The Long Brown Path: Minneriya National Park
Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road… Free, the world before me The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose Henceforth I ask not good fortune, I myself am good fortune Henceforth I whimper no more complain no more, need nothing… Strong and content I travel the open road. –Walt Whitman A Sri Lankan national park. Actually we didn’t tread this particular long brown path afoot, which I did not truly regret—it was ninety degrees, the road was ankle-deep in mud, and the elephants in Minneriya National Park are wild animals, and human-caused elephant deaths are not...
Read MoreSensitive Plant: Am I Bothering You?
A Sri Lankan byway. Alongside the curb is a small roadside weed, very easy to miss. It has little lacy leaves and a small purple pom-pom of a flower. Pretty but not remarkable. But it’s one of the most incredible plants I’ve ever encountered. It moves. Sensitive plant, it’s called. Mimosa pudica. And it’s sensitive, all right. Touch it with a fingertip, and the leaves close up, the tiny leaflets clutching themselves together nervously. Poke it again, and the whole leaf swings down, moving away from your annoying persistence. As a general rule, plants don’t seem...
Read MoreThe Future of Elephants
This is my favorite moment in Sri Lanka. When I went to Sri Lanka, I didn’t know much about the country. But I knew that, more than anything else, I wanted to see one of my favorite animals: elephants. Wild elephants, in their jungle habitat. This picture was taken at the Elephant Transit Home, a rehabilitation center for injured and orphaned elephants. These three youngsters were never more than a few inches away from each other. They pushed each other around, nudging each other with their heads, scuffling like puppies. They constantly caressed each other, holding trunks like children...
Read MoreBig Leaves
Sri Lanka is a tear-drop-shaped island at the tip of India. Not far from the equator. The noon sun is incredibly powerful, as I discovered after failing to completely cover my winter-white skin with sunblock. There’s green everywhere–every inch that isn’t covered by pavement has tropical foliage bursting out of it. All those leaves soaking in the sunshine. Tall, elegant palms. Banana trees with leaves as long as a basketball player. Papaya trees that look exactly like the truffula trees in The Lorax, with football size papayas growing at their tops. Flowers everywhere,...
Read MoreOn the Road
Thanks once again to Wells Horton for another lovely photograph. http://wells-horton.smugmug.com/ “The Road,” as Bilbo Baggins often remarked, “goes on and on, down from the door where it began.” In the words of J.R. R. Tolkien: “He used often to say there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep, and every path was its tributary. ‘It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,’ he used to say. ‘You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet,...
Read MoreThin-leaved Coneflower: What’s in a Name?
A cold and dreary winter field. In summer it’s a green and golden wildflower meadow. In winter it’s brown stalks. Peeking out from under this abandoned piece of haying equipment (I think it’s a baler?) is a not-very-well-known wildflower. In summer it looks a lot like a daisy, but with golden-yellow rays surrounding a dark “eye” center. Nope, not a Black-eyed Susan. This is one of Susan’s cousins, though, in the Rudbeckia family. Three-Lobed Coneflower, or Thin-Leaved Coneflower, or Three-Leaved Coneflower, depending on which field guide you use....
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