On the subject of dogs today if we have clear night skies this evening there is this.
click on image for a closer look
The constellation Orion (the hunter) is a prominent, easily-identifiable object in the southern night sky.
If conditions warrant take the opportunity to venture out most anytime this entire month and locate this constellation. His belt of three stars (Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka)have an unmistakable tilt upward and the bright stars representing his shoulder and knee - red-colored Betelgeuse and blue-white Rigel.
If you draw an imaginary line down and slightly left from Orion's belt you will land on Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, which locates the heart of Canis Major (the big dog). Above Sirius and to the left you will locate Procyon in Canis Minor (the little dog). As the story goes - Orion accompanies by his two canine companions - strides across the night sky from east to west.
Fingers-crossed for cold, clear viewing conditions.
A couple of months ago I read an article that caught my interest. Having been raised during the cold war along with the accompanying promise and threat of nuclear technology, secret agent espionage and as an avid reader of National Geographic Magazine for almost six and a half decades you would understand.
In response to Communist Red China's nuclear ambitions and tensions between India and China - in 1965 a joint US-India mission conceived by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) launched Operation Blue Mountain. The objective was to monitor telemetry collected from Chinese missile tests conducted from the Xinjiang region.
To do so, it was proposed to install a surveillance (listening) device on the summit of Nanda Devi, India's second-highest peak with a commanding view of China from India's northern border. Expert mountaineers from the US, India and Nepal would carry a long-range listening antenna powered by a SNAP-19C radioisotope thermoelectric generator. The generator was fueled with seven capsules of plutonium-238, roughly one-third the amount used in the Nagasaki bomb.
Nuclear-powered device that was
installed by CIA climbers on another mountain near Nanda Devi. It’s
the same as the model that is still missing.
Rob Schaller, via Pete Takeda collection
It is useful to note that in the mid 1960s compact nuclear power generation had proven itself in space and undersea exploration and in the absence of readily available and robust solar technology a portable nuclear power generation set-up that could power the station remotely for years was considered a near perfect solution.
Arriving in mid September it was already the close of climbing season yet the CIA rushed to complete deployment of the listening station. Without sufficient time to acclimate the team of climbers and Sherpas were already suffering from altitude sickness at 15,000 feet. They faced a climb of an additional 10,000 vertical feet requiring the establishment of four camps along a dangerous ridge line. The mission was led by Indian Captain, and expert climber, M.S. Kohli. High winds, near constant snow, a shortage of food and frostbite hampered progress as the team struggled to attain the summit. Finally, out of water and out of food, on October 16 a sudden and violent blizzard near the summit forced the small expedition to withdraw. Abandoning the mission the team secured the heavy equipment, including the nuclear power generator, to an ice ledge and descended the mountain. The plan was to retrieve it in the spring.
Returning in May 1966, the team discovered that the entire ledge where everything was cached had been swept-away by an avalanche.
The nuclear device was gone.
Subsequent searches using heat detectors, metal detectors, infrared detectors and radiation detectors failed to locate it. Presumably, it had been buried somewhere within the Nanda Devi glaciers.
For decades both the US and Indian governments had an official policy of neither confirming or denying the mission citing intelligence security. But that did not deny the reality of the device being out there, possibly sinking deeper into the ice from heat generated by plutonium decay, in a melting, shifting glacier that supplied the headwaters of the Ganges River. Millions of people down stream could be impacted by contamination risks.
Whoa!
This is excellent journalism on the part of the Times revealing the CIA's loss of a nuclear device sixty years ago. I unblocked the paywall as it's a terrific read. I wonder how many more US Government and CIA misadventures/debacles remain to be discovered? Probably enough to keep investigative journalists busy for decades.
Under ordinary circumstances our yard is a busy location if you enjoy bird watching. Five different feeders attracting juncos, finches, nuthatches, jays, cardinals, chickadees and every variety of year round woodpecker known to these parts.
Anyway, before I took doggo out for a romp it occurred to me that the yard had gone vacant and silent.
Not a bird in the neighborhood.
Once we were outside and inspected the snow in the yard there was this.
Getting-up before sunrise, flipping-on the coffeemaker and taking note of the single digit temperatures is a huge change compared to rising to the double-digit negative temps of only a couple of weeks ago. Change like this makes me ponder whether springtime is lurking just around the corner? Nah. I digress. How do the resident critters that make their home around here adapt and adjust to harsh winter weather conditions anyway?
The
short answer is that wildlife does have adaptations to the seasons and
this time of year they manifest as both physical change, behavior or a
combination of the two.
Thinking
of the critters that show-up most frequently on the trail cameras; the
resident whitetails, raccoons, coyotes, fox and other mammalian species
all grow a thicker coat of hair and fur that absorbs sunlight, and
provides camouflage properties to avoid detection by predators.
Additionally, this fur coat generally consists of several layers; the
softer, thicker layer adjacent to the skin traps air and retains body
heat. Next to this undercoat is an outer layer of guard hairs that
repels rain, snow and wind.
So efficient is this winter-wear that the snow accumulating on a whitetail doesn't even get close to melting....
Co-written by country music artist Marty Stewart and Paul Kennerly this tune was released in 1991 as the third single and title track from the album Tempted.
It reached number five on the Billboard Hot Country Single chart.
I happen to think Stuart is channeling Buddy Holly with this song.
If you ever construct a new house or garage be sure to have the concrete contractors install floor drains in your garage - preferably one for each stall - so that the winter weather crap that collects on your vehicle will not pool underneath and around your vehicles.
Sure, after the water drains away and the floor dries the mud, road grunge and other dirt won't look very appetizing but you you won't be tracking it into the house if it spreads all over the garage floor.
With the arrival of spring you can sweep-up most of that debris followed by flushing the rest down the drains and out the underground pipe to a discharge in the backyard.
One more thing. Every garage should have a slop sink. A floor mount sink with hot and cold running water just like you find in a janitor closet. A great supplement for flushing the fore-mentioned floor, rinsing-off a vehicle, scrubbing your wood-fired oven implements, cleaning deer hunting knives, dirty boots and (drum roll please) shampooing your dog!
At the ball park a treasured memory is the guy hiking up and down the steps of the grandstand pitching salted-in-the shell ballpark peanuts. In my view the perfect game day snack. Just thirst-provoking enough to justify a frosty beer and easy enough to eat because you can leave the shells on the concrete beneath your seat for someone else to clean-up.
In any event, after consulting with my pal and mutual bird aficionado, Braumeister, I invested in this contraption.
It's spring-loaded device for holding unsalted peanuts in the shell for song birds. Namely blue jays and other peanut-centric birds. I picked it up at the local bird food supply outlet in Sturgeon Bay, primed it with a generous dose of peanuts and hung it from a maple tree in the yard by means of a raccoon-proof length of army surplus braided metal parachute rigging. (At least I think it will be raccoon proof.)
Days passed and aside from an occasional curious chickadee nobody was acknowledging the presence of my bird-world ballpark peanuts. Days turned into a week without a single customer. At that point I reached-out to my buddy to inquire as to what might be the problem. He cautioned patience.
The next day, sure as shooting, there was a blue jay on the feeder pecking-away at my peanuts to break the shell and extract a nut. At which point the bird would fly-off, disappear to likely stash the prize in a food cache. Jays do that. In reasonably short order the word went forth and every day there have been jays hammering-away at the peanuts. Once and a while a chickadee or nuthatch might give it a passing sniff - but only jays have been actively feeding.
Braumeister says to be patient as other species will naturally become attracted and join-in the ever-growing bird buffet in our yard.
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