The mysterious case of frozen crocodile

Olsztyn, Poland: A frozen crocodile has been found in the Mazury forest in Poland.

The reptile measured 1.5 meters in length and weighed 20 kilogram.

The police have launched an investigation to try to find out where it came from and what happened to the reptile.

The crocodile was taken to the Institute of Pathological Anatomy of the University of Warmia and Mazury in nearby Olsztyn for a post mortem examination.

Professor Taduesz Rodkiewicz of the university said it was a sexually mature female dwarf crocodile.

"It's very rare in Poland," he said.

The post-mortem has established that the crocodile was not killed so had probably died of natural causes.

Emphasis mine - that sentence makes me laugh out loud. I hope crocodiles, dwarf or otherwise, are very rare in Poland. hehehehehehe

from NDTV

Sheep Eat What??

Sheep Help Scientists Clean Up Explosives Residue
, FoxNews, February 12, 2011

A team of scientists is feeding TNT to a flock of sheep.

A. Morrie Craig, a veterinary scientist at Oregon State University, has found that the cud-chewing mammals can efficiently clean up explosives-contaminated soil, of which there are 1.3 million tons throughout the U.S. TNT and other explosives from military munitions training and the remnants of old factories remain in the ground for decades.

This residue rarely poses an immediate health threat, but officials at the Department of Defense fear that it could seep into groundwater or poison plants (which has happened before). Conventional cleanup techniques, such as incinerating the soil, are expensive and time-consuming. Sheep will work for free.

In 2004, Craig discovered that the bacteria in a sheep's stomach that help digest cellulose can also rapidly convert TNT into a harmless compound. In recent experiments, he and researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture fed sheep TNT for three weeks and found that it broke down so completely that no traces of it or any related compounds remained in the animals' feces.

Craig and his colleagues plan to plant grasses in TNT contaminated soil to suck up the explosives. While the sheep munch away, the bacteria in their digestive tract take care of the rest. Craig's lab is testing the grazers on soil from a military base. He estimates that a flock of 20 could clear an acre of grass in a month, and completely rid it of munitions residue in less than three years.

Craig points out that even if a TNT-eating sheep's meat found its way onto a barbecue, it could never explode or cause health problems: "The ingested TNT is broken down into small molecules that are in no way similar to the original compound."

How cool is that? I knew I liked sheep for other reasons than bouncy white lambs in the spring, wool that turns into yarn and the kids song, Mary Had a Little Lamb!

Ukrainian and Russian Wolves

Interesting news tidbits today:

Wolves return to Moldova for first time in 40 years12:48 19/01/2011©
(from RIA Novosti)

Wolves have returned to the territory of Moldova after 40 years of their absence, with more than 20 predators seen in several areas of the country, Moldovan Deputy Environmental Minister Lazar Chirica said on Wednesday.

He added that the appearance of wolves should not cause panic among local residents as no cases of attacks have been reported yet.

"Conversely, restoring this species will help to regulate the number of sick stray dogs and cats, and especially foxes, which are very dangerous for people and pets", Chirica said.

According to the laboratory chief in the Moldovan Zoology Institute, Andrei Munteanu, the wolves entered Moldova from Ukraine and Romania.

"We are continuing to monitor the situation to determine whether wolves are just migrating across the country or will [remain and] multiply," he said.

CHISINAU, January 19 (RIA Novosti)


Link on RIA Novosti: Hungry wolves cause panic on Russian motorway


But if you explore it a bit more.....:

Here is a link to an update google map of unexplained mass animal deaths. Astounding, if they are all accurate.

Mass Animal Deaths.

These go back to late last year. Includes one from Ukraine:
1,500 birds found dead in Ukraine
Last Updated by Martijn 19 hours ago

Oct 23 2010, Kiev/Ukraine -- About 1,500 birds have been found dead on an Ukraine island, authorities said Saturday.

Most of the birds were cormorants, but a large number of herring gulls were also found on Ukraine's Bolshoi Dzendzik Island, the emergencies ministry said.

Specialists from the local veterinary office have taken samples for laboratory testing to establish the cause of the birds' death.

Earthquakes and Large Cats

2/15 - 6.2 - 21:51:48 - KEPULAUAN BARAT DAYA, INDONESIA

2/18 - 6.9 - 01:13:19 - CHINA-RUSSIA-NORTH KOREA BORDER REGION

2/22 - 6.0 - 07:00:55 - TONGA REGION

18 - GREATER LOS ANGELES AREA, CALIFORNIA (from 2.5 to 3.6)
4 - HAWAII
1 - ARKANSAS
1 - NEW YORK
3 - OKLAHOMA
1 - NEW MEXICO
1 - NEW JERSEY
1 - NEVADA
2 - BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO
1 - NORTHERN YUKON TERRITORY, CANADA
Plus a whole bunch in the rest of California and Alaska, and a few in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. The rest of the Ring of Fire was pretty busy, too.

