Darwin on Pumpkins, Photos of Pumpkins, I Love Pumpkins.... (A random post all about pumpkins)

Since August we've been excited for a day like today--bright but chilly (and yes, the sky really is that bright--no editing here!) and perfect for visiting this family-owned pumpkin patch about 30 miles from home. And I thought the outing would be enough to make Evelyn tired and ready for a good nap....but she's still whining in there....

We'll be in Florida over Halloween, so I'm getting all the pumpkin goodness in that I can. (But yes, FLORIDA. A VACATION. Wooohooo!)

We attempted our own pumpkin patch this year, and yielded one perfectly round and adorable pumpkin. I thought we'd have many more, since we had quite a few blossoms, and then a little over a month ago I discovered that our dogs had been eating the green baby pumpkins. Grrr....

Here's what Darwin has to say about growing pumpkins, which I find interesting:

It is not the strongest pumpkin grower that survives, not the most intelligent, but the grower most responsive to change.--- Charles Darwin, Theory of Pumpkin Evolution

string theory!

I often think that if I had a chance at a second life, I would be a theoretical physicist. I don't mean that I wish I was a theoretical physicist, and I don't think I have the mind for it (I have a hard time reading a street map, especially when I am on the street. I'm not exaggerating, either. It's incredibly frustrating!)--I guess I should say I don't have mind to figure out spacial properties, but I do have the mind to figure out puzzles/logic, which is why I can somewhat understand string theory, especially when the spacial models are provided. I think string theory is fascinating (yes, watching videos like this is something I consider to be very fun), and Brian Greene does a good job of explaining the basics in the clip below. This is what I was referring to the other day, when I said that the process of finding an answer is sometimes more exciting than the answer itself. Enjoy:

"What will you tell your daughter?"

J and I have been asked this a few times by people who are very concerned when they learn that we are not raising Evelyn in any religion or to believe in any god. It's an awkward question, and it's been asked in an accusing manner, as if we're somehow failing her by not telling her what she should believe. Before she was even born, we knew that we would raise her to be aware of all the religions of the world, and also to be aware that religion and belief in a god is not necessary to be happy, that, in fact, there is so much right here and now to be happy for and find inspiration in.....and to trust her to make her own lifestyle decisions when she is old enough to fully comprehend what religion and life even are (how thankful I am that I was never told what to believe).

I was thinking about this today when we were at the Minnesota Children's Museum. It was so fun to watch Evelyn explore her environment, to watch the curiosity and wonder in her eyes as she ventured through the exhibits of art, science, culture, earth, life.... And I realized that answers to the question "What will you tell your daughter?" were all around us:

We are going to tell her to pursue her creative instincts....

....to study world history, to appreciate art...

....to have an open mind and the ability to consider multiple perspectives at once, to have compassion, understanding, and respect....

....to explore the physics of the universe and the wonders of Earth and its elements....

....to never stop learning....

....to never cease being amazed.

poetry, earth, religion, beauty, science, Spring, etc.

The poet e e cummings touches on all of these things in his poem "O sweet spontaneous." I just started reading a collection of his work, which I am very excited about. He's a genius. The hard part is that it's difficult to share some of his work on Blogger because he uses so many indented lines and other spacing variations that Blogger doesn't keep the formatting for. And I can't get rid of the formatting - that's a part of his work. It's almost the same as cutting a line.... But, I did find a link to the poem, so you can read it in its original form. Please click on this link, it's so worth the minute it will take you. And then leave a comment about what you think of it.

If I was talking to you in person right now I'd be smiling.

Blizzard, (No) Lunar Eclipse, Dawkins, etc. etc. etc.

Well obviously the lunar eclipse still happened last night/early this morning (depending on your time zone and all), but here in Minnesota we had more snow and thus a sky full of clouds. The clouds did have an orange tint to them, though, which was probably some diffused light from the eclipse.

