Friday, November 19, 2010
I've been collecting/observing/thinking about nests for a long time. IThe collection is growing and I'm fascinated with the different ways that animals create their homes. Since I am moving soon I've been pretty hardcore thinking about nests as I am about to leave one and create another. In the past I've thought of building a big bird type nest around a loft bed to climb up into and sleep....maybe I'll do something like that at my new place. Other times I've thought about just hanging a hammock in a room and having the rest of the space be workspace...
"A nest is a place of refuge to hold an animal's eggs and/or provide a place to live or raise offspring. They are usually made of some organic material such as twigs, grass, and leaves; or may simply be a depression in the ground, or a hole in a tree, rock or building. Human-made materials, such as string, plastic, cloth, hair or paper, may be used.
Generally each species has a distinctive style of nest. Nests can be found in many different habitats. They are built primarily by birds, but also by mammals (e.g. squirrels), fish, insects (e.g. wasps and termites) and reptiles (e.g. snakes and turtles).
The urge to prepare an area for the building of a nest is referred to as the nesting instinct and may occur in both mammals and birds."
Some of my favorite nests in my collection are the ones that use human made materials. I like to think that they are unique nests that represent this time in history. This could be seen as negative...like nests are made from trash. I like to think about how 200 years ago nests looked different then the one's you can find in cities today. Maybe 200 years from now they'll be filled with different materials too.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Appalachian Trail
I ventured out towards Stockbridge today and I got to see my first signs of snow on the ground! woo hoo! I'm getting excited for snowy nights! We stopped at a bathroom that had it's hand dryer positioned directly above the trash can. It made the lid of the trashcan spin like a pinwheel at rapid speed if you moved your hands out of the direction of the air. I'll admit I wish I used it twice so I could watch the lid spin again...
You can see the snow in the bottom right corner.
My Aunt Marie Paule has always wanted to walk on the Appalachian Trail so today was her day. It was a nice day for a 10 mile hike. I was nervous at first about the cold but we warmed up as we got into it.
The most notable thing for me was the amounts of different types of scat. I'll spare you from the pictures of how many different types I saw. Here's a pic of the biggest tree along the trail.
I measured it using photoshop as 8 1/2 of my heads across!
Nice stretch of the trail that opened up into a field.
And the best part of the day for me was coming across this little creature. I'm gonna spend some time later tonight trying to figure out what exactly that thing is on it's head!
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