I wonder if the trees and animals know...

RJM62

RJM62

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Upstate New York
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Geek on the Hill
It is eerily calm here today, as it was all day yesterday and all of last night. The birds are grounded for the most part: I saw a few sparrows on the lawn yesterday and a buzzard or two yesterday evening, but few others. Nor did I see any deer or bears last night.

And yet the trees seem to be in a great rush to shed their remaining leaves -- as if they somehow know that a storm is coming and that they have a better chance of not being toppled by the wind if they are naked.

The leaves in the picture below fell since yesterday, all from one tree that had been stubbornly hanging on to them; and a great many more had fallen yesterday before I blew them into piles -- many, many more than had fallen during windier days earlier in the week.


leaves.jpg


I believe that either the Creator or evolution has invested all living things with their own sense of "consciousness," which may not be like ours, but nonetheless prepares them for their respective lives. So I wonder about things like this.

I also blow leaves as recreation (hey, when you work in front of a computer, any excuse to get outside is a good one). I bought an electric leaf blower specifically because I enjoy blowing leaves but don't enjoy breathing fumes, listening to the engine noise, or buying gasoline and oil to power the machine. So I'm kind of in tune with the falling of the leaves -- and this is a lot of leaves to have fallen in a few hours on a dead calm night.

That makes me wonder if the trees know more than we give them credit for. The weather was fairly warm, the air still, the humidity fluctuating widely, and the barometer slowly falling for the past two days. I wonder if the trees can put that information together -- possibly along with other information they can sense, but we can't -- and drop their leaves to reduce their chances of being toppled.

-Rich

EDIT: I took that picture earlier this morning, then ran some errands. Many more leaves have fallen since then -- the grass barely shows now. But my phone is charging and pulling out the DSLR to take pictures of leaves is too much like work.
 
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Everything is connected and interacts with everything else.
 
During a tornado clean up I saw birds slammed into the side of a house.

Putting human feelings into trees and animals gives us warm fuzzies, and it is nice to think things are all connected, but in reality they are not. We share a planet.
 
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We are not as good as the trees and animals because we were dropped off here just a short time ago, from an alien spaceship.
 
Trees work well for cooking animals.
 
The animals may be able to sense pressure changes, and know when to hunker down.
 
I read an article many years ago where someone conducting a study had found that plants will pull away from from flames. How much they pulled was minute, but it was measurable.

I have also discovered as I age, that I am more attuned to the lives of other creatures and plants. I even check my shower for spiders and such before I get in it. I will take them outside if I find them. Ten years ago it was simply tough sh*t, drown.

-John
 
I believe animals sense the upcoming weather changes (probably the pressure changes) and begin to feed heavily and/or hunker down.
 
The barometer and relative humidity have both dropped more rapidly in the past hour (from 29.85 inHg to 29.75 inHg and falling, and from 69% to 60%, respectively), and the wind has picked up (E-NE at 10 mph).

I suspect the trees will be naked shortly.

-Rich
 
Geico266 said:
During a tornado clean up I was birds slammed into the side of a house.

Putting human feelings into trees and animals gives us warm fuzzies, and it is nice to think things are all connected, but in reality they are not. We share a planet.
Click to expand...

We all share life energy and we all output 'thought energy', even plants.
 
John Baker said:
I read an article many years ago where someone conducting a study had found that plants will pull away from from flames. How much they pulled was minute, but it was measurable.

I have also discovered as I age, that I am more attuned to the lives of other creatures and plants. I even check my shower for spiders and such before I get in it. I will take them outside if I find them. Ten years ago it was simply tough sh*t, drown.

-John
Click to expand...

You can also hook an EEG to a plant and watch it scream from the flame or when you cut it.
 
Geico266 said:
Putting human feelings into trees and animals gives us warm fuzzies, and it is nice to think things are all connected, but in reality they are not. We share a planet.
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Why aren't we, in reality, not connected?

Disney has done a major disservice to society with the all cutsie human animal thing.

The other viewpoint is that humans are completely separate from the world around us. We think, they don't. We are smart, they are dumb. They are stupid because they don't use money and they don't talk or wear clothes. And on and on the argument goes, blah blah.

