The End is near..or is it just beginnning?

I thought blogger was through with me, but I found a way in with Firefox and patience. Maybe I shouldn't have blocked google update, either- that could be throwing a wrench in the blogger land.

Tree

 
Less than one week until 12-21-2012.

What's so special about an arbitrary number, anyhow? Letters and numbers are just something someone made up at some point, so why should anything special to attributed to a random date?

Why not 03 03 2003?

_insert side thought_ our eyes and brains are constantly trying to detect patterns, patterns mean predictability.





 According to scholars who translate Mayans hieroglyphs, the winter solstice of 2012 marks the end of a phase in how the Mayan calculated time. Another Mayan tablet heralds the arrival of Bolon Yokte, Mayan God of War, who was also associated with creation.

"He will descend from the sky"

Anything can happen, right?

Maybe that was the man they found in the suburban British neighborhood with Angolan money a couple of months ago.

So, IS something going to happen 12-21-2012?

I don't know. I think if anyone knew, that information would be redacted.

We've all felt the message. Be prepared. That is directed to everyone. Of course anywhere can have an emergency situation, so we are all forewarned to be prepared to evacuate or hunker down.

We've watched what happened to those in Katrina's line of fire. The earthquake in Haiti. New York and 911, and just recently,Hurricane Sandy.

The whole East coast had a week of forewarning before Sandy.

So, here's the scenario:
The end of the world may be approaching, according to the Mayans.

We don't know how, but most typical end-of-the-world scenarios for modern society includes loss of power for weeks or potentially months.

How will you spend the next week? Now that you know you may have a week's notice?

But, it all may be a bunch of malarkey and you will still have bills to pay and not a whit changes but another page on OUR Julian calendar.

Do you go on life as usual, or do you do as advised, and prepare for an emergency?

What does that mean to you?

In the big Sandy buildup, I relinquished and finally bought the batteries which we were desperately needing anyhow. I replaced the ones in the headlamp, much handier than a flashlight of any kind. Some D's for the flashlights that usually only last an hour or two when actually put to use.

I haven't been able to find replacement globes for the lamps, and balked at paying $5+ for lamp oil at Wally world today.

What I have on hand should last at least a week of nights..do I need more than that? If I do, that $5 bottle isn't going to make that much difference.

That's how a financially challenged person has to think.

Now that I think of it, if times get tough that could be a pretty good deal for $5 now.

We have a week of snow and rain predicted here beginning tomorrow night.

That really puts a crimp in my Holiday errands and my "what if the world ends in a week?" preparations.

Do I dash to the bank to cash a check or spend the morning home with my kids?

If I have only a week left, I would spend it with my kids.  But if the turd hits the wind tunnel and my children and myself are at the other end, I am going to want that cash and not useless electronic finances.

Maybe that's why the price of gold is so strong.

Would they tell us? If it was known a global event was imminent, but provisions for safety was limited to a select few, would everyone else get a warning?

And what if you didn't know what to warn or weren't even really sure what might happen- would you warn?

Shouldn't we always be prepared anyhow? live every moment like it will be our last, appreciate every breath, sparkling bit of light, stubbed toe, hangnail, thunderstorm, headache,    full belly, bee sting...

Personally I will spend this week in reverence. And indulgence.  Going to see the Hobbit is definitely on my bucket list. If the world ends in a week I am going to be sure we have seen the Hobbit first!

120-173 hours on the Mayan long count countdown...should three go to the first Hobbit movie?  I would be spending that time with my children...so I think, weather and travel permitting, a definite "Yes"

Beloved

T

Hairytailed Mole Parascalops breweri

I was walking through the old goat pen mid-morning yesterday, and right at my feet I spied this little fella, on the surface, rapidly scouting the ground.
Suddenly it began to squeak, high pitched, eek-ee-ee! and dig furiously.
A large earthworm appeared out of the ground ahead of the burrowing mole, intent on escape.
I fed the worm to the mole. The mole must have no vision, because it took several attempts of relocating the worm in front of it for the mole to grab ahold of the worm, first at the front tip, then quickly to the heart girdle, munch munch, eek-ee-ee!
I had to show the Willow. She quickly became enamored with the charming little thing, and took several photos including these.
The busy worm-hunting (or maybe it was looking for grubs) mole wasn't even aware as we lightly touched it soft fur .
There were several small abrasions on the claws, and one on the nose, which are not visible in the photos. The Hairy-tailed mole has typical mole digging feet and a long snout, tapered to a small pink nose. No tentacles on the nose like the star nosed moles in the wet garden.
No bare tail like the Eastern Mole, but a cute little hairy-tailed mole.

