Tag: Water

Tree shading

Put an upturned bucket over a patch of grass in your garden. Lift the bucket every day and take a look, then re-cover the patch… How long does it take for the grass to die?

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Image of the day – 178

What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.

Click to enlarge

Trees provide shade, most welcome on a hot day, and they provide shelter when it rains (though this may be unwise during thunderstorms).

But notice the absence of grass beneath these conifers. Shade and shelter are exactly what other plants don’t need; they depend on plenty of light and water to enable them to grow. Light is essential as it provides the energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, and water is essential as the raw material for this process. The oxygen is released into the atmosphere, while the hydrogen is bonded with carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to make energy-storing sugars for use at night and to build cellulose, the main support molecule that gives stems, branches and tree trunks their strength.

The lack of light and water under tree canopies creates a kind of local desert. You can see this clearly in the photo from the presence and absence of grass. So how do the trees survive? That’s a great question! Their roots spread out widely and deep, far enough to reach moist soil and deep ground water. In persistent rain, water drips from the drenched leaves above. And root, trunk and branch all contain stores of water so a tree can cope with a long, dry summer far better than the grass can.

Light

Here’s an experiment anyone can do. Put an upturned bucket over a patch of grass in your garden. Lift the bucket every day and take a look, then re-cover the patch. See how long it takes for the grass to turn yellow. How long does it take for the grass to die?

For plants, light is essential. There are some animals that live in dark caves or underground, with no light. Earthworms are a good example, but like all animals they get their food by consuming plants and other animals. But for most creatures, including us humans, light is essential nonetheless. Whether we are plant eaters (like cows and sheep) or meat eaters (like lions and wolves) or omnivores eating either or both (like humans and rats) we still need light to see in order to find and identify the things we must eat to stay alive.

Water

For plants, water is part of their ‘food’, it’s needed to make sugars. For animals water is of no value as food, but it’s essential to prevent dangerous dehydration. All animals know when they’re thirsty and they’ll find water and drink to keep themselves alive. Think of a man lost in a desert, the cartoons have him croaking out, ‘Water.. Water..’ Imagine someone unable to find water, they’d die of thirst long, long before they died of hunger. Most of us would be in danger after a few days without drinking, but we could live for several weeks with nothing to eat. And of course, if you are a fish too little water would mean you couldn’t breathe, and if you were a land animal too much would mean you would drown.

Spiritual (not religious)

The idea of essentials has been carried over into spiritual ideas too. Light and water (and food) are so clearly necessary for life that they make good analogies and illustrations. What did Jesus mean when he said, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life’? Or when he explained to the Samaritan woman at the well that he would provide water that never runs out, or when he told his followers, ‘I am the bread of life’ or ‘I am the light of the world’?

He was simply saying, I am essential, you can’t live without me. I’m necessary for life. Just as in the physical world, how would it feel to live in the dark, without water and without sustenance? How long would you last? How long would I last?

Many people today feel sure there is no spiritual aspect to life at all, it’s just about living your life in the here and now and then dying from accident, illness, or just old age. Others think there’s much more to life than that. At the very least there are moral and philosophical truths to consider. We should care for one another, help one another, and cooperate in helpful and kind ways.

Food for thought. Let me know below how you think about the essentials of life. Do you have any thoughts to share on this?

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Image of the day – 20
Churn flooding
Image of the day – 38

Cloud reflection

Just from this image the brain understands there are ripples on the surface of the water and from past experience will also know that these ripples will be moving.

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Image of the day – 176

What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.

Click to enlarge

Sometimes we see things indirectly, and our brains are capable of retrieving far more information than you might at first think. It’s true of all our senses – hearing, touch, taste, smell and all the rest. The senses provide information but the brain makes much more of it all.

What do we see in this image? It’s just a pattern of coloured patches reflected from a water surface. That’s what the eye sees. But the brain tells us there are clouds in the sky above and there are ripples on the water. Then the brain compares this basic information with what it recalls from past experience and it can construct two narratives, one for the clouds and another for the water.

