Merry Christmas!

Wishing you all a Very Merry Christmas! Happy Yule! Happy Holiday!





I very much appreciate each and every one of you - including the 'secret readers'.





George and I would also like to wish a Very Merry Christmas to the boys in Kazakhstan.





A special greeting to you, Jonny. I hope your holiday in Thailand is going well. Everyone from home, plus several people from the village send you their love.

Big hugs and lots of love from your Mum.xxx





I still have a couple of gifts to wrap and an old film to watch.





So, Goodbye for now,





Elaine

x

North Side Tour

Have been a little back in my blogging. Maybe I can catch up this morning.
After the frustrations dealing with the dealership last Thursday morning, I needed a bike ride. In the afternoon, I parked downtown CB and stopped at the bike shop. Had a particular reason to stop at the bike shop - drop off some calendars.
Decided to check out the trails on the North side of town. Rode city streets up to the Sheriff's Dept. The road to Big Lake is still barricaded (as of Thursday - see photo). Water is basically under the railroad and I could see lots of clean-up activity in the park. I would not be surprised to see that Big Lake Park open now or very soon.
As I rode Iowa Riverfront Trail, I realized that some of the pumps have been shut down. The river level is continuing to drop. Standing water along the golf course is receding (tells me that they are slowly getting the ground water level under control).
Survey stake all along the level. Some makings on the pavement - looks like sections that will be replaced. Some sections have been almost destroyed by trucks and equipment driving on the levee during the flood.

Shot the lower photo here overlooking the lower level of Harrah's parking garage. From what I could see it looks like the water is nearly gone in the lower level. They have lots of cleaning up to do, clearing all the water silt, but perhaps they may soon open the section of the bicycle trail there.
On the way back, I looked at the area South the the Bob Bridge where the CB was building the new park/green space between the levee and the river. The area looks like coastal tidal flats.
Lots of devastation along the river. Much of the island between the river and chute is gone (maybe more will be visible after the river level gets down to normal). Many trees have died and are dying from toppling in the storms and high water.

The Buffalo Round Up

The Buffalo Round Up weekend is finally here. We have moved into the Employee campground in the Park hoping there will be less of a chance of being sucked back into work on Monday. Also we won't have to get up at 4 a.m. to make the trip into the Park.



The neighbors are pretty quiet

We even get to enjoy acampfire aka old file burning party!

We drive down the Wild Life Loop to check out the parking for Monday and run into my favorite friends! This time I bring carrots and apples. They are a big hit.

Most of the Buffalo have already been herded together in this part of the Park. Are those buffalo we see in the Distance?

Well, lets use the 30x zoom on my new Sony Camera and see!Oops might need that digital zoom as well. Not bad for a hand held shot with no tripodWe also finally made it up to the CoolidgeLook OutQuite the View!What's out there in the distance? Why Crazy Horse and George! I love my new Zoom!We went to the Art Show and Auction

These paintedTable Top Buffalo as well as 5 life size Buffalo Statues were auctioned off. The Life Size went from $5,100 to $2,700 and the Table Tops from $900 to $3,000.00 each. They've sold up to $10,000 each in previous years.


We get up early on Monday and join the line that's forming to the parking areas at 5:30 a.m. The parking opens at 6:15 a.m and it is only about 10 miles away. We get to about 2 miles away when we come to a complete stop.

We arrive at the gate about 7 a.m. About 1/4 mile from the Gate we passed a Van that wasn't moving. We thought maybe their battery had died or they had run out of gas - as we passed we saw that the driver had fallen asleep! Hey Guys! I got up at 3:00 a.m and was only 20th in line!

A view from our viewing area to the North Viewing area. We were 1 row back from the fence.

A zoom shot over to the Corrals where the Wranglers are getting ready

Finally about 9:45 the round up begins. The herd starts down over the ridge by the North Area

They're being herded by Horses and Trucks

Past the North Area

Across Lame Johnny Road and through Fence No. 1

At 10 a.m. it is already in the 70's and they don't push the herd very hard and rest them every so often it is more of a Stroll than a stampede at times and the Buffalo seem to already know the program and wander calmly into the Corral.

Of Course there are probably 14,000 people who have come to watch so they get the last group to charge in the final stretch

Here's a video of the final charge. On the 2nd group that turns back you can see they knock down the fence. They sheared off a good 10 inch thick woodfence post.






Safe and Sound in the Corrals

Glad we got the chance to see it. Of course our employee that works on Friday nights quit because we weren't there to help her - although we were only a phone call away. Thankfully the only one working Monday showed up! At least we had our two days off this week and only 2 more weeks to go!

Till Later!

