While camping, I read and enjoyed this short book by Tristan Gooley. My main takeaway is this (far from simple) exercise: Wherever/whenever you are outdoors, ask yourself “In what direction am I looking?” and “What time is it?“ (Learn to) use nature to find the answers. I’d like to get better at this.
I never really thought about a snail’s life cycle until today. They hatch from eggs, which I suppose is kind of obvious, but just something I’d never considered, until I wondered how a baby got so high up on the jade plant.
A gift for my sister.
I sat in the thick oak leaf mulch to sketch this burned, twisted stump. Across from me, Jeyla was drawing mushrooms. My view spiralled upwards. Hers focused downwards. Together but apart, we breathed the damp, earthy air.
Stereum species are wood decay fungi with simple, shelving fruiting bodies. Common names for species of this genus include leaf fungus, wax fungus, and shelf fungus. This one might be Stereum ostrea, also called false turkey-tail.
I cracked out the old iron gall ink and dip pen to sketch an oak gall and acorns, because why not get meta?
Iron gall ink is one of the most frequently found inks in manuscripts from the 5th to the 19th century. The American Declaration of Independence was penned with this ink, as were many drawings by Leonardo da Vinci At its simplest, it is made from four main ingredients: oak galls, iron sulphate, gum arabic and water.
I’ve been working on this one-pager to use on our school walks — a limited field guide to the plants the kids might see year-round in the most accessible areas. It might have to expand to two pages; I have thought of more things to add!
I went down a rabbit hole researching scales, and found Petoskey stones, fossilised Hexagonaria percarinata corals. Learn something new every day!
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