Snatch and Grab

Red fox have been making themselves more frequently observed on the trail camera trap line.

And this is an interesting video clip. 

When I have time I'll have to learn more about the Microsoft video editing tool on my new laptop.

Meanwhile, I grabbed the progress bar on the bottom of the video to scroll the video manually.

Looks like that predator got itself a small mammal.  I can see short legs, feet and ears.  That's it.  

No positive ID... 

 

Child Safety

Before air bags there were sponge balls.

This is why my generation is stronger than most....

 

Child Safety

This was your car seat. 

Glad you made it...

 

Child Safety

From the 1961 Sears Catalog: Auto Strap for front-seat tots.

 

My generation is further evidence of the Survival of the Fittest…..

Survivors

From the trail camera trap line there have been some good photos captured of some of the surviving buckaroos.

Good thing as they'll freshen the local gene pool.

Darwin likely was on to something.....

The Darwins Are Out

The Darwin Awards honor those who tip chlorine into our gene pool by accidentally removing their own DNA from it by means of a spectacular idea gone very, very wrong.  

Yes ... it's that magical time of year again when the Darwin Awards are bestowed, honoring the least evolved among us.  

The winner is:

When his 38 caliber revolver failed to fire at his intended victim during a hold-up in Long Beach, California would-be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder. He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This time it worked.

The honorable mentions:

The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat cutting machine and after a little shopping around, submitted a claim to his insurance company.  The company expecting negligence sent out one of its men to have a look for himself.  He tried the machine and he also lost a finger.  The chef's claim was approved.

A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his vehicle to find a woman had taken the space.  Understandably, he shot her.

After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped.  Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there a free ride.  He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies.  The deception wasn't discovered for three days.

An American teenager was in the hospital recovering from serious head wounds received from an oncoming train.  When asked how he received the injuries, the lad told police that he was simply trying to see how close he could get his head to a moving train before he was hit.

A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counter, and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided.  The man took the cash from the clerk and 
fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter.  The total amount of cash he got from the drawer was $15. 

An Arkansas man wanted some beer pretty badly.  He decided that he'd just throw a cinder block through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run.  So he lifted the cinder block and heaved it over his head at the window.  The cinder block bounced back and hit the would-be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious.  The liquor store window was made of Plexiglas.  The whole event was caught on videotape.

As a female shopper exited a New York convenience store, a man grabbed her purse and ran. The clerk called 911 immediately, and the woman was able to give them a detailed description of the snatcher.   Within minutes, the police apprehended the snatcher.  They put him in the 
car and drove back to the store.  The thief was then taken out of the car and told to stand there for a positive ID. To which he replied, "Yes, officer, that's her.  That's the lady I stole the purse from."

The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan at 5 AM, flashed a gun, and demanded cash.  The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn't open the cash register without a food order.  When the man ordered onion 
rings, the clerk said they weren't available for breakfast.  The man, frustrated, walked away. 

When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motor home parked on a Seattle street by sucking on a hose, he got much more than he bargained for.  Police arrived at the scene to find a very sick man curled up next to a motor home near spilled sewage.  A police spokesman said that the man admitted to trying to steal gasoline, but he plugged his siphon hose into the motor home's sewage tank by mistake.  The owner of the vehicle declined to press charges saying that it was the best laugh he'd ever had.

In the interest of bettering mankind, please share these with friends and family; unless of course one of these individuals by chance is a distant relative or long lost friend. In that case, be glad they are distant and hope they remain lost.

They walk among us, they can reproduce......

Nature is a Harsh Mother

From our walk the other day there was this...

 

The remains of a dead fawn that Blonde Dog found.

You're probably thinking - How do I know it is a fawn?  The size was the give-away.  It was a very small deer.  And if I had the presence of mind I should have included the dog in the pic for scale.

Anyway I figured it was the earlier extended cold snap in January that did it in.  My neighbors concluded that cold wouldn't be a factor until later in the winter when fat reserves are depleted.  They suspect a wounded deer from a hunter or a car collision.

We'll never know for sure as all the other critters that live around here have been dining on it and there's not much left but skin and bones.

Fatso

Aside from the fact that there are three deer in this short, silent, 15 second video vignette they look fat.

