Earthlings Letters

Greetings Earthlings!  For a while we are going to leave the lively strutting of life that photosynthesis makes, the plants and animals and us, and take a look at the ‘still life’ of rocks. Rocks!  One of my favorite things on Earth.  Those objects that just sit there and don’t go anywhere, but they contain…

Greetings Earthlings! I’m seeing GREEN! Winter was coming to an end in the North east of the United States when I arrived last week. All the trees and shrubs were shades of brown and grey except the plants we call ‘evergreen’. The sun shown on the fine branch tips and they flashed in the wind…

Greetings Earthlings! What is happening out there? The only way to find out is to look around and notice stuff. For instance, right now I am sitting on a swing and a light breeze is blowing. Over head I observe many small dark birds. It is early evening and I think to myself what is…

Greetings Earthlings! Soil.   What is it good for?  Why is there so much of it around under our feet?  Very nice to look at, walk on and run on…but that couldn’t be the whole story…  Let’s look at soil from the point of view of a root and maybe we can begin to ‘get to the root’ of…

Greetings Earthlings!, I have been thinking about dirt. (should we ‘treat it like dirt?) What use is it? What is it? Turns out this question keeps people who study dirt, pedologists, busy for a lifetime. Pedology is the study of the nature and history of soils (soil is another word for dirt). Pedology, what a…