We ARE part of the world around us. We just happen to have a brain that is more complicated than most other things around us. That doesn't make us superior and completely separate. A siberian tiger is better at ripping your throat out than a human is, in that respect tigers are superior. And any dog in existence is far more honest and real than any human I've ever encountered.

We share the planet because we're part of the planet, not separate.
 
I am so glad I now live in south florida and no longer have to rake leaves, and shovel snow.

Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

It is well known and has been proven that animals and plants have the ability to sense things we dumb humans cannot. For example seizure dogs, plant phermones, animals acting strangly before earthquakes... So it would not surprise me that the animals and plants around sense something you need TWC to tell you. Is that inate intelligence or thinking, I do not know, but I will leave that up to the behavioral biologists. But personally I thinks sending my dog to a doggie psychologist is just a huge waste of valuable money which is better spent on doggie treats.:goofy:

Doug
 
RJM62 said:
It is eerily calm here today, as it was all day yesterday and all of last night. The birds are grounded for the most part: I saw a few sparrows on the lawn yesterday and a buzzard or two yesterday evening, but few others. Nor did I see any deer or bears last night.

And yet the trees seem to be in a great rush to shed their remaining leaves -- as if they somehow know that a storm is coming and that they have a better chance of not being toppled by the wind if they are naked.

The leaves in the picture below fell since yesterday, all from one tree that had been stubbornly hanging on to them; and a great many more had fallen yesterday before I blew them into piles -- many, many more than had fallen during windier days earlier in the week.


leaves.jpg


I believe that either the Creator or evolution has invested all living things with their own sense of "consciousness," which may not be like ours, but nonetheless prepares them for their respective lives. So I wonder about things like this.

I also blow leaves as recreation (hey, when you work in front of a computer, any excuse to get outside is a good one). I bought an electric leaf blower specifically because I enjoy blowing leaves but don't enjoy breathing fumes, listening to the engine noise, or buying gasoline and oil to power the machine. So I'm kind of in tune with the falling of the leaves -- and this is a lot of leaves to have fallen in a few hours on a dead calm night.

That makes me wonder if the trees know more than we give them credit for. The weather was fairly warm, the air still, the humidity fluctuating widely, and the barometer slowly falling for the past two days. I wonder if the trees can put that information together -- possibly along with other information they can sense, but we can't -- and drop their leaves to reduce their chances of being toppled.

-Rich

EDIT: I took that picture earlier this morning, then ran some errands. Many more leaves have fallen since then -- the grass barely shows now. But my phone is charging and pulling out the DSLR to take pictures of leaves is too much like work.
Click to expand...

Rich,

If it's any help, two days before a hurricane, here, the lizards completely disappear. I use that method of observation to decide if the hurricane will swerve, or hit us.
 
there are oaks that don't drop their leaves until April . . . I've walked in the woods with the dog in winter in a snowfall and heard the snow falling on the oak leaves around me . . . the only sound in the woods except the dog . . .
 
RJM62 said:
It is eerily calm here today, as it was all day yesterday and all of last night. The birds are grounded for the most part: I saw a few sparrows on the lawn yesterday and a buzzard or two yesterday evening, but few others. Nor did I see any deer or bears last night.

And yet the trees seem to be in a great rush to shed their remaining leaves -- as if they somehow know that a storm is coming and that they have a better chance of not being toppled by the wind if they are naked.

The leaves in the picture below fell since yesterday, all from one tree that had been stubbornly hanging on to them; and a great many more had fallen yesterday before I blew them into piles -- many, many more than had fallen during windier days earlier in the week.


leaves.jpg


I believe that either the Creator or evolution has invested all living things with their own sense of "consciousness," which may not be like ours, but nonetheless prepares them for their respective lives. So I wonder about things like this.

I also blow leaves as recreation (hey, when you work in front of a computer, any excuse to get outside is a good one). I bought an electric leaf blower specifically because I enjoy blowing leaves but don't enjoy breathing fumes, listening to the engine noise, or buying gasoline and oil to power the machine. So I'm kind of in tune with the falling of the leaves -- and this is a lot of leaves to have fallen in a few hours on a dead calm night.


