El Fleming, Noland Trail 2

Next I was going to try and find some manner of animal to catch. Instead I found some poison ivy buds and took another picture. The buds are the part of the plant containing the most “poison” so as to discourage animals from eating the vine’s precious fruits. Right next to this phenomenon I saw some Violin Scrolls, the curled up state of a fern. It amazes me how sensitive their tactile abilities are. That a plant can react to your touch amazes me; that it can also react to light, temperature and sound completely refutes the ideas of early plant theorists as well as the ideas of most people. It causes me to think of the M. Night Shymalan movie that everyone believes is far-fetched. It is not, plants react, they defend, and they have survived millennia doing so. They will find a way to protect themselves and we will not survive the day because we do not listen to the organisms around us.

As I was watching a cardinal the wind blew an awful scent in my direction. My first guess was skunk cabbage and I quickly followed the scent before it dissipated. Then I got the lake and was thinking I had lost it when I saw a small warty green and purple spinach-looking plant at my feet. I snapped yet another picture and inspected it. It had tactile hairs on its underside, indicating that it likely was very moisture sensitive. As I was knelt beside the leaf I picked up the smell again and looked in its direction. I saw the floating shell of a turtle. Not sure whether it was alive I poked it with a stick. Definitely deceased. I saw red on its neck leading me to believe it was a red-eared slider but it turned out to be his gouged at throat, as we discussed, likely by another turtle since it was on the bottom side of the turtle indicating a submerged attack. He had very intricate patterning on his leg under shell and was likely around five years old judging by his size.

When I left the dead snapper I went further into the woods and found a living box turtle. He had bright red eyes and orange skin with dark brown and yellow-orange, dome shaped shell. He looked very angry I was intruding on his thorn bush and waited until the last moment to retreat in his shell. I’m fairly sure he could have taken me with his angry little beak. I left him be after admiring him for a bit and left the one-legged cricket with him as my apology. It was a great walk with many good photographs and specimens. I also learned a new plant name-the devil’s walking stick. We have them at my parents house in the backyard but I did not know their name.

Science is my religion so in the wilderness I felt more spiritually fulfilled than in a temple. 1+2 both written April 13th