A Rainy day at the Farmer's Market

I heard the honky of the horn as my dad's truck pulled in to the driveway. Immediately, I knew it was was time to stop playing catch with my dog. My grandmother called, "Matthew! Your dad is home. Please come help him!"

I was disappointed. It was a cloudy Saturday, and I thought we would be able to skip the Farmer's Market. I had hoped to do what I wanted today, but no such luck.

"Matthew!" Grandmother called again.

"I'll be right there!" I yelled.

"Please get the big umbrella from the basement," Grandmother said. "It looks like it's going to rain."

I still had to put on some shoes. I decided to wear my cowboy books, but I couldn't find them. I looked in the front closets, upstairs, and by the back door. I could've worn my sneakers, but I really wanted to wear my boots. I knew that if I didn't hurry, everyone was going to be upset with me. Reluctantly, I put on my sneakers and went outside.

By then there were only a few crates of produce that needed to be loaded onto the truck.

"I could have used your help, son," said Dad. "Kayla helped me load all of this produce into the truck."

I knew he wasn't happy with me, and I felt bad that my sister Kayla had helped instead of me. I started to explain how I wanted to wear my boots, but couldn't find them. Then I realized how selfish I sounded.

Grandmother came outside, and I helped her carry a box of fresh baked goods. Once we were all in the truck, Dad drove toward town. The Farmer's Market was located in a parking lot behind the town square.

Dad stopped the truck at the main entrance to check in. "Good morning, Bill," Dad said to the attendance. "What's the weather prediction?"

"It's not looking good," said Bill. He directed us to where we should park our truck.

Dad drove the truck toward our parking space, and then carefully backed in. We set up our table with fruits and vegetables on one side and baked goods on the other. Grandmother's homemade pies and cookies made my mouth water.

"We'd better put up the umbrellas in case it rains," said Dad.

I gulped. I realized I had forgotten the umbrellas. Dad, Grandma, and Kayla looked at me expectantly.

"I'll be right back!" I yelled, and took off running before anyone had a chance to say anything.

I knew that my friend Jose and his family were supposed to be at the market, so I searched for them, keeping my fingers crossed that it didn't start to rain. I ran past tables of flowers, fruits, vegetables, and even homemade soaps and hand-knitted sweaters, but I could not find Jose.

Exhausted, I continued searching through the rows of tables. I reached the last row with growing concern. If it rained, our truck would get soaked, and so would my family.

Finally I saw Jose. I ran over and almost collapsed.

"Is everything all right, Matthew?" asked Jose's mom.

I gasped for air as I explained how I forgot our umbrellas. I asked if they had any extras we could borrow.

"Of course! Jose, please help Matthew," said Jose's mom.

Then it happened: a drop of rain hit my face!

Jose and I quickly pulled out two large umbrellas from the families truck. Jose helped me carry the big umbrellas back to our space. We had to go slowly, being careful not to bump into anyone. The market had opened for business, and it was already crowded.

We arrived just in time. As we opened the umbrellas, the few drops of rain began to turn into a steady drizzle. Dad smiled and nodded, seemingly pleased that I had solved the problem on my own. After we set up the umbrellas, Jose hurried back to his family. Luckily the rain didn't stop the crowds. But the rain sure taught me a lesson that day.

Dances with Animals

by Ellen R. Braaf

A honey bee returns to the hive. Sticky pollen clings to her body. Nectar fills her honey sack. She’s found apple blossoms in a distant orchard. How does she tell the other worker bees about this new food source? She dances! 

Unlike humans, animals don't have words to help them communicate. They can't say "Hey! Look at what I found,” or “Keep away! this is my spot,” or “Want to go steady?” Yet, animals communicate all the time. They send us signals - messages others receive and understand using their senses of smell, taste, touch, hearing, and sight. 

Animals with good vision "talk” to each other with their bodies. They use patterns of movements to share information, to defend themselves or their territories, and attract mates. Nature designs their steps, and they dance as if their lives depended on it. Often they do. 