~*~*~*~*~
(note: Green Mountain Falls and Crystola are both 'just over the mountain' from my parents home, maybe 10 miles away, as the crow flies. As I've written before, mountain lions have been sighted here over the years, as well.)

From The Mountain JP, Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Killer Mountain Lions Still On The Loose In GMF
By Rick Langenberg

Wildlife authorities are still searching for two mountain lions - a mother and cub - who leaped into a residential yard just off the main street of Green Mountain Falls, dragged away and killed a 15-pound dog.
The incident, which has left many residents on the edge, occurred when the mother lion was apparently teaching her cub how to hunt.
The death of a small Cavashon mix happened in less than a minute.
A humane trap, baited with deer meat, was installed in the area in an effert to capture the killer lions. In addition, town officials have distributed cougar safety tips at the local post office. However, no traces of the culprit lions have been evident, with some speculating that the big cats may have left the area.
In fact, authorities have reported little sign of mountain lion activity since the latest attack. Though authorities have cited the possibility that a mountain lion devoured a goat in the Crystola area recently, that animal death hasn't definitively been attributed to a cougar assult.
Even with the lack of sightings, the recent big cat attacks have prompted many concerns amoung local residents, who are wondering how they can protect their kids and pets in mountain lion country.
Green Mountain Falls Marshal Randy Ford notes that contrary to certain Colorado Division of Wildlife guidelines, residents are allowed to protect themselves, their families and their pets from attacks by lions or any other wildlife within the city limits of Green Mountain Falls. "They can certainly protect themselves and their animals. We just don't want people to shoot them (mountain lions) on sight," said Ford. The use of deadly force to fend off attacks should be done as a last resort, explained the marshal.
That said, he maintains that residents certainly have the right to defend themselves, their family members and pets from dangerous assaults and doesn't discourage people from carrying licensed weapons during outings in the wild, such as in the National Forest.
According to DOW guidelines, people can shoot a lion, if they or members of their families are under attack. But the DOW rules are ambiguous when it comes to a pet getting assaulted, with the DOW not giving pets any more rights than mountain lions. The DOW, through its web site postings and brochures, has stressed that the Pikes Peak region is mountain lion country.
As for other protection measures, the Green Mountain Falls Marshal's Office plans to continue to monitor the playground of the Ute Pass Elememtary School during recess and lunch periods when many kids are outdoors. Authorities are advising parents to keep close tabs on their kids while they play outdoors. In addition, local officials are doing their part in educating residents about cougar safety tips.
In the last few months, locals have occasionally seen cougars right in the middle of town. Ford believes there are about a dozen mountain lions who roam the region, consisting of a 70-square-mile area. There have been more than a dozen sightings in the last few months in the GMF area, with the big cats in some cases basking in the sun in a residential yard, or even strolling down the mian street. "They are pretty lazy," quipped Ford, who says the lions won't try to conceal themselves unless they feel threatened.
In addition, Ford says bobcat sightings have also been prevalent in the last few months. "That is something we have never seen before," said the marshal.
Speculations persisits that big cats have moved in closer to town due to more challenging hunting conditions on Pikes Peak or the increased number of deer in town.
Still, mountain lion encounters are extrememly rare, with only about 50 recorded human/mountain lion encounters in the last 50 years throughout the country, according to Backwood Home magazine.
"You mainly don't want to make yourself a target of opportunity," warns Ford.
For more information, call 227-5200

At "Home" Again

Yes, we are at "home" again - the motel we always stay in when we come back into the Springs, to acclimate before we head to higher ground.

I have so much I want to write about!! Hopefully I'll have more time tomorrow or the next day. We leave on either Monday or Tuesday for our Eastern trip. Time is flying by and I'm usually too tired to write in the evenings. However, maybe as we drive east (where there is less to see in my opinion), I'll be able to write as we drive. Not sure - 75mph down the interstate is not always conducive to writing. We'll see.

For now, a couple photos from today (oh man - when am I going to get time to write about Zion National Park???!!!!).

We drove from Richfield, UT to Craig, CO yesterday. Wow - how can that just be yesterday?? Surely it was a couple days ago! But no - yesterday. We went to Craig because that is where my brother lives and we wanted to surprise him. We were in that area because we wanted to go up to Cheyenne to get my Bible. Yea! They found it at the church! Yea!

We did surprise Wayne. I was afraid maybe his clinic would be closed, but he and 3 of his employees were still there, as well as someone else. It was fun - we walked in, saw him sitting over in a corner of the waiting room talking to the other person, and just stood and waited while chatting with his receptionist/bookkeeper. We had come in through the employees door, but we didn't know that. Wayne looked up, saw us standing there and did the classical double-take. :-) After chatting awhile, he invited us and two of his employees and the mother of one of the girls to go to dinner. So, we all drove over to a Chinese place, sat around a big table, talked and ate and enjoyed our time. We spent the night there in Craig. This morning we went back over to his clinic to say goodbye and I took a few photos. He was in surgery: , spaying and neutering 2 cats and 3 dogs. His dog, Charlotte, was there as usual and I had fun kicking a tennis ball for her to chase. Charlotte is camera shy, though. The minute I got out the camera, she took off and didn't come out until Wayne finished and called her. Then she was 'shy' until I put the camera away. I've never seen a camera shy dog before! We couldn't stay long because we had to be in Cheyenne by 4:30, so we said goodbye and took off up the road.

