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Everyone,
I was listening the the recent Quirks & Quarks piece on human
maladaptation to certain aspects of modern environments, and when they
came around the myopia that's the result of youthfully staying indoors
and paying too close attention to books, and now to screens, I
composed this for the grandson -
Take the young boy out of doors.
show him where the Raven soars.
Teach him to look up in trees
Where Cepaea takes its ease.
He must find the Rock Elm's fruit
in its floppy furry suit.
Let him pick out treetop lichens
as the foggy morning brightens;
Tell the Cottontail from Hares
When tracking snow is scarcely there;
Nab the creaking Rachet Frog
in the grass along the bog,
Know the Great from Lesser Blackbacks
On the Bay of Fundy mudflats,
And where-so-ever he looks
Study nature and write books.
On the basis of experience with this young master of the English
vocabulary, I'd also advise anyone who associates with toddlers to
regularly speak to them in the languages of other species - the origin
of the first couplet in the verse is that his favourite song is "Oh,
to be a bright-sky Raven" sung in Raven, and he was very excited last
week when we explained that the Chickadees would soon be singing
'feebee.' It's said that imitating other species was one an early
Human apomorphies (supposedly to frighten off nocturnal African
predators), which opened up the possibility of speech, and it's surely
important not to restrict what's heard by youngsters to the limited
phonemes of official languages.
For those interested in excessive detail, our annual letter, or
perhaps it's better styled a report to stockholders, is at
http://pinicola.ca/documents/2013_annual.pdf
Wishing everyone a rejuvenating and healthful Sunreturn - and hoping
2014 can be dominated, at all levels of enterprise, by actions based
on conclusions lovingly reasoned out from first principles,
fred.
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Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
Bishops Mills Natural History Centre - http://pinicola.ca/bmnhc.htm
Mudpuppy Night in Oxford Mills - http://pinicola.ca/mudpup1.htm
Daily Paintings - http://karstaddailypaintings.blogspot.com/
South Nation Basin Art & Science Book
http://pinicola.ca/books/SNR_book.htm
RR#2 Bishops Mills, Ontario, Canada K0G 1T0
on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44* 52'N 75* 42'W
(613)258-3107 <bckcdb at istar.ca> http://pinicola.ca/
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