Language of Bees

Most communication takes place among members of the same species. in dark beehives, honeycombed walls become waxy dance floors. like a rockstar swarmed by adoring fans, a bee returning from the apple orchard and begins her dance. Other workers follow her as she moves forward in a straight line. She vibrates her wings and wags her body side to side very quickly-13 to 15 times a second. Then she turns to one side, circles back, and begins the waggle run again. When she finishes, she circles around - this time in the opposite direction - and repeats her steps. The dance may go on for hours.

As she traces a figure 8 on the dance floor, the follower bees touch her with their antenna. They sense the odors of apple blossom nectar and pollen clinging to her body. These workers also detect the scent she used to mark the distant flowers. A flight plan is coded in her movements. The length of the waggle run tells workers how far the flowers are from the hive. Its angle tells them how to get there. Because bees steer by the sun, the dancer links her direction to its position in the sky.

However, the position of the sun in the sky keeps changing. If the waggle dance lasts for hours, how do bees leaving the hive long after the dance has begun find their targets? Amazingly, they do. The waggling bee adjusts her dance to account for the sun's movement. 

Keep Away!

“This is my spot!” Not all animals cooperate the way honey bees do. Most compete for food, territory, and mates. Fights take time and energy. Rivals risk injury and death, weakening the group as a whole. So some animals dance instead, using movements to make themselves look larger, stronger, and quicker than their competition. “Don't mess with me,” they say. 

Red Fish, Blue Fish

Most fish settle conflicts over territory without fighting. But Siamese fighting fish, also known as bettas, are little fish with a big mean streak. Brightly colored bettas and pet stores have been specially bred for their beautiful veil- like fins. In the wild, they live in rice paddies in Southeast Asia.

If threatened, male Siamese fighting fish switch back and forth between face-to-face and side-to-side positions. Facing each other, they flare out flaps of skin on their necks and extend their fins. This makes them seem twice their size. Side-to-side, they flicker their fins and beat the water with their tails. Tail beating gets faster and faster until one male backs down. The loser lowers his fins and puts his tail down. His bright red, blue, or purple body color fades to a dull hue. Defeated, he swims away. 

Whether it is to communicate where to find something or to tell someone to “steer clear,” animal dances can tell us a lot!

It’s Raining Pistachios!

by Gretchen Maurer

With rubber mallets, we whacked at the trunks of the young trees until pistachio nuts dropped down around us, thumping the tarp beneath our feet. I plucked one off the ground, peeled off the hull, and pried the shell open. The raw nut tasted like fresh air and sun-warmed earth. It was worth the eight-year wait.

Before I was born, my parents lived in Turkey. They ate a lot of Turkish pistachios and loved the rich flavor. My dad dreamed of owning a pistachio farm. Later, he and a friend bought 11 acres near the Russian River in northern California. The climate and soil conditions there were perfect for growing pistachios.

Getting Started

On a spring morning when I was 12, my family and I piled out of our truck with picks and shovels, ready to plant the first of 1,500 pistachio trees. As I tamped the earth around one particularly spindly tree, I thought, no way are these dead-looking sticks going to grow anything!

Pistachio trees take 7 to 10 years to produce nuts. For the first 3 years, we watered our trees by hand, using buckets we filled from a 300-gallon water tank hauled around on the back of a truck. Later, we dug a pond and installed a water-saving sprinkler system. During the dry season, it sprays hairlike streams of water between the trees.

Our First Harvest

After eight years, our trees produced our first pistachio harvest. Because young trees are fragile, we couldn’t use a machine to shake the nuts from the trees. Instead, we whacked the trunks with rubber-tipped harvesting mallets that looked like giant cotton swabs. A few hundred pounds of pistachios fell onto tarps under the trees during that first harvest.

Going Organic

A few years later, we decided to grow our pistachios organically. Growing organic pistachios means that we do not use pesticides, herbicides, or human-made fertilizers. This requires a lot of work and creative thinking.

To produce healthy nuts, pistachio trees need nitrogen, so we add it to the soil with organic fertilizers. We add a ground-up fish solution to the sprinkler system, and we mix shovelfuls of composted chicken feathers or manure into the soil.

