Remember that film from 1954? It was filmed in 3D black and white…allegedly a horror film about this slimy green creature that climbed out of the…well yeah…the Black Lagoon. I never found it particularly scary. I was mowing this weekend and thought maybe I had stumbled upon the creatures distant cousin…lurking in our field.
It was a patch of green slime mold. I have no idea how I knew but as soon as I saw it, I knew what it was. Maybe I saw it as a kid and my dad or PopPop told me. Anyway, I was kind of surprised to see it so I looked it up. It is actually called Nostoc and is a phylum of bacteria. It has chlorophyll so it gets its energy from the sun.
We have something like it growing out in the driveway that looks like greenish black grapes when we’ve had a lot of rain. You have to step carefully because it’s jelly-like and very slippery when wet. I ran over this with the mower so it was fresh and gelatinous. It’s found in poor drainage or hard compacted soil in areas that receive a lot of rain. That is West Virginia.
I was talking with the neighbor across the road from the farm about the changes we are seeing in West Virginia weather. We used to have long stretches of fairly dry weather here in late July through August. Known as the Dog Days of summer since that was the time of year rabies became more widely spread. The last few years have been so incredibly wet and the woods look like a tropical rainforest. Everything is so overgrown and dense. I’ve never seen anything like it here.
We had an incredibly busy weekend between traveling to buy the little camper and getting it home, moving Big Tow-Wanda out of the way and putting the little camper in her parking spot, mowing five acres, going to our great grandson’s second birthday party…we were totally done by last evening. So, we jumped in the pool, only to discover it needed a good cleaning. That’s the one cleaning job I never mind doing because…you’re IN the pool!
We are doing something interesting today. We are going to see an acupuncturist. Mr. FixIt can’t take arthritis medicine, so we are hoping for some improvement through acupuncture. I wonder if it helps hyperparathyroidism? I had an overuse injury to my hip back in the ‘80s. I tried everything…OTC medications, an orthopedic surgeon, massage, and chiropractic. Nothing helped. As a matter of fact…it got worse. Someone suggested acupuncture so I tried it. It took three sessions, but it was gone! Let’s hope we have the same luck for my sweet man.
Aging ain’t for sissies.
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“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.”
2 Corinthians 4:16 ESV