Category: Nature

More baby animals

Vets said this was definitely a miracle baby, so she’s called Miracle.  She was born very premature and she IS a miniature horse, and she’s only six days old in this picture.  Don’t you just want to bring her home and see if you could housetrain her?

Speaking of which, it IS possible to housetrain a horse.  You need about three years, a pretty much indestructible house, and the ability to stand outside in the rain for hours waiting for the horse to ‘go’ before you bring it inside. According to the woman who described the process on the CBC (as best as I recollect) when the light bulb finally went on the horse went, “Oh THAT’s what I have to do if I want to go inside where it’s warm.  Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

Carpet being laid today

I ran the vacuum over the upstairs, but it’s really hopeless.  Once the underlay comes up, there will be enough dust in the old homestead to decorate a haunted house.  I’m still liking the paint job, but now… the exterior.  When I get home tonight it will be grab the last hour of daylight and police up the front bed, or at least get a start on it. And now to wheedle a pressure washer out of Tom, which shouldn’t be too hard. 

The cats are in full-bore freakout mode.  Kira keeps running to Keith’s room to hide under his bed and it’s….  GONE!

 

Spitted briefly yesterday with the Dunnettfolk, and picked up my Sheep In Helmets Mug from Ingrid, may she be blessed and adored.  We also watched a wonderful travel video about Venice, which is much mentioned in Dunnett.  May Dee be blessed and adored – she got me to and from the Spit in good order and it was really good to talk with her about the whole ‘dayvorce’ thang.  Pretty much all the Dunnettfolk are never marrieds or long-divorced, either with relentless cheerfulness (à la Jan, who really is almost obscenely cheerful, AND energetic, and she teaches very young kids one third of whom speak no English) or more soberly (à la Dee).  I brought Camembert, and we ate the whole damned wheel.  Oh, and Ingrid BAKED a coffee cake which was the last word in succulence, and she never bakes, so we all felt especially happy about that.

If I talk about the other stuff that happened this weekend, I’ll just cry until I puke, but at least I know that Paul and I have agreed to disagree.  That’s what civilized adults do.

Sea Dragon!

The title of this post is a joke…. it’s the name of the first game my brother ever hacked.   It had >>>gasp<<< sound, and ran on an Apple II.  But THIS picture is not a joke.  Purty.

If the two apartments I saw yesterday were a joke, they were a really lousy one.  The first apartment’s environs stank of ill-use and poverty – although the apt itself wasn’t so bad -and there was a horrible gas furnace right in the middle of the apartment for heat – essentially meaning that the bedrooms would be freezing in the wintertime.  Pass. 

Serendipitously there was another sign up saying Apartments Available a couple of blocks away, and when I viewed THAT apartment the stench of rotting garbage (chicken bones and meat, I think) could be appreciated through the door.  My viewing was brief and to the point.

Keith tried to make the first appointment but he came off his bike and trashed it.  He was not seriously injured.  No sign of Katie.

The last coat of paint goes on my room, and then we bid farewell to Unca Dave tomorrow midday and then Hello Carpet Layers on Monday.  Which means we’ll be camping out in our own house, as we can’t move any furniture back in until all the carpet is down. 

The new light fixtures, wall sockets and light switches look def triff.

Quote from today’s Huffpo written by David Roberts

Read the whole post here.

 

Many people in the environmental field — and I’d even generalize to progressives, broadly speaking — seem to be operating on a set of assumptions:

  1. The facts, organized and clearly conveyed, should carry the day.
  2. When facts do not change minds, more facts are required, perhaps delivered more slowly.
  3. When facts do not change hearts, more facts are required, perhaps delivered more loudly.
  4. Those not swayed by facts are intellectually, possibly morally, deficient.
  5. If sticking to the facts means losing a debate, well, that’s the price of virtue.

Straight talk from the reindeer world

A group of European scientists have determined that a male reindeer’s air sac, influencing vocal sound and neck contour, may contribute to his sexual prowess and reproductive success. The results of this research have recently been published in Journal of Anatomy.

As in other species with harem-like mating systems, the voice organs of reindeer differ according to gender. Adult males have a much larger air sac than females and the young.

Scanged from Eurekalert.org