Welcome to my world and beyond...

A collection of snippets of the books I write and, occasionally, my life and the things that inspire my writing...

Thursday, April 12, 2012

A to Z "L" is for Lightning: a little science behind the green grass

Lightning...just the word brings visions, memories, and a slew of emotions.  People are afraid of it, people are in awe of it.  It can change our lives in a split second.
                                      
Lightning is extremely powerful...the actual event-- and the words denoting it, too. Perhaps one of the reasons why is that even though science (for the most part) understands it, it is still unpredictable and refuses to be bound or harnessed in any way.


Powerful...lightning...and its twin, thunder. 

When I was a small child, I recall my grandmother (who was born in 1885) telling stories about lightning balls rolling down off of the barn roof.  I never saw them...but believed that it had happened.   And we all knew that if a storm approached, we were to beat-feet for the house or inside one of the farm buildings. Get away from the creek and out of the woods. Never hide beneath the sheltering branches of a tree.  Everyone was aware of the local farmer whose herd of cows took shelter under a tree in his pasture, and when the tree was struck, the cows were all killed.
                                         
Even knowing all of that, on a warm summer evening when distant rumbles sound--seeming to shake the earth, I look for a place to watch the storm's approach.  The leaves quiver, the softwoods turning their silver backs away from the coming weather.  I patiently wait, anticipating the first breeze and the smell of rain.  Lightning is pure magic.  Not many things are...but lightning is one, and thunder--the harbinger of its approach.

So, while thinking of lightning in terms of being magic, it brought to mind something the old timers always said (you know how I love the things the old timers said).  When there was a first spring storm after the ground had thawed, and lightning flashed across a mud-brown and dead grass landscape, "That'll make the grass green."

Yep...unless it is was one of the earliest storms--in a mid-winter thaw, it did, indeed, make the grass green.

When I was young, I just sort of figured that there was something purely magical about.  Not that I didn't wonder why.  I would tear apart a baby's rattle to understand it--if I'd had the tools. But a child can't begin to tear apart the magic in lightning and green grass.

Enter adulthood, and bigger, better tools. :-)

The "N" on a fertilizer label denotes the nitrogen content. We have nitrogen in fertilizer because it fuels leafy, green plant growth.  Doesn't do so much for roots, flowers, or fruiting...but if you are looking for healthy, vigorous, green growth, nitrogen is your dynasty.  Plants need nitrogen.

The air in our atmosphere is about 78% nitrogen.  But, it is not in a form that plants can use. Plants can't take the nitrogen directly out of the air.
 
When lightning strikes, it super-heats the air near to it.  In doing so, it causes the nitrogen to bind with the oxygen in the air--forming nitrogen oxides.  These combine with moisture in the air.  The now "fixed" nitrogen is carried to earth by rain, and these nitrates can be taken up and used by the plants.  Lightning fixes nitrogen into a form usable by plants.

                                              
Okay, we understand it now.  Still, when you fall asleep listening to  approaching thunder, and wake up to a dramatically greener world... seems like pure magic to me. :-)

19 comments:

  1. So funny. I was terrified of thunderstorms, but then I moved to a place that doesn't have many of them. Now I miss the drama. :-D

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    1. Hi Misha, isn't that just the way we humans are--as soon as it's gone, we miss it terribly! :-) Thank you for visiting! :-)

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  3. Lovely post :) I'm following you now :D Thank you for your comment and have a wonderful weekend :D

    Nikki – inspire nordic

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    1. Thanks for visiting, Nikki! And for the follow. Look forward to reading more of your posts :-)

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  4. Love your post!:) I love storms and lightning too. I even love the sound of thunder - I'm weird that way:) It all feels like magic to me, just as you said. Had no clue lightning had that effect on nitrogen though, hmmmm... Glad I dropped by:)

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    1. Thank you, Isabella! I think the best part of the storm is waiting, as it builds...almost as if you can feel the magic in those moments. :-)

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  5. I think science is magic! I never heard this saying about the green grass- maybe because it rains here so much the grass is always green, we wouldn't notice- but this has made lightening even more brilliant :-)

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    1. Hello, Lily! I learned something new today! The thought never occurred to me that there are places where it isn't obvious that lightning greens the grass. Cool...and a lot of rain as the reason why, makes sense :-) Science is magic. I think the only part of science that contains no magic is within stated laws. Everything else allows for thought, wonderment, and an eternal quest for disproving what can be described by no other means as being "magic" . Thanks for visiting. I will be stopping by in a bit. :-)

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  6. I love lightning and thunder. In the pacific northwest we don't get those big storms very often.

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    1. Isn't weather an odd thing? I live just on the eastern fringe of the thunderstorm "belt". I didn't even know that there was one until a few days ago I saw it on weather.com Always something new to learn, I guess. ;-)

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  7. Why bother with the wonders of science fiction when science fact is this captivating.
    Great post!

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    1. It is captivating :-) And makes such good fodder for science fiction ;-) Thank you for visiting, Jack! :-)

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  8. I did not know that lightning fixed nitrogen! I thought it was just bacteria. Thanks for the education. :)


    The Golden Eagle
    The Eagle's Aerial Perspective

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    1. You are quite welcome! I love to learn, and it is pretty awesome when I get to help someone else learn. :-) Thanks for visiting--and for the follow. I visited your blog and followed back. I love your posts! So much information but delivered in nice layman's terms. Have a good A to Z 2012! :-)

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  9. That is very informative. And I always thought a nice rain was good, but we don't need the storms. Storms can be good.

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    1. Hi Ruth, Yep, although often destructive and quite terrifying, they can do a small good. :-) Thank you for visiting. :-) How goes the a to z? I am glad we are starting down the back side of it. I am so enjoying it, but it does take a lot of time :-)

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  10. Lightning is my friend - I love it! Thunder too :) I'm definitely a storm kinda gal. But then we don't get deadly storms around here, really.

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    1. Hi Trisha :-) I think I would miss storms if we didn't get them. There is something exhilarating about the. That might be because I live outside of "tornado alley". It has been nearly 3 decades since we had a deadly tornado here. Thank you so much for taking the time to visit and comment. ! :-)

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