Herps!

Herpetology (from the Greek ἑρπετόν herpetón, meaning reptile or creeping animal) is that branch of zoology focused-upon the study of reptiles and amphibians.  You know – snakes, turtles, lizards, toads, frogs, salamanders and other associated critters.  

Not many people know this but frogs and toads are both amphibians and while they share many similarities they are also different.  As a general rule - frogs spend most of their lives in or near water while toads are more terrestrial.  A frog’s skin is smooth and a toad's skin is bumpy.  Technically-speaking a toad is a type of frog and Wisconsin is home to twelve species of frog - including the American Toad.  Got that straight?  Herps are some of my best kind of people.  But I digress. 

Sunday – January 6^th - was the last day of Frogs! at the Milwaukee Public Museum.  One of the most advanced traveling frog exhibitions in the country Jill and I took the opportunity to take-in and experience the vocal and visual beauty of these frogs from around the world. 
The exhibition has moved on but stop-by and visit the blog from time-to-time as I’ll publish some additional postings over the next couple of weeks.   

This is not a cow pie or Jabba the Hutt – it’s an African bullfrog.  Capable of growing up to eight inches in diameter they eat just about anything that moves – including small birds and mammals.  In the wild this frog can burrow underground and go without food and water for months at a time. With the arrival of the seasonal rains they emerge to feed and mate.  The male guards the tadpoles that swim around him for protection.  While protecting the swimming tadpoles the adult will also feed on them.  After metamorphosis the froglets often eat their smaller siblings. 

This guy is fed rodents once a month after which he sleeps it-off.

click on the image for a closer look

More Popcorn

I am struck by the glaring reality that two years of solidly complete, total, absolute and entire Republican control of government did not culminate in a border wall for Mr. Trump.

Note to self:  Pick-up more popcorn, sit back and enjoy the shit show....

One Less Brick in The Wall

Thanks for moseying over to the blog for an update on the partial government shutdown - and how this goes beyond the inconvenient closing of museums, national parks and monuments. 

Did you know that the Small Business Administration is closed too?  And as a result loan applications for small business owners and startups has ceased.  

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is shuttered.  New housing development grants and loans for new homebuyers and housing inspections has ceased. 

That is just the tip of the iceberg.  How about hard-working and beleaguered American farmers and ranchers?

About half of USDA's employees are working without pay and almost all of the FSA (Farm Service Agency) county offices are closed.    

Farmers and ranchers are already feeling real financial pain as a consequence of the dramatic drop in commodity prices brought on by Republican tax increases (tariffs) and this has left large numbers of producers to rely on the USDA as their lender of last resort to help pay bills and stay afloat over the winter.  The banks won’t lend and the FSA office doors are locked.  Farmers and ranchers cannot even speak with staff to learn answers to questions about the 2018 farm bill and plan for the 2019 planting season. 

And while the president has loudly boasted that the Republicans will make welfare payments to help mitigate the financial losses caused by their increased trade taxes - as of December 28 there isn’t anyone left at the USDA to process the Republican welfare applications. 

I may be nothing more than a lowly tree farmer but I have a very clear recollection that Mr. Trump made a solemn promise that a certain neighbor south of the border was going to pay for his wall.  Nevertheless, after a voice vote last month agreeing to a clean Continuing Resolution with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell now we have a genuine Tariff Man tantrum.  Good Old Mitch got cut-off at the knees.

You can learn more about all of this winning here.

Friday Music

Ruby James and saxophonist Stephen "Coopy" Cooper formed this Midwest phenomenon in Door County with a chance meet-up that somehow involved the Holiday Music Motel in Sturgeon Bay.  You know, that place born of the Steel Bridge Songfest where musicians come and stay for a long weekend to compose and record music. 

I’ve seen this group perform their brass-infused brand of soul and funk several times on the peninsula.  Sure, you may have to drive an hour (maybe) but they are worth the trip. You can read the entire story behind the story in this piece by Matt Mueller and published in OnMilwaukee about the same time as I became aware of the group.  And if you like their music like I do if I had to hazard a guess their 2019 tour dates will soon be showing-up on Face Book and the band's website here. 

