Ski-Langlauf

Nice day for skiing here at the Campingplatz.

Temps in the mid-thirties. Partly sunny.

Showers followed by a selection of wines, fresh cheese curds and smoked pheasant.

Grilling tonight and maybe a soak.

Life is basically good.

Going Mobile

By the end of 2010, there will be 5 billion mobile-phone subscriptions globally.

A decade ago a mobile-phone user spoke for an average 174 minutes a month, according to the GSM Association, an industry group. By the end of September 2009 that had risen to 288 minutes.

There are huge differences in usage among countries. Puerto Ricans are the chattiest, probably because cheap plans include unlimited calls to the American mainland where family and friends are often based.

Americans aren't shy about talking on their mobile devices either, racking up 835 minutes (though some of these are incoming minutes, which are paid for by the subscriber).

Although, not every country has such talkative cell phone users. The average cell phone user in Cambodia and the Philippines uses less than 50 minutes per month.

Thursday Morning Music

In keeping with this week's boring forest theme I bring you a timeless classic....

Build It and They Will Come

Not a field of dreams - perhaps a forest of dreams instead.

Game management is the art of making the land produce sustained annual crops of wild game for recreational use - Aldo Leopold

Yeah I know. I've been bitching about the deer population this week.

But it's really my own fault.

Ask yourself this - What do critters need?

The answer would be food, water and cover.

And that is pretty much what we've built for them. Aldo Leopold was spot-on. We've got grouse, woodcock, bunnies, turkey, a bunch of thieving raccoons and an occasional porcupine. Ducks too.

These are deer beds. Each photo is evidence of the deer bedding-down in pairs. Doe and fawn or siblings?

They can be found all over the place.

They have moved-in and set-up permanent housekeeping.

At the bottom of the top picture is a deer bed with pee in it.

How's that for housekeeping?

Fine Dining

Note the deer trail on the left-hand side of the picture.

That would be the buffet line.

The cedars in the center of the picture (the buffet) have been denuded of their leaves. Perfectly browsed to the height of a whitetail's reach.

We harvested four deer last year and it seems we still haven't made a dent in the local population.

Sheesh.

Forest Oddity

This 11 year old tamarack is growing like a cork screw. It begs for a creative use.

What can you make from something like this?

Winter Deer

Caught more deer on the game camera this week.

Including four of them in this shot.

Judging from the pictures and the sign there's a
sizable herd around here.

Must be the good cover.

And the cedars they've been munching.

Can't wait for deer season to get here.

Fun With Statistics

Interested in winning friends and influencing people?

You can wow them with the following tid-bits from The Tax Foundation:

In 1980, the top 1% of taxpayers earned 8.5% of all adjusted gross income (AGI) and the bottom 50% of taxpayers earned 17.7% of AGI. In 2007, the top 1% of taxpayers earned 22.8% of all AGI and the bottom 50% of taxpayers earned 12.3% of AGI. Thus since 1980, the top 1% of taxpayers has gone from earning half of the AGI of the bottom 50% of taxpayers to nearly twice as much.

In 1980, the top 1% of taxpayers paid 19.1% of all federal income tax (FIT) and the bottom 50% of taxpayers paid 7.1% of FIT. In 2007, the top 1% of taxpayers paid 40.4% of all FIT and the bottom 50% of taxpayers paid 2.9% of FIT. Thus since 1980, the top 1% of taxpayers has gone from paying nearly 3 times the FIT of the bottom 50% of taxpayers to nearly 14 times as much.

The Mighty Oak

Quercus macrocarpa - Bur oak.

The largest eastern oak, it's member of the white oak family (leaves with rounded lobes). Producing sweet, edible acorns
It is a terrific wildlife tree.

The tree on the left was planted in 1998 and is about 20+ feet tall and has a trunk diameter of about 5 inches.

The tree below was planted at the same time and remains a runt.

(click on image to enlarge)

New Math

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.

Mothra

Just like you'll find in a Japanese sci-fi flick from the 1960's I sometimes feel like I'm playing the role of Godzilla battling Mothra.

Only it's Swamp Gas vs. the Gypsy Moth.

An escapee from an experiment gone bad back in 1868 the Gypsy Moth has been steadily advancing westward from New England.

Its presence in Wisconsin's eastern counties was discovered in the 1990's.

The larvae love oak. And if an outbreak gets serious enough they can defoliate an entire stand of oak stressing the trees and making them vulnerable to other pests and diseases.

Late winter and early spring is a good time to look for egg masses.

If you spray them with ordinary cooking oil laced with Volck Oil Spray the eggs are suffocated and killed. It's impossible to eradicate Gypsy Moth - but you can suppress them.

Each mass represents anywhere from 500 to 900 caterpillars.

I sprayed about four dozen over a couple of days.

Death to Mothra!

Red Fox

A wily red fox was patrolling alongside the creek leaving a trail of tracks in the snow.

They sometimes make their home in an enlarged woodchuck den, or hollow log, or underneath a log or rock in a stream bank or side of a hill.

They're breeding this time of year.

Must be Valentine's Day.

Don't Forget Your Sweetie

Sunday, February 14 is Valentine's Day, and this post will undoubtedly serve as a final reminder to many to procure a gift for that special someone.

