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The Giant Puffball
The giant puffball grows to the size of a soccer ball in about a week, one big one holds about 7 trillion spores, and three bills to make it the Massachusetts state mushroom never passed.
What’s happening outside around MetroWest today
76° / 57°SunnySunset 4:35 PM
A sunny 76 in November, shirt-sleeve weather for a walk in the bare woods.
Now, 4 cards
Look up
The fireball-rich Southern Taurid meteors peak tonight
Tonight Earth passes through the fireball-rich part of a crumbly dust trail from Comet Encke. From a lit yard expect about one slow meteor an hour, but a Taurid fireball is bright enough to show through streetlight glow.
Look closer
Nibbled twigs show whether a deer or a rabbit ate there
Deer have no upper front teeth, so they tear a twig and leave a ragged end, while a rabbit snips it clean on a slant like a knife cut. With the soft green plants gone, find a nibbled shrub and work out who came to dinner.
Right outside
Today's daylight lasts 10 hours 12 minutes, exactly as long as February 6
The sun is up 10 hours 12 minutes today, the same as on February 6, and 2 minutes 28 seconds less than yesterday. Step out at 4:35 and mark which tree or roof the sun drops behind.
Look closer
Wolf trees, the wide old giants in the woods, mark land that was once a pasture
A wolf tree is a huge tree with thick limbs low on its trunk, standing among straight younger trees. It grew up in an open field, so the woods around it were likely pasture when it was young.
This Week, 3 cards
Look closer
Young beeches and oaks keep their dead leaves all winter, and scientists still cannot say why
Beech and several oaks skip the autumn drop and hold their dead leaves until spring, mostly on young trees and low branches. One big beech can be brown at knee height and bare overhead.
Look closer
The gray and orange crusts on old gravestones are lichens that can be nearly as old as the stones
Each crust is a fungus and an alga living together as one, and some kinds grow less than half a millimeter a year. Find the biggest patch in an old burying ground and read the date carved beside it.
Go see
Friday's rain can start refilling the dry vernal pools in the woods
Vernal pools, the fishless woodland hollows that dried out by late summer, can start holding water again after late fall rain. This weekend, find a leafy dip in the woods and look for standing water over the leaves.
Plan Ahead, 2 cards
Go see
Walk an Ice Age esker in Boxborough with a geologist, Saturday November 21
An esker is a long, winding gravel ridge laid down by a river that ran inside or beneath the last ice sheet. On this walk a geologist points out the glacial features along Boxborough's esker as you walk its top.
Go see
See Saturn and the Moon through a 12-inch telescope in Natick, free with an RSVP, Friday November 20
New England Sci-Tech opens its telescope to the public, and that evening the Moon sits a hand-width from golden Saturn. It is free, for grade 1 and up with an adult, and weather permitting.
That's what's worth noticing.Go have a look.