We lost count of the number of dead deer along the road between Craig and I-70 in Wyoming. Oh my gosh! Well over 30. Carcasses on both sides of the road, some almost just hide and bones, others fresh, and one where the blood on the highway was still bright red. We also saw at least one elk and Mel saw a dead coyote. The only good thing about all the dead deer was the eagles we saw feeding on them. Bald eagles and either young bald eagles or golden eagles - maybe both. The following 3 photos are of one that actually stayed and watched us while Mel changed batteries in his MP3 player and I took several photos, using telephoto on my new camera. Wow! It's been awhile since I've seen an eagle this close. We know others were bald eagles because their heads were shiny white. Beautiful creatures! You can also see a raven and a magpie in one of the photos. There were dozens of maggies and ravens everywhere.



Finally we got to I-70 and this is what we ran into: High winds and ground blizzards for almost 100 miles. The speed limit was down to 65mph and I'm glad. The wind really rocked the car on some of the hills. Wyoming in this area is like this, so we were not surprised.

We had a nice talk with the pastor of the church there in Cheyenne. Then he invited us to go out with his wife and 3 kids to get some dinner. I don't remember meeting his family before, so this was a nice treat for us.

And now - now we are "home" and I'm ready for bed.

Our Food Supply in The Balance:

A simple little bee - yet our food supply depends on it doing what God intended it to do.
Plight of the Bumblebee, FoxNews
GRANTS PASS, Ore. -- Conservation groups and scientists want federal agricultural authorities to start regulating shipments of commercially domesticated bumblebees -- used to pollinate crops -- to protect wild bumblebees from diseases threatening their survival.

The groups said Tuesday that four species of bumblebees once common in the United States have seen drastic declines -- and the evidence points to diseases spreading out of greenhouses that use domesticated bumblebees.

"This is the tip of the iceberg," said Scott Hoffman Black, executive director of the Xerces Society, an insect conservation group based in Portland. "Bumblebees need to be regulated or we may see other diseases spread to bumblebees and potentially other bees."

Besides pollinating wild plants, bumblebees are responsible for pollinating about 15 percent of all the crops grown in the U.S., worth $3 billion. Demand has been growing as supplies of honeybees decline, especially for hothouse crops such as tomatoes, peppers and strawberries, and field crops such as blueberries, cranberries, raspberries, squash and watermelon.

Federal regulation is needed because while some states, like Oregon, prohibit importation of bumblebees, others, such as Washington and California, allow it, Black said.

Two European companies produce commercial bumblebee hives sold in the US: Koppert Biological Systems Inc., of the Netherlands, and Biobest Biological Systems of Belgium. Telephone calls to Koppert's office in Canada and Biobest's office in Michigan were not immediately returned.

The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service did not immediately return telephone calls and e-mails for comment.

The Xerces Society, Natural Resources Defense Council, Defenders of Wildlife and University of California, Davis entomologist Robbin Thorp formally petitioned the U.S. Department of Agriculture and its Animal and Plant Health Inspection service. They want to prohibit shipping commercially domesticated bumblebees and hives outside their native range, and to certify that domesticated bumblebees are disease free.

The petition cited steep declines in recent years of the Franklin's and Western bumblebee in the West, and the rusty-patched and yellow-banded bumblebee in the East.

Nine prominent entomologists signed a letter in support of the petition.

"A major threat to the survival of these wild bumblebee pollinators is the spread of disease from commercially produced bees that are transported throughout the country," said the letter, signed by University of Kansas entomologist Charles Michener and others.

Black said they wanted to work with federal authorities to control the spread of disease before taking the next step, seeking Endangered Species Act protection for the bumblebees.

While research has yet to conclusively blame a specific disease shared with domesticated species, the petition cited studies showing domesticated bumblebees regularly escape greenhouses and one bee can infect another when they come in contact gathering pollen.

Unlike honeybees, which came to North America with the European colonists of the 17th century, bumblebees are natives. They collect pollen and nectar to feed to their young but make very little honey.

A 2007 National Academy of Sciences report blamed the decline of pollinators around the world on a combination of habitat loss, pesticides, pollution and diseases spilling out of greenhouses using commercial bumblebee hives.

Three Mountain Lion Articles

Andrew and I were talking a few nights ago. He told me he had parked "up at the top" of the hill and walked home that night due to the snow and ice on the road. This is the usual thing to do - we've done it for almost 40 years up at my parents. Andrew then told me that as he was walking he remembered what someone had told him at church: Division of Wildlife has documented 4 mountain lions (cougars) in the Catamount area. ("Catamount" is another word for mountain lion/cougar.) Guess where my parents and Andrew live? Yep - in the Catamount area. Andrew was immediately spooked and made it home in very good time. :-)

Members of my family have seen mountain lions several times over the almost 40 years they've lived up there. I've written about it before, but I pray often for my parent's safety and for Stirling's safety when any of them are outside. All 3 are prime targets for a lion attack, due to size and/or age.

