Morning Stroll

Darling Daughter decided to make 

french toast for us this morning

So I took a stroll through the yard

Howie photo bombed

The light

 moves 

shortens

The shadows

lengthen

darken

The hours 

the days

the weeks

the years

Americans Are an Eastern Forest People

From Nature Wars: The Incredible Story of How Wildlife Comeback Turned Backyards into Battlegrounds by Jim Sterba:

Where do most people in the United States live? The answer is... counterintuitive: They live in the woods. We are essentially forest dwellers.

....[I]f you draw a line around the largest forested region in the contiguous United States — the one that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Plains — you will have drawn a line around nearly two-thirds of America’s forests (excluding Alaska’s) and two-thirds of the U.S. population...

If you got in an airplane and flew from Albany to Boston during the day... you could look down and see almost nothing but trees from one downtown to the other. Fly the same route at night, and you see lots of lights — lights of people living in a huge forest.

In the eastern United States over two and a half centuries, European settlers cleared away more than 250 million acres of forest. By the 1950s, depending on the region, nearly half to more than two-thirds of the landscape was reforested, and in the last half century, states in the Northeast and Midwest have added more than 11 million acres of forest. 

In the most heavily populated region of the United States, the urban corridor that runs from Norfolk, Virginia, to Portland, Maine, with eight of the ten most densely populated states, forest cover varied from a low of 30.6 percent in Delaware to a high of 63.2 percent in Massachusetts. The corridor runs straight through Connecticut, the fourth most densely populated state, and one that is more than 60 percent forested. Three out of four residents live in or near land under enough trees to be called forestland if they weren’t there.

John C. Gordon, the former dean of the Yale School of Forestry in New Haven, made a similar observation in speeches. “If you looked down at Connecticut from on high in the summer, what you’d see was mostly unbroken forest,” he said. “If you did the same thing in late fall after the leaves have fallen from those trees, what you’d see was stockbrokers."

Where am I and what am I doing?

Making raspberry cordial.



I haven't said nearly as much about partial self-sufficiency as I wanted to yet but today I have to post this short note to let you know I won't be back until Friday. I have the first deadline for my book on Thursday so all my brain power is absorbed in delivering the best I can for the book. I'm pleased to tell you that this book and ebook will be available for

Canada Geese with Martin

Canadian Geese flew straight over my head as I visited the new Martin Luther King memorial yesterday.

Across the reflecting pool the Jefferson Memorial was just waking up.

 

Dog in a Log

Marley faking an intrepid look. He wasn't too sure about getting inside a hollow log, but nothing bad happened and he relaxed after a minute or so.

Falls Church Farmers Market

End of the season means lots of tomatoes, peppers, root crops, and late flowers. Apple season just starting!

Public Lands Day

This is public lands day!  This was taken today at Great Falls (Virginia side) just a few miles from my house.

Not What It Looks Like

I came home and found Marley carrying around a skinned out dog toy that the wife bought.  A dog toy. Had a receipt and everything. Not what it looks like. Still, alarming.

This Makes Me Hungry

From Damn Cool Pictures comes this recipe:

Kiviak is a traditional wintertime Inuit food from Greenland that is made of auks preserved in the hollowed-out body of a seal. Around 500 auks are put into the seal skin intact, including beaks, feet and feathers, before as much air as possible is removed from the seal skin, which is then sewn up and sealed with grease, with a large rock placed on top to keep the air content low. Over the course of seven months, the birds ferment, and are then eaten during the Greenlandic winter, particularly on birthdays and weddings. |

 

Video horror here.
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Dog Abuser Eaten by the Abused

A little irony comes with this story:

A Kentucky woman previously convicted of animal cruelty is believed to have been eaten by her dozens of hybrid wolf-dogs after she died.

The remains of 67-year-old Patricia Ritz were discovered in her Fordsville home by deputies after neighbors reported they hadn't seen her in more than a week, NBC News reported. 

Authorities who searched the home found only a human skull and jawbone, which they believe to be Ritz's... Investigators believe Ritz died from an illness and her pets, left without food after her death, consumed her for survival.

Ritz has animal cruelty convictions dating back to 1986...

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Weekend reading - UPDATED

I've been meaning to mention the wonderful comments that come in. I read every one of them and many of them make me smile. I would love to have enough time to respond to every comment but I try stay off the internet as much as possible. It's captivating and I think it robs me of time to do other things. But I do appreciate every comment and that you take the time to write what you're thinking.

The Girls Are In The House

In the yard actually

The weather has cooled considerably and

it was a perfect late afternoon

for a chat and catch up session.

They walked up to the market and  

brought back candy bars and beer.

That cracked me up.

I was walking into the living room

and through the open window,

caught this glance of the three of them.

For many years, these girls spent countless

hours here growing up into these fine women.

All graduated from college now,

living very far apart,

with serious boyfriends 

and serious jobs.

Darling Daughter swears they'll be friends forever.

It can be done

I hope so

Guess who slept well last night?

sigh.....

Marley in the Morning

 

Marley and I play ball in the front yard in the morning.  Then he spends the day with my lovely wife, and then I throw ball for him in the living room at night. Tough life!  

This dog is all legs, and he can actually use his front paws to toss the ball in the air and catch it when he is on his back.

When we first got him out of rescue two weeks ago, his tail was clamped firmly between his legs. The rest of him seemed friendly, but the tail showed fear and anxiety.  I see a lot of clamped tails with whippets and other sight hounds, but I wondered if that tail would come up in time, and it sure has, wagging like a little white metronome.  Wonderful!

From: Terrierman's Daily Dose To order the book. web site.