Sure, the deer are now sporting their thick winter coats of hollow guard hairs to shed the elements and retain heat but they look stocky.

And judging from the shorter face and legs one of my neighbors has suggested that the whitetail in the foreground is very likely an early-born 2021 fawn.

And I take some comfort from knowing that if they go into the colder months packing a few extra pounds that will tide them over some of the colder and leaner months between now and spring green-up.

Survivor

 

Hmmmm.....

Here's a buckaroo that survived the hunt so far.

 

Darwin Was On To Something

About a decade ago we had our HVAC serviced.  Checking the central air the technician was met with nothing.  The circuit breaker was fine but the compressor was completely unresponsive.  It would not even start-up. 

The AC was kaput.   

When the man removed the shroud he was chagrined to report that the controls for the compressor had been gnawed by rodents.  The chewing had shorted-out the assembly and set it afire.  That's the bad news.  The good news is that the electrical short-circuit electrocuted the mouse, fried the corpse and subsequently extinguished itself before setting the house on fire.  

Long story short - the cost of repair was close enough to the cost of replacement that we opted for replacement.  For a few dollars more we chose a dual-purpose unit capable of both cooling and heating.  The heat pump (heating mode) operates at temperatures below freezing but much colder than that it will automatically call for heat to be produced by the furnace.  The bottom line is we reduced significantly the purchase of propane and recovered the cost of the replacement unit in only 3-4 years of savings.  Electricity is cheaper than LP.

Fast-forward to a few days ago.  

Jill ascertained a rhythmic whacking coming from the heat-pump outside the bathroom window.   

Whacka Whacka Whacka Whacka Whacka Whacka Whacka Whacka Whacka Whacka.  

The unit was running but a terrible noise was emanating from it.

Great.  That's exactly what we need.  Another appliance breaking-down and necessitating a call to a service technician.

Fortunately, (or not so fortunately for the victim) it was this.....

Doing this.....

It is only a mouse.

But what a way to go.

The strong survive and the weak are killed and...........

 

A Study in Contrasts

I started my day with a stop at Marchant's Foods to stock-up on perishables for the coming week.  Upon entering the store I was met with this....

Hand sanitizer, nitrile gloves and home-built masks for adults and children - free, for nuthin'.  The masks are being sewn by a county-wide network of volunteers for distribution to those who need them.  I know this as Jill has been cutting the components and running them to the local fire station for assembly by teams of volunteer sewers.  There was a jar for shoppers to throw a few dollars at this righteous and noble cause.

30 percent of the people that live here year-round are over the age of 70.  That happens to be double the state average and this is the most vulnerable segment of the population to Covid-19 infection.  As a consequence, the good people here on the peninsula look after our neighbors and make every attempt to honor the governor's, county health department's and local law enforcement's guidance to stay safe and stay at home.  Sure, nobody likes it (including me) but it's as much about the safety of others as it is our own - especially the safety of health care workers.  That is what good, honest and law-abiding people do.

Meanwhile in Brookfield, Wisconsin there was a gathering of people not honoring any sort of social distancing or wearing masks so they could protest state and local authority's request to stay safe and at home.  Or maybe they were looking for a Darwin Award for spreading Covid-19 on a very large scale.  Who knows.

In any event, one of the participants had hoisted aloft both a Gadsden Flag and the Stars and Bars of the Confederacy Southern Cross Confederate Battle Flag.  At first blush that strikes me as a mixed historic metaphor.  Maybe he skipped history class in high school or didn't graduate.  Or maybe history makes his head hurt.  I suppose you cannot fix stupid. 

photo - JSOnline

I take no issue with peaceful protest or airing your grievances.  Pick-up the phone and make some calls.  I do that periodically.  Nevertheless, behavior like this during a pandemic puts everyone's health at risk - including the health care workers that may end-up treating those that get sick or die from contracting a very unforgiving virus in a setting like this.  This is what selfish, self-indulgent and foolish people do. Whiners - the lot of them.

There is that Darwin Award thing too.

All I got to say is I'm glad I don't live there or associate myself with such craziness.