Following are 2 recent articles and one YouTube video about very recent attacks in Utah. We saw the original video on the news while we were in Grand Junction, CO.

"Mother Stops Cougar Attack With Nothing But a Rag
Armed with nothing more than a scrub rag, a mother in British Columbia rescued her 7-year-old son from being mauled by a cougar outside their church.

David Metzler Jr. was pinned down in the snow by a cougar the morning of Dec. 31, the Globe and Mail reports. He was bleeding from his scalp and back when his mother Mary Metzler ran out of the Mennonite church in Danskin, British Columbia (a town of 2,000 about 400 miles from the southeast tip of Alaska). She brandished nothing but a rag.

"I saw this animal on top of my son with his mouth at his head," she tells the Globe and Mail. "I knew if I went back and took time to call for help, it would be too late."

She smacked the animal on the head with the rag. You might expect this to be little more than an annoyance for a 66-pound cougar. However, it contritely dropped the boy and fled.

"I just took it and hit him in the face," Metzler tells the paper.

Metzler took her three children to the church to tidy up that morning. The children -- ages 2, 5 and 7 -- played outside. The church volunteer tells the paper she went to the stockroom for cleaning supplies. She had just picked up a rag the size of face towel when she heard the children screaming.

"I've heard children scream before, but nothing like this," she tells the Globe and Mail. "I knew instantly. It was a petrified scream."

Metzler went to the window and saw David Jr. being mauled.

"I didn't recognize it as a cougar at first," she tells the paper. "I just knew it was an animal on top of my son."

The cougar had taken the boy to the ground about three yards outside the church door. Just as Metzler got within striking distance, the cougar raised its head.

"It looked at me, eye to eye," she tells the paper.

She got her son inside the building and raced outside for her other children, unaware there was probably a second cougar skulking nearby.

Metzler tells the Globe and Mail she thinks two of the children were sliding on a nearby hill when the youngest fell, and her brother ran to help her up. Then they saw the cougar and screamed.

"At first they froze," Metzler tells the paper. "Then Davey made a run for the door, and that's when the cougar got him."

The Globe and Mail reports the boy's wounds were minor, and he was back at school within days.

Conservation officers tracked down two female cougars and killed them.

This was the second cougar attack in British Columbia in recent days. On Jan. 2, 11-year-old Austin Forman tells the Globe and Mail his golden retriever saved him from getting mauled outside his home in Boston Bar in southern British Columbia.

Chad Gravelle of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police shot and killed the cougar during its fight with the dog in the Formans' yard.

As for the incident in Danskin, the cougar that attacked his son should have known better, David Metzler Sr. tells the Globe and Mail. "It's a mother's instinct: 'Don't mess with my kids.'

Mountain Lion Shot after Killing Family Dog
PEOA, Utah - Elain Jorgenson walked outside her house to feed her dog only to discover her 11-year-old Yorkshire Terrier mauled to death, bloodied and in nearly an unrecognizable state. She turned around and took two steps back to find a Mountain Lion hissing at her. Reeling in shock, she turned and ran into the house calling out her husband. "So I'm yelling at him 'please get the gun'; he shoots it, we call 911 to let them know what happened."

The couple is from Peoa, a small town just northeast of Park City, nestled in the mountains.

Wildlife experts call this an isolated incident, but warn those to be safe and try to keep pets inside as much as possible this winter.

"This situation was a young juvenile cat, first winter on its own in my estimation...looking for food in the winter," Jorgenson says.

Dog Saves Boy from Cougar

American Mom, Baby Killed by Elephant in Kenya
NAIROBI, Kenya — A lone elephant charged out of the brush as an American family was hiking near Mount Kenya and trampled to death a mother and the 1-year-old daughter she held in her arms, officials said Wednesday.

Four adults and the baby were walking with an unarmed guide just outside Mount Kenya National Park on Monday morning when the elephant charged, said Kenya Wildlife Service official Michael Kipkeu.

The family was hiking on a nature trail about 1 mile from the Castle Forest Lodge, where the family was vacationing, said the owner, Melia van Laar.

"The elephant emerged from the bush at full speed without any warning," van Laar said. "Everybody ran away, but the lady, burdened by the weight of the baby, perhaps, or in panic, was not able to run fast enough."


More info by clicking the link.

In The News: Illinois Woman Hits Two Deer in 10 Minutes

This article really should be retitled: "Illinois Woman HIT BY Two Deer in 10 Minutes". We were hit by a deer once. Jumped off the side of the road right into the side of our car and then ran off. Really messed up our front passenger side fender. Sometimes I think they are kamakazi deer.


Illinois Driver Hits Two Deer in 10 Minutes
Sunday, November 08, 2009

JERSEYVILLE, Ill. — Kathryn Gowin was already spooked after she hit a deer with her Ford Explorer last week in southern Illinois.

