Hummers Rule!

Past 30 day count shows the hummingbird film is beating the former most viewed post here.. Dipshit Glenn Beck. I think I owe Soso Whaley one.

Consequences of a Changing Climate

Just a few weeks ago, these California Fan Palms in our backyard were snow covered, and still green.  Then the deep freeze hit.  More than 90 straight hours below freezing, with overnight lows around 0°F, and wind chills 15 - 20° below that.  Daytime highs struggled to make the 20’s.  A few days after the cold broke, I noticed that all the fronds had turned brittle and brown.  Then we had a day with brutal winds, and the crown of the tree just went over in a right angle to the trunk.  We don’t know if these palms are dead.  The experts say don’t trim or chop till Spring.. see if the plant can replenish itself from the roots.

We live in an area where the average January and February high temperatures are in the 40’s and 50’s, and overnight we might hit 20° on a bad night.  The plants aren’t used to what we have and neither are the houses.  We lost our water for 48 hours, and have some not-quite-essential pipes to replace under the house.. (the pipe supplying the outside faucets, and also the refrigerator ice maker-  the horror! No cracked ice for Margaritas!).  There’s also a tiny leak in the well house, although I’m not sure it’s related to the cold.  It took me several days to realize the consistently crowded parking lot at the hardware store wasn’t because they were having a giant clearance sale.  They were selling PVC pipe. Thousands and thousands of feet of PVC pipe.

Besides our palms, our prickly pear cactus are drooping, and even the acacia, and Mexican elder look sickly.  The Ocotillo always looks dead in the winter, so we’ll just have to wait and see on that one.  The only thing that looks unscathed is the all the goddamn cholla!

Most disturbing of all, is the plight of the Ponderosa pines.  At Christmas, they were green and thriving, lit up with our holiday lights.  Now they are sad and brown.  I can’t believe that the cold did this.  They’re mountain trees fer chrissakes!  I think they’ve fallen victim to the lack of moisture.  We haven’t had any appreciable precipitation since Summer.  We had a blizzard at the end of January, but because it was so cold and dry, the snow seemed more to evaporate than melt.  There was no mud. 
I’ve been watering the pines and the fig tree, (which also looks in a bad way), but so far they remain golden brown, and stand out on our hill like a beacon. 

Rain is in the forecast for Sunday.  It may, and it may not, depending on the wildly varied forecasts from the different online weather services.  These plants have been in the yard since the house was placed here in 1997.  I’d hate to have to start over.

It’s A Game of Keepaway..

Generally, a hound packing a hare back will walk, or at the most, trot. Not Willow. With the rest of the dogs hot on her trail, she came rushing back to show me the prize. With enthusiasm.

Not A Couple.

Ever wonder what would happen if your dog jumped a jackrabbit when a large bird of prey was in proximity?   Would the bird, (in this case a handsome Prairie Falcon) join in the pursuit?  Would it steal the prey?  I wondered the same thing!
I’ll keep on wondering, too, because the falcon  flew off just a second after I snapped this image, and a good half hour before we finally jumped a hare.   Ah, what might have been.

Darwin Day Is Upon Us..

One of the saddest things to have happened in the last couple of months was the decision by Pat Burns to 95% walk away from his Terrierman's Daily Dose blog. It's been a must read for me since being pointed there several years ago from Steve Bodio's Querencia blog.

Fortunately, Patrick's 5% is generally more useful than my 100% here, so I look forward to his too few and far between posts. Yesterday he posted this very valuable reminder that this coming Saturday, February 12 is Darwin Day! He also included this wonderfully subversive little video:


Evolution Made Us All from Ben Hillman on Vimeo.

This helps to raise my spirits some, which had been soundly dampened yesterday, by this deeply disturbing bit of news from NPR.

Chin up fellow secular humanists! All is not lost. Celebrate Darwin Day!
And hurry back, Mr. Burns.

The Best Super Bowl XLV Ad You Didn't See..

..unless you were watching Armed Forces Network in Afghanistan, or from a carrier in the Gulf..



Some find the fact that our servicemen don't get to see the real commercials on AFN as slightly un-American. I think I agree, but if all of the PSA's were this well done, they'll be all right.

"This is what we do.."

Just ignore, for a moment, the fact that Chrysler is now owned by FIAT (Fix It Again, Tony), and the US taxpayers... better yet, just imagine a Ford Focus ST, or Fusion Hybrid in the place of the Chrysler 200.. Or, just forget about the car completely, because the car's not what makes this, hands down, the best ad from Superbowl XLV: