Reading List

From Paved Paradise by Henry Grabar. There is more housing for each car in the United States than there is housing for each person:

Most Americans, of course, do not have to fight for parking. On the contrary, the combination of urban renewal, public lots, and parking requirements for private development were astonishingly successful at creating ample space to park. 

By square footage, there is more housing for each car in the United States than there is housing for each person. 

All this asphalt constitutes a kind of ecology unto itself, changing the way air and water and animals interact with human civilization. It changes the way we behave, too. 

"The effect of the cars reaches far beyond the cars themselves," wrote Christopher Alexander in A Pattern Language, his landmark study of human landscapes. "They create a maze of driveways, garage doors, asphalt, and concrete surfaces, and building elements which people cannot use. When the density goes beyond the limit, we suspect that people feel the social potential of the environment has disappeared." 

Perhaps most importantly, making it easier to park did not get rid of the life-draining experience of traffic. On the contrary, it created traffic. 

Wiley Coyote

Near the dawn of time, the story goes; Coyote saved the creatures of Earth. According to the mythology of Idaho's Nez Perce people, the monster Kamiah had stalked into the region and was gobbling up the animals one by one. The crafty Coyote evaded Kamiah but didn't want to lose his friends, so he let himself be swallowed. From inside the beast, Coyote severed Kamiah's heart and freed his fellow animals. Then he chopped up Kamiah and threw the pieces to the winds, where they gave birth to the peoples of the planet. 

– Nature

Yote - short for coyote, Wile E. Coyote, Canis latrans.   If you were to inquire of a wildlife biologist they would tell you that there are nineteen subspecies of coyote that are exceedingly well-adapted to living in urban, rural and wild America.   

Male coyotes top out at about 44 pounds while females weigh-in slightly less.  For scale my Labs are bulkier than the average coyote.  Coyotes are known for how well they adapt to different habitats.  They are found living in and around large cities, the central plains, farmland, and northern forest, in the desert scrub of the Sonoran Desert, foothills and mountains as well as in populated ring suburbs. 

Coyotes dine on large prey and also eat snakes, insects, rodents, fruit and other mast.  As an opportunistic hunter coyotes have been known to prey-upon small pets and livestock.  In an urban setting they will eat garbage and pet food left on a deck or patio.  

The coyote is a gregarious animal - socially-inclined - like the wolf.  This is likely a consequence of the need for a family unit or pack of animals combining to bring down large game. 

Recent genetic studies suggest that coyotes are not native to the eastern United States - having largely evolved on the Great Plains.  As the eastern old growth forests were cleared for settlement and agriculture coyotes adapted to the new environs.   It is thought that coyotes dispersed to our neck of the woods early in the twentieth century.  These canids are presumed to have come from the northern Great Plains and are unique in their genetic origins.   

Additional coyotes dispersed from here to New England via the northern Great Lakes region and southern Canada meeting in the 1940s in New York and Pennsylvania. These coyotes have inter-bred  with gray wolf and Eastern wolf populations adding to their own unique genetic diversity and further contributing to their hybrid vigor and ability to adapt to an ever changing environment.  Coyotes here are known as the Northeastern coyote. 

More frequently Jill and I hear coyote vocalizations than we see them live and in person.  In rural America coyotes share the same natural aversion to people that other wildlife do.  They are scared-to-death of people.  However, from time to time I do capture a handful of digital photos on a trail camera.

 

Like these recent captures....

   

 

Do you see two coyotes?

 

Learn more about this adaptive canine here; Pay Wall-Free.  

 

Smokin' For Paws

Yesterday afternoon we went over to the Brussels Town Park  to check out the 2026  Smokin' For Paws Rib Cook Off.  This is a sanctioned event and it's outgrown the vacant lot adjacent to Rouer's Grand Slam as the field of competitors is growing.

There were 27 teams from Wisconsin and neighboring states; most being professional competitors along with a few really talented backyard enthusiasts.

 

Funds raised from this competition are to support the acquisition of a service dog for placement with a worthy veteran or first responder along with supporting our local BUG Fire Department.

Feeling a BBQ pork-induced coma coming-on we returned home for nap.

While I can't guarantee it I'd be willing to bet this competition will return next year even bigger and better.

Stay-tuned and check out Face Book if you subscribe for interviews and coverage via Let's Go Door County!

The Garden Chronicles

My new raised beds are working out as intended; basically saving my back and saving me from gardening on my hands and knees (note the chair).

Everything is crowded, but my vegetables and herbs seem to be happy over-all.  The intention is to grow a seasonal supply of household produce on a rotational basis.  If I need something in particular or a large quantity of something there are plenty of local farm markets.

Today I harvested spinach and radishes and replanted radishes.

For some odd reason the lettuces I planted several weeks ago did not germinate so I replanted them a week ago.  They're a cool season crop so I cannot blame it on the unseasonable cool weather we've been experiencing.

We've even gotten a couple of opportunities to nibble on a handful of cherry tomatoes already.