Then 10 minutes later, she hit another one.

Gowin says she's been driving the back roads near her Bunker Hill home for more than 30 years, and she's never hit a deer.

She says the first deer darted into the driver's side of her SUV, damaging her wheel well, grill, bumper and headlight.

Since her car was drivable and she was close to home, Illinois State Police told her to drive the rest of the way.

But half a mile later, a second deer lunged into the road, this time into the passenger side. It took out her right front fender and door.

She was uninjured. It isn't clear whether the deer fared as well.

Interesting Article

Enormous Jellyfish Sink Japanese Fishing Boat
Monday, November 02, 2009

Pink, slimy and repellent, the Nomura’s jellyfish is an authentic horror of the deep that's been assaulting Japan. Now the creatures have sunk a 10-ton fishing trawler.

The boat was capsized off Chiba in Japan, as its three-man crew was trying to haul in a net containing dozens of huge Nomura's jellyfish. Four years after they last reared their slimy heads, and for reasons that remain mysterious, an armada of the gelatinous giants has gathered in the Yellow Sea off China and the Korean peninsula.

Now it has drifted into the Sea of Japan, and brought down the Diasan Shinsho-maru. One of the largest jellyfish in the world, the Nomura's jellyfish can grow up to 6 feet in diameter and weigh as much as 400 pounds.

The Telegraph reports that the boat's crew was thrown into the sea, but the three men were rescued by another trawler. The local Coast Guard office reported that the weather was clear and the sea was calm at the time of the accident.

Experts believe weather and water conditions in the breeding grounds, off the coast of China, have been ideal for the jellyfish in recent months.

"The arrival is inevitable," Professor Shinichi Ue at Hiroshima University, told the Yomiuri newspaper. "A huge jellyfish typhoon will hit the country."

In 2005, fishermen looking for anchovies, salmon and yellowtail began finding huge numbers of the jellyfish in their nets. When the Nomuras grow larger than a metre in diameter, half a dozen of them can destroy a fishing net. The fish caught alongside them are poisoned and covered in slime and rendered unsaleable.

So serious was the situation that salmon boats in northern Japan stopped going out, and in some places fishermen lost 80 per cent of their income. Even staff at some of the nuclear power plants along the Japan Sea coast found that the jellyfish got sucked into the pumps which take in sea water to cool the reactors.

No one is sure about the reasons for the slimy plague. One theory is that climate change is heating up the sea water and encouraging them to breed. Another blames effluent from rivers in China, which carries nutrients on which the jellyfish feed. Another blames over-fishing of other species, leaving a surfeit of plankton for the Echizen kurage to feed on.

The Times of London contributed to this story.

Interesting Article - Coyotes Kill Man

When Coyotes Attack: Humans Not Typical Prey
Thursday, October 29, 2009

We associate coyotes with other, potentially ferocious wild canines, such as wolves, yet coyotes are far less violent than their kin. That's why biologists were so mystified by the recent deadly attack on Canadian folk singer Taylor Mitchell by two coyotes.

"I don’t think they regard people, even kids, as an opportunity for a food source, so this is certainly an abnormal attack," John Way said in an interview with the Chronicle Herald. Way runs Eastern Coyote Research in Massachusetts and has studied the animals for 12 years.

The coyotes who killed Mitchell were far more aggressive than usual, noted Bridgit Leger, a spokeswoman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Ledger told the Times of London that police shot one of the animals at the scene, wounding it. But the wounded animal and a companion coyote managed to get away.

The two coyotes were "extremely aggressive" when rangers arrived at the scene of the attack, Ledger told the Times. "Coyotes are normally afraid of humans. This is a very irregular occurrence," Leger said.

Coyotes (canis latrans) are omnivores that primarily eat small mammals, such as squirrels and voles, but they can subsist on insects, fruit and even grass. This versatility may explain the explosion in coyote populations in recent years.

The animals crop up in headlines far more frequently for attacking family pets than the families themselves. Coyotes roam in packs, like wolves, but are smaller creatures, adults growing to a maximum of 50 pounds. Wolves are carnivores that can grow to 175 pounds and are much more likely to attack.

Way also noted the fact that the incident happened in a sparsely populated, pointing out that coyotes tend to run at the first sign of humans in the wild.

Wildlife biologist Bob Bancroft confirmed that coyotes are shy creatures. Bancroft, a retired biologist with Nova Scotia’s Department of Natural Resources, doesn't think the attack is likely to be repeated.

"We shouldn’t assume that coyotes are suddenly going to become the big bad wolf," Bancroft said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Bits n Pieces on a Foggy Fall Morning

I've noticed that other people do regular things, repeat things, on their blogs. Maybe I can start some "regular repeat things" on my blog! so ....

