Hi Pia, I've had a question for a while and since you've been getting some heavy asks I thought this might be a good time to throw it in. I super love your writing and have been struck since early on by how you describe soil and permafrost. Do you have a soil science background/interest? It's been kind of fun to see the terms dirt and soil differentiated in ways that resonated with me, as well as to get soil texture descriptions. Thanks for all of these awesome stories!
This is like the sweetest ask, I swear.
I do not have a soil science background, but yeah, I have a soil science interest. Tbh just in general, in ecosystems, biomes, and once you’re interested in biomes, you kind of become interested in the minutiae of biomes (or I do), like substrates.
I started to find all of that interesting as a kid, but I started researching the science of it as a result of bushwalking. I live in Western Australia, on the Darling Scarp, and where I live most of the ‘soil’ here is actually nutrient poor, fossilised white sand-dunes (which is why most of my bushwalking photos show bushland growing on white sand that you could easily imagine was very close to the ocean, when it’s an hour’s drive away).
But also I just...like...naturey science stuff. Just like a recent character in Falling Falling Stars really resonates with books on nonfiction, so do I, it’s something he and I very much share in common (in fact I own that hot pink / blue jellyfish myself, lol). And while I read armchair science, I also sometimes read academic texts or government texts (like say, textbooks for farmers on what all the different kind of substrates on their farm are in Western Australia, and how to deal with them and when to leave them alone, lol).
Yay for mutual soil and science love though? I always...am like ‘no no don’t put too much science in’ but it slips in anyway, and I’m just...always quietly very very happy when other people are enjoying that too. Like yay for angst and hurt/comfort and stuff but also quiet happy hearts for nature love and appreciation too. :D
