Fractal

I am always trying to take pictures of this plant in the giant euphorbia family. They seem very ancient and very able to survive almost anything. They are filled with milky white latex which is toxic, sticky and non-water soluble. These stay low to the ground, replicating their leaf pattern along a stem getting smaller and smaller which is why I call them fractals. 

We used to have loads of taller ones but Dana's little dog Rudy, inadvertently ingested some of the sap whilst digging for some creature and had to be rushed to the emergency vet with a swelling face and a foaming mouth. He survived and after treatment was sent home with instructions to drink milk!  We took all of them out but unto this day they will pop up here and there. They are common landscape plants but if you have children or animals inclined to eat plants, or if you get an itchy though non-lethal rash from it as I do, don't fall for its considerable charms. 

There are a lot of other species that also have milky latex sap, the oft photographed grevillea under out kitchen window being one. It grows like a weed but we kind of like its exuberance and John only cuts it back when it starts encroaching on the front steps.

Dana came by and we went to investigate the 'huge burrow' John discovered in the field. It turns out to be the hole left by the burned tree which literally fell out of the ground as it burned leaving roots to smolder for days. The tunnels created by the roots really did make it difficult to imagine that a tree had once grown there.

Dana went home and John and I had a conversation about desalinization of sea water. He said that it takes tons of energy because it is basically boiling water. I said why couldn't people who think outside the box be given more support to come up with ideas like solar or wind power. I have just read two different books about the power of bureaucracies to maintain the status quo long after it becomes obvious that they (we) are going to hell in a handbasket. For examples of this in the corporate world as well as in government, I highly recommend two books that are good reads and illustrate this very well.


A Premonition by Michael Lewis about the US government response to the Covid pandemic. He has a gift for finding fascinating characters, who really know what is going on  but are either buried seven layers down in government bureaucracies, or who just follow their own curiousity and nobody listens to them because they are perceived as eccentric.

Finding the Mother Tree a memoir by Suzanne Simard, a graduate student in forestry who goes up against the timber industry when she makes some fascinating discoveries about how trees communicate with each other. 

I put a picture in extras of the results of yesterday's little project with stretcher bars, fabric and tons of glue...and staples.