Because I'm interested in it:

10/14 - 6.3 - 8:00:22 SAMOA ISLANDS REGION

10/15 - 6.0 - 12:11:18 PAPUA, INDONESIA
10/15 - 6.0 - 17:48:22 GALAPAGOS TRIPLE JUNCTION REGION

10/16 - 6.1 - 09:52:53 SUNDA STRAIT, INDONESIA

10/19 - 6.1 - 07:41:43 SAMOA ISLANDS REGION (after review of data, this one was downgraded to a 5.8 but then another one happened:
10/19 - 6.2 - 22:49:38 SAMOA ISLANDS REGION

If any more happen today, I'll add them tomorrow to this list. The day is still young!
(see Our Moving Earth for last weeks list of 6.0 and above) :-)

and of course:
Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 17 days
2009 total: 228 days (79%)
Since 2004: 739 days
Typical Solar Min: 485 days
Updated 18 Oct 2009

The sunspot spotless days just continue to mount up. Yet, this happens:
EARTH-DIRECTED ERUPTION: On Saturday, Oct. 17th, starting around 18:24 UT, a spotless active region in the sun's southern hemisphere erupted, hurling a faint coronal mass ejection (CME) in the general direction of Earth. SOHO's extreme UV telescope recorded this movie of the blast. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras on Oct. 19th or 20th when the CME arrives.
The sun may be spotless, but it is not quiet.

~*~*~*~*~
Which reminds me - I already miss the sun this winter. Several days now with little or no sunshine at all. Just lots of rain and mist. We need the rain and mist very much, but I miss the sunshine! I'm glad we'll be in Colorado part of the winter.

~*~*~*~*~
Which also reminds me - Valentina and Melinda were over for dinner last week while Mel was gone to presbytery meetings in another city. While we were eating, Valentina told us that 'they' are saying the winter wheat crop may not be good this year here in Ukraine. This summer was very dry and it damaged the crop. Altho we are having good rains now, it may be too late. Only time will tell.

It really was a dry summer. There were a couple of heavy rains, but mostly we had rather mild dry weather. An unusual summer compared to all the other summers we've been here. I remember only a couple of thunderstorms. Most summers we have some doozies. They seem to hurry by, but while they are overhead, they are doozies. Not so this summer. The couple we did have, though - well, they were doozies.

Ha ha

~*~*~*~*~
And thinking along those lines, the facebook news earlier this late summer/early fall was that some people were having a hard time finding canned pumpkin on store shelves. I wonder if that is continuing? I made a really good pumpkin soup two nights ago for dinner, and then finished it up last night for dinner. It's a new soup for me. Would never have dreamed I would really, really like pumpkin soup! But I do. With peanut butter and curry and garlic and cayenne and onion - all to taste. Yummy! So, I hope there is not a pumpkin-for-eating shortage!

When I talked to my mother on Saturday she told me that in their little greenhouse/atrium on the southside of the house, the tomato plants were beautiful this year. Big, luscious plants with lots of blooms. My father does the Q-tip pollination trick every year and altho the atrium is totally enclosed, they usually have a nice supply of fresh tomatoes all year. This summer - lots of blooms, not one tomato. Not ONE! My Dad and uncle dug a nice garden on the south side of the pumphouse where there is lots of sunshine and it's protected. They added good compost, good soil, and prepared it real well. Mom said they got something like 3 beans or peas (can't remember which). She said all of the seeds were new, not left overs from former years.

I read on a blog post from Canada that a woman got 3 pounds of potatoes this year from several potato plants. THREE POUNDS. She planted more than 3 pounds, but that is all she got.

I read on another blog post from earlier this summer that a woman's garden produced no tomatoes, no potatoes and no pumpkins. The squash all had a bite taken out of them by a gopher, but she was hoping to save them anyway.

I've read that there was another failure of the rice harvest in either the Far East or India (I need to look that up again). I bought rice here the other day and the packages are now half the size they used to be but cost more than they did before.

Meanwhile in California, the environmentalists continue to deny water to the San Juaquin Valley farmers so there are no crops being grown there. People are without work, people are hungry, people are angry - and this is just the beginning. All for the sake of a tiny endangered little creature. The life of a creature is more important than the lives of thousands of humans? Apparently!

There was a report on the news just this week that over 1 billion people in the world are hungry right now as I write this - starving. That is 1/6th of the world's population.

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When I was talking to my mother, she told me that they saw two huge herds of deer and elk while driving late the other night. A woman who lives in a house 'up the hill' from them had been feeding deer (illegal) and the deer have lost their fear of people. My dad was out working in the yard, bending over to do something on the ground when he felt a nudge at his back pocket. He looked back over his shoulder and a deer was nipping at his pocket. He calmly stood up, slowly moved over to his table saw, which he uses to cut firewood, and turned it on. The deer scampered off.

