An old tree with a bench

Walking And Finding Old Trees

Byrichard
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Walking and finding old trees is still possible if you look around. If you’re attentive you can find trees that are hundreds of years old. They are massive compared to younger trees. Their trunk is broad and their branches are complex.

If you walk around the Mediterranean you will find thousand-year-old olive trees and if you walk around Switzerland it is also possible to find old trees. There are two or three parks in Geneva where you can find them. You can find them at the Chateau De Penthes and other places.

The Sequoia that once stood tall and proud in the Chateau de Penthes. It was struck by lightning. This is its stump, with a sapling growing out of its remains.

There was a branch growing out of the tree to the left that was growing sideways and almost touched the floor when we were younger. It was fun to stand on the branch and make it move. Since then that branch has grown and now touches the floor so the game is over. In the background you can see the Lac Léman, with the alps and the Mont Blanc in the distance.

Old trees are instantly recognisable because they are either tall and broad like the Sequoia that used to live at the Chateau De Penthes or the one by the lake in Nyon before it died and was cut down. Others, such as the one featured in this blog post are broad with a complex system of branches. Another one is near the sports centre in Crans. It is located here.

It’s easy to drive or cycle by this tree without noticing. When you stop and stand next to it you see that the trunk is broad and the branch system is interesting.

Sequoias by the Parc Mon Repos in Geneva.

If you walk by the lakeside in Geneva you can see a few old trees. These sequoias are by the road that enters or leaves Geneva, depending on whether you live inside or outside of Geneva. If you’re ready to walk a few minutes you will find them easily.

Flying around a tree in Eysins

Of course one of the advantages of old trees that are in the middle of fields is that you can get footage of them from various angles that would only be accessible with a crane camera or other tools. With video you will see the complex branch system, the width of the trunk and if you’re filming at the right time of year, the biome that lives within it. I flew around this tree in spring, when it was flowering. Enjoy the majesty of this tree.

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Northern Exposure is a series about a doctor who finds himself sent to Alaska to be a doctor for a few years. He thinks that it is the middle of nowhere and he has to adapt from enjoying life as a New Yorker to life as a frontier town doctor.  


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Although the series is thirty plus years old it still remains relevant today with its exploration of global warming, pollution and more. The characters have existential conversations and in a few episodes we meet the man living in a geodesic dome. He lives in the dome to avoid pollution. He is allergic to aluminium, methane gas and more. 


It’s an interesting episode to watch within the context of the pandemic. People, including me, continue to wear masks when we are indoors. People think that we are strange for doing this. The pandemic isn’t over. We hear all the time about how Long COVID lies dormant, whether people are symptomatic for weeks, months of years after primary infection. It makes sense to wear masks, given that a mask takes a second to wear and take off, but long COVID can be for life. 


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The idea of being allergic to the modern world, to various forms of pollution is an interesting one. We read about forever minerals and plastics in drinking water, more and more often, and about air pollution. We have CO2 monitors to keep an eye on pollution. We have maps of pollution around cities, motorways and more. The topic is still relevant today. 


This television isn’t on Netflix or Amazon Prime. It is on Filmin, a film network for experimental films. The content is niche, more diverse and more interesting. as long as you understand Spanish. It has films like Nano of the North, which I find interesting. I know this because when I typed North for Northern Exposure it suggested Nanook of the North, a documentary film I read about regularly when I was studying documentary. 


Modern television series should have people wearing masks to socialise. “Lunatics” like me, who still wear masks, should be normalised in modern television series, to show that being cautious should not be worthy of stigmatisation and prejudice. Northern Explored pollutants in the air. Modern series should explore the reasons for still masking despite the gas lighting of politicians, stating that the pandemic is over, despite the death rate telling a different story. 

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Ecosia is an environmental search engine for those who want to do social good through their web browsing habits. The principle is simple. You go to the Ecosia main page and type in your search engine query. For every search engine query that you do ad revenue is generated. This ad revenue is then invested into tree growing projects in a number of countries.