Meanwhile, we keep on Trek'n

Melissa & Gary

Madopterini

Weevil party at the nearest daisy, pass it on...
I think these weevils are in the tribe Madopterini. Though I might just be leaning towards that conclusion since I like the name so much.
I wasn't even aware that there were such things as tribes, taxonomically speaking, until I started trying to look up bugs. Just as species can be further divided into subspecies, families are sometimes further divided into subfamily, tribe, and subtribe.
Madopterini: More likely to march on Rome, or to perform straightjacket escapes while upside down and underwater?
All zoological tribes end in -ini, apparently. (I would not have been able to resist naming several of them after Italian operatic composers.)
-----
A professor at the University of Florida has a nice series of pages about writing scientific papers. They include sections on species name formation, Greek and Latin words adopted into English, pronunciation of scientific names, and several other interesting topics.

2 Weeks off the Bike

Since return from Albuquerque, the weather has not been conducive to bicycle riding (guess it was not good in Abq, either). Yesterday I got out to check the snow covered dirt trails at Lake Manawa. Temperature was just about freezing and filtered sunshine.
As you can see from the photo here, there has been a snowmobile through the West side - no surprise, happens every year. Lots of walkers along the river. No bicycle tracks. The snow was frozen hard which makes rough riding. Riding my hardtail, wishing I was riding the Fuel EX7!
Tried to ride the singletrack. There were only a couple footprints. The crusty snow made it just too much work to try riding.
Going to get sloppy riding with the snow melt - 40s over the weekend, climbing into the 50s middle of next week. But it will sure be nice!

The dig

Not sure what will happen if you do push food through the bars. They seem to have brought their own, so they can't be starving.

The dig is taking place in the quadrangle of the University of Edinburgh's Old College. The current buildings date from 1789, and were built on top of Kirk O'Fields, the site of the murder in 1567 of Lord Darnley, second husband of Mary Queen of Scots.


Two skeletons have been uncovered, found in the coffin-shaped indentations immediately to the right of the green netting in the shot below. With the naked eye, but less so in a photo, you can make out the indentations where the bones lay. The remains have now been interred in a graveyard. There's no suggestion that I've seen that the remains were those of Darnley and his valet, and I think they're likely to remain unidentified after so long.

When Life Gets To Be "Too Much"

The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
— Wendell Berry

First Snow!

Highway 61 on the East side of Mt. Josephine - Taken on my commute to work last Sunday morning. It sure was a beautiful drive with all the fresh snow sticking to the trees!

New Girls in the Owl Wood

Snow, sleet, hailstones, heavy rain, biting northerly winds.

Hardly the ideal way to welcome four semi-plucked ex battery hens to the big wide world of Owl Wood.



We collected them from a farm on the far side of Lincolnshire. When we arrived there were some two hundred blonde and balding hens taking their first breaths of freedom in the bitterly cold yard of the farm. One of the assistants caught four hens for us, and as we put them into the cardboard boxes two characters immediately shone through.

The one who has most of her feathers is definitely a feisty one, she decided that she didn't want to be in the box and made to escape, I had to restrain her. The other one which came to our attention was plonked in the box and immediately fell flat on her face.. and stayed that way. Once we had assisted her to the upright position she was fine. Bewildered, confused, hen-pecked - she has a bald neck and few feathers.

The feisty one to the left, the confused one is to the right.

It distresses me to see them looking like this, but they are in far better condition than the first batch we had, and they went on to enjoy several happy years with us.

These girls will soon settle in and get their cosy feather duvets to keep them warm.

Welcome to our little woodland, girls.

You are about to have the time of your lives.

You will be pampered and loved - and you will have your freedom to roam and do "hen things".

Symposium - Day 2

Today, I had to take a photo of what I could use as a bike rack inside of the Convention Center. OH well.
The day started with coffee & rolls in a session called "Trail Talk". I sat at the table where the topic was "Trail Maintenance - You Built, They Came, Now What".
After coffee, it was off to the meeting rooms. There were 2 session in the morning that I was interested in: "Inviting the Community Back into the Woods - Nature Trails in Urban Landscapes" and "Biking Toward a Sustainable Future". Both of these were lead by IMBA.
We broke for lunch where the SHORT business meeting was held (elect the board and adjourn). Keynote Addess was made by Dr. Richard Jacksin, UCLA School of Public Health.

In the afternoon, I attended presentations titled "Buy, Sell, Beg, or Borrow: Creative Funding Ideas from American Trails" presented by Friends of the Katy Trail (the Dallas, Katy Trail) and "Understanding Sustainablity and Boulding Better Trails" presented by IMBA and Elakah Expeditions.
The day closed with the "Trails Rock" Party at the Clinton Library.

Raspberries

Raspberries, originally uploaded by ParsecTraveller.

Berries for sale at the SLO Farmers' Market.

Indecisive cropping

I'm growing Zinnias for Hospice again this year. They're perfect for me: varied, easy, prolific, and forgiving. And, good for Hospice: long vase life.

I'm growing the same types as before, but their behavior this year (when not totally drought-stricken) is wildly different. The large varieties are doing so much better that I'd think they were different plants. (They're actually from the same batch of seeds.) We watered them last year, but apparently, that doesn't compare to actual rain.

The only problem I'm having...

... besides Japanese beetles...

... is indecisive cropping.

Can't decide which looks best.

I have that problem a lot.

Gave up after one try on this Peppermint Stick variety.