Tuesday, December 15, 2020

uh,,,what day is it?

 I don't have a catchy little story to go along with that title.  Sometimes I like to head my post with the day and that is what came to my head when I thought, "what day is it?"

Our Governor, Janet Mills, finally has told businesses they are responsible to make sure that everyone inside is wearing a face covering.  Yay.  I had yet to make a trip out and see everyone in my local grocery with a mask.  There were always one or two holdouts and they were always too close for my comfort.

 

I have been feeding a couple of huge flocks of birds.  The blue jay flock is up to 11.  Many chickadees, tufted timouses (mice?) red breasted nuthatch-the only low member is the white breasted, which is odd becaseu the last few years the reds were down and the whites were up.

 

I have had a lot of cavitated wood come down.  Perhaps it was the colony of whites that suffered a loss of shelter.

 

I have a red bellied woodpecker coming to the corn platform feeder.  He rules over the jays.  I haven't got an accurate count of eastern gray squirrels but they are doing well.  The reds don't come to the feeder, they are still feasting on eastern white pine cones.I also have a male cardinal.  When he is out there withthe flock of jays it is a lovely bright spark of color among the greys and browns and whtie.

 

Yes white, that's one thing about Maine, you get two three inches of wet slushy snow, then the temps hover around freezing for a week and you still can't chisel off the ice sfrom between the roofrack without cracking your sunroof.

Some asteroid material has made it back to Earth after a Japanese expedition to ..collect material from the asteroid.  When they opened it they had some small and also pebble material.

 

But, you know, did they eagerly open it up in that remote part of Australia where the capsule landed, or did they take it back to a secure lab with super isolation measures? Remeber, the COVID vaccine has to be transported at super freezing temperatures-and that asteroid has been in the deep freeze a long time.  typically the heat from an object entering our atmosphere would sterilize most anything on the exterior, but let's go scoop some up and bring it back protected from that sterilization process.  

 

I wonder if the sample was stored at super freezing temperatures after it was collected to maintain the integrity of the sample?

 

I just have to ask myself sometimes if these people ever watch movies or read books?

 

 

 

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