Pamelia and I were talking last night about the number of people who don't see—or won't accept—that humans are part of nature, genetically linked to other living things. We'd had a wonderful visit at The Naturalist's Notebook just a few hours earlier from a man from the Jane Goodall Institute who loved our primate room, with its bonobo and human skeletons. As I write this, Pamelia is out in today's extra-low tide, observing and trying to photograph (despite the wave-whipping wind) some of our very, very distant cousins, the sea animals who live where scientists say our ancestors did several hundred million years ago.
Over the last week I've seen an amusing (and, to be sure, superficial) similarity between two groups of vastly different living creatures: ants excavating their catacomb world inside The Naturalist's Notebook's ant farm and human beings pushing dirt around with bulldozers to get London ready to host the 2012 Summer Olympics. The ants are more fun to watch, but the Olympics will leave more lasting memories. Below are a sneak look at some of the London venues and an update on what's been happening at the Notebook during my week of blog silence.
This is the future London Olympic stadium, part of a 500-acre Olympic Park complex being built on reclaimed industrial land in East London.
Here's the outside view of the stadium. Olympic organizers have been cleaning up a small river that runs through the Olympic Park; because the river branches, the stadium actually sits on an island.
The basketball arena is a beautiful but temporary structure with a fabric covering.
The dirt at the Olympic Park was so filled with toxins that organizers have set up an emergency room to clean it.
The 2012 mascots are one-eyed metallic creations name Wenlock and Mandeville; the names have historical significance based on Britain's role in helping to inspire the modern Olympics and the Paralympics.
The attendees at the Olympic press meetings were taken on a boat ride on the Thames to see a few of the Olympic venues and landmarks like Big Ben.
Environmental themes came up regularly; the London Olympics are stressing sustainability and are doing things like recycling building materials and constructing stadiums with designs that use less steel.
Equestrian events will be held in Greenwich, home of the Royal Observatory and the same Greenwich that is referred to in the term Greenwich Mean Time. That line you see (near the observatory) divides the Eastern Hemisphere (on the left) from the Western Hemisphere (on the right). I straddled the line and stood in two hemispheres at once.
This has nothing to do with the Olympics, and I believe the name is pronounced good-now, but I couldn't walk past this London school without smiling at what the name LOOKS like: the perfect institution for slacker kids..
Back at the Notebook, Kathy Coe has been giving art workshops for kids twice a day and offering portrait and oil-painting lessons on weekends; here she is working on a drawing of daughter Anthea. This coming weekend artist Kathi Smith will run a two-day en plein air drawing-with-ink workshop.
honeybracketBy popular demand, our honey-tasting tournament is back. It's set up like the NCAA basketball tournament, with brackets and a single-elimination format. In the first three matches, Wisconsin Cranberry handily defeated Louisiana Wildflower 36-22 (in voting by people who tasted both); Pennsylvania Alfalfa pulled off a stunning 16-15 upset of Maine Blueberry; and Florida Orange Blossom edged North Carolina Sourwood 26-25.