Watching news clips of the Derek Chauvin trial is just sickening. I don't understand how one person could view the video of that psycho with his hand in his pocket-probably with penis in firm grip to stop the tent pole erection he got while crushing the life out of a human being.
If this was done by a soldier in another country it would still be murder. How it can be done to an American citizen on American soil and be defended as a cop's training, is just beyond me.
RIP George.
Crisis at the Southern border has been all over the news lately. Susan Collins with Vruz and some other Republicans lurking in the bushes along the Rio Grande, interviews with migrants, etc.
Often with these stories the reporter will say some outrageous sum that was paid to the smuggler-the last one I heard was $6,000 for a woman with baby and child. A lot of times these people get turned right back out again.
Why not by pass the smugglers and let them and their $6,000 in?That's enough to get a place to stay and cover rent for a few months-obviously they want to work and can work or have access to funds-they had to pay the smuggler.
And you know, most of these people want to come here, someone says, I know a guy, takes X amount of money, he will get you in. They may not even know that it is illegal.
The other thing that disturbs me is that they never ealy ask them why they are leaving their homes. One man was said to have said the hurricane that hit Guatemala devastated them.
We were told climate change would cause shifts in populations due to natural disasters, and it is right in front of us on TV but that is not the story we are told. Sometimes I wish the Native Americans had told the pilgrims that they weren't welcome and that they had to go back where they came from.
I have been trying to listen to the radio a bit more of late. Isn't that so old school, listen to the radio? There are a couple of good so-called classic rock stations within puny antenna reach, and there is something comforting about hearing the same call letters for over 40 years.
Speaking of 40, how can you top having a live band on your favorite radio station sing you happy birthday on your 40th?
I had the radio on this afternoon, it really gets me going. Even now I am listening to "Footloose" and am finding it very difficult to sit still and type and not get up and start cutting a rug. Hang on a second.Ok it came to the "turn me around" and I had to getup and have a little spin. I am a little rusty. I used to have dance moves specific to a lot of different songs.
An old roomate got me started on that, we had a bit for Ratt's "Round and Round" back in the 80's and would do our little bit on the stairs(in our spandex lol) at Portland Maine's largest Rock Club where we worked as waitresses.
"Jenny" by Tommy Twotone came on. I couldn't resist. Had I ever done it? I picked up my cell and typed in "8675309" and held my breath.
"The number you have reached, 207, 867 (is she going to say it OMG?) 5309 ....has been disconnected and is no longer in service"
Dang you thing the phone company would put something clever on that number. Could you imagine? Wonder if they ever assign it or if it is just blacked out. LMAO It was pretty funny.
Spring must be in the air to have this old gal shaking her tail. Guiness on after St patty's Day clearance sale doesn't hurt either.
Some of the migrant birds are returning. Today I saw a flock of common grackle up the road, had seveal fox sparrows and juncos acting very nesting like. The ducks are quacking in the stream (mallards I think although I have seen wood duck there as well) A couple pairs of white breasted nuthatch finally appeared after a winter's absence.
Things are a little mucky. The water table is horribly low for spring thaw, but we are due for some rain and then maybe "significant snow" Sunday. Boo. The red maples and pussywillow are finally starting to bud.
I thought I would check Mauna Loa CO2 monitoring the other day. Our CO2 ppm is up 2.5 ppm since the same time last year.
This is after the world came to a screeching halt during the pandemic, airplanes grounded, people working from home, kids not taking buses to school.
Scientists have known there is a lag betwen the time CO2 gets into the atmosphere and when it gets removed. We tend to produce more than the planet can absorb, so it keeps rising overall.
Why then, did it continue to rise so rapidly when technically production should be less? The only logical explanation is that our ability to absorb it has been reduced even more.
I was ranting about Brazil and the recent push to level rainforest for development. Then the WIllow pointed out quite astutely that last year was a huge one for fires-the Western US a well as huge parts of Australia.
Last night, seperate from this issue, I decided to street view the house where I grew up. My mother sold it about twenty years ago. Here's a pic of her on the front walk, most likely going out to dinner for Easter or Mother's Day:
The house in in complete shade from the huge white oaks -two in the front and several in the back, plus a white pine to the left of the azaleas she planted when I was very small. You can just make out the lamp post ot the right between the white and pink azaleas.
This is what it looks like now:
Yes, quite a nice looking neighborhood I suppose, but absolutely whacked. The neighbor to the left had a privet hedge that surrounded their property-gone. They had Tulip trees in their yard-the same size as our oaks-gone. The azaleas-gone. People used to stop and photograph them.
The oaks, our white and the neighbor's red, gone. Now for all I know severe storms may have come through and done a number on the trees. My mother was always worried one would fall. But the azaleas? I had been told they were an insurance risk because robbers could hide in them. Good luck I couldn't hide in them when I was tiny.
My mother's lawn even looked better. But this is an example of where this country has been going-whack a tree, whack a bush, take out hedges. Just the amount of wildlife that lost cover in this ONE yard is devastating to me.
I was glad to see the corner lot (behind the viewer) had kept their hedge and their trees and you can't even see the house. The rest of the block looked pretty much like this.
gives me nightmares I tell you. Folks, you can't re grow hundred year old trees overnight. What's going to reduce the CO2 and stop the extremes from becoming even more extreme?