Why is this important and why does this concern me? For three reasons: one - deer kill people. Yes, they DO!! Older people are especially vulerable due to their lack of balance and the possibility of falling if struck by an antler or the sharp hoof of a deer. A wild life officer told us of an elderly women he knew who was attacked and trampled by a 'tame' deer (we also read the account in our local newspaper). Two - our daughter, Kara, was threatened by a deer while walking home from the bus stop after school one day. The deer actually forced her off a path in the snow and made her walk through deeper snow to get home. The deer was used to being around people because of a local lodge where guests often fed them bread. Kara hates deer to this day! They are not the nice little Bambi creatures we have been led to believe. They are wild animals, have a 'herd structure' and will challenge humans who appear weaker than they. And last, but not least! - deer attract predators: bears, mountain lions, wolves (yes there are wolves in Colorado - I have seen them in the wild with MY OWN EYES and I KNOW the difference between a coyote and a wolf!!! Don't let environmentalists fool you - they and grizzly bears (we had a visual visit of a big one at my parents house a few years ago) both exist in places where they "officially" do not exist!).

Last week, our son Andrew, who lives with my parents, was making dinner in the middle of the night (he works odd hours). He had just been reading some spooky stuff (sci-fi, I think) and kept feeling like he was being watched. He was working in a mostly dark kitchen since he didn't want to wake my parents. Suddenly he looked up, and there out the window above the stove, standing right in front of the window, almost nose to glass, was a big buck, looking in and watching everything Andrew was doing. Mom said Andrew yelled in the shock of it. :-) I would have screamed, too, maybe had a heart attack afterward. heh heh. Andrew took his dinner into the livingroom, looked up out the window - and there was another buck looking at him in the livingroom window. Needless to say - Andrew was shocked.

I laugh as I write this, but I admit, when I'm at my parents place and we sleep in the livingroom, when I get up at night, I always look out the livingroom window to see if there is something there looking in and watching me. :-)

The forest has eyes, you know!

Mom thinks "the woman up the hill" may be feeding the foxes now because she's seen them sitting in the woman's yard as they drive by. Mom was out hanging up clothes the other day and noticed a fox in the tall grass. She said it came over near her, sat down and watched her. She told it to go away, but it just sat there and watched her work. I said, "Mom, you need to be careful! One of them might have rabies or some other disease and they are obviously not afraid of humans any more! After your stroke, you are not as strong as you were and your balance is not as good. Please be careful!" She agreed with me (I was surprised) and said that neither she nor Dad go out in the unfenced part of the yard much alone any more. I was so glad to hear that. Kara has also seen a bear in the area when going to work in the wee hours of the morning, and we know there are mountain lions in the region (there is a YouTube video of a mountain lion killing a deer just 7 miles from my parent house!).

There were 4 bears wandering around the middle of Colorado Springs just a month or 6 weeks ago. A friend on facebook took photos and posted them on facebook. There was also reports of a mountain lion in eastern Colorado Springs. I am sure this is happening in other areas, too, not just Colorado Springs and Woodland Park!

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AIDS, Bird Flu, Swine Flu, TB oh my. It never ends.

Our ruling elder told us at the prayer meeting last Tues. night that the government here is warning people that there are going to be 4 flu strains going around this winter. He is an herbalist and was giving us all advice on what we should be taking and drinking instead of regular medicines. Also saying, I understood, that the authorities say there won't be enough vaccine for everyone. And much much more. I only understood part of what he was saying and there was no translation. Rumors abound here, especially this time of year. Time will tell.

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When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, "Come!" I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth. Revelation 6:7,8

Seen On Our Walk Today

This is a small sampling of things Mel and I saw today as we walked over to the new church construction and then back to a friends flat for dinner tonight.
There were at least 2 or 3 kids playing in this "tipi". I would have taken photos from the other side, but there was a group of babushkas (grannies) sitting just to the right side of the photo, watching us. A good rule of thumb here - don't make the grannies upset! They started chattering together as soon as they saw us, and then watched us like little hawks. We are so very obviously foreigners... As we walked by on the right side, the kids looked out the "windows" and laughed at us - you know, the snickering laugh of "I can see you, but you can't see me!" Oh, this brought back so many memories of my own childhood! We made houses out of blankets on the clothes line, cardboard boxes and even, out at my grandparents ranch, an old 100 gallon drum (or maybe it was bigger than that - 500 gallon? It sat on top of the pump house until the pump house was hit by lightning and burned down. Then it became a 'house' we 5 played in, rolling it all over the place between the ranch buildings, sweeping sand and tumbleweeds out of it, and having all sorts of great imaginations. happy sigh)
It's watermelon season! We won't be buying any, tho, at least not for several weeks. We were warned when we first got here not to buy the first watermelons because they are full of nitrates from the fertilizer used to get them ripe faster and to the market. I wasn't sure I believed that until I got really sick after eating one. I've had a hard time eating any watermelon here at ll since then - and watermelon used to be one of my favorite fruits! Believe me, it was not a fun experience!!
In the little kiosk to the right of the watermelons is a flower stand. Directly across the street from it is another one. Gladiolas are now in season! They are so pretty, in such a wide variety of colors. In the background, all the yellow is one of the new supermarkets - АНТАЛ - Antal (on-tall). And yes, those big huge potholes really are the road that goes between two apartment buildings, and between at least 4 more. There are 3 or 4 more kiosks selling fresh veggies and dried fish just to the right of the photo and they actually extend out into the road, so the potholes are separated by a curb, but people drive with wheels on either side of the curb. We had rain again very early this morning so the potholes were nice and full and the humidity was really high. Fortunately, the temperature was just in the high 80's, down for the mid to high 90's. It's supposed to go back up, tho. Bummer. I miss cooler and dryer Colorado. :)
Flowers in front of an apartment building.
Cat watching us watch her. I like the word for cat in Russian: Koshka кошка I hope I spelled that right and I'm not missing a little myaki znak ь in there somewhere!
The church! They have got a lot done since we were there last week. Yea! The street on the right side is actually dug up all the way down to the water pipes so hopefully they are getting the water hooked up. There is still no sewer line out, however - that will come later. Even after 10 years we are still sometimes astonished over how things are built here... :( . Anyway, the fence is partially up, the roof is almost finished and now the water is on it's way! Soon we will be able to worship there. Yea! In the following photo you can see the end of the wall that is going up between the church and the house behind it. Plus you can see the outhouse, or one of them, that the original house had, rather than indoor plumbing. I think it's still being used for the construction guys. :) And that is a small sampling of what we saw today.

