The City Mouse in the Country

When I sat down at the computer recently to type all of this out,  I let out frustrated sigh.    I had plans to release a completely different blog post long before this date but over the last two weeks or so I've done everything I could do but actually work on the yard, or write, or just do anything that was constructive. When you are moving towards a dream or an idea or...well anything really, you can't break the chain.  Even if it's just 10 minutes a day working, that is constructive.    I have an addiction.  It's not to drugs or alcohol and in a way that would be a bit more excusable.   I have an addiction to dopamine .    Dopamine simply is a chemical in your brain that makes you feel good, and it in turn unleashes other "pleasure" chemicals in your brain.  In my case it a program called Second Life,  (SL) which honestly, I used to be on all the time in the early 2000's.  It's hard to explain but the term multius...

When I first moved into my house some five, nearly six year ago, one of the first things I noticed was that we had a tree out back that was nearly strangled by an invasive woody vine called Oriental Bittersweet.   At the time I didn't think much about it as other more pressing problems, like a new roof and insulated windows, came first.  Other problems and projects kept pushing that "little issue" back onto the corners of my mind.   Small "little issues" tend to become bigger ones.  Oriental Bittersweet That's the problem with home ownership, their is always "one more project."  One more bill. I was considering where to plant the Pawpaw and new Bur Oak   and this corner seemed to be a very good option.  That's when I noticed my problem,  I have several Multiflora Rosa growing in my "wilds" and one that somehow I've missed over the last few years, it's become rather well established.   The Oriental Bittersweet was reaching o...

  This is a true story.   Years ago when I was a young man studying Evolutionary Biology as part of my teaching degree; our professor told us this story.  His professor at the time walked in, dropped the textbook into the trash and said something to the effect of " The discovery of complex life developing in deep sea vents changes everything we thought we knew." In other words....the biologists at the time were surprised to discover multiple colonies of complex animals with completely different biochemistry living in a very hostile environment, at that time it was believed that only small organisms evolved in the extreme temperatures and high pressure of the deep sea vents.    Suddenly there were advanced forms of life (worms and crabs) whose biochemistry was unlike any thing else on the planet.   Evolution, at least the way it was understood at the time, changed.   This story has stuck with me all these years because it teaches a v...