The Urban Pantheist

These two rams are elderly animals that live in the Children's Zoo barn. They're part of the contact yard ("petting zoo") but they have the option not to participate, which they usually take.

Land's End is the extreme southwest point of England.

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I was back at Drumlin Farm today, teaching a mushroom class. It was a really good time, a great group; To them I say: I'm working on that spore print, and I'll answer some of the questions we came up with in a little bit. Thanks for coming today!



These little button-shaped mushrooms we saw on the wood chips outside the Nature Center. After some reflection, I think these are immature bird's nest fungi, with the spore-bearing surface (the top) still covered with a veil.

On this day in 365 Urban Species: Ginkgo, the beautiful living fossil urban tree with the foul smelling berries and memory-aid attributes--also my current journal motif.


Also, looking at my archives, I taught a mushroom class at Drumlin a year ago today!

Most of the people who read this journal are expecting to read about, and see pictures of, urban nature (I assume). In the past several months couple things have changed so that this journal often isn't about that subject. In October of 2006 I started working one additional day at work. That doesn't sound like much, but since I work at a farm that means a big shift, percentage-wise, away from time spent in the city. I also commute by car now, meaning that I don't spend an hour on trains in and around the city (my old commute took me into the heart of Boston to switch to the outbound train to the countryside). I've also been doing this 3:00 snapshot project, which results in 5 pictures from work, minimum, every week.

What I want to know is, does this bother you? I know that since I work with animals, people dig seeing a lot of my pictures from work. I'm a little worried that I'm calling my journal one thing, and it's become another.

I've thought more about doing some kind of appendix to the 365 urban species project, but it is mid-March, and I have photographed exactly two additional species in 2007. Having only two days a week to find urban species (if I'm only looking on my days off) makes the process more difficult than it was in 2006, and it was hard work even then.

The reality is, you'll probably be seeing even more of my pictures from work, as long as I continue to work there. The good thing is that a change of season will be coming in about a month, and there will be more interesting things to look at. And since I work at a farm/wildlife sanctuary/zoo, all of the pictures of animals are really about the relationships between animals and the human-altered environment. I'll write about urban nature when I get excited about a topic, but in the meanwhile, here's some goats.


( You can't have just one goat )