Am reading this book, Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms. I cannot read it quickly enough to do it justice and return it to the library on time. If it can be had used, I might buy it, because it's very interesting stuff. There is more about plasmids, and endosymbiotic theory and lateral evolution. It makes me want to take the microbiology class......although some of this was covered in Zoology, Bio 115 and General Botany. Having seen chloroplasts bustling around actively inside plant cells, it is easy to believe that they were once their own organisms before pairing up with others, to make plants. I'll never forget the sense of wonder upon seeing them move, circulating around the cell. That was awesome. :-)

Moved stuff to the new place today, packed the creepy stuff that was in the house, away. There was, for example, most of a dead bird, dried, hanging from a wire affixed to the wall. That's just morbid...and honestly, had it been a mounted skeleton, or an animal skull, I could have found that interesting. But a dried head+wings+tail (feet? not sure), all feathered, bound together and dangling from the wall was too much even for me.

And...I lost my temper in a major way this evening. My son grew a pansy from seed, grew it to the blooming stage to give me a Mother's Day present. My neighbor came over and dumped that pansy out onto the compost pile, leaving it to wilt, so that she could use the nice clay pot for the lavender plant she was stealing from my herd garden! Then she uprooted a lot of other herbs...some were just stems with no roots even...just wanton destruction and plant cruelty....and took those as well, just laid them on her picnic table, roots in the air, drying out, wilting. I am not usually brave about confrontations. But if someone hurts a person or life form that I love, get out of my way. I was just furious, not because she stole from me, but because she hurt those plants and for no other reason than greed and selfishness. They weren't even planted...just getting ready to die. The thyme and pansy might not make it. I wanted to leave that herb garden for other people to enjoy...but clearly that isn't an option. She would just strip it bare anyway. So I dug up every single plant I cared about and moved them all. I don't care that they're "only plants", that people say plants can't perceive pain or damage, etc. They're alive, they suffer, they die, I love them. Hurting them is not acceptable!