Valentine's Day is more than a romantic holiday; it is big business. Consumers will spend an average of $77.43 on Valentine's Day gifts this year. E-commerce retailers expect to rack up about $650 million in sales of food, candy, flowers and other gifts. Of that amount, approximately $350 million will be spent on gifts and flowers, and another $45 million will be spent on food (including chocolate) and wine.

Valentine's Day was not always as expensive as it is today. In the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who their valentines would be. They would wear these names on their sleeves for one week. This custom gave rise to the saying "to wear your heart on your sleeve," meaning it is easy for other people to know how you feel.

If you don't want to break the bank or sew patches on your sleeves, you can just wish someone a Happy Valentine's Day with the phone call. After all, Alexander Graham Bell applied for his patent on the telephone, an "Improvement in Telegraphy," on Valentine's Day in 1876.

Snow!

You're probably thinking - Yeah. So what. There's snow all over the place.

This little snowman can be found right on the gulf coast.

My daughter emailed this photo this morning.

There are going to be some interesting Mardi Gras parades tonight for sure.

Having a Bad Day?

Just in case you think you are having a bad day - remember that there is always someone else who is having a worse one.

Have a nice day.

A Cajun Dies and Goes to Hell

And the devil assigned him the usual punishment by putting him in the mass pit where the heat was melting others.

The devil came back sometime later surprised to find the Cajun just sitting around, not even misting - much less sweating.

How come you're not so much as sweating here where everyone else is screaming for relief from the heat?

The Cajun laughed and said - Man, I was raised in the bayous of Sout Looziana. Dis ain't nothin' but May in Lafayette to me!

The devil decided to really put the Cajun through it.

He put him in a sealed-off cave in the pit with open blazes and four extra furnaces blasting. When he came back, days later, the Cajun was sitting pretty and had barely begun to bead up with sweat.

The devil was outraged. How is this possible? You should be melted to a shrieking puddle in these conditions!

The Cajun laughed even harder than before. Hey, man! I done tole you. I was raised in Sout Looziana. You tink dis is heat?! Dis ain't nothin' but August in Jennings!

So the devil thought - alright, a little reverse ought to do the trick.

He put the Cajun into a corner of hell where no heat ever reached. It was freezing and to add to the Cajun's misery, he added massive icebergs and blasting frozen air.

When he returned, the Cajun was shivering, ice hung from every part of him but he was grinning like it was Christmas.

Exasperated, the devil asked - HOW!? How is it possible?! You're impervious to heat and here you sit in conditions you can't be used to...freezing cold and yet you're happier than if you were in heaven. WHY?!

The Cajun kept grinning and asked - Dis mean de Saints won da Super Bowl?

A Budget Tidbit

Based upon the fiscal year 2011 budget submitted to Congress by President Barack Obama a week ago - the United States government will borrow $1 out of every $3 dollars it is projected to spend.

Fiscal year 2011 covers the 12 months from 10/01/10 to 9/30/11.

This is analogous to an individual earning $100,000 (after tax), spending $149,000 and borrowing $49,000 to cover the difference.

(source: The White House)

Packer Fan Announces He Will Return to Drinking

What can I say?

Interesting Polling Numbers

Americans hold mixed views of President Barack Obama's first year in office, with 41 percent saying that he tried to do too much, 35 percent concluding that he did about the right amount and 19 percent saying that he didn't do enough, according to a new McClatchy-Ipsos poll.


Of those who think he did too much, 57 percent singled out health care as the main area in which he over-reached. Of those who said he did too little, 42 percent cited the economy and jobs as the areas where he most under-performed.


Broken down by party, 67 percent of Republicans, 45 percent of Democrats and 41 percent of independent voters said that the president had tried to do too much on health care. More people oppose the health care plans that are before Congress - 51 percent - than favor them - 37 percent.


Slightly more - 49 percent - favor creating a public entity to compete with private health insurers than the 47 percent who oppose that proposal. A majority - 52 percent - favor creating insurance co-operatives that aren't run by the government, while 38 percent oppose that idea.

Joke of the Day

Do you know what the Minnesota Vikings have in common with a stolen vehicle?

No. What?

Neither one of them has a title.

Deer Galore

There are no deer around here anymore. Damn DNR screwed it up and the deer have been killed-off. DNR can't even count the deer. They can't do anything right!

That's an oft-repeated lament among deer hunters nowadays.

Personally-speaking we had a pretty decent deer season in 2009 having seen to the butchering and processing of four tasty whitetails last fall. Furthermore I am told that 2009 was the 20th best deer season since anyone started keeping track of this stuff. If you're a glass half-full kind of person like I am that's pretty good.

Now is the season for shed antler hunting and scouting.

There is deer sign and deer trails all over the place. Some of the trails look like cow paths through the woods.

Some of them - like the picture above - intersect with major interchanges that look for all the world like they are in need of a deer crossing guard.

Then again - all the deer have presumably been killed-off.

All these tracks must be from a couple of deer jesters that are just doing this to fool with me, eh?

Girlfriend and I relocated the trail camera and put fresh batteries and a clean memory card in it.

We'll see if there are any deer left in the woods.