Musings

Illusions

Grass bark tree

I went in for a swim and kept seeing these dark Thangs on the bottom that had little depressions in the sand around them like clams, but didn’t look like clams. Took me a while to figure out they WERE clams, but so festooned with zebra mussels so they no longer had exposed clam shell. I suppose that the clams can become overburdened with the invasive mussels to the point that they can’t move and can’t eat. It made me sad to see the many poor clams all dark and rough and weighed down.

The illusion in the photo is that the grass is rooted between the old bark and the wood; however, the stems are growing up almost two feet behind the bark to emerge into sunlight at stump-top. This does not make me sad. Having the white pine cut down did, though, and immensely.