We also plant red clover around the trees; it takes nitrogen from the air and stores it in its roots. Over time, the nitrogen in the roots leaches into the soil and fertilizes the trees.

To control weeds that would steal nutrients from our trees, we hoe around each tree by hand and plow between rows.

We’ve even had to weed the pond! When weeds threatened to choke our water source, we paddled out in a canoe and pulled the tangly plants into the boat. Sometimes we’ve drained the water to let goats chomp on the intruding plants.

Crows would devour our pistachios if we let them. So we frighten them away with scarecrows and with screeching sounds made by noise machines. The screeches mimic the calls of hawks, which prey on crows.

10,000 Pounds of Pistachios

Pistachio trees produce a heavy crop of nuts one year and a light crop the next. A good harvest for us these days is 500 times what it was that first year—roughly the weight of a full-grown elephant!

Now that our trees are mature, we can collect the pistachios with a mechanical shaker. Its padded arm clamps onto the trunk of the tree and vibrates it. For about 30 seconds, the branches become a wild blur. Nuts rain down onto a tarp, which rolls up and dumps them onto a conveyor belt. The belt carries them to a large bin. Later, another machine removes the pistachios’ rosy outer hulls and dries the nuts.

We haul the hulled nuts to a large processing plant where they’re sorted, roasted, and salted. The sorting machine has an electric eye that detects any dark-stained shells and, with a jet of air, blows them into a separate bin. Finally, bagged, labeled, and ready to munch, our pistachios are sold at farmers’ markets and in stores.

Today, our hearty trees look nothing like those dead-looking sticks we planted over 30 years ago. As I watch my 12-year-old daughter and her brothers collect stray nuts in buckets, I think of how I underestimated these trees when I was her age. With their branches loaded with clumps of rosy nuts, they couldn’t look more beautiful.

From Kangaroos: Amazing Jumpers

By Lisa M. Herrington

The late afternoon sun casts a warm glow over Australia's planes. A group of kangaroos hop about, nibbling on grass. A baby kangaroo peeks its head out of its mother's cozy pouch. Then it quickly ducks back in. For now, the baby is content to enjoy the ride. 

Suddenly, a strange noise nearby startles the kangaroos. Their tall ears pierced up perk up. The sound may be from a pack of wild dogs, but the kangaroos aren't sticking around to find out. Springing into action, the kangaroos begin to bounce - faster and faster - scattering in different directions. They can leap the length of a school bus in one bound. leaving danger in their dust.

Kangaroos are the only large animals that hop to move, and they are among the world's best jumpers. Their remarkable leaping ability, unusual body shape, and adorable pouch babies make them some of the most fascinating animals on Earth. 

Meet These Hoppers

When we think of kangaroos, the four largest species typically come to mind. They are the red kangaroo, the eastern gray kangaroo, the western gray kangaroo, and the antilopine kangaroo... 

However, the family to which these kangaroos belong includes many smaller species such as wallaroos, wallabies, and quokkas. There are more than 50 species in the family!

The red kangaroo is the biggest species. It can grow about 6 ft tall and weigh up to 200 pounds. Eastern and western gray kangaroos are almost as tall but are not as heavy. They all have big feet that can grow to 18 inches long. 

All these large kangaroos belong to a group of mammals called marsupials. Most female marsupials have pouches on their bellies to carry and feed their young. Baby marsupials do most of their developing inside their mother's pouch. 

Home, Sweet Home

Large kangaroos live in mainland Australia and Tasmania. They are found in a wide variety of environments, from grasslands to deserts to sandy shores. Different species of large kangaroos live in different habitats. Red kangaroos make their home in remote wilderness areas of central Australia known as the outback. They most likely like to bounce across its hot, dry open planes and deserts. Few trees grow in these inland areas, and there is little water. 

Gray kangaroos prefer the woodlands and bushlands of eastern, western, and southern Australia. These areas get more rain. The kangaroos that live there are nicknamed “foresters” because they are found with their armor trees. They moved to areas of open grasslands when they raise. Antilopine kangaroos can be found in Australia's northern woodlands. 

