Lainesblog Thinking Out Loud
Gleanings From Living Long
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Category: Guest Blogger
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In wine growing countries the fall is a time of great excitement as the grapes approach the time for harvesting. Each bunch of grapes swells with juice produced from the long summer days of sunshine and rain. The vineyard owner watches the grapes carefully to be ready for that…
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In downtown New York City’s far west side there used to be a raised train track for the trains delivering or picking up meat and produce. Completed in 1934, it replaced a former street level train that had been the cause of many fatal accidents. So many that the city hired…
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What an odd plant the frangipani. It seems backward in making flowers before leaves but it seems to work. Also known as plumeria it has long pointed oval-shaped leaves and flowers of delicate beauty and intense scent. It grows in tropical and subtropical areas including parts of Florida. Out…
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If you look up into the sprawling limbs of the big oaks in north Florida you will see something that looks like dried up ferns. And in fact, that’s what they are. But these are not regular ferns, these are resurrection ferns. It’s an epiphytic plant, one that attaches to another…
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All across south Florida large flocks of ibis, like their cousins around the world, come home at sunset to nest in the same trees. During the night they stay low on the branches, hidden from hawks and other predators. But as dawn approaches they move ever higher in the…
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When the sun rises over the Everglades it seems to explode out of the blackness of night. As it lifts above the soft sawgrass horizon birds burst out of rest and into the sky. Every winged creature seems to have someplace to go and they head off toward it. In the…
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Since medieval times European farmers have pollarded their trees. That means cut all the branches off and leave stubs. They harvested tops of their trees for fodder and for the wood. The tree looks nude and if one can give it a human emotion, forlorn. Sounds terrible but come the spring the…
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They don’t call them starfish anymore. They are sea stars now but whatever you call them there is hardly anyone who can see one without smiling and pointing. …
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We rarely think about stairs. We run up and down them and pay little attention to them. But when we encounter a stone staircase in a 12th century building we do stop to notice how different they are from the ones we are used to seeing. The staircase in the picture is…
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Where's Laine? I don't know. Maybe she's hungry. Did you say Hungary? No, I said hungry. Oh. Why? I don't know! Laine's Blog will be shaken and stirred for the next couple of weeks, with some help from guest blogger, Sue Harrison and…
Lainesblog Thinking Out Loud 