Deforestation is a threat faced around the world because as trees are removed so the environment of certain species is destroyed and this can lead to the extinction of species. The other consequences of deforestation are that the soil runs off of the land and clogs rivers. It also means that the humidity that was kept around by the trees and plants is now gone.

When I worked as a video archivist I watched news items about refugees and how they were planting trees in their camps. They planted them as an investment in the future. Ecosia produced a video with a similar message which you can see above.

They currently have projects in Peru, Madagascar, Burkina Faso, Tanzania and Indonesia. These projects cover a number of needs. They help to reforest areas where excessive logging has taken place such as in Peru. In Madagascar they are hiring villagers to replant the forests to help preserve biodiversity. In Burkina Faso they are planting trees to try to stop the desert from encroaching on the areas where people live. In Tanzania we find another conservation of biodiversity effort. In Indonesia they are planting ten tree species to stop the spread of Palm oil farming and to save the natural habitat of Orang Utangs.

Europe, North America and other parts of the world were once covered in forests that were thick and full of life. With population growth and development forests were cut down for firewood and to provide space for fields and more. It is nice to know that today there are projects like Ecosia that aim to reforest areas around the world so that future generations may still play and enjoy forested landscapes. Either install the Chrome plugin or bookmark the website.

 

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Growing Potatoes and Onions

Byrichard

Recently I have tried growing potatoes and onions. I had flower pots left over, dormant after basil plants died. I often try to keep Basil plants growing but they have a terrible tendency to die. The easiest plant for me to grow has been an orchid that I have had for as long as the apartment in which I live. All I did was give it water, and that was enough. I would repot it but I am afraid that will kill it.


The potato started to sprout, so that’s why I planted it. It grew quite well, towards the light. Eventually it became too large so I have thrown it out. I am not interested in having a potato plant. Recently i saw an onion sprout so I decided to attempt to grow it. It is working well, so far. So far the onion looks much nicer than the potato plant. Long straight stems growing upwards, looking healthy.


I haven’t studied the stages of onion plant growth so I can learn about them, as the plant grows. My watering system is complex. I take a Swiss wine glass, the shot glass, not the large ones, and I give some of that water to the plants. I have found that plants don’t need much water to thrive.


Basil doesn’t need much water. What it needs is water, every single day. If you forget for a single day you’re facing the challenge of reviving it, and then seeing if it thrives. In my experience basil is unforgiving. Orchids are not. Orchids can go several days without water. What they do want is to be lifted into the air. As long as the flowering part is high, the plant is happy.


I have not become a gardener. I’m experimenting with different plants by planting things, and watering them. If they grow, that’s good, but if they don’t, then that’s fine too. It’s nice to experiment.

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Today I’m getting to grips with the new normal. The new normal is queuing like people did before self-checkout and other technology. We also need to queue to get into shops and you either need to take a trolley or a shopping bag if you want to buy things. No more baskets as they are harder to disinfect and keep clean.


“Pardon me, miss, but you can’t use these trolleys, you need to use those trolleys. This is the column of trolleys that still need to be disinfected.” That’s the scene I saw when I went to the shops around lunchtime. That’s a mistake you only make once during a pandemic.


Normally I go to one shopping centre that I need to get to by scooter rather than by foot, to avoid food being out of the fridge for more than 15 minutes. As pandemic measures have been added I am now considering another shop that is smaller and with a smaller maze when getting into the shop for food.


There is a visible change in the streets and on the motorway. You see that traffic density is decreasing and that the number of people walking are lower. People are settling into a new routine, a new way of life, a new culture. Pandemics do force society to adapt to new cultural norms.



As you see from the Swiss weather app the level of air pollution has gone down as people go from a routine that required a car for almost everything to a routine that no longer requires the car. There is no need to commute to socialise and there is no need to commute for work. Train services have been reduced two or three times as demand declined, and then declined again.


We are going back to a “village” life. We are walking locally and people are discovering the routes that I have walked for two or three years by now. If Google or Strava show a heatmap of walking patterns I am sure that we would see that people are living within a six to ten kilometre radius of home, where leaving the house for walks in the sun is still allowed.


