Monthly Archives: December 2011

Blind Chickens, Talking Diamonds and Greedy Galaxies

Posted on December 4, 2011 by | 18 comments

I’m aware some of you readers keep chickens.  If you’re having problems with blindness among them you might be interested in joining http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Free_Ranging_Chickens/ where there’s an interesting discussion going on about the problem.  This was the beginning post for the thread:

Blind Rooster
Posted: Sat Dec 3, 2011 5:47 am (PST)
Just wondering if anyone has had any experience with this. Monday afternoon, I noticed two hens on the wrong side of the fence, so went to retrieve them, and find the rest of their little band. Found all but one rooster. Couldn’t find him in any of the “regular” places, but they do have lots of room to roam. Figured I’d check again before bedtime, as he’s usually the first one in. Didn’t show up. Put everyone else in, and went hunting, for feathers if nothing else:(. Well, I found him by the fence, but inside. Just sitting there. He let me pick him up without protest, but he’s always been laid-back. Still, I knew something was wrong. Put him in a different coop, with shelves instead of bar roosts. The next day he was down on the floor, walking around, but bumping into the screening for the duck section, and sitting in corners/nests. Realized his vision was at least partially gone. Blocked him in, and started antibiotics, since I had no idea what else to do. That night he was back up on the shelf, so he must have some vision, I guess. Wasn’t eating or drinking that I could see, just walked over everything. Brought him into the Hospital Unit (a carrier in my bathrooom :). He began to drink, and finally eat. He crows (oh, swell) but his cue seems to be noise rather than light. Put him outside yesterday (in a big crate) afternoon for some sun, but he just sat there. Some of the other chickens did come scratch around him, but he seemed oblivious.
His eyes look odd, not whiteish, but the center (behind the cornea and inside the iris, where it should be black) looks “solid”, if that makes any sense.

Any thoughts?

Free_Ranging_Chickens@yahoogroups.com

Meanwhile, you readers involved in clandestine, extra-marital relationships might be well-advised to remove your diamond jewelry before checking into some seedy motel. 

In the quantum world, diamonds can communicate with each other

December 2, 2011 By Joel N. Shurkin

The vibrational states of two spatially separated, millimeter-sized diamonds are entangled at room temperature by scattering a pair of strong pump pulses (green). The generated motional entanglement is verified by observing nonclassical correlations in the inelastically scattered light. Credit: Dr. Lee and colleagues, Image Copyright Science|AAAS  http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-12-quantum-world-diamonds.html

Elsewhere in the news, the 99% movement has suffered a disturbing setback with the discovery we live in a greedy galaxy, gobbling up smaller galaxies.  http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-11-beast-tails.html

Barred Spiral Milky Way. Illustration Credit: R. Hurt (SSC), JPL-Caltech, NASA

The Milky Way galaxy continues to devour its small neighbouring dwarf galaxies and the evidence is spread out across the sky.

Government and Wall Street Cray computers working on the problem tentatively estimate the 99 percenters are actually 0.000000000000001 percenters galaxy-wide.  Political and financial-industry hired-guns are working three shifts to prepare television documentaries and PR campaigns to assist in correcting the error.

In a related story, multi-national corporations and Wall Street banks have hired a team of astrophysicists and astronomers to study black holes in an effort to develop more thorough strategies and techniques to solidify and expand their holdings.  Additionally, the illustration on the right suggests black holes might also provide improved methods in the use of pepper-spray.

“An optical image of the sky showing the location of the black hole, Cygnus X-1. (Right) An artist’s conception of the black hole system, showing the black hole drawing material towards it from a massive, blue companion star. This material forms a disk and jets that emit radiation. Credit: Optical: DSS; Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss

“Black holes are among the most amazing and bizarre predictions of Einstein’s theory of gravity. A black hole is thought to be point-like in dimension, but it is surrounded by an imaginary surface, or “edge,” of finite size (its “event horizon”) within which anything that ventures becomes lost forever to the rest of the universe.”  http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-11-black-hole-unmasked.html

The overall optimism derived from these stories was something I wanted to share with you readers to lift whatever waning spirits you might experiencing his crisp, rainy morning.

Old Jules

18 Comments

Posted in 2011, Animals, Astronomy, Chickens, Communication, Country Life, Homesteading, Human Behavior, Politics, Poultry

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Old Sol’s Party-Animal Mood Swings Bring Mixed-Reactions

Posted on December 4, 2011 by | 8 comments

Old Sol was practicing his quickdraw:

http://spaceweather.com/submissions/pics/a/Alexandra-Hart-2011-12-03-11-22-20–

Alexandra Hart 
Image taken: Dec. 3, 2011
Location: Cheshire, UK 
 
Details: This prominence lifted off within 10 minutes, very spectacular! Taken with a Coronado PST and DMK41

 http://spaceweather.com/

ERUPTING FILAMENT: Today, with little warning, a magnetic filament rapidly erupted on the sun. Between 10:30 and 11:30 UT, observers in Europe watched tendrils of hot plasma rocket away from the sun’s NW limb. Debris from the explosion is not expected to hit Earth. Images: #1, #2, #3.

