikely opponent. The Humboldt Eagles, a team made up of local high school and junior college players showed up to Arcata ballpark, and they meant business. The Eagles […]
Posted inField Notes
Sex: Nature’s Greatest Hack
Although I wrote about this topic quite recently (“Why Two Sexes?” Feb. 15, 2024), I’m revisiting it due to increasing interest — and confusion — around gender politics. While one’s gender can be as fluid as our culture is diverse, biological sex isn’t. Eukaryotes like us are born male or female, depending on the size […]
Posted inGet Out
Crabs Sweep into the Season
The Humboldt Crabs opened their 83rd season with a bang Friday night, May 29, with a 13-0 win over the Novato Knicks. The win in front of 1,000-plus fans marked the beginning of a new era for the Crabs. Jeff Giacomini has taken the helm as the ninth head coach in Crabs history. Giacomini has […]
Posted inWashed Up
Ladybug Wind Deniers
“It’s the wrong time to go, folks. It’s a warm spring day, but there’s a Devil Wind a-blowin’,” said a ladybug to the hundreds of others huddled together waiting for the right time to emerge from my shed. “Eat shit, you woke pansy. I’m gonna go find a rose garden, chow some aphids and bang […]
Posted inField Notes
Wallace’s Problem with Evolution
In an ironic turn of history, two of Charles Darwin’s most ardent supporters ended up disagreeing with him. The first was Robert FitzRoy, captain of the HMS Beagle and Darwin’s senior by four years, with whom Darwin had a great relationship during the sloop’s 1831-1836 round-the-world voyage of exploration. At the time, both men hewed […]
Posted inGet Out
High Spirits and Higher Winds at the Kite Festival
Wind gusting from 20 to 30 mph and faster made for very challenging kite flying at the free, family-friendly fifth annual Redwood Coast Kite Festival and Artisan Fair held along the Humboldt Bay waterfront at Halvorsen Park in Eureka on Saturday, May 16 and Sunday, May 17. The Family Fly kite field open for all […]
Posted inField Notes
Canals on Mars
“Lowell always said that the regularity of the [Martian] canals was an unmistakable sign that they were of intelligent origin. The only unresolved question was which side of the telescope the intelligence was on.”— Carl Sagan, Cosmos “Canals on the Planet Mars,” read the headline of The Times of London of April 13, 1882, in […]
Posted inField Notes
Why Isn’t ‘Eleven’ ‘One-teen?
And why isn’t twelve “two-teen”? Why do bagels come in dozens? Why are there two sets of 12 hours in a day? And why 12 inches to the foot? Like much of northern Europe, England once had a hybrid system of counting based on both 10 (decimal) and 12 (duodecimal). Today, almost all our daily […]
Posted inHumboldt Nature
Caution: Construction Ahead
With spring arriving and fruit trees starting to open their buds, it is time to think about pollinators. Among the first to visit my orchard are the mason bees (genus Osmia), often considered the best general pollinators, delivering much more pollen from flower to flower than honey bees. Mason bees are extremely efficient pollinators because […]
Posted inSeriously?
AI for the Planet
The inescapable truth is that generative AI is the future, laid out before us like a swirling, slightly-off carpet of AstroTurf in a dream where it kind of turns into water. In fact, after checking Chat GPT, the survival of which depends on its ubiquity, it assured us everyone is already using it. Late adopters […]
Posted inField Notes
’Twas Brillig
“‘It seems very pretty,’ she said when she had finished it, ‘but it’s rather hard to understand!’” — Alice’s reaction on reading, in mirror writing, “Jabberwocky” in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass ’Twas brillig, and the slithy tovesDid gyre and gimble in the wabe;All mimsy were the borogoves,And the mome raths outgrabe. So begins […]