Further down Hwy 26 from EBR1 (the world’s first working nuclear reactor) is Atomic City, Idaho a ghost town on the edge of the Idaho National Laboratory. The small town had a population of 140 in 1960 and then decreased to 20 and after THE WORLD’S FIRST DEADLY NUCLEAR ACCIDENT. WHAAT?! Atomic City (previously… Read more »
Science
GEEK IDAHO 2
As we travelled down Highway 26 after leaving Craters of the Moon National Monument, we drove through a small town with a population of 900. We passed this sign on a building: WHAAAT?! It turns out the first working nuclear reactors were part of a large nuclear research facility in the desert of southeastern Idaho,… Read more »
GEEK IDAHO 1
My husband and I were driving from Oregon to Iowa and stumbled on some (nerdy, scientific) interesting things. A sign on Hwy 26 led us to Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve which is 750,000 acres of lava rocks (about 1/3 the size of Yellowstone National Park): There is no… Read more »
WHAT IS AN OOTHECA?
I found this strange cocoon attached to a bush in my yard. I thought that would kill the bush so I removed the twig and brought it into the house to study it. It turned out that it was the egg sac of a praying mantis called an “ootheca.” Rather than hatch the babies in… Read more »
Go Hawk!
In July, I posted a picture and video of a sick, injured baby hawk that my husband found near our house. We called Iowa Bird Rehab who came to get the hawk. This morning, I was delighted to see on Instagram that the red-tailed hawk is alive and well, and being moved to a different… Read more »
Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater
I had two pumpkins ready to carve for Halloween. I sat them outside and the next day found this: I saw a suspicious looking deer hanging around my yard, but I didn’t know how the deer was eating the pumpkin without knocking it off the ledge. Day # 2: Many types of animals will… Read more »
Season of the Sticks
My daughter sent me a picture of a walking stick bug that was crawling on her window. Walking sticks are common but rarely seen because they live in trees and are camouflaged to look like sticks. There are thousands of species of stick bugs. Most of them live in tropical areas. They “naturally prune” trees…. Read more »
Fungus Schmungus #9
I saw this mushroom growing in the grass on a small lawn of a hotel in Arkansas next to the parking lot. I believe it is a type of Ganoderma or Reishi mushroom. I have two other species of Ganoderma on this blog (Fungus Schmungus #2 and #6). I was not able to identify the… Read more »
Goldfinch Nest
I was walking our dog, Webster, along the edge of the ballpark under some pine trees. He sniffed at something on the ground that I thought was a baseball with the covering torn off, but when I picked it up and turned it over it was a small bird nest. I did some research to… Read more »
Fungus Schmungus #8
I found a bunch of these mushrooms near our yard under a large pine tree. They are called Chicken Fat Mushroom or Suillus Americanus. They always grow near an Eastern White Pine and nowhere else. They are a type of bolete mushroom which has pores on the underside of the cap rather than gills. Boletes… Read more »
Shelley Jones Clark