In the meantime there is Forever My Dear by WIFEE and the HUZzBAND... 

Quadrantid Meteor Shower

The Quadrantids are an annual meteor shower that is a consequence of Earth passing through the debris field of a crumbling comet some 500 years ago.  If you have an opportunity to witness this event - depending upon your location - it has the potential of producing as many as 100 shooting stars an hour. 

For those of us in North America the Quadrantids will reach its maximum rate of activity tomorrow on January 4^th.  Some shooting stars associated with the shower began on January 1^st and will continue thru January 6^th.  

Observing the show on the peninsula requires a location with little light pollution and a view towards the north-northeast between the North Star and the Big Dipper.  Fortuitously, this month's New Moon on Jan. 5 will help keep skies dark. 

Source: Stellarium

From The Platz, the shower will appear 15° above the north-eastern horizon at midnight. This means that with optimal viewing conditions I might see as many as 20 meteors per hour.  That's far less than 100 since the source will be low in the sky - reducing the chance of seeing meteors.  But 20 is more than nuthin.  Viewing prospects for your own location can be found here. 

Raising a toast to clear, winter night skies and viewing the heavens...  

Ditch Tiger

click on image for a closer look

 

A marauding cat. 

The scourge of ground-nesting game and song birds.  Also called a ditch tiger feral cats are not fuzzy, cute pets.  They are stone-cold killers who kill solely for the thrill of killing. 

This is a non-native predator - an invasive species - and generally comes down with a fatal case of instant lead poisoning here on The Platz.

Nobody Here But Us Chickens

There is no doubt in this blogger’s mind that human activity has altered life as we know it on this planet.  Consider the following:  The introduction of agriculture which led to population growth.  The industrial revolution and the expansion of commerce.  Deforestation and the taming of the wilderness.  Plastics are showing-up everywhere.  Humans have left a mighty big footprint on planet earth. 

Anthropology - the study and impact of humans and their impact on ethnology, culture and environment.   It is said that we are likely experiencing the beginning of a new geologic epoch - the Anthropocene.  Not to be confused with the preceding epoch – the Late Holocene.  The Anthropocene would be the Age of the Human.

And wouldn't you know it - the broiler chicken figures significantly in this emerging epoch.  That is correct - the chicken phenomenon.  Nowadays, chickens are poised to overtake pigs as the largest contributor to our food pyramid.  This is an amazing accomplishment as archaeologists have concluded that it was roughly 2000 years ago that chicken began to be consumed in any significant numbers.   A couple of thousand years seems like a long time ago - yet it is barely the blink of an eye in geological time. 

There is science on this subject that is deserving of attention.  From the other side of the Big Pond researchers have studied the enormous impact that the chicken is having on that Human Footprint.   You see – humans – by means of breeding, diet and agricultural advances have doubled the size of this bird from the late medieval period to the present.  This includes a fivefold increase in body mass since the mid-twentieth century. 

According to the National Chicken Council on any given day there are about 23 billion chickens (give or take) strutting their stuff.  The chicken constitutes the single largest species of bird on the planet.  Astonishingly, 65 billion chickens are consumed each year – which explains who came first – the chicken or the pig.  The net result of all of that chicken carnage is a boatload of discarded chicken bones that have to be dealt-with year-in and year-out.  And while bird bones don’t fossilize well a bazillion chicken carcasses buried in countless landfills are going to be anaerobically-preserved for eons.  Imagine their discovery by alien archaeologists visiting during some future geological epoch. 

You have to wonder what they’ll conclude about a civilization that buried so many chickens.  Perhaps we won’t be remembered for the human footprint after all.  Just as earlier epochs are fondly remembered as the age of the dinosaurs it is entirely possible that the Anthropocene will be remembered as the age of the chicken...