Vive le Jardin Magnifique!

Summer Solstice

Solstice Stone - Stonehenge, UK

Tomorrow is the Summer Solstice here in the northern hemisphere which means that on Sunday we receive more sunlight than any other day of the year.  Naturally, you would conclude that this date would have the earliest sunrise and latest sunset, no?  

Don't jump to conclusions.  Even though the solstice has the greatest amount of daylight - the earliest sunrise occurs before the solstice and the latest sunset falls afterward.  The occurrence of those events is dependent upon how far you are from the equator – a function of the tilt of the Earth on its axis.  

Here is an interesting factoid – I went to the US Naval Observatory Astronomical Applications Department and looked-up the Sunrise and Sunset times for my location here at The Platz before, during and after the solstice. 

June 17 Sunrise 5:03 Am Sunset 8:38 PM

June 18 Sunrise 5:03 AM Sunset 8:38 PM

June 19 Sunrise 5:03 AM Sunset 8:38 PM

June 20 Sunrise 5:03 AM Sunset 8:39 PM

June 21 Sunrise 5:03 AM Sunset 8:39 PM

June 22 Sunrise 5:04 AM Sunset 8:39 PM

June 23 Sunrise 5:04 AM Sunset 8:40 PM

June 24 Sunrise 5:04 AM Sunset 8:40 PM

                                       June 25 Sunrise 5:04 AM Sunset 8:40 PM

Notice that the three dates preceding the solstice have almost the same amount of daylight.  The implication is that the solstice lasts more than half a week. 

 

What's the explanation?  Does it have something to do with our location being almost equidistant from the North Pole and Equator?  Or is it a consequence of rounding the precise times?

 

The notion that the solstice lasts for a few days or a week is a very common perception that even ancient astronomers noted.  But mechanically-speaking, it's a beautifully precise illusion caused by trigonometry and orbital mechanics.  

 

The earth orbits the sun in a smooth, continuous curve.  Because the earth is tilted on its axis by 23.5 degrees the angle of the sun relative to earth's equator (called solar declination) changes throughout the year.  If you plot this change on a graph over 365 days it forms a sine wave.

 

At the Equinoxes the curve is at its steepest.  The sun's position changing rapidly every day meaning you notice significant differences in daylight length from one week to the next.

 

At the solstices the curve reaches its absolute peak (or trough).  In calculus and trigonometry the top of the smooth curve has a slope of zero.  As the earth approaches this peak the daily rate of change slows to a crawl. 

 

During the days immediately preceding and following the solstice the difference in length of daylight is measured in seconds (not minutes); consequently, to our everyday clocks and senses it appears static.

 

While the "effect" of the solstice lingers for about a week, the astronomical event itself happens in a precise fraction of a second.  That exact moment is when the earth's axial tilt is inclined closest (or farthest) from the sun.  It is a single point in time occurring simultaneously for everyone on earth regardless of time zone.  For me that is June 21, 3.25 AM CDT.

Apologies for making your head hurt.

Buyer's Remorse?

If anyone had any doubts about the incompetence of President Trump and his administration the Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) with Iran proves it.  Russia and the United States misunderstood the inability of military might alone to crush small nations like Ukraine and Iran.  Britain's King George learned that lesson 250 years ago; yet that historic parallel is apparently lost on Donald Trump.

There is no regime change, no obliteration of the Iranians' nuclear ambitions, no end to their support of terrorist proxies and no unconditional surrender.  Sure, the Strait of Hormuz may eventually reopen; which is a return to the status quo that existed on February 27 before Donald Trump made a unilateral decision to go to war.  While Iran suffered substantial losses they have emerged from a conflict with the world's most powerful military having learned they can close the Strait any time they choose; and force the world to bend to their will by means of economic extortion.

We gained nothing. 

Iran holds all of its enriched uranium and one solitary man set in motion a cascade of gravely destabilizing events that have had all manner of adverse consequences for global stability, security and the world economy.  All of this at a cost of thousands of lives, billions upon billions of dollars and diminished American prestige.  With global petroleum reserves nearly exhausted; Trump capitulated.

No matter how you spin it, Mr. Trump lost his own war.  

The final deal, if it comes, must hold every red line; no enrichment, full removal of the existing stockpile, verification with teeth, the Strait open and free, permanently.  

Redemption demands nothing less.

Friday Music

I used to have the vinyl double album More Hot Rocks (Big Hits & Fazed Cookies), that included this song; the 3.48 length version.

The original was recorded in West End of London at Regent Sound in January and February of 1964 with two demo versions with, and without, piano.  In a 1971 interview with Rolling Stone, Keith Richards disclosed that most all of the songs on their first album were dubs.   Whoever happened to be at the studio at a given moment would add something.  The group truthfully didn't have much control over the process.

Released in the UK the earliest version did not include the piano; which was corrected with the later release of the LP.  In June of 1964 the shorter edit, 2:47 in duration, was released as a single in the US and peaked at number 24 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Tell Me....