Saturday, November 03, 2018

Doodlebug tracks?


First and foremost: Election Day is Tuesday, November 6. Get out and VOTE! If voting weren't so important, would the Republicans be trying so hard to prevent people from voting?


I decided to make fifteen bean soup again this weekend. I had the beans soaking in a big bowl in the refrigerator overnight. First thing this morning I started cooking the soup bone and associated meat in its own pot, to make it easier to scoop off the "shummy" - the foamy residual fat that floats off the meat as it cooks - without tossing out a bunch of beans, too. After an hour or so of this, I put the beans in a big pot, added the bone, meat, and beef broth, added water to bring the liquid to the recommended level, and brought it all to a boil. Then I added sliced onion, salt, and pepper, reduced the heat, and let everything simmer gently for an hour and a half.

It was cold this morning, and the cooking soup caused condensation to form on the front windows. And in the condensation were the strangest patterns:





What could cause this? At first I assumed it was just random drops of water condensing out of the larger film on the window, then taking a drunkard's walk across the surface or the glass, affected by a bit of dust here, some surface unevenness there, slowly but surely being dragged inevitably down. But what would cause the drop to reverse course and head up? Or in circles? Or in crazy, knotted squiggles?

Could this be the path once walked by some insect, long ago? It almost resembles some slug tracks I have seen on summer mornings. Could some millimeter-wide glass-crawling slug once have made its way across the surface of this window? Or was some crazy, wandering doodlebug of fond childhood memory to blame?


UPDATE: Someone in New Zealand noticed something similar, and the consensus is that these are wee tiny slug tracks.

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