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Observations on entering a new biome
Oct. 15th, 2007 01:59 pmThe weather has been very consistent during the five weeks or so that I've been here: hot and sunny. The high temps were in the low 90s when I arrived, and have gradually moderated to the mid 80s and now the low 80s just this week. However, a day reaching 88F here does not feel like a day reaching 88F back east. The mornings are cool, in the low 60s, and the heat doesn't really start until around 11 AM. There is usually a pleasant breeze. Late in the afternoon it starts getting cooler again. Sometimes there is a brief rain shower after the sun goes down. So overall, it's not as hot as one might expect from reading the weather forecast.
On the other hand, there is no escape from the sunshine. I think I've experienced two overcast days here, and both of them were during my first week. There are no trees except those brought by people. Here on Moonbase Bravo, the residential neighborhood of the senior officers is lushly planted with mature trees, so it has as much shade as I'm used to back home. The other housing areas have fewer and smaller trees, and the areas for doing business -- office space, warehouses and the like -- have no trees or shrubs around at all. Most of the buildings are unadorned concrete boxes. In between is scruffy grass, dirt, or asphalt.
The dirt here is pale, mostly beige, more reddish in some areas. As I've mentioned, there are some modestly sized mountains a short distance to our west, only about a 15 minute drive. Horizontal stripes of various shades of beige, tan, and rust are clearly visible in the rock. There is another little mountain to the south and a few more mountains some distance off to the east, breaking up the horizon line. There aren't gentle, rolling hills leading up to the mountains as there are where I grew up, but rather more abrupt changes in the terrain, with the land being quite flat otherwise.
The landscape is not desert in the sense of bare sand dunes. There are little bushes of different kinds, grasses and weeds. All the plants that grow any higher than a foot tall seem to have spines and thorns on them. I've even seen one kind that looks like it's composed entirely of thorns. There are plenty of yuccas and prickly pear cactus growing wild. The yuccas had just finished blooming when I arrived here, and their shriveled, wilted flower stalks are still poking up, twice as tall as the rest of the plant.
We've seen bunnies around, both jackrabbits and the ordinary cottontails we're used to from back home. The jackrabbits are bigger and have noticeably longer ears and legs, and their ears are tipped with black. We haven't seen any squirrels at all. I'm guessing this is because of the lack of trees. There are grackles, which I'm familiar with from college; they act kind of like pigeons but are much more noisy. While walking in the nearby county park, we saw a flock of quail cross the road in front of us. We found a dead lizard behind the washing machine last week and haven't seen any indoors since, so perhaps that was the only one.
On the other hand, there is no escape from the sunshine. I think I've experienced two overcast days here, and both of them were during my first week. There are no trees except those brought by people. Here on Moonbase Bravo, the residential neighborhood of the senior officers is lushly planted with mature trees, so it has as much shade as I'm used to back home. The other housing areas have fewer and smaller trees, and the areas for doing business -- office space, warehouses and the like -- have no trees or shrubs around at all. Most of the buildings are unadorned concrete boxes. In between is scruffy grass, dirt, or asphalt.
The dirt here is pale, mostly beige, more reddish in some areas. As I've mentioned, there are some modestly sized mountains a short distance to our west, only about a 15 minute drive. Horizontal stripes of various shades of beige, tan, and rust are clearly visible in the rock. There is another little mountain to the south and a few more mountains some distance off to the east, breaking up the horizon line. There aren't gentle, rolling hills leading up to the mountains as there are where I grew up, but rather more abrupt changes in the terrain, with the land being quite flat otherwise.
The landscape is not desert in the sense of bare sand dunes. There are little bushes of different kinds, grasses and weeds. All the plants that grow any higher than a foot tall seem to have spines and thorns on them. I've even seen one kind that looks like it's composed entirely of thorns. There are plenty of yuccas and prickly pear cactus growing wild. The yuccas had just finished blooming when I arrived here, and their shriveled, wilted flower stalks are still poking up, twice as tall as the rest of the plant.
We've seen bunnies around, both jackrabbits and the ordinary cottontails we're used to from back home. The jackrabbits are bigger and have noticeably longer ears and legs, and their ears are tipped with black. We haven't seen any squirrels at all. I'm guessing this is because of the lack of trees. There are grackles, which I'm familiar with from college; they act kind of like pigeons but are much more noisy. While walking in the nearby county park, we saw a flock of quail cross the road in front of us. We found a dead lizard behind the washing machine last week and haven't seen any indoors since, so perhaps that was the only one.
