Tag: nature

Descanso Gardens

We went to Descanso Gardens in La Canada Flintridge. Each garden was distinct–a rose garden, an oak grove, a camellia forest, a lilac nursery–with small river passing through.

A rose garden, pond, and pavilion at Descanso Gardens

A lesson in Geology

There were three types of rock on the trail on the peak: granite, limestone, and sandstone. Granite is formed from volcanic activity: lava under pressure. The sandstone around in stacked boulders, sheer faces, and grated crags were sand and debris crushed under severe, prolonged pressure. Granite was often speckled with silica and quartz and are used for, you know, countertops. Sandstone doesn’t have industrial use and is used in sculpture. Oh, look! I was looking for this: limestone. You often find it in places like here that was underwater. The white color is from seashells. So, yes, limestone are crushed seashells. And crushed limestone becomes marble. A work of art!

Midday Trip to the Zoo

We went to the LA Zoo on a Saturday midday. The late spring sun shone bright.

An Asian Elephant eats a snack
A monkey climbs along a branch
Giraffe walks pensively by the palms
Zebras rest in the shade

Read the Weather

Resting

I rested my back on a yoga mat outside and looked at the clouds. I noticed that they were relatively close to me and of a dark shade of gray. They were moving quickly from a south-easterly direction.

Indicators of Rain

I looked up online on what were the signs of rain. And here is what I found:

  • Indicator 1: Clouds that are low-hanging with a darker shade of gray.
    • Gray indicates a load of rain.
  • Indicator 2: Wind not from the west
    • As the earth rotates west to east, most normal clouds comes from the west. If clouds come from the east, it may indicate unusual activity.

These two indicators expanded what I look for when I go outside: (1) location and color of clouds; and (2) the direction of the wind.

Sources

Rewilding the planet

Coral Reef at Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge“Coral Reef at Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge” by USFWS Pacific is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Sir David also wants to see what he calls a “rewilding” of the planet, giving plants and animals on land and in the ocean time and space to bounce back. The World Wildlife Fund says that two thirds of the earth’s wildlife has disappeared in the past 50 years.

Sir David Attenborough: Repopulation of the oceans can happen like that, in a decade. If we had the will to do it. But we require everybody to agree that.

60 Minutes

Meadows before John Muir

Muir actually misunderstood the “untouched” part as well. The open meadows he admired that afforded broad views of the geological splendors of Yosemite weren’t the hand of nature; they were the result of strategic fires set by the Miwok to prevent undergrowth and catastrophic forest fires. Forty years after the Miwok were gone, so were the meadows.

LA Times
Meadow in Yosemite Valley
Photo by Adam Kool on Unsplash