Mountaintops and beaches

It has been noted by people who calculate such things that if the 4.5 billion years this planet has been a-making were converted to a 24-hour clock, we humans have been here less than five minutes. Sixty-six million years ago, give or take a few months, what must have looked to the universe to be a small pebble hurtled through the blackness we humans would eventually call “space” and crashed into a larger rock circling what humans eventually would call The Sun.

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Life supporting is a good thing

Mayfly larva on underside of river rockSeveral years ago, I wrote a story about an applesauce processor. My guide took me through the entire process, beginning with the orchard –  – so far, science hasn’t come up with a way to make apples without the trees. Huge bins of apples were hauled to the processing plant, where the apples were washed, sorted, cored, chopped and mashed into mush, er, sauce, and poured into jars.

My guide was especially proud of the part of the process that killed off stuff that wasn’t apple. He was proud that, in his words, his sauce “would not support life.”

Funny thing, until then, I thought the purpose of the applesauce was to support life – mine, if I was the buyer.

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