I wish I could take photos on the trolleybus, but I'm just not brave enough to try when there are a lot of people on it. I wouldn't want my photo taken by a stranger like that, so I don't try. But the ride over to the bus stop nearest the church was interesting today as usual. I look at all the faces and wonder what the spiritual condition is of the persons behind them.

Everybody Does It

There is something about little boys that I really like. They are very curious. They are very focused. When they are interested in something, they tend to pursue knowledge of that subject with a passion. My grandson, Stirling, is such a little boy. At 4.5 years old he's fully alive at figuring out what makes the world go round. He's got a zillion questions. And I loved answering them.

Too often adults don't listen to the questions small children ask. Or they hear the question and answer the question without probing to find out what originally sparked the question. I love exploring the mind of a child, wandering here and there with it, seeing the world through new eyes once again.

Why give a child a simple answer that is incomplete when you can give them a more complex answer that opens up new vistas for them? Of course, you need to use terms a child can understand, not something out of a college textbook! But I am always amazed at how quickly kids pick stuff up and run with it in their minds.

So, what was Stirling so fascinated with while we were home?
The simple answer - poop.
Who poops?
What does it look like?
Where is it found?
And many more questions dealing with poop. I tried to answer them all. I tried to give him the right amount of information that would cause him to want to learn even more. We had some very 'interesting' discussions. :)

We went to the zoo again. He was very interested this time in zoo animal poop. The hippos were outside when we arrived at their house. The zookeepers were cleaning their indoor pond. Big piles of greenish-brownish stuff littered their outdoor area. "Is that poop, Grandma Cindie?" "Yes, Stirling, that is hippo poop."

I looked at him and his eyes were big and round and he was staring quite intently at it, with an occasional glance at the animal that produced it. He is fascinated with hippos and they terrify him (they not only have huge poop, they make the most horrible loud noises when they 'talk' to each other).

We went inside later when the animals were allowed back in. The hippos walked as quickly as a hippo can walk into their water and within just 3 or 4 minutes, big lumps of greenish-brownish stuff was floating on the water, dissolving and staining the water an ugly color.

"Is that poop, Grandma Cindie?" "Yes, Stirling, that is hippo poop floating on the water. Boy, they go to the bathroom a lot, don't they?" And with big round eyes staring at the water, he nodded his head. Stirling and Kara feeding birds at the zoo.

In many different places and at many different times I was asked, "Do bugs poop?" "Is that goose poop?" (while watching wild Canadian geese and 3 goslings at a local open area.) And while we walked along the mountain side along the Matakat part of the Hayman Fire area, Stirling and I found at least 6 kinds of poop. Elk, deer, rabbit, bird, cow and horse. And he left a little of his own sample, but we dug a hole and buried it so no one else would have to find it. We may have even seen chipmunk poop, but I was very uncertain of that, although I did say "Yes, that might be chipmunk poop." Stilring on the lookout.

In our modern day society we usually don't learn much about animal poop (unless, of course, you have a dog, cat, bird or fish). But in years gone by, it was very important to know what certain animal scat looked like. Hunters could tell what animal had been there, how long ago it had been there, and sometimes even what the animal had been eating (elk eating fresh grass leave a slightly different dropping than those eating dried grasses, etc.), Simply by looking at the animal poop. Even today when you take your animal to the vet (or you go to the doctor yourself!), the vet will ask about their bowel movements - normal, loose, runny, constipated, etc.

And scientists study animal poop all the time. In the Earth Observatory photo I looked at today, this is what I saw: Scientists Locate Penguins by What They Leave Behind (click to make bigger) Can you see it there in the photo from space? I bet Stirling could!

Maybe Stirling will grow up to be a veterinarian, like his great Uncle Wayne. Or maybe he'll grow up to be a scientist of some other sort. Whatever he grows up to be, I hope he never outgrows his curiosity about the simplest things, the most common things - like poop.