Frosty Lamb’s ears

Frost is a lot more common on our farm than it is in the city. There’s more moisture in the air (city’s are basically deserts – lots of concrete, little ground water, and fewer plants) and the nights are generally cooler.

This Lamb’s ear plant is in our garden – about the only green plant left. The frost was heavy the morning I took this photo – but most of it burned off in less than an hour after the sun came up. The close shot shows the crystals that form to make a frost.

Frost forms when a solid surface in contact with the atmosphere is chilled below the deposition point causing spicules of ice to grow from the solid surface – the formation of frost is affected by elevation, and differences in absorptivity and specific heat of the ground the superincumbent air. Say that three times real fast.

The life and death of two old goats

Robert and Felicity were two of our first farm animals. I remember the day we brought them to the home. We put the two of them in their pasture and within five minutes Felicity had tested, and been shocked by, the electric fence. That was her wont. She was a smart goat, always watching, always calculating. Her nephew, Robert, was just a kid then, not even a year old. Felicity always kept him in his place, even when he grew to outweigh her by half. Perhaps that’s why Robert had such a nasty attitude – from being hen-pecked by his aunt all his life.

Robert and Felicity were living enigmas. Robert would try to hook you with his horns, or bite you if he had a chance. When he was about six months old he butted Meggy (about one and half then) right in the chest. They killed trees (eating the bark until they ringed them), bullied sheep so bad that we had to put them in a separate pasture, and always looked at us with those strange eyes as if to say – I’ll get you good if I get the chance. At the same time they would eat out of your hand every so sweetly and gently and if you put a halter on them they would quietly go anywhere with you.

After 13 years of living at our farm, Robert and Felicity were put to sleep today. They had contracted a parasite during the summer and despite all her efforts, Maureen lost the battle to save them. Because of their age and condition, she decided to have then euthanized before the nasty cold winter came. I cannot fault her on this decision. The life expectancy of an angora goat is 8-12 years. Robert was 13 and Felicity was 15.

Fungi

In an acre of meadow it’s estimated that you can find about 2,500 pounds of fungi. Among the wealth of life on Earth there are somewhere between 70 to 100 thousand types of fungi. That number includes mushrooms, molds, mildews, yeast, and puffballs, which we class as botanical. But fungi don’t really don’t fit. Fungi don’t photosynthesize (no chlorophyll so they aren’t green) but take their energy directly from a food source.

One of my biology teaches once explained why it’s a good idea to keep a Petri dishes covered – the fungi we culture in them are sometimes dangerous. For example, black mold can be deadly. But fungi can be helpful too. Penicillin and its derivatives are useful in the treatment of bacterial infections, yeast helps bread rise, and fungi also help us make cultured food such as yogurt, cheese, and beer.

Biologists estimate that there are from 3 to 200 million species living on Earth, ninety-seven percent of which have yet to be discovered. So every time you run across a mushroom, mold, or other fungi stop and think - you may be the first person ever to have clapped eyes on its like.