Good Luck Horseshoe

Last fall we took Matthew to the Puck's Farm to see farm animals. Funny what kids choose to like. The only things he thought were funny to him were cats. As we quickly zoomed through the farm, was saw all kinds of animals like ducks, geese, roosters, chickens, sheep, horses, ponies, emus (I didn't even know they had those on the farms in Canada). They also had one cow for milking display purposes, and she wasn't looking good either. I said we zoomed because it was cold, even inside the barns.

As I was taking pictures I noticed this painted over horseshoe on the wall as shown on the photo. I remember that, I said. We used to have one in our old house. As a matter of fact we used to have one even on the side of the house, not just a barn. I know that horseshoe was always for good luck, but what I didn't know was that pointing upwards is for a good luck, and pointing downwards is for a bad luck. Pointing downwards means that the good luck will fall out (sounds like barn Feng Shui to me). Now, that is funny, because who would ever want to place the horseshoe facing downwards if it means bad luck - definitely not me.

Well, well, now that I recall - our horseshoe hanging on the house was facing down. Did we have bad luck? And why was it upside down? I don't think we did. I know its normal that people get sick, die, or leave the house as time comes - these things happen, and its all part of life. It was simply down because we just didn't know, but we had to have the horseshoe anyway.

It always amazed me what we choose to believe in. Few years ago, my co-worker came to the office. She is excited, and says to us - I got to play lottery, I am so lucky. We all amazed how excited she was. We asked - why? She replied - on my way to work, just as a pulled out the drive way, a tree fell behind me. It missed me by few seconds. It was a big tree also, and potentially could cause lot of damage to her car, never mind probably very dangerous to her too. Did she ever won the lottery? No, her luck was that she wasn't hit by the tree.

Now let me leave you with this quote by R. E. Shay, a something to think about: 'Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember it didn't work for the rabbit.'

Spring Transformations Experiments - A Red Bean Seed To A Green Plant

Have you ever wonder - I always do. Let me tell you about my recent spring experiment (yes I am waiting patiently by creating my own small gardens in the house). In the jar I placed some cotton and water, placed two red bean seeds (my dry food supplies) and exposed all to sun light. Then I observed - germination (same thing I observed when I soaked my peas or beans for too long). Then I observed bean sprouting, unfortunately only one of them. The roots formed and grew into the cotton for the stem to grow freely with support. On the other side of the shell, the stem with leafs unfolded. All this from a red bean, the water and the sun. A beautiful transformation.

During the seed germination, the growing plant absorb nutrients from the seed, then once the roots are long enough they draw additional nutrients from the ground (but not in my case). Once the roots are fully formed, they are also able to draw water. But where do the extra cells come from? Not just from the water?

Plants with a help of sun energy absorb the carbon dioxide gas and release by-product well know oxygen. The carbon molecules form plants cells. Sun in addition helps to form other nutrients for the plant. All this with a help of sun energy, a process also called photosynthesis. So this is my simple explanation of the simple transformation from a red bean to a green plant you see on the photo. There is more to it, but if I go into all the details this post will be a botany lesson. On the side note I attempted to do the same with onion and quinoa - not very successful experiments. Barley, chickpeas, green peas are next (smile) - or what ever I will find in my pantry.

Let see how far will my plant grow. If I am successful and it starts flowering I may have some beans. I am glad that I do not need any honey bees or insects to pollinate the bean plant. Beans have self-pollinating flowers. Lucky me, because I do not want to be attacked again by an army of flies - something that happen to me few years ago.

However, as I see this red bean growing in front of my eyes. I yet wonder about many things.

I wonder. How does the red bean knows to produce a another red bean, and how it knows to have roots, then stem, then leaves, and then flowers? How does it know to die after few months of working hard, and grow back again from the produced seed? And how about the seed that been packaged and stored in the sealed plastic bag for months, yet after being exposed to water it is able to produce a plant. It is all part of the genetic code, just like a computer code. I guess programming was very well known before we even existed - I guess? Just in a different form. Who in the world orchestrated all this? How? Why?

Tough questions but then by the end of the day, we just have to say what Frank Lloyd Wright said: 'Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you'. And I will add: 'Photograph nature'.