When examining a cone closely you would notice that they are quite intricate and some could be full of seeds. There are two different kinds of plants that have seeds: flowering plants have seeds that are inside of a fruit, such as an apple and berries, while some non-flowering plants have seeds that are not inside of a fruit, for example pine cones.
By William Bower On a recent visit to our son and daughter-in-law, who have a condo at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, Mary Alice collected pine cones to make Christmas decorations. While she was gathering the cones, I began taking pictures of the many species of pine and spruce trees in the area of their condo.
When examining a cone closely you would notice that they are quite intricate and some could be full of seeds. There are two different kinds of plants that have seeds: flowering plants have seeds that are inside of a fruit, such as an apple and berries, while some non-flowering plants have seeds that are not inside of a fruit, for example pine cones. By Bill Bower When I was a youngster my grandmother would come to our home for a visit and also to help my mother preserve fruits and vegetables for the winter months. Our grandmother had chores for us kids to do but also allowed us to sample the goodies being canned. Although my mother never canned venison, I know that many hunting and farm families do. Through the years I have often been given a jar of home canned venison and told that this was the best way to prepare venison. Many animals store food for the winter months. A gray squirrel buries nuts one at a time in a hole about three-inches deep, which it has dug; the gray squirrel then covers the nut with dirt, leaves, etc. During the month of October, a gray squirrel will bury several hundred nuts for the winter months. The squirrel uses its sense of smell to locate the nuts, even with ten inches of snow covering the ground. Those nuts not found will sprout the following spring. The beaver feeds upon the inner bark of trees, especially the aspen trees. After cutting down a tree, the beaver cuts off the limbs and drags them to the dam, where the limbs will be anchored in mud at the bottom of the pond. After the pond freezes over, the beaver can still get to his cache of food, which is carried back to the lodge and fed upon. By Bill Bower Recently, our son's family from Virginia came home to help us with the apple butter stir held at Mt. Pisgah State Park. The next morning as they were loading their vehicles to head home we were all startled by a loud bang, sounding like a shot. About a minute later we heard another bang followed by a series of bangs. It didn’t take long until we realized that a red squirrel was cutting cones from the branches of our Norway spruce tree, and the cones were falling on our carriage shed’s metal roof. The ground underneath the tree was covered with the green cones. I explained to my family that the red squirrel would carry the green cones to the base of a tree, where they would be mixed with needles, grasses and leaves and placed in a pile. These piles of cones sometimes reach a height of three feet. This is how the little red squirrel puts in his cache of food for the winter. The correct name for the red squirrel’s food cache is a “midden”. Our daughter-in-law, Amy, commented that the cones were still green, and she wondered why the little squirrel didn’t wait until the cones had ripened. My answer was that the green cones assured the red squirrel that the seeds were still inside the cones and will stay fresh for a longer period of time while in the midden. The seeds of conifer cones are the main food source for the red squirrel. To harvest these cones, the red squirrel clambers about the branches of balsam firs, larches, white cedars, pines and spruces, while cutting green cones. The ground becomes littered with the green cones before the squirrel finally descends to retrieve the cones. The squirrel carries one cone at a time, to bury in one or several middens in its territory.here to edit. By Bill Bower By William Bower Every year after our family picks apples at a local orchard we drive to a farm stand where we buy pumpkins. The granddaughters each picked out a colorful gourd and Mary Alice selected a pumpkin that appeared to be covered with peanuts. Later, in the week, I read in the paper that a local man, John Seeley, purchased several peanut roasters and has now begun roasting peanuts to sell at his popcorn and ice cream business.
By Bill Bower Astronomical autumn began on September 23, at 4:21 A.M. when the sun crossed the celestial equator – the imaginary line in the sky above the Earth’s equator from north to south. Our word autumn comes from the Latin word autumnus, meaning “to turn”. Fall is the alternative word for the season, and its origin has been traced to the Old English word fellan, meaning "to fall from a height". Back in the 16th Century, in England, this term came to denote the season with expressions such as “the fall of the leaf” and “the fall of the year”. In Pennsylvania, October is a month of warm days and cool nights. During this month, the trees shut off their food supply to their leaves, allowing the leaves to show off their true colors. While giving us a sample of fall October still has days with a touch of summer, a good time for many activities to be held. When describing the many foggy October mornings, Carl Sandberg wrote, “The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on.” Although there are many different types of fog, fog is essentially a cloud on the ground. In order to form, fog needs moisture in the air, and the air near the ground must be cooled to the dew point. (Dew point is the temperature at which the air can no longer hold all of the water vapor with which it is mixed. Some of the water vapor must condense into liquid water. The dew point is always lower than or equal to the air temperature.)
By William Bower
A few weeks ago Mary Alice and I traveled to Arlington, Virginia to attend our oldest granddaughter’s 30th birthday celebration. The next day we went to the old section of Georgetown, in Washington, D.C., to hear the “Walkways”, a group of which our son is a member.
While the band was setting up for the concert on the green, Mary Alice and I went for a walk. While admiring the old homes, we also noticed many round seed pods lying on the sidewalks. I picked up several of the pods, and I must have had a puzzled look on my face for a young man walking by stopped to tell me that the pods were from the ginkgo trees. I looked up and saw the familiar leaves of a ginkgo tree. The ginkgo tree is unique in that it is the only existing tree in its family. It is an old tree, with similar fossils found dating back 270 million years. It is native to China, where it is widely cultivated. The ginkgo tree belongs to the Ginkgo biloba family. The scientific name ginkgo is the result of a spelling error that occurred three centuries ago. In Japan, ginkgo was spelled ginnam and pronounced ginkyo. Later, a Westerner, who was the first to investigate the fruit, wrote the word as it was pronounced.
On July 1, Deborah Stackhouse, of Hughesville, wrote in a letter that a friend of hers, who lives in Picture Rocks, found a decapitated rabbit inside her fenced-in-yard. Although the rabbit’s body was untouched, it appeared as if its head had been cut off with a sharp knife.
Deborah went on to write that she too had found a rabbit killed in the same manner. These ladies were curious as to what killed the rabbits. The great-horned owl’s signature method when dealing with large prey is to behead its victim and take only the head to its nest or eating perch. In Kansas, a study had been done on 28 kills by great-horned owls, with 60% of these kills having been decapitated. The great-horned owl will also crush the bones of its prey to make it more compact for carrying; however, if the prey is too heavy to fly with even after dismemberment, this owl will, on occasion, return to the kill site to feed on the carcass. By William Bower
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