Hello all…
In the aftermaths of Harvey and Irma I hear stories of “well meaning” people donating such clothing items as “dirty underwear” and prom dresses. These things are not useful. (Links follow this blogpost to organizations who really help.) I’ve noticed that for donations of items like water, volunteer time, care packages, it is best to search locally within your area, usually News Stations have listings about where items can be dropped locally.
aftermath: the period of time after a bad and usually destructive event
Here is a poem I wrote many years ago called Talking To Everlearner, Copyright Kimberly Gerry Tucker, and it is sometimes read with confusion, as in What’s this supposed to be about? It truly is about aftermaths.
Everlearner call back
Perpetual Student the last number that called you
too much choice Scholar
often equals confusion; wireless everything
Plato Wanna-Be probe the huge arc of the Congo
Curious Cat dromedary manure
(if you want to) Sly
is dried and used for fuel
Kurds still fight with Turks oh-Noble Heart
amber-rich Belarus Wisenheimer
Brainiac still suffers from nuclear
radiation fall-out
retro is in- Aristotle and sirocco, chergui and
chili blow in the Sahara ya’ know-oh Socrates
Pal whaddya’ thinka these:
rose oil, hemp, currants, wine and gypsies?
pineapple Know-It-All? shrimp? rice, lumber, tin?
cotton, coal, wool, cattle, palm oil, gems? Bonafide
Mensa Member its an artsy kinda
systematically organized world
use a colored pen Wise Guy
to draw a broken line Einstein (no-brainer)
and always keep your cherished photos Everlearner
in an airtight fireproof container
I spoke of destruction earlier…Litter is destructive.
Plastic bags are destructive.
Here is some aftermath of pollution and carelessness, from the EPA Blog by Marcia Anderson (turtle photo credit Rob Prendergast, Melbourne Zoo):
The wax worm, a caterpillar typically used for fishing bait and known for damaging beehives by eating their wax comb, has now been observed munching on a different material: plastic bags. To make sure the worms weren’t just chewing through the plastic but actually eating it, the researchers pureed some worms and left the paste in contact with the plastic; after 14 hours, about 13% of the plastic was gone, suggesting that some compound in the worm’s digestive system was truly digesting the bag. The researchers also scanned the chewed-up bags for residue, and found ethylene glycol—the main compound in antifreeze—was left behind, “confirming [polyethylene] degradation.”
That’s an interesting solution to the problem. It’s interesting to imagine that for every problem (even those created by humans) a solution is awaiting discovery. As someone who raises insects, I’m not so surprised at the traits of these wax worm insects. Last year my grandson and I raised a tobacco hornworm from caterpillar, to pupa, to huge moth. The pupa itself is seen here placed on a styrofoam cooler where it burrowed until it hatched.
You see, we made a multi dwelling, imagine a habitrail for hamsters, we made a three story bughouse like that. Sort of. We used stacked styrofoam coolers with very thick walls, and one side cut out where we stapled in a screen.
Nestled in the very bottom, this pupa was very active, it had a lot going on behind the scenes. It squirmed, it secreted juices, it actually burrowed itself into a pupa-shaped indentation in the thick styrofoam.
This year we’re raising a praying mantis (pupa-shaped indentation from the bughouse’s previous occupant, still present in the floor) and I am wont to call it a PREYing mantis because that’s what it does. It preys. We have had one moulting and I am anxiously awaiting another.
We started with 2 small mantises you see, about an inch and a 1/2 long. One mantis ate the other one. How our surviving mantis has grown. And it can fly now too. Truly, it has tripled in size and went from green to brown. It’s wings have patterns that resemble leaf cells. It loves hanging out and will do so for hours, it’s head scanning the room and on alert whenever someone walks by, it follows you with it’s eyes. Here it is when it was little:
Here he is today, on my son’s head:
I have been doing mini-getaways for the last three weekends, Mass., Vt., and New York. In Vermont, I picked these flowers on my way home. Queen Anne’s Lace, although technically weeds, are my favorite of all.
If you have read my book, you may feel as if you know this guy, pictured below. While in Vermont, we all went to a farm so Al could get fresh tomatoes for sauce making. My father ate 5 or 6 tomatoes fresh from the field.
When we got to the outdoor fast food place afterward, he was so full he couldn’t eat his meal and fed most of it to opportunistic birds. Said my father, “Birds gotta eat. They’re God’s children too.”
Of course, the reason for these trips to NY, Vt, and Mass. was to follow my favorite band around until I ran out of money which I promptly did. Next year will make my 50th time seeing them. Here is a photo I took myself and then recently filtered, because I like the look, which I took in NY. I had wonderful seats in all venues.
In Massachusetts, I stayed in a place called Plainville. Does it live up to its name? You go there and be the judge. I say YES it did, up until 2:00 AM, that is, and then it got very alarming indeed.
PUN INTENDED
Alarming. I mean that in the literal sense. Before leaving for the concert, I saw this old fashioned looking smoke alarm on the ceiling. “I bet that doesn’t even work,” I said to Al. Returning after midnight I finally fell into a deep sleep at the motel, when at 2:00 AM or thereabouts (I was probably in REM at this point), I fluttered my eyes open to an ear shattering, pulsing ENNNT ENNNT ENNNT sound. And the room was flashing in white strobe lights.
Al says I asked him a string of nonsense questions which I vaguely recall: What is this? What’re these lights? That sound? What’s happening? I was so disoriented actually I didn’t know I was even IN a motel. The sight of him getting into khaki shorts, flashing in white strobes. Saying: “We have to get out of here you know.”
Oh, the alarm… which I thought didn’t work…
We joined all the other occupants of all the other rooms, out on a cement walk which is in front of all the doors. Couples hugged themselves against the chill with puzzled looks, apparently all the alarms are interconnected. An olive skinned, shirtless elderly man stood beside his frail chainsmoking wife. One young couple slinked into a car and drove away. Hmmm, had they been smoking in their room? A red truck arrived. A man with a tool belt exited the truck and went into the office. Must have disconnected something. Then he drove away. The noise stopped and in the aftermath of all that, everyone returned to rooms behind locked doors and presumably went to sleep. No one ever explained what THAT was all about.
Home again, I took down some seed pods and emptied them, they are two different kinds of lilies and I will replant all the seeds next year.
Bye for now! Stay safe. Oh and I’m anxious and sad. My tree will be GONE in a few days. Where’s my Lorax costume? Murdering chainsaw wielding bastards in sawdusty tree cutter clothes. The aftermath of that? Ask the black squirrel colony, blue jays, and ask me if I have shade and beautiful leaves this Fall…*fully aware it is only their job, just unhappy about it 😡
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