Life is full of Bugs

 

Bald-Faced Hornet mating flight on Jewelweed, Spotted Touch-Me-Not.
Tree

Ant colony swarming
Tree

climate change

It's not cheap energy

I was just reading an update on the Fukushima nuclear disaster.  There were four reactors involved. Three reactors melted down. Number four reactor's spent fuel pool, containing nearly 1500 fuel rods, was severely damaged.

A remote camera and geiger counted were recently inserted in a hole in the ceiling of the basement of number one reactor.  The readings were 10,000 times higher than normal. A human would receive a year's allowable dose in 20 seconds and be dead in an hour.

Officials in charge admit new technology will have to be developed to handle repair and containment.

Also on the nuclear power front, Cental Maine Power, recently won a lawsuit in the tens of millions of dollars against the US government (taxes paid by US citizens fund the government, don't forget) for the government (taxpayers) failing to provide a safe place to store the spent nuclear waste for the next 20,000 years.

How did we get into this mess and why is it still going on? How did nuclear energy ever get approved without provisions to store the waste? Why should the taxpayers pay for the cost?

We are having the wool pulled over our eyes, folks, nuclear power is not cheap!

Only to the power companies, who are subsidized by the taxpayers so the people running the power companies can be rich! you can bet the folks in charge of energy are in the top one percent of the population.

We are fed all kinds of propaganda against alternative energy. Propaganda that divides the green movement.

I consider myself a devote environmentalist. Yes I feel badly for any birds that fall victim to an unshielded windmill. Just as I do for squirrels that get electrocuted on telephone poles. But a nuclear disaster contaminates the world's environment with deadly radiation for centuries.

I don't believe for a second that living near a windmill compares to living downwind or downstream from a nuclear power plant. 

Personally I love the sound of a windmill in action. whoomfph whoomfph whoomfph. Lookout birds!

Hydro power...how is this a bad thing? How difficult and expensive is it to build fish ladders compared to trying to figure out how to contain three melted nuclear reactors? And once again, although I am an environmentalist, given the choice between the loss of a fish species to spreading cesium and plutonium all over the planet, I will take the former. Without hesitation,

Solar power, tidal power, geomass- ! How are these things bad for the environment or too expensive?

What is the value of safe energy?

Tree Ocean

Brothers, A Bird in the Hand

Tree
I have had 7772 page views, this is my 772 post and it is 7/7/2012

On the Pulse of Morning

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon,
The dinosaur, who left dried tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.
But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.
I will give you no hiding place down here.
You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.
Your mouths spilling words
Armed for slaughter.
The Rock cries out to us today, you may stand upon me,
But do not hide your face.
Across the wall of the world,
A River sings a beautiful song. It says,
Come, rest here by my side.
Each of you, a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.
Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.
Yet today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more. Come,
Clad in peace, and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I and the
Tree and the rock were one.
Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your
Brow and when you yet knew you still
Knew nothing.
The River sang and sings on.
There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing River and the wise Rock.
So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew
The African, the Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheik,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the Tree.
They hear the first and last of every Tree
Speak to humankind today. Come to me, here beside the River.
Plant yourself beside the River.
Each of you, descendant of some passed
On traveller, has been paid for.
You, who gave me my first name, you,
Pawnee, Apache, Seneca, you
Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then
Forced on bloody feet,
Left me to the employment of
Other seekers -- desperate for gain,
Starving for gold.
You, the Turk, the Arab, the Swede, the German, the Eskimo, the Scot,
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought,
Sold, stolen, arriving on the nightmare
Praying for a dream.
Here, root yourselves beside me.
I am that Tree planted by the River,
Which will not be moved.
I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree
I am yours -- your passages have been paid.
Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.
History, despite its wrenching pain
Cannot be unlived, but if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.
Lift up your eyes upon
This day breaking for you.
Give birth again
To the dream.
Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands,
Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts
Each new hour holds new chances
For a new beginning.
Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.
The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out and upon me, the
Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.
No less to Midas than the mendicant.
No less to you now than the mastodon then.
Here, on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, and into
Your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope --
Good morning.

Maya Angelou

Local Wildlife

This crow did not like me taking his picture. He pooped on my car afterwards.

Alewives returning from sea to spawn

Wild Geese with Goslings