Things are really out of whack here this season. The maple sap is late, and the trees aren't giving it up. My water table is down at least a foot. We had little snow and no rain.
The last time the Earth had these kinds of CO2 levels it was a grassland. Trees don't like hot and dry, or violent storms either. It doesn't help to reduce CO2 production if you are not increasing absorbtion. The planet cannot sustain this rapid change .
There is a little doom and gloom for you on this Spring Equinox. This is not an ""I told you so" I will be proud of.
On the other hand, keep your eyes peeled for Auroras tonight. Solar wind incoming coupled with the Equinox ups the odds for viewing them.
Finally here we are heading into spring. I love the landscape this time of year. The bright blue sky, white puffy clouds, the dark trees. I closely examed the pussywillows and forsythia today, and didn't see much sign of life. But I can sense it in the trees, this waking up and swelling. They just look and smell differently this time of year, and it is the time I find myself spending long minutes staring into my woods and checking out the health of the trees.
I am , in addition to being a wildlife advocate, a forest advocate. I get tired of hearing that there is no old growth in Maine so therefore there is no reason to preserve forest and leave it alone to return to a natural state. I have a feeling a lot of people don't want anyone to be able to compare a real forest to a nitpicked one.
I found this website-no, nothing listed in Maine, but I was proud to compare my Mama beech, my big elm, pines, and hemlocks-even a few of the oaks ash and maples are getting up there.
All you big tree lovers out there might enjoy browsing this website:
https://www.oldgrowthforest.net/why-oldgrowth-forests
I just finished burying one of my last three goats. Anna had just turned thirteen. Obi is 14 and Moonie 15.
I picked a spot up near her mother and father's graves in the upper pasture. They had both died in the winter and been temporarily interred in the stone wall there. Eventually I dug them proper graves nearby and learned a few things when I did it.
FIrst of all, I do not recommend plastic bags. I wrap deceased pets in two layers of sheeting or other suitable preferably cotton based fabric. I did Derek in plastic and he was a digusting mess to relocate. Trust me, a good hole away from any water source, rocks, and fabric.
I left Derek and Cricket's temporary internment sites open with the rocks nearby in case I needed it the future. Kind of morbid,yeah, but a sad fact of life when you promise to keep an animal for it's entire life.
Today we have a wind advisory and it is blowing. The trees are creaking and I had the last large fir in the upper pasture blow down on the fence. The pastures are shut off this time of year, and I had to dig the gate out of the ice to get it open. I had to rather unceremoniously drag Anna by her front feet and horns to get her onto the sheet-covered plastic sled. Moonie didn't want to look.
I got her covered and proceeded to pull her up to the grave location. I had started to prep it to make sure I could use it, and then decided to get her up there to gauge the dimensions of the grave. Nothing worse than making one too small, espeically when dealing with an animal you can't lift back out of the hole.
I dug a bit more, setting the diggings on the snow crust to the right of the grave and slightly uphill. The wind chill well below zero, temps in the single numbers and the winds gusting to over 50 mph. I maneuvered the sled over the hole and managed to fit her in neatly. I had dug some nice rocks out of the hole and started rocking her in. I looked over my shoulder and Moonie and Obi were about 50 feet away. Moonie was faced away.
I pried some rocks out of the pile, and finished rocking her in. My toes were frozen.so I headed back with the now empty sled to warm up, thaw out, and gather a few things to finish the grave. I walked by the wethers, speaking some words about "sorry about Anna guys". I thought they might stay out, but they ran back to the paddock with me.
After I warmed up, I gathered some rose scented geranium, and begonia and red geranium blossoms and made a little bouquet. I grabbed a small clay pot from near the stove that was filled with rocks that I had dragged home becasue they had caught my eye on daily walks. I took the last (quite ripe) banana and added that to the pile.
SInce I needed to grab a rake on my way back, I stuck my assemblage into a cut off water just that we call "a grain jug". They work perfectly to carry a day's ration of grain to whatever I am feeding--goats, poultry, wild birds, etc. I was sure the wethers would bomb me when they saw me return with the grain jug, but perhaps lost in their own nostalgia, they stayed in the houses nibbling the morning's hay.
I placed the bouquet between the rocks, placed the hand-picked stones in any obvious gaps, and back filled with everything I had set aside, The big slabs of ice crust went on the top. It was a variation of my standard grave, whcih is to finish with the stones. But since the grave was shallow I thought it was better to rock the body. Once the snow melts in the sping I can get to more rock to finish the top.
Finished, I just had to reclose the frozen gate. That took some struggles, and at that point Obi came over and started nuzzling me. I had tucked the banana in my pocket and he could smell it. He took advantage of my struggles with the gate to pick-pocket a paper towel out of my pocket. That was the motivation I needed to gather the strength to get the get shut with bare freezing hands while the trees creaked ominously over my head.
Obi followed me over to the houses as I tracked down Moo and split the banana in thirds in celebration and commiseration of Anna, this time with a third to me instead of her. Obi and Moo spilt the peeling from my third.
Good bye Anna
