On Frogs and Leaf Litter

This neat item on frogs' affinity for fallen leaves and the tasty morsels that reside therein just came across the transom, and I thought I'd share.

As it happens, I spent awhile raking on Saturday afternoon (with the aim of adding grist to the compost pile mill). Whilst doing so, I noticed loads of critters in the leaf litter and decided to stop raking and just leave things bee, as it were. So this item is timely, and may inspire others to skip the leaf-raking altogether next time!

Check it out and meditate on the beneficial implications of the proverbial messy yard.

Prince (Metaphorically) Kisses Frog

A Memory, A Wish

There are no unsacred places;
There are only sacred places
And desecrated places.

—Wendell Berry, from "How To Be a Poet"

One of the best parts of being in the middle of nowhere is the fact that every walk is rewarded with a sighting of something new and unfamiliar.One day, perhaps, it's an unusual caterpillar, pelted (alas) by hail. Another day (yesterday, in fact), it's a lone orchid in the woods or a stand of long-searched-for chanterelles. Today, it was a green heron regally posed at the side of the dead-end road near the neighbor's pond.

When I was a kid at the very wonderful Farm & Wilderness Camps in the Exceedingly Great State of Vermont, I had a memorable and influential counselor named Linda Lee.

Linda was a kindred spirit—a term I almost never use. She was a wise and loving guide for my burgeoning adoration of the natural world.

One August afternoon, while Linda and I were walking in the woods, I mentioned how much I hoped, one day, to see a wood frog—a beautiful species I'd looked at only in books.

Linda said she'd found that, sometimes, by simply asking something of Mother Nature with respect and humility, special creatures would appear or events unfold or requests be answered. Sometimes, she said, you just have to ask in the proper spirit. So I did.

And guess what? Within moments a tiny wood frog with its softly banded, raccoon-ish face and its mushroom-brown body, appeared in the path on which Linda Lee and I walked that unforgettable walk.

I so hope to live to see a day when we can accord nature the respect it—she—we deserve, for as surely as we sink, sell, denigrate, and disparage Mother Nature—from whom (it's only too obvious to say and too easy to ignore) we all come and to whom (hat in hand) we'll soon enough return—we sink, sell, denigrate, and disparage ourselves.

That is why I hope we will take action to resist this latest bit of nonsense from President Cheney and the BushPuppet from Hell, Inc.—because Mother Nature and her growing cadre of endangered flora and fauna cannot issue press briefings, sue on their own behalf, take up arms to defend themselves, hire a lobbyist, or pose for a nauseating photo op with Condi Rice.

It's up to us to decide just how much desecration we're going to stand for—in every sense of the term.

Recent Things (Today)

Got Pharma-gunk?

Next time you enjoy a nice glass of drinking water, please be aware that you're likely to be ingesting some of the following "extras" with every sip:

• estrogen and other sex hormones
• sedatives
• pain medications
• psychiatric meds
• anti-convulsants
• antibiotics
• mood stabilizers

A new Associated Press study on pharmaceuticals in America's drinking water supply cites the following "fun facts" from around the US of A.

--Officials in Philadelphia said testing there discovered 56 pharmaceuticals or byproducts in treated drinking water, including medicines for pain, infection, high cholesterol, asthma, epilepsy, mental illness and heart problems. Sixty-three pharmaceuticals or byproducts were found in the city's watersheds.

--Anti-epileptic and anti-anxiety medications were detected in a portion of the treated drinking water for 18.5 million people in Southern California.

--Researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey analyzed a Passaic Valley Water Commission drinking water treatment plant, which serves 850,000 people in Northern New Jersey, and found a metabolized angina medicine and the mood-stabilizing carbamazepine in drinking water.

--A sex hormone was detected in San Francisco's drinking water.

--The drinking water for Washington, D.C., and surrounding areas tested positive for six pharmaceuticals.

--Three medications, including an antibiotic, were found in drinking water supplied to Tucson, Ariz.

How could this be happening? Here's the polite way of putting it, from the AP article:

"People take pills. Their bodies absorb some of the medication, but the rest of it passes through and is flushed down the toilet. The wastewater is treated before it is discharged into reservoirs, rivers or lakes. Then, some of the water is cleansed again at drinking water treatment plants and piped to consumers. But most treatments do not remove all drug residue."

Given that, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average American received more than 11 prescriptions in 2006 (that's more than 3 billion prescriptions, total, for one year alone), we're talking massive influx of pharma-gunk into our water supply. Yum!

We've been reading for years about the effects of infusing our water supply with pharmaceuticals, pesticides, and personal care products, but the focus has mostly been on three-headed frogs, intersex frogs, intersex fish, and other harm to wildlife. But who cares about wildlife?Now it seems, the intersex chickens are coming home to roost—in our gastrointestinal tracts. Let's call this a case of getting our "just desserts" until we clean up our act.

Read the whole sordid, filthy, horrifying and yet unsurprising story here and (for the New York angle, here.)

If you're a bit blue after doing so, calm yourself down with a nice, cool, sedative-laced, mood-stabilizing glass of water.Watch this while you're at it, for some fun at the expense of big pharma, bringer of such wonders as Seasonale, which the SNL clip below lampoons.

Sleeping Frog Shocks a Brooklyn Mom

You just never know what you're going to find in a head of organic lettuce—and that's a good thing.

Just fer the hell of it, here are a few other interesting lettuce-pairings:Kitty Lettuce Cup by Stumpytown.

Lettuce Sea Slug by laszlo-photo.

The Rare Right-Angled Lavender Lettuce Bird by mexter.