So it's officially winter, and I am already ready for spring (I have been for about a week). But at the same time, I try really hard not to wish myself somewhere else from where I am - remember the quote from Richard Dawkins:

"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because there are never going to be born. The number of people who could be here in my place outnumber the sand grains of the Sahara. If you think about all the different ways in which our genes could be computed, you and I are quite grotesquely lucky to be here . . . the number of events that had to happen in order for you to exist, in order for me to exist . . . we are privileged to be alive, and we should make the most of our time on this world."

So it's winter. It's cold. Big fucking deal - how do I make the most of it? Wishing for spring is not making the most of it. It's just that we've had snow on the ground since November 16. And we'll probably have snow on the ground until March 16. That's close to half a year of snow! Maybe if I was more athletic, then I could enjoy the winter sports. But I have no interest in participating in winter sports, and I have a one and a half year old (exactly 18 months today!) who can barely walk in snow pants and boots (she looks like Ralphie from A Christmas Story). So, we make the most of it by playing inside and being together (the photo is of how she "helps" me cook).

Which reminds me, in a week from right now I will be at the airport, checking my bags and preparing for takeoff to Vermont . . . .
. . . . my nerves feel static.

And another appropriate quote:

"This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sometimes I want to be an astronomer

If second lives existed, I'd be an astronomer in mine. This is so cool:

"Astronomers Discover Alien Planet in Our Milky Way."

p.s. I've finished grading papers for the week and am making it my goal to post a REAL post tomorrow. Not that this is fake. You know what I mean.

Try to imagine something a million times larger than the sun....

....now multiply that by a thousand. That's how big the largest star every discovered is - one billion times larger than our sun. But also remember that we're talking about our sun here, which is one hundred times the size of the earth - and think about how big the earth is compared to the size of you. Thinking about this makes my brain stretch, and I am addicted to that feeling. Click here to watch a cool video that illustrates all of this.

I Love Brains. And Stars.

Before I was an English major at Winona State University, I was a psychology major (and creative writing minor). I had intentions of becoming a clinical psychologist, and I even had thoughts about med school so I could be a psychiatrist - until I realized that I can't handle needles or blood or hospital hallways even, and so med school probably wouldn't work out for me. But, I wanted to study the human brain because I find it incredibly fascinating. And I still find it incredibly fascinating and still love learning about it. I try to imagine all the neurons zapping signals this very second - how much it takes for me to put a sentence together in my brain and then type it on my computer - I try to imagine the speed of that. Incredible.

Or I think about Evelyn's still-developing brain, and just this morning I read that she was born with 100 billion brain cells. And that by the time she's three, her brain will have made about 1,000 trillion connections. 1,000 trillion?! I can't even fathom that number. It's like trying to fathom the universe and what (if anything) is outside (if there is an "outside") of it (clearly another fascinating topic...). How many connections, then, have I made? How many have you made?

And interestingly, whenever I try to imagine the human brain with all it's connections, I imagine all of the stars as neurons, and the light they emit is like the synapses sending signals . . . from one star to another.

Humans Are More Fishy Than You Might Think

I was browsing NPR.org this morning and came upon an interesting article: "The Human Edge: Finding Our Inner Fish." It turns out that, in addition to apes, fish played a vital role in the evolution of us humans as well. This isn't new news, but it ceases to fascinate me.

In 2004, Dr. Neil Shubin found the fossilized remains of a fish in the Canadian Arctic. According to the article,

Shubin says his find, which he named Tiktaalik, represents an important evolutionary step, because it has the structures that will ultimately become parts of our human bodies. Shoulders, elbows, legs, a neck, a wrist — they're all there in Tiktaalik.

I did a little more searching on Tiktaalik, and I discovered that the fossil is 375 million years old. Whoa! As stated on the University of Chicago's pages dedicated to Tiktaalik, the fossil also has ear notches and ribs. Further,

Tiktaalik looks like a cross between the primitive fish it lived amongst and the first four-legged animals [tetrapods, which we descended from] . . . the existence of tetrapod features on a fish like Tiktaalik is important because it marks the earliest appearance of these novel features in the fossil record.

This kind of stuff makes me want to be a scientist.