Full-Circle Life Cycle

WisDOT manages the state Car-Killed Deer (CKD) Program, a system to remove dead whitetail deer from the roadside of state highways in Wisconsin. 

'Roadside disposal' is the only option available in rural areas.  So when I found this little guy on our road yesterday morning I picked it up and moved it to the ditch.  Nature will dispose of it.  

I was struck – however – by the diminutive size of this fawn.  It was the smallest fawn I have ever laid eyes on this late in the year.  My Labs are larger.  Momma must’ve been a late bred doe for sure. 

In any event, a couple of America’s majestic national birds showed-up today to claim it.  

Murder Scene

From our walk was this....

It's the scene of a murder.  Although it is not the scene of a crime.  A bird of unknown origin was killed and plucked right here by a predator.  If I had to hazard a guess a raptor.  If you click on the image and examine it closely you will not find one single vestige of flesh.  Only feathers.  The work of one of the resident red-tailed or marsh hawks most likely. 

The strong survive and the weak are killed and eaten.

Pony Express

Not really.  The mail will come by means of vehicle driven by a rural mail carrier for roadside delivery.  The Post Office Box in town will be abandoned after the lease is up this summer. 

With the advent of retirement and permanent, year-round living here at The Platz we now sport this handsome-looking mail box on the north side of the road and at the end of the driveway.   We up-sized so that it can handle small packages.  It's going to be interesting wrangling the forwarding of mail from the former address in the Naked City and the PO Box to this address.  But that can be figured-out later.

Anyway, mail boxes in rural America have a limited life expectancy - with most of them suffering a violent death at the hands of the county plow.  

Don't take my word for this - just drive around and you will find all sorts of mail boxes held-together with bailing wire, splints or elaborately constructed of almost indestructible (and very expensive) hinged, steel posts and arms that can stand-up against the wrath of the snowplow. 

For these reasons that this installation (and possibly first iteration) went to the lowest bidder.  The most expensive item happens to the be the box itself.

The post was crafted from a 4 by 4 length of cedar.

click on images for a closer look

I added some long lag bolts to the post to serve as rebar.

The bucket was free - I fetched it from the ditch a couple of years ago .

And I mixed-up 120 pounds of QUIKRETE^® concrete mix to fill the bucket to over-flowing.

There's buried power lines and phone lines underneath this location so there's no way this hombre was going to dig a hole.  Moreover, my hypothesis is that there's enough ballast in the five gallon pail to prevent the contraption from tipping-over in a gale.  And theoretically, if the county plow comes barreling down the highway at 70 miles an hour kicking-up a wall of flying snow - at worst the box and post will simply fall-over.  And it would be a small matter to lift it upright as it's not attached to the ground.  That's the theory anyway. 

Stay tuned.....

King Coal or Humpty Dumpty

At the end of the month of March President Donald Trump made a dramatic display of executive power at the Environmental Protection Agency by signing an executive order to turn-back EPA regulations enacted under President Obama.

“My administration is putting an end to the war on coal,” Trump exclaimed.

This unique focus on coal is both curious and intriguing.  It's not like coal mining is a particularly appealing or desirable job.   The role of coal in producing electricity is shrinking and continues to shrink.   Coal produces maybe 30% of our power - down from 55% in its glory days - and by 2020, it will be exceedingly lucky to maintain a grip on a fourth of the energy generation market.  The relentless march of natural gas and renewable sources of energy are unforgiving.   Horizontal drilling and fracking technologies are safer, gas is more abundant, renewables are growing less expensive and apparently are not going away.  In summation they are cleaner, growing cheaper and they are here to stay.   

Instead of investing money to train coal miners for other jobs and develop new industries for coal country we spend over a billion dollars on black-lung healthcare for the miners.  Admittedly, this blogger would tell you that statement is a cheap shot at miners.  Nevertheless, in less than ten years an additional 13,000 coal mining jobs have been lost.  All the while other industries - newspapers among them - have lost more jobs.  Coal mining and coal burning is dangerous and dirty work, it's destructive to the environment, it's expensive relative to other energy sources and it should be a relic of the 19th and 20th centuries.  It is a dying industry on life support.  

What's so special about coal and coal miners?  

