Friday Music

Composed by Buddy Holly and Jerry Allison this song was first recorded by Holly and the Three Tunes in 1956 and was rerecorded in 1957 by Holly and his new band, The Crickets.  It was the second version that achieved commercial success rising to the number two position on Billboard's R&B Chart.  

With over a million US sales of the single it was certified gold by the Recording Industry of America in 1969 and inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998.  As a consequence of its cultural and historical impact it was enrolled in the National Recording Registry in 2005

It's been covered by every garage band on the planet and a plethora of professional artists; including the Everly Brothers.

That'll Be The Day..... 

Q&A

Question:  Why does a dog lick his balls?

Answer:  Because he can.

Same for whitetail deer.

Follow me for more critical wildlife biology answers.....

  

 

Drone

I haven't had much of a reason to write about an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), colloquially known as a drone.  Nevertheless, they're becoming more common at outdoor events like ball games, car shows, church picnics, Kermiss and Belgian Days.  Photographing large events from a couple hundred feet is easy and still something of a novelty.  They also have practical uses in agriculture, wildfire response, search and rescue and such.

So I purchased one; basically for fun.  

It's a DJI Neo, a small drone that I will use for photography and scouting that doesn't require a pilot license.  Over the weekend the winds died-back enough for me to get some flight time under my belt.  

I previously was restricted to flying the dang thing in the house and up and down the staircase.  That's OK for figuring out the preflight checklist and the joystick controllers; but it's really an outdoor toy.

The firmware on my little drone automatically limits my altitude to 120 meters: just under 400 feet.  Because I’m a rank amateur and don’t have a pilot’s license that’s my limit.  Which is fine because the lowest-flying aircraft around here is air ambulance Eagle III which generally comes screaming over the house at about 600 to 1000 feet.  The altitude restriction is designed to keep hobbyists out of trouble.

 

Anyway, this ingenious quadcopter might be the answer to some (certainly not all) photography limitations.  One being altitude.  As the forest has grown up around the west side of the house it has become more difficult to catch an easy sunset photo.

 

No longer.

 

As a trial run I flew my drone up to max altitude and took some photos. 

 

View North

View South - Farm in center is exactly a mile distant

 

Including my first sunset.  If you look carefully there is a little band of blue on the horizon. That is Green Bay. 

 

 

I have a sliver-sized view of the water at a fraction of the price of the real estate and property taxes!

 

This mechanical, digital, aerial technology is going to be fun.  Wouldn't it be in cool to catch the northern lights at altitude?  Or view a shallow coastal shipwreck from above?  Falls colors?  And outdoor events?  I suppose if I really get sucked-into the possibilities I might just jump thru the hoops and get certified for more sophisticated flight opportunities; and naturally, spring for a larger, better-equipped aircraft.

 

Stay-tuned..... 

 

 

Leftovers

Periodically we like a good pork chop; typically bone-in for flavor.  Although a boneless loin chop works too as long as all your chops are cut thick so as to have a nice pink, juicy center.  Not like the thin chops of my youth which always seemed to be cooked to the consistency of army boots.  Anyway, grilling season is upon us and I found myself with a leftover loin chop recently along with enough leftover brown rice and frozen veggies to whip-up a batch of pork fried rice.

 

Easy directions if you follow the pics: 

 

Cooking with flame, a nonstick Calphalon wok, some olive oil and the pork along with sliced scallions (green tops reserved). 

 

Add the leftover rice and veggies and continue frying giving a stir and a flip every coupla minutes

  

When it's got some nice crispiness to it add in a couple of locally-sourced eggs and scramble

 

 

Finish with a couple splashes of Thai fish sauce for umami and serve-it-up in a bowl and garnish with sliced green scallions tops

 

Pretty good chow if you can get it

 

Pro Tip:  Since it is grilling season if you're smoking BBQ ribs now you have a way to repurpose any leftovers. 

Taco Tuesday

For any of you deer hunters out there consider donating an extra deer or three to Wisconsin’s Hunt For The Hungry program.  Since 2000, hunters have donated over 100,000 deer, yielding more than 4 million pounds of wholesome meat for families facing food insecurity.

Venison burger is the foundation of everything from chili, to sloppy joes, to spaghetti sauce.  In our household tacos are a crowd-pleaser.   We dine on deer weekly. 

Clockwise from 12 o'clock:  traditional frijoles, chips, crumbled cotija queso, soft taco, homemade guacamole topped with lettuce, tomato and sweet onion.

Forgot a dollop of sour cream on top of the guacamole salad.  Nuts!

Anyway, pretty good chow if you can get it….

Standing Watch

Since it opened in 1922 the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has been an ideal incubator for algae growth.

It is filled with tidal water (not chlorinated city water), wildlife defecate in the pool, it is shallow, stagnant and warms-up in the summer sunshine.  Since Mr. Trump had it painted a darker American Flag Blue, it now heats-up faster and warmer.  

The Trump administration has reached the stage of its Reflecting Pool saga where soldiers now stand guard over a pond full of scum and the internet has decided that image needs no embellishment to be devastating. 

Seriously, you can't make this stuff up.... 

 

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.