The clouds

There is a dark cloud and it’s the closest one to us, it threatens a shower of rain. A second image taken a few seconds later would be enough for the brain to decide the direction of movement of the cloud and predict whether the rain might fall here or somewhere else. Paler clouds, white clouds and blue sky suggest there’s some sunshine around as well so although there might be a brief shower, it won’t turn into ongoing steady rain. All of that from from a few colour patches.

The water

Because of the way the cloud reflections are distorted, the brain can infer the water is neither heavily disturbed not completely calm. Just from this image the brain understands there are ripples on the surface of the water and from past experience will also know that these ripples will be moving. The same brain will realise that there are two likely causes; either there is a light breeze blowing or perhaps a boat has passed recently. Once again, past knowledge in memory is necessary to arrive at these conclusions. There are some large ripples and, near the top of the image, some much smaller ones too. There was a small disturbance in the water further away as these small ripples seem to form an expanding circle of which we see only a small part.

Here and there things are floating on the water, small leaves, perhaps? If so, there must be trees nearby, perhaps with branches overhead. What a lot the brain can reconstruct on the basis of prior knowledge! And all of these conclusions come from some patches of colour in a still image. And what about the little sticks emerging from the water on the left-hand side? It’s the remains of vegetation of some kind. Was there a plant growing in the water? Did a strong wind break twigs off an overhead tree branch?

And one last point – it was not raining at the moment the photo was taken. The water would have been covered with dozens of circular disturbances if rain was falling. That’s a lot of information that your eyes and brain can glean from a single fragment of time trapped by my camera!

We are, as the Bible expresses it, fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14).

See also:

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Useful? Interesting?

If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!

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Image of the day – 72
Churn flooding
Season’s Greetings 2023
Reflections from way back when

What do we see here?

The water flows in the town are complex, this section is often known as Gumstool Brook, but it might also be regarded as a diverted part of the Churn.

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Image of the day – 169

What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.

Click to enlarge

At the top of the image you can see the rears of buildings on Cecily Hill in Cirencester. Their gardens contain the trunks and foliage of mature trees just beyond the wall. The wall separates those gardens from the water channel and may have been built specifically for that purpose. Some of the tree branches have grown across the top of the wall.

Near the base of the wall is a distinct line, brown below and much paler above. I think the brown part of the wall is often underwater. The water flow is strongly seasonal, high in wintertime and much, much lower in the summer. The River Churn divides at the Gloucester Road bridge, only a kilometre from this point. The major branch follows the outside of the Roman city wall and usually continues to flow all year round. But the branch in the photo is fed from the outflow of the long, narrow, supply pound for Barton Mill and this in turn is fed from the main flow of the River Churn. The water flows in the town are complex, this section is often known as Gumstool Brook, but it might also be regarded as a diverted part of the Churn.

The pipework at the bottom of this wall was there in the 1950s and 60s when I was a child. Most of it was hidden then by a low wall topped with flagstones, but today much of the structure has fallen away exposing the glazed pipes. Out of the photo a little further to the left, the water disappears underground, running south of Coxwell Street and reappearing at the surface further west in the Abbey Grounds.

It’s good to know that the Town Council and the Friends of Gumstool Brook are looking into ways of improving the flow of this watercourse by adjusting the sluice management rules. We might see the water flowing properly all summer in 2026.

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If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!

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Image of the day – 72
Churn flood plain
Churn flooding

Swans on the river

The swans you see here are doing what swans do. They pair for life, but they also congregate in larger social groups (known as a bevy).

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Image of the day – 159

What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.

Click to enlarge

This is the same river as the previous post, the River Great Ouse. That previous image captured a view from St Neots in Cambridgeshire; this one is from further upstream in Bedford.

The swans you see here are doing what swans do. They pair for life, but they also congregate in larger social groups (known as a bevy). When a swan dies and leaves a lonely partner, the remaining swan will often bond with a new mate.

