Do you have any idea as to what this is?
This is the second time a pile of white grains of something similar to sugar or salt has appeared on the road leading up to our place. Both times, the weather has been fine and the mound well formed - none is spilled or run-over by tires. Perhaps it's leaking from a vehicle that has sat on that spot for a while before driving off. I've not been game to dip a wet finger into it and taste to identify it (someone suggested 'uric acid' :-). I'll take a sample soon, and any suggestions anyone might have.
16 comments:
Looks to fine to be any of the common fertilisers
I would be sorely tempted to try the taste test but remembering what happened to Carl Scheele ( real discoverer of O2 etc but died young) maybe not
Anyway you are a green hippie, so roll up a fiver and hover it up :-)
Green hippies don't have a fiver, Ray.
Thats what i thought when I changed a fiver for a tenner
I did set the bar low 'cause we don't have ten bob notes anymore
Nor watches, more's the pity.
Why would you need a watch? It's easy enough to tell the time without one. I last used one in 1986.
A ten-bob one?
That's crazy.
Can you remember what time, in 1986?
Ten o'clock in the afternoon.
Ha!
It's always 10 o'clock in the afternoon around here.
Went to Dunedin last weekend and visited the re-vamped Early Settlers Museum where I watched film of the Verlaines croaking out a number in a scabby scarfy flat.
Good times.
It appears to be glass beads used to reflectorise roadmarking paint, not advisable to eat but is quite inert- a sand sized glass particle
That is a good explanation Graham.
You've got me intrigued, please let me know the outcome...
Graham is quite right, reflector beads
He is indeed! Why didn't I think of that? I've collected a cup-full, tasted them (tasteless) tried to dissolve them in hot water (nope) and am now drying them on the top of my wood fire. They have a peculiar feel to them when handled - kind of super-smooth, not a grain sticks to my skin - not sticky at all. Thanks for your detective work, everyone. Next time I find a pile of something mysterious, I'll post it straight away, saving myself the anguish of not knowing.
Oh, and I must ask Graham, how did you know that?
Made sense really,regularly being dropped on a road,I expect the cocaine dealers of Riverton are more careful with their product.Angle of repose was much flatter than salt, sugar, fertiliser etc.I'm no roadmarker but their trucks have an applicator which pours beads onto the fresh paint which would quickly dribble a mound out if the truck stopped in one place.
So it's not pre-mixed? That's the bit that had me scratching my head. An incontinent road-marking truck. Who, other than Graham (and Bioneer) would have thought?
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