So much . . .
Weekly trips to pick up our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) [It's a USDA website so go quick before the regime either takes it down because it's too 'woke' or it crashes from neglect or incompetence.]


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From Animalspot.net |
So much . . .
Weekly trips to pick up our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) [It's a USDA website so go quick before the regime either takes it down because it's too 'woke' or it crashes from neglect or incompetence.]
![]() |
From Animalspot.net |
I've got a bunch of started posts, but finishing them gets hard. Don't want to just be another opinion without strong evidence. Don't want to post simple stuff that has no meat. Don't want to say what others have already said. And it's summer - Anchorage is green and the temperature has crept up to cool but comfortable. The garden's been taking my time up - I do enjoy seeing everything that's popping up. Seems most of the perennials have survived the winter. Also have been pulling up dandelions - first, to get them before they go to seed and second to add the greens to the compost pile. Still have lots of dead leaves and they need to be layered with fresh greens (and the kitchen compost).
Found a couple of morels had popped up yesterday.
David Sheel teaches at Alaska Pacific University and has accepted our invitation to join us when we discuss his book.
Sheel writes that "many things under a rock" is a translation of the Eyak word for octopus.
Here's a sample:
"The giant Pacific octopus of Port Graham that had defeated the butter clam mentioned earlier ha taken the heavy bivalve in its suckered arms. But she was to learn the limits of her strength. With many suckers on multiple arms attached around both halves of the clamshell the octopus no doubt had tried to pull open this armored prey, perhaps with some patience. The sucker attachment requires no persistent force, but the octopus has to pull continuously with its arms to pry apart the clam halves, while the clam resists, applying opposing force to hold itself closed.
Watching an octopus apply this pressure can be a quiet affair. If the clam wins, this may be a motionless tug-of-war. With small clams, a giant Pacific octopus quickly and smoothly pulls the clamshell open, sometimes with enough force to break one of the clamshells. The day octopus opens clams and pries loose prey from their holdfasts on the reef with a series of sharp pulls, its who body jerking until, sometimes with an audible crack, something breaks and the inner flesh is accessible. The day octopus is very fast, often breaking into its prey or moving on within less than a minute, whereas the gist Pacific octopus my spend a few minutes to tens of minutes opening prey by pulling.
In its battle with this large butter clam, the octopus tired first. The clam was too strong, and did not yield to the octopus's strength. So the octopus tried something else. On the outside of the clamshell were no fewer than I've separate marks, two marks on one have of the clamshell and three marks on the other side. The marks were small ovals mea by the giant Pacific octopus. Each of those was an attempt by the octopus to get through the shell.
These tiny oval perforations are drill marks. Octopuses have inside their mouths a radula, which is a rising organ used to break up food. The radula itself is a ribbonlike membrane that runs between two muscle groups and lies over and between the posters, two muscularhydrostats. Our human tongue, as well as octopus arms and the elephant's trunk, are muscular hydrostatic - anatomical constructions that use fluid pressure generated by muscle contractions rather than a rigid skeleton to allow movement. Inside the octopus mouth, the bolsters can direct the pressure of a bend in the radula ribbon. Along the length of the radula are rows of micro teeth. Muscles at either end pull the radula back and forth, rasping it over and wearing away the surface against which it is applied.
The radula begins the work of drilling, and is sufficient itself to make a hole. But it cannot penetrate too deeply. Beyond that, the salivary papillae, also tipped with a few rasping teeth must take over. The salivary glands secrete enzymes that break dow the shell of prey such as crabs or this clam. The papillae delivers the caustic secretions directly to the drill site, chemically dissolving the shell, and making it easier for the tooth-tipped salivary papillae to rasp away."
If you are having trouble imaging an octopus radula, here's a picture google says is an octopus radula. Unfortunately, the link resulted in "Page Not Found." I don't quite see the rest of the octopus so I'm still a bit confused. But this helps a little.
Additionally, I'd note, as I have on occasion that I am still posting about the Respiratory Disease Reports from State every week. There's one more today. You can find those at the Respiratory Virus Cases tab above (just under the orange banner.) You can also go there with this link. But I'd rather you find the tabs so you can check it any time. This week COVID cases are up significantly while only one RSV case was reported, and the flu cases are down slightly.
So, many things under a block.
My phone asked me to log in with my Apple ID today. On a whim, I tried Air Drop after and it worked. So, in what I hope is a long window, I'll put up some pictures.
The garlic and the picture of the farm are from last week.
A month of rain means lots of mushrooms. This was all one bike ride with two stops to explore all the fungi..
This last one is a coral fungus. Looking at my mushroom book, it looks most like a cauliflower fungus, but the range doesn't say it lives this far north. Also says that r. strasberri is a northern species that is similar. These coral fungus are listed as 'choice' in the edible category. Not sure how I'd cook them. And since I'm not sure what it is, not planning to go back and get some.
The liatris is blooming as it usually does this time of the summer.
I haven't dabbled in dahlias for a long time. This one plant zoomed up about five feet with a stem at least an inch of diameter. All the others are between one and two feet high with no blossoms. I have no clue why. I would assume it has to do with the soil, but this one is in a pot with two others that have done nothing much.
Even on gray, rainy days the bike trails (this one through UAA) are beautiful and refreshing. Though on this stretch it would be nice if the huge bulges were smoothed out. Someone has marked them with blue paint, but four to six inch humps at the bottom of a hill are more excitement than I need.
Jacob asked in the comments in the last post about whether the US was headed for another civil war. I'm thinking about that. We probably need to consider the concept of civil war beyond the US Civil War. At this point I doubt we'll have a civil war in the last US Civil War style. The split among people is not nearly as regional, and from what I can tell, the craziness has been stoked a lot by Russian compromised politicians and social media bots that whip up extremist fervor. More like, if democracy is defeated, it will come from the long term Conservative campaigns (Kochs, Federalist Society, wealthy) to capture the courts and local and state governments in order to gerrymander elections to keep Republicans in control in states, and to have enough influence on redistricting to skew Congressional elections to the right. The Senate, because every state has two Senators, is already skewed to the right.
"In the incoming Senate, Democratic senators will represent at least 20,314,962 more people than their Republican counterparts — and that’s if we assume that Republicans win both runoff elections in Georgia. If the two Georgia seats go to the Democrats, the Senate will be split 50-50, but the Democratic half will represent 41,549,808 more people than the Republican half."
That's from a November 2020 Vox article.