The Hooverville Hexagon: Cabbages and Kings

 

Appreciating this and that. Again.

Give Us Today Our Daily Fungus

by Paigetheoracle

I wandered lonely as a crowd...When all at once I spied a host of golden honey fungus (as I do most years). Paige

 

Editor's Note: I got no satisfaction from the SuzyQ version of 'here are some mushrooms what I photographed because they were right there, at my feet.' So I looked it up.

Golden honey mushrooms are Armillaria mellea, but are these really Armillaria mellea? Honey mushrooms are allegedly edible, but we do not eat mushrooms because somebody said to online! Check with a competent mycologist before consuming any mushrooms.

There are no competent mycologists in Hooverville.

 

Here's a fun fact about Armillaria mellea: Parts of them are bioluminescent. The lying liars of AIs on the internet insist plaintively that Aristotle, that old windbag, described bioluminescence in his De Anima. If he did, I can't find it. I think they're full of it.

But if you're out after dark, look around for some spooky, glowing mushrooms. Now, that is a photo I want to see. But lots of luck getting our photographer out there at night.

On the other hand, these goodies might be a lookalike mushroom. Paige said he didn't see any rings on the stems (and the photo's not clear on that point, natch).

In other words, our specimen may be something else entirely.

 

Oh, and PS: if you have mushrooms, your tree's ailing for something. Paige says the beech trees are fine. Opinions? I've found a video from the Royal Horticultural Society. 

Can y'all please start taking pictures of something else? These attempts to identify international fungal growths are exhausting.

 

Quote of the Day

 I keep looking at the map being like "why do I have to go all the way around there? can't I just cut through here?" and then zooming in. oh right there's a giant…wall around this city that's why…

Chinchillazilla, Twitter (She's an American, studying abroad. Reporting from York. Where the Austen cosplayers are.)

 

More Architecture to Admire

by DG

Another stately home from Brookville's historic Main Street. Also a very nice tree. No discernible fungus activity.

 

Technology Feature:

Bankside Miniature Railway

 (with Video)

by Bluebottle

Admit it: even if you aren't a trainspotter, you're itching to drive one of these things.

 

Bunny 3, Squirrels 0

(with Video)

by DG

An oldie-but-goodie film from a few years ago involving a cottontail rabbit and some local squirrels. Squirrels: the gift that keeps on giving.

 

TTYL,

 Dmitri Gheorgheni, Editor

 

The Hooverville Hexagon: Run-through-the-Garden

 

A little bit of this and that.

Nature Shot of the Day

by Tavaron da Quirm

Garden cosmos from the neighbour's garden in Austria.

 

 

Quote of the Day

 

I was sitting here thinking, "How could they actually elect someone so obviously corrupt?" Then I laughed at the sudden realization of where I live and then I cried for the same reason.

Ross Hurst, Youtube, commenting on John Oliver's summary of the election situation in Brazil.

 

Fungus Update

by DG

Do you remember the bracket fungus? When I looked it up the other week, the Forest Service site said that bracket fungi on your tree trunk was probably a sign the tree was dead of old age.

Last Sunday, I walked past the same spot. No fungi. No tree. The Borough gremlins had removed it, root, branch, and stump, and left a tidy straw-covered spot for the grass to recolonise.

So it goes, as Kurt Vonnegut would have said.

 

Technology Feature: The Cylinder Press

 (with Video)

by Superfrenchie

This is a cylinder press from the Musee Atelier de L'Imprimerie in Nantes. It was used to print large newspapers and posters. The Printing Workshop and Museum do actual real printing work for artists, as well as visits and demos on the machines for visitors. They have a whole collection of printing presses and line-casting machines and book-binding machines.

 

You want to see it in operation? Of course you do.

 

Architectural Note

by DG

In the book Coming of Age in Brookville, I describe (as found in research) a stagecoach coming into Brookville at the intersection below, failing to slow down because the driver was a showoff, turning the corner on two wheels, and slinging passengers out of the coach and straight into the open lobby door of a hotel.

 

This is where the turn would have taken place: right at the end of Main Street. The attractive building straight ahead now houses a cat rescue spay/neuter office. The building with the overhanging shelter is the Baptist church. I thought you might enjoy the sight.

 

 

 

2 young

2 go

_________

4 space,

 Dmitri Gheorgheni, Editor

 

The Hooverville Hexagon: More Exotic Locales

 

(Not so) faraway places, for some.

Nature Shot of the Day

by Galaxy Beb

A blast from the past (2021): this bee photobombed GB's butterfly shot. It liked buddleia, too.

 

 

York

by Bluebottle

York is England's historic second city, and one filled to the brim with historic and fascinating places to visit and beautiful buildings, such as the incomparable York Minster. It has long been a tourist destination, and deservedly so, with Clifford's Tower, York Castle Museum and Jorvik well placed to tell York's story, as is the Yorkshire Museum, Chocolate Museum and the world's greatest museum about trains, the National Railway Museum. Much of the city centre is pleasingly pedestrianised and with cafés and tea shops. If you like cheesy history then you can enjoy York's story told at the York Dungeon or through one of the many walking tours, including a Ghost tour, or their bus-based and boat-based equivalents if you wish to sit back and relax. There really is something for everyone wishing to enjoy York.

 

Or at least, that's how it was. Last month my father-in-law said he would like to visit the National Railway Museum and see the Rocket and Mallard &c, and so we went to York for the day for the first time since Covid. But worryingly, the tourist focus in York has shifted somewhat, so that increasingly much of York isn't actually about York any more.

