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| Seed packet |
The past couple of weeks some tree around here—possibly what is commonly known as a Flame Tree—has unleashed its seed packets onto our patio and even into the house. They are each about half the size of a postage stamp. The seed itself looks like a small oat flake; it’s enclosed in clear “cellophane” so thin the dang thing can blow in the wind for more than a block.
Exhausted from a recent morning’s exercises on the mirador, I lay on my back and watched one of these little gems appear around a palm tree, twinkling the reflected sun, blown by a light breeze to land near my mat. A minute later I was doing the pushup part of a burpee and as I’m going down I see a small centipede in front of my nose. Without my glasses I can just make out five of the fifty tiny legs, evenly spaced along each side of its body, moving in unison with the leg on the other side—like the oars of a boat. After a short stroke the legs in front of those five pairs move, and so on, in a wave-like motion that makes the bug appear to undulate as it moves forward.
And then—still in pushup position—I look down at what I’d been thinking was a remarkably fit belly, and see skin sagging like twin turkey wattles—another natural wonder.
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