To be certain I can be sympathetic to the miners, their families, communities and employers that are impacted by the decline of coal - but nothing lasts forever.   I have blogged about this painful creative destruction or creative disruption before as products, services and labor continue to be priced according to market-forces of supply-and-demand.  The developments of cutting edge technologies, inexpensive, abundant and clean natural-gas are rendering coal obsolete.   I dunno, perhaps the future technological breakthrough will make coal viable again.  

I would like to ask if the coal miner is now the modern day working class hero.  Or are they the current detritus cast-off as a consequence innovation and technology.  Or are they convenient props for opportunistic politicians?  

Last year a candidate promised job retraining but the miners would tell you there isn't a demand for retraining.  If I had to hazard a guess it is easier to blame immigrants, liberals and others for your problems than it is to adapt and adjust.   

Last year a different candidate promised hope to people whose family livelihood has been coal for multiple generations.   Was this a calculated and cynical move?  

Plenty of communities have transformed themselves into innovative cities.  No surprise if you embrace the challenge.  People there created opportunity, or moved to join it.  West Virginians and Kentuckians could have done the same thing, but they didn't (or haven’t yet). 

It is going to be interesting to watch from the sidelines how this all plays-out…

Sic Semper Tyrannis

As a casual observer to the manure storm Oscar Munoz (United Airlines CEO) created with his tone-deaf and continually-evolving non-apology, now-apology, for dragging a booked, paid and seated customer off of an aircraft I will make only one observation.  Maybe two.

I am exceedingly disturbed by the use of law enforcement personnel to enforce United Airlines policy.  The passenger did not pose a threat to the passengers or aircraft and broke no laws.  The officers should have simply informed United that there was no law enforcement issue at hand, that this was an airline policy matter and politely vacated the aircraft.  Instead, they acted as bouncers and enforcers for what should have remained a seemingly benign matter.

I have some advice for Munoz - if you want to seat a deadhead crew in lieu of paying customers you simply have to free-up the necessary seats by upping the ante for the privilege.  Raise the bid price so to speak.  Suck it up.  UAL can pay the freight.  Capitalism works most of the time you know. 

And for anyone holding out the false hope that a boycott of United Airlines is going to change their behavior - fuggetaboutit.  With only a handful of airlines dominating the major routes that is simply impossible.  Wishful thinking.  A good YouTube video, Facebook posting or twitter storm yields better and fast results - particularly if you lose market cap in the process.

Flying sucks nowadays as it is.  This goon squad thuggery simply rubs salt in the wounds.  A good beat-down on social media hurts.  Particularly since the SCOTUS has ruled that corporations are the same as living, breathing people...

Creative Destruction

Creative destruction refers to the incessant product and process innovation mechanism by which new production units replace outdated ones. 

This term was coined by Joseph Schumpeter back in 1942.  He considered it 'the essential fact about capitalism'.  Sure, it might make someone squirm but that's what capitalism is all about.  

When I was a child a burger at McDonald’s was fifteen cents.  And a trip to McDonald’s wasn’t a convenience as much as it was a novelty and a special treat.  Nowadays, there is a movement pushing for a $15 and hour minimum wage – for simply standing behind the counter and politely saying ‘Welcome to McDonald’s - may I take your order?’    

We’ve come a long way from 15 cent burgers to $15 an hour unskilled starter jobs so pardon me for sounding somewhat curmudgeonly.  Faced with rising costs agitated by the labor movement – those corporate giants in the fast, consistent and convenient food business are going to respond with technological innovations.  Technology that mimics a tablet such as self-service kiosks for ordering your meal.   

I encountered one of these for the first time in the food court of The Louvre in Paris, France.  Yup.  A McDonald’s in The Louvre.  And it only took me a short while and a couple of tries to figure it out.  Pick your language, place your order via touch screen, insert your chip-enabled card, take your slip and walk over to the queue and someone will hand you your meal or soft-drinks.  Simple and fast.   

It’s not just McDonald’s that has embraced job-replacing technology - plenty of other restaurant operations have turned to this type of technology as a fix for rising labor costs.  A fix that won’t necessarily inconvenience the customer.  

Those $15 jobs aren’t being threatened by immigrants – it is the relentless march of technology.  You can learn more about this technology and additional ideas here.