France, England and Spain are forcing people to stay home now, so life in those countries is going to shift in the next three or four days. There is a lag from the moment the restrictions are put in place and the moment when people have no opportunity to flout the rules.


Traffic did not decline in a single day. It took a few days. The motorbike groups that we saw during the first week have stopped and so have the columns of cars. Petrol stations now seem to be quiet. People are driving less, so refueling is less frequent.


I have walked 276km of the 298.8 kilometre walking challenge for this month and I’m tired. I’m happy that the goal is now just 3.1km a day. I can reach it by walking to the food shop, shopping and walking back. when the challenge is finished I will probably revert to using the indoor trainer.


At the start of quarantine, I thought that I would cycle a lot but advisories came out saying that people should avoid activities where they could be injured and I injured myself cycling last spring, so I’d rather avoid the same injury when there is a good chance that the wait in a hospital may be time-consuming.


I was wrong to think that this would be over quickly, and now that I see we are in it for a while I will adapt my goals accordingly. Things I thought I could get away with not doing will now be done. This includes looking for work again more than anything else. My other daily goals are going well. Writing a blog post is consistent, studying German is on day 197. My daily walk is still going and finally listening to podcasts in German is still going.


Quarantine is about developing habits and keeping to them, and then adding new goals as you go, so that despite life being strange (link to the game by that name unintentional) we continue moving forward. Who knows, we might even start to thrive.

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Byrichard

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Cloudy and rainy Switzerland
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Some people are bored by the rain, and wishes that it would go away, but I don’t feel that way. We had years with very little rain, so to finally get some rain is welcome. At least now we know that all the hydroelectric dams will be full. We hope that all the water tables and reservoirs will have recovered as well.


Although this weather is bad and unpleasant, and it limits what we can do it is seasonal. This is the type of weather that is normal in Switzerland. This is precisely the weather that makes us grateful for nice days. That’s why I personally welcome it. I don’t want Switzerland to become an arid country. I like that we have rain, sunshine etc. I like that we have seasons.


A solitary bee on a Sunflower
A solitary bee on a Sunflower


The Sunflowers are out now, which is good, as it means that bees are able to get plenty of nectar to make honey. It also means that fields should be the usual yellow and green that we would expect at this time of year. Now is the time for people to take their token “this is me with a sunflower” images.


I looked at the landscape as I walked, and I did not see much evidence of flooding. Fields are not flooded. Walking paths are not flooded. Neither are fields. One river I checked was flowing at a relatively low level today. The rain around here has been gentle.

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Velux Fractal Season

Byrichard

When the conditions are just right fractals form on veluxes and they are beautiful. It requires the air to be cool enough for ice to form, but as thin layers, rather than thick. If the wind is just right then you end up with patterns such as the one below.


Fractal frost on a Velux


This morning all of the windows had a nice pattern so I photographed them twice. The first time when they were lit by indirect sunlight and the second time when they were. With direct sunlight you can see the structures more clearly.


If you wait too long though the patterns melt and disappear and you need to wait until the next time the conditions are just right.


This is the first frost of the season. We will have many more such sights in the days and weeks to come.


A fractal pattern with a point of origin branching out


In the pattern above I like that it has a focus, and that the branches grow out of there to create a network of patterns as we see above. It’s entirely different to the other pattern I shared and just as interesting to look at.


The final pattern starts in the lower left corner and branches out, upwards and to the right.


The final pattern is another beautiful example of why good insulation is nice. With good insulation the windows are cool enough for ice to form, without freezing the people who are indoors. It also means that the heat from within the building is not escaping outwards and being wasted. This provides us with a good reason to have double or triple glazing.


And finally


It’s nice to see how different every window was. Every window is completely different from the next, so each pattern is interesting enough to study, to remark on the patterns and shapes that have formed.


Do you look at your windows and fractal patterns? Cars can provide us with the same pleasure.

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