That makes me wonder if the trees know more than we give them credit for. The weather was fairly warm, the air still, the humidity fluctuating widely, and the barometer slowly falling for the past two days. I wonder if the trees can put that information together -- possibly along with other information they can sense, but we can't -- and drop their leaves to reduce their chances of being toppled.

-Rich

EDIT: I took that picture earlier this morning, then ran some errands. Many more leaves have fallen since then -- the grass barely shows now. But my phone is charging and pulling out the DSLR to take pictures of leaves is too much like work.
Click to expand...

There is strong evidence there is a universal intelligence inherent in life.
 
All living things react to changes in the weather, including humans. When I was a kid we'd always get a rush at my grandfather's funeral home following a large barometric pressure change. But beyond that people see what they want to see and everything is a sign of something if you want it to be.
 
nddons said:
Rich, how goes it?
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I'm about 140 SM NNW of NYC. Current conditions:

OAT: 52F
Bar: 28.98 and falling
Rel. Hum: 88 percent
Winds: NE 26 G39 (says NOAA; I don't have an anemometer on my weather thingy).

It's pretty dark out, and windy enough that I just had to take in the flag; but right now the main concern here remains the river (which isn't near it's flood point yet).

Animal-wise, about half a dozen hawks took off from the trees about half an hour ago, flew in a circle for a bit, and headed off NE. No other bird activity at the moment.

So all in all, it's not terrible right now.

I posted some pictures here a few hours ago. There hasn't been too drastic a change since then.

-Rich
 
Geico266 said:
Sounds like you live by a lot of trees. Be careful one doesn't jump on you. ;)
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Lots of trees here. There were crews out cutting the branches away from the power lines over the weekend until a few hours ago, which was the last time I checked. I don't know whether the power company or the county paid for the work. I'm inclined to think it was the county. (I didn't hear any trees screaming...)

The wind's picking up a bit more right now, rain's still about the same, barometer's at 28.92 and falling.

I'll probably go down to the river later on and check it out, maybe take some pictures and upload them for stock if I can work out some light. I do a little stock photography on the side, and severe weather photos tend to sell pretty well.

But I'm on higher ground than most of the village, so if the river floods, I may have guests. I may also have to go check on my parents about 30 miles north. I'm just going with the flow for now.

-Rich
 
"if trees could scream would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? Maybe, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason"

Jack Handy
 
RJM62 said:
Lots of trees here. There were crews out cutting the branches away from the power lines over the weekend until a few hours ago, which was the last time I checked. I don't know whether the power company or the county paid for the work. I'm inclined to think it was the county. (I didn't hear any trees screaming...)

The wind's picking up a bit more right now, rain's still about the same, barometer's at 28.92 and falling.

I'll probably go down to the river later on and check it out, maybe take some pictures and upload them for stock if I can work out some light. I do a little stock photography on the side, and severe weather photos tend to sell pretty well.

But I'm on higher ground than most of the village, so if the river floods, I may have guests. I may also have to go check on my parents about 30 miles north. I'm just going with the flow for now.

-Rich
Click to expand...

Be careful. Don't take chances. Your grandparents didn't raise fools. ;)
 
Monty Python would require me to ask, if you find the largest tree in the forest and cut it down with a Herring, which screams louder? ;)
 
Many trees down, some roads blocked, but overall damage is less than feared. River is high but not flooding. Grabbing trusty chainsaw and hardhat to remove a few trees that are threatening to fall and do damage here at my own place, including one leaning against the electric feed, and then joining a chainsaw brigade.

Current:

OAT: 49F.
Bar: 29.25 rising
Hum: 79%
Winds: ESE 15G26

Some good pictures from TWC here.

-Rich
 
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Geico266 said:
Damn it Rich be careful. Power line can bite. :yes:
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Thanks, but I checked for potential first. It was fine. I've picked up a few things from linemen over the years.

A few of the poles themselves have been displaced, however. One next door to me is at about a 40-degree angle, and there's a big tree leaning against some lines across the street. We'll leave those for the power company to deal with.

Other than that sort of the thing, everything else has pretty much been taken care of by ad hoc crews of volunteers. There are lots of branches and small tree limbs lying around, but the major stuff is cleared. I do suspect that there will be outages when the power company comes around to sort out their pole situation.

-Rich
 
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