 

First, and this isn't a new phenomenon, inexplicably shops that sell tourist tat continue to sell 

merchandise about a completely different location at the opposite end of the country. Yes, in York there is a plethora of shops that sell postcards, tea towels and t-shirts bedecked with double-decker buses, post boxes and phone boxes proudly proclaiming 'I am in London' when the truth is you're not. Not even close. You're the opposite end of the country. Why not buy a postcard or something else about York, which, you know, is the city you are actually in? It's a lovely city that I have long liked, with a style and character of its own.

 

After leaving the railway museum and going into the city centre looking for a café, my family and I discovered that they were having a 'Jane Austen Day'.

Jane Austen never went to York. York certainly existed in the Georgian era, but it would have been a Georgian York, not Georgian Bath or Georgian Alton. We carried on to the Shambles, which is a famous narrow street, where I was horrified to discover there were now three separate Harry Potter shops. Three. And the city was also advertising 'Harry Potter Tours' of York. Can you name a city that didn't inspire Harry Potter and that JK Rowling apparently never visited? Yes, York. Where didn't they film Harry Potter? York. If you're in York and want to do a Harry Potter tour, why not go to Alnwick Castle, which is reasonably close by and where they filmed the first two films as it stood in for Hogwarts? That makes sense. A Harry Potter tour of places with no connection to Harry Potter, but presumably were chosen because they fit the vibe (or possibly it is a tour going to all the Harry Potter shops that have sprung up) doesn't make sense.

 

After the hustle and bustle of the Shambles we headed to the peace and tranquility of the beautiful grounds of York Minster. Outside which there was a statue on a bench of Paddington Bear, because of course there was. You can't even find sanctuary on consecrated ground. Again, Paddington has no actual connection to York. The books aren't set there and the films weren't made there. Its reason for being is purely that York attracts tourists and tourists to the UK have no interest whatsoever in York's genuine history, or even the local history-turned entertainment as found in Ghost Walks and the Dungeon. No, what they expect is Jane Austen, Paddington Bear, Harry Potter and to buy a postcard saying they were in London.

 

Meerkat Huddle

by FWR

Does anybody else want to be in the middle of that? Or is it just me?

 

Concert, with Cat

 (Video)

by DG

TJ decided it was a participation sport.

 

Classy Wildlife Moment

by Tavaron

 

Featured Critter:

Eurasian Beaver

by DG and Tavaron

 

 

cu l8ter,

 Dmitri Gheorgheni, Editor

 

The Hooverville Hexagon: Appreciating Nature

 

Plant life, animal life, our lives.

Floral Beauty of the Week

by Tavaron da Quirm

Amaranthus was Tavaron's guess. This is in Austria, by the way.

 

 

Guest Artist

by Tavaron da Quirm

An animal sculptor was at work here: a beaver, he felled a huge tree in the floodplain forest next to the playground and several smaller ones. The kids went through the high reeds to follow its path and found a 'slide' down to the river. Tavaron

 

Editor's prediction: A new 'water feature' will soon appear.

 

Horticultural Mystery

by FWR

Does anybody know anything about this tree? Is that some kind of fruit/nut or a pine cone? It was growing in Bulgaria, near the Black Sea.

 

Avocet Chicks

 (Video)

by SashaQ

From RSPB Burton Mere, a year ago.

Today's Feature: That Seasonal Favourite…

The Red Squirrel

by Bluebottle

 

Has there ever been an animal more beloved? Red squirrels appear on the Charles III 2p coin. Unfortunately they have been driven out from much of Mainland Britain, but still thrive on the Isle of Wight. A protected species, they are shyer than their grey cousins. These squirrels were photographed outside Quarr Abbey. Bluebottle

 

Obligatory Editorial Explainer: US readers (which are more than half of you), do not panic. You have not suddenly landed on another planet. These adorable red squirrels are Sciurus vulgaris, or Eurasian Red Squirrels. They inhabit the UK, continental Europe, and Asia. English children's books tend to draw them in cute costumes and call them Squirrel Nutkin.

 

This is an American red squirrel, aka Tamiasciurus hudsonicus, accurately described by Wikipedia as 'a small, highly territorial tree squirrel found across the coniferous and mixed forests of North America.' Emphasis on territorial. Chatterer the Red Squirrel may be (almost) as cute as its precious European (distant) cousin, but it is much, much meaner. 

The grey squirrels around here take one look at the little red menaces and run for the border - although

Thornton W Burgess apparently knew one who fought back. (Illustration by Burgess collaborator Harrison Cady, courtesy of Project Gutenberg. What? You thought Beatrix Potter was the only cute-animal storyteller? Burgess was my second-grade book addiction.)

 

What is the problem with the UK red squirrel population? It's not really the grey squirrels' fault. Nor did North American humans do anything wrong, for once. It's our old enemy: Victorians. They loved to travel, didn't they? And they loved to bring home souvenirs. Henry Hall of Cheshire, shame on you. And we're appalled at the 11^th Duke of Bedford, who should have known better. 'Ornamental animals,' indeed.

 

The problem with so-called 'invasive species': even if they, like grey squirrels, aren't aggressive at all – and if you don't try to steal their acorns or babies, they are completely friendly – they tend to bring their own biomes with them. The local fauna may not be immune. You know, the way whole North American villages were wiped out because some Portuguese trader had the sniffles, long before the Plymouth Brethren found that rock. And if there aren't enough predators, the new arrivals may reproduce too quickly…

 

It's the same old story: zebra mussels in alien waters; silver carp (duck!) that fly and hit people in the head in rivers; asparagus ferns all over the place; those horrible walking catfish in the southern US; raccoons (Waschbären) in Germany; catfish in Bavaria; mink in Scotland…the list goes on. Stop moving the plants and animals around, people, unless you have a PhD, a licensed facility, and a really good containment protocol.

 

This has been a public service announcement. Now, go back and admire the red squirrels some more.

 

cucu,

 Dmitri Gheorgheni, Editor