Some thought provoking oddities

Do you see it? Look closely.

There’s a Winchester rifle leaning against the tree. (Photo courtesy National Park Service)

Archaeologists discovered the gun, which was manufactured in 1882, leaning against a juniper tree while they were carrying out surveys. ((( So that’s what a juniper tree looks like . ))) Presumably, this rifle has been camouflaged so well, nobody saw it before now! Apparently, Juniper trees grow slowly? Because it would have to have been in the dry arid climate undisturbed for 132 years. Well……It could happen I suppose. Weirder things have happened in nature… Like snow donuts, for example.

Photo below of actual snow donut, courtesy http://listverse.com/2013/04/28/10-ridiculously-cool-natural-phenomenon/

These rare donut shapes are formed—under perfect temperature conditions only—when a mass of snow falls or is blown by the wind. If it manages to catch on to some other snow, and gravity or the wind is in its favor, then the new snowball will roll itself along. In the case of snow donuts, the middles collapse to create a donut shape, which can end up as tall as 26 inches. Who’da thunk it, eh?

Here’s something else you may not have heard of. I certainly have never seen a snow donut; nor have I heard of them. But what about Friluftsliv? If you enjoy standing out in the great outdoors, enjoying nature and watching a snow donut roll down a hill, then you are partaking in Friluftsliv. The Japanese have a similar term for this word meaning pretty much the same thing as Friluftsliv, and that word is Shinrin-yoku. Friluftsliv is Norwegian for

“free air life.”

Hmmm? Loosely translated, Friluftsliv means “a way of life spent enjoying nature” whether that’s hiking, camping, apple-picking, or breast-milk-fruit-picking or snow-donut-watching. I can’t think of a word in the USA which is equivalent to free air life. I wonder how Friluftsliv is pronounced. It’s not a rare word in Norway who apparently (like the Japanese) understand the benefits of communing with nature so well that they both have words for it.

On the subject of rare terms, ever hear of a Bobi wata? That translates, believe it or not, to “breast milk fruit.” As seen below. You were wondering what I meant by ”breast milk fruit” in that last paragraph, right? Well, here is a picture of one:

(photo courtesy theotherwhiterice, link follows blog)

Wow, who named that freaky fruit? It’s fairly common actually; in places like Sierra Leone, and is said to be sweet. I’ve honestly never heard of the Bobi wata. It’s like when I went to Washington DC on a class trip (pre-terrorism panic) and our group was scheduled to tour the Smithsonian. Said the teacher:

“Kids, decide what you’d like to see in your four hours at the Smithsonian, and then go to that area. You could walk through the Smithsonian for several days, 24 hours a day, and still not see everything there is to see…”

I found that a bit intimidating. I was curious about every thing, I had no idea what I wanted to see the most, and so I didn’t narrow my visit at the Smithsonian to certain areas. No, I took in all the details and

none of the big picture.

Life is SO like that. I try to stay focused, try to hone in on one thing, but my curiosity is vast. There is so much to know that I venture I’d be right if I said people can learn something new every second of every day and night for all of our lives, and we couldn’t possibly learn

everything about everything.

So you have to agree that fruit is obscure, it’s odd. It’s got a weird name. But cazu marzu is odder! See below.

(Photo courtesy http://www.formaggio.it/formaggio/casu-fragizu-casu-becciu-casu-fattittu-casu-marzu-hasu-muhidu-formaggio-marcio/)

Look yummy? You may want to rethink that… This Sardinian delicacy involves leaving pecorino cheese out to ferment in the sun. That attracts “cheese flies” which then infest the pecorino with maggots. Some people drill holes into the cheese and deposit oil into the centers to attract the cheese fly, which then lay hundreds or thousands of eggs within the cheese. When the maggots hatch they digest the aging pecorino and release an enzyme resulting in a fermentation process.

The Cheese Putrifies.

The end product is a soft gooey substance filled with maggots. If the maggots die in the cheese before you eat ’em, the cazu marzu is toxic. Some people remove the live maggots before eating the cheese, while others enjoy eating the percorino with the live maggots inside. The maggots are able to launch themselves 6 inches in the air, by the way. (That last fact was just an interesting aside.)

Hungry?

Let’s change the subject errr I should say let’s stay on the subject of oddities but get away from the maggots…Let’s talk politics. In particular, the headstone below:

An actual headstone from the Salt Lake City Cemetery. (Picture found on flickr.com)

People often leave behind things on this grave site: burnt out candles, beer cans, trash, and black crayons (maybe they do rubbings?) But this isn’t what you think. This deceased woman’s husband apparently hated the government and blamed his wife’s death on them. His reference to the beast was his sardonic sense of humor mixed with disgust and hate for the government which he indeed thought of as the devil itself. Apparently he blamed them for Lilly’s death…

Before the mystery was confirmed to be not about THE DEVIL, people jumped to their own conclusions about what the headstone inferred and they probably still (not knowing the truth) devise their own stories to this day, far more gruesome than mere politics. Or IS there anything more gruesome than politics? I won’t answer that because this blog is not about the government. I leave you with this

:	a grisly, ghastly, frightful, horrid, horrifying, hideous, horrible, horrendous, grim, awful, dire, dreadful, terrible, horrific, shocking, appalling, disgusting, repulsive, repugnant, revolting, repellent, sickening—chihuahua

Remember the Ren and Stimpy show? This is Ren, created by Canadian animator John Kricfalusi. The cartoon aired on Nickelodeon in the 90s. My father used to get slap happy to that show. That is to say, I remember him laughing it up, slapping his knees. I thought the kids’ cartoon was funny too, but we all laughed a little louder because he laughed so hard. These were no titters, twitters, giggles, chortles or chuckles. Ren and Stimpy made him slap happy laughy.

I just had a piece of writing published here at the following link. You have to scroll down to my name: Kimberly Gerry Tucker. If you end up clicking on None of the links I’ve posted below, I hope you will click on this one and come back here to post feedback, or you can post feedback on The Write Place At The Write Time’s site. Happy reading!

http://www.thewriteplaceatthewritetime.org/ourstoriesnonfiction.html

Before I forget, my newly revised book is up and I want to post a link. It’s got pictures and a new front and back cover and just a few added sentences on the inside, along with a corrected typo. So here it is: http://www.amazon.com/Under-Banana-Moon-Living-Aspergers/dp/150572886X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1422058266&sr=1-1&keywords=under+the+banana+moon

It looks like this now: