Ops... Wrong Volcano!

I grow in a warm country full of beaches, corn and volcanos, our childhood was great when our parents used to take us out of the city for vacations, chasing lizzards and climbing on mountains of corn. 

One of those summer days my mother decided to take all her 9 kids to do a little "climbing" up to an inactive Volcano, the "Nevado de Colima" up, up, up, we went, but we never saw the top, no water, no food, broken shoes, getting dark  and suddenly... a hunters truck! They looked at us with eyes wide open, and a surprise expresion on their faces, then they asked us: "Where are you going?" and my mother answer them: "Up!",  and that single word would be enough for the hunters to realize we were in the wrong volcano, and this volcano in particular, was an active one and full of dangerous gases in the top. We went down , down, down and the next time my mother take us to do volcano climbing, she always made sure it was an inactive volcano! 

When I was little I always wonder how volcanos "function" I had a Geology class afterwards, so to know and explain even to a kid everything about Volcanos, I found this french link quoting a larousse explication on the web, is in french and is excelent!

http://www.curiosphere.tv/ressource/1710-les-volcans

Voir l'animation Les différentes roches de la Terre sur www.cea.fr

        

Ecosystem Discovery: In Australia, drunk parrots are falling from the s...

Ecosystem Discovery: In Australia, drunk parrots are falling from the s...: "Source Every year in May, a strange phenomenon is happening in Darwin region of Australia. Parrots intoxicated by a plant that contains a..."

The Prisoner

One day I bought a pet to my daughter, it was a cute baby rabbit, was so small and probably the pet shop took it away from the mother to soon, so, the rabbit died just 5 days after we took it home. Since then my daughter can not forget the tragedy and she cries asking me, "why did he died?"... 

One day while I was vacuming the carpet in my bedroom, I notice we had a visitor, in my own bed there was a cute brunette long legs spider, and no, my husband was NOT having an affair, it was a real spider! Quickly I called my daughter to bring me the hunting equipment we bought for insects to capture the intruder, and there was she, inside an empty mermelade bottle, trying to sew her silk couture inside her new home. It have been more than a week since she lives with us, and she is fearless, everytime we feed her with ants, flyes and any other univited insect, she attacks, jumps and bites no mercy what so ever! 

Could sound like a bad show for a kid but, in the other hand, it helped my kid to understand life is a chain and we all are part of it, survive by eating other living creatures does not make us better or worse, it just make us one more animal species, and there is beauty in all living things. Finally I realize this is the perfect pet for a kid, there is no mess to clean, no hands to wash, no special food to bought, and the best is that if someday we have to go on vacation away from home, we can always set her free back to her spider life and she won't die of starvation. Just make sure the spider is not a dangerous one !

Hanging out in the balcony

The Pink Lady

For the last months, I have been trying on tasting different variety of apples, since in the country where I am from there is not such a big gamma to choose in the market from this fruit in particular, and me… I love tasting new flavors! In France in a market, some times you can find as much different types of apples as the fingers in both of your hands.

One day while having by breakfast a “pink lady” apple, I took the time to separate all the seeds inside the pulp to place them near to the window where the sun could warm them up, and as I was giving the last bites I start thinking on how pretty could be a pink lady apple tree…

The days went by and the seeds remain close to the window, every morning I look at them and wonder if I should better throw them away since in an apartment there is no place for an apple tree.  Finally after a few weeks, whilst doing gardening in the balcony I push the seeds inside a plastic bag full of soil I was hesitating on getting rid off, but instead, I left it in the kitchen, near to the calefaction… then again, the days went by and when I finally decide to put the bag on the trash I saw a little tiny green living plant growing on and wearing the remains of a broken seed as a hat.

Like that, she grow what I call two baby milk leaves, later she let them dry and fell, to keep growing serrated leaves in pairs, 2, 4, 6… and now I wish I could have taken a picture of such cute growing baby tree. I vacillate between taking care of her till she is grow enough to plant her outdoors in an appropriated clime or to assign a place for her in one of the bonsai pots with the hope of seeing her grow, but not to much so she can stay in the apartment. I went for option two.
My advice to you is; put a seed in the ground, and watch it grow... it will remaind you how incredible nature is.

    

The Question Mark ?

It is exhausting sometimes how many questions a little kid can formulate in a journey, and it is even more difficult when you do not have always an answer to satisfy that enormous curiosity. As a parent, we suppose to be feeding that necessity of understanding with the appropriate information, so in some way all those formulated question marks will generate question marks of our own... and lead us to inquiry in the how? and why? of the human nature and the world around us. 

In this sense, isn't a kid developing the task of a teacher?, making you wonder? It seems so, so surely this is another reason of the success of human beings as specie. I have the luck to have one of those curious minds in my life, and from that little mind, is the origin where all the questions are coming from. My daughter. 

For people who loves to see and read about how incredible our planet is, and about the living creatures on it, including Us.

I had the luck to study and graduate in what I personally consider one of the most fascinating careers, after having quit a computational Engineering degree just to follow my instincts. I couldn't help on keeping the search of information and articles just like I used to do while being at the University, in order to avoid forgetting my knowledge, althought I am not a genius. I enjoy every time I feel surprised with biology facts or while refreshing the topics studied before, and I hope never to loose the capacity of impressing. Biology Sciences.