Hopping to It

You might already know that kangaroos are jumping machines, but would you believe that they can travel as fast as a car? Large kangaroos can leap at speeds of 30 mph. If they need to escape danger, they can exceed 40 mph. 

As they move, kangaroos tuck in their forelimbs and bounce on both of their strong hind legs at the same time. Their legs are made up of tough, flexible tendons that attach muscles to bones. They work like springs. A kangaroo's legs tighten when the animal lands and expand when it jumps. As a kangaroo hops forward, its long tail swings up and down. This super jumper can leap more than 30 ft in a single hop! 

When kangaroos move slowly to graze, they arch their bodies and crawl-walk on all fours. To do this, they lean over so that their front legs and their tail are on the ground. Then they swing their back legs forward. 

Kangaroos tend to be social animals. Most large kangaroos live in groups… These groups can make up anywhere from three to 50 or more kangaroos. 

Male kangaroos are called bucks or boomers... females are called does or flyers. Since they are much lighter and smaller than males, they can hop faster. They move quickly and spend so much time in the air that they look like they are flying! 

Kangaroos make noises to communicate. They may bark, cough, or growl if they feel threatened. Mothers make clicking or clucking sounds - usually several times in a row - to call their young. Kangaroos also touch noses to say hello…

Chew on this!

Kangaroos are herbivores. That means they mainly feed on plants. different species much on different kinds of grasses, leaves, and flowers. 

A kangaroo's sharp front teeth, called incisors, work like scissors, snipping grasses and leaves. Broad, flat back teeth called molars crush and grind the tough food. Because kangaroos chew so much, their molars often wear down completely. In some species, the worn-down teeth are replaced with new molars that move forward…

While eating, kangaroos may rest on their back legs. as a mother grazes, her baby, called a joey, may also lean out of the pouch to eat. 

Kangaroos need water, but they can go long stretches without it. They can live on almost as little water as camels do. They get a lot of their water from the plants they eat. 

Keeping Cool

Many kangaroos eat when it is cooler. The animals start moving around in the early evening and stay active until dawn. During the day kangaroos try to rest in shady spots to avoid overheating out in the open Plains and grasslands. but it can be hard to find shade in areas with few trees. So red kangaroos, for example, dig holes in the ground to make cool places where they can rest and seek refuge from the sun. They scrape away the hot top soil to get to the cooler ground below. 

Licking their forearms is another way that kangaroos keep cool. They have less hair on this part of their body. As the wet saliva drives, it cools the kangaroos’ blood and lowers their body temperature…

Pouch Babies

The mother kangaroo gives birth to a very tiny baby…

Despite its miniature size, the newborn kangaroo grips its mother's fur with its short front limbs and crawls its way into her pouch…

The pouch offers food, shelter, and protection for the baby so it can grow and finish developing. 

Roo Rider

It takes a while for the baby to get fur and begin to look like a kangaroo. By four or five months old, the joey pops its head out for the first time. It's about the size of a cat…

When it's time to bounce, the mother kangaroo buckles her Joey in for the ride. She does this by tightening the muscles at the top of her pouch so the baby can't fall out. 

The joey will remain in the pouch until it is about eight months old. Then it climbs out to explore the world for short periods of time. A joey's early hops are wobbly, but they eventually become stronger. 

When the joey becomes frightened or tired and wants to return to the pouch, the mother relaxes the opening. The joey will dive back into the pouch - head first. Inside the pouch, the baby kangaroo does a somersault to turn itself around so its head is near the opening. 

Growing Up and Out

As it grows, the baby kangaroo spends more time outside its mother's pouch. Before long it becomes too big for the pouch. At nine to 12 months, depending on the species, the joey leaves the pouch for good. It is also called a young-at-foot now. 

The young-at-foot still relies on its mother. It may even try to get back into its mother's pouch, but she won't let it. She licks her pouch clean and prepares it for a new brother or sister to arrive…

Off into the World

Young kangaroos like to playfully box. Mothers also practice boxing with their joeys to teach them how to defend themselves. By the time they are two to three years old, young kangaroos have become independent.

The kangaroo is Australia's most well known animal and is one of the country's national symbols.