In this sense swans are very like humans; we usually form lasting male/female pairs and in the same way, if one partner dies, the other will often (sooner or later) find a new partner. But there is a significant difference: swans act on instinct. We do too, but in humans there are additional layers. I can think of at least two – culture and reasoning.

Culture

Human culture is habitual behaviour; it may differ greatly from population to population. It’s easy to find differences between a Western wedding, an Indian wedding, an Afghan wedding, and a Japanese wedding. We could easily extend that list. There are also differences (though more subtle) between a French wedding, a US wedding, and a Polish wedding. And there will be still other differences between Anglican, Catholic, Baptist and Pentecostal weddings. Swans have nothing remotely like this, in fact they don’t have weddings at all. All of the foregoing is cultural; it’s a human layer overlying the instinctive animal processes of bonding, producing offspring and helping them grow safely to adulthood. There’s some evidence for elements of culture in certain birds, and some primates, and in some whales and dolphins – but well below the levels seen in human populations.

Reasoning

This is another layer but again, it’s mostly limited to human populations. It’s reasoning that enables us to have governments, science, technology of almost unlimited variety from farming and construction to ships, railways, aircraft and computers. Reasoning involves observation, drawing conclusions, finding ways of persuading others, differentiating between what works and what does not, making choices, and planning ahead. Again, you can see glimmerings of reasoning in some birds, some mammals, and in the octopus.

Faith

Faith seems to have no place whatsoever for swans, chimps, or any other creature on the planet. Faith draws on elements of both culture and reasoning, yet it’s not defined by either and is not dependent on either. It’s unique to humans. You’ll find quite lot on this website concerning faith one way or another; I won’t write about it further here, but I’ll leave a few suggested links below.

Conclusion

From observing a group of elegant birds on a river, we have thought about things that groups of people and groups of animals have in common, and how our abilities rise to at least two higher planes above the level attained by almost all other animals.

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Geese on the river
Churn flooding
Hen Brook

Geese on the river

The buildings along the river bank … stand where the medieval priory once was, and the modern building to the left of the tree is ‘The Priory Centre’.

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Image of the day – 158

What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.

Click to enlarge

Before moving to Cirencester in April 2017, we lived for many years in St Neots, Cambridgeshire. One of the things I miss most (and there are several) is the River Great Ouse passing right through the centre of the town. This photo was taken from the town bridge; while looking ninety degrees to the right would reveal the Market Square, just a hundred metres away.

I like this photo because it has so much interest packed into one scene. You might not see the geese at first; they form a small in-line flotilla at the bottom right. The reflections in the water are lovely, and the surface rippled enough to add a sense of movement. The willow on the bank is typical of the trees in the Riverside Park which is out of sight but stretches behind and to the left from this position. The tree also divides the buildings along the river bank; they stand where the medieval priory once was, and the modern building to the left of the tree is ‘The Priory Centre’, the town’s major meeting and activity centre where Open Door Church used to meet on Sunday mornings. In the far distance you can just make out the Marina.

From priory to a new church building

While we’re thinking about the medieval Priory and the modern Priory Centre we might also think about the way church has changed since the year 313 AD. Prior to that year, the expectation was that church meant people gathering in homes without formal leaders like bishops, deacons, elders, pastors, popes, priests, rectors or vicars. There were informal leaders, confusingly with some of the same words being used to describe them – apostles, deacons, elders, evangelists, prophets, shepherds and teachers. But Christianity was illegal, persecuted, and therefore often hidden from public view.

When Christianity was legalised in 313 AD, and made the state religion in 380 AD, everything changed. It’s possible that by that time, burgeoning, even explosive growth in Christianity had reduced worship in the Classical Greco-Roman temples to a low ebb. The buildings were expensive to maintain, and the solution would have seemed obvious, legalise Christianity, hand over the buildings for Christian use, let them modify them for their new function, pay the maintenance costs, and manage the administration. Problem solved for the Roman state.

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Useful? Interesting?

If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!

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Churn flood plain
Hen Brook
Gentleness takes courage and strength