Astrophysicists aren’t certain what he was shooting at, but several noted deer season recently opened.  Others speculate Alpha Centauri was throwing bottles or tin-cans in the air for him.

With no flares of significance in days, the sun is strangely quiet. Nevertheless, the view remains dynamic. Rogerio Marcon of Campinas, Brasil, took this picture of the local starscape on Dec. 2nd.   Using a telescope tuned to the red glow of solar hydrogen, Marco captured 20 billion sq. km of seething plasma and magnetic filaments; also included in the field is the dark core of sunspot 1364 (lower right). It doesn’t look very quiet. NOAA forecasters estimate a 30% chance of M-class solar flares in the next 24 hours.  http://spaceweather.com/

Some astrophysicists noted 20 billion sq. km of seething plasma and magnetic filaments could be considered a middling lot, everything else being equal.

PHD candidates from UC Berkeley and MIT have gone on record with a theory there’s some kind of celebration going on up there.  NASA space cadets believe otherwise, but refuse to elaborate except to darkly hint Old Sol’s expressing his displeasure about agency budget cuts.

Israel and the CIA aren’t saying what’s causing it, but are planning airstrikes on unnamed Central Asian targets in retaliation.

Old Jules

 

8 Comments

Posted in 2011, Astronomy

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A Poem as Lovely as a Tree – An Oak Ponders Oak-Wilt

Posted on December 3, 2011 by | 22 comments

 

Possibly  this one would choose something by Arthur Rimbaud,

“True, the new era is nothing if not harsh.

“For I can say that I have gained a victory; the gnashing of teeth, the hissing of hellfire, the stinking sighs subside. All my monstrous memories are fading. My last longings depart, – jealousy of beggars, bandits, friends of death, all those that the world passed by. – Damned souls, if I were to take vengance!

“One must be absolutely modern.

“Never mind hymns of thanksgiving: hold on to a step once taken. A hard night! Dried blood smokes on my face, and nothing lies behind me but that repulsive little tree!… The battle for the soul is as brutal as the battles of men; but the sight of justice is the pleasure of God alone.

“Yet this is the watch by night. Let us all accept new strength, and real tenderness. And at dawn, armed with glowing patience, we will enter the cities of glory.”  From ‘Farewell’ by Arthur Rimbaud

Or Baudelaire:

“— Enjoyment fortifies desire.
Desire, old tree fertilized by pleasure,
While your bark grows thick and hardens,
Your branches strive to get closer to the sun!

“Will you always grow, tall tree more hardy
Than the cypress? — However, we have carefully
Gathered a few sketches for your greedy album,
Brothers who think lovely all that comes from afar!”

From ‘Flowers of Evil’, ‘The Voyage’,  by Charles Baudelaire

Or Edgar Allen Poe:

The breeze—the breath of God—is still—
And the mist upon the hill,
Shadowy—shadowy—yet unbroken,
Is a symbol and a token—
How it hangs upon the trees,
A mystery of mysteries!

From ‘Spirits of the Dead’, by Edgar Allen Poe

My own saga with Oak Wilt and this particular tree is sung in these past posts:

Oak Wilt, Firewood and Sawmilling

For Want of a Nail – Something Worth Knowing Chainsaw-wise

Outsmarted by a Dead Tree

I’d written about possibly trying to salvage some of it for sawmilling, but that’s not in the cards:

The interior of the trunk is riddled by cracks caused by the rapid shrinkage.

Oak Wilt came on it fast from the roots.  By the time anything showed topside the tree was evidently already dead. 

Arthur Rimbaud, Charlie Baudelaire and E.A. Poe should have put their heads together and written something immortal about how to get the rest of it down.  The job has the potential for being right there in the target zone for their kind of writing.  It’s going to be a booger-bear any way I cut it.

Old Jules

Everything else being equal I think I favor pines:

 

All that tree-stuff hanging up there leads me to think our songsters are too humanocentric about hanging trees.

 

22 Comments

Posted in 2011, Country Life, Homesteading, Poetry, Redneck Repairs, RedneckRepairs, Texas, White Trash Repairs

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December 2, 2011 – Good Prospect for Nothing Happening

Posted on December 2, 2011 by | 1 comment

Looks as though everything’s going to be okay.  Human beings have been doing a pretty good job of wrapping things up, getting things that needed doing out of the way so’s it’s going to be a quiet one.

Here and there all over the planet the people assigned to keep Old Sol happy, praying Him up mornings and praying him down evenings seem to have gotten the situation well in hand for now.  Not much danger of anything falling on our heads out of the sky or jumping up out of the earth to surprise anyone.

The Emergency Box that’s caused so much trouble in the past is now securely locked away from the kinds of people who’ve been sneaking around doing monkey-tricks with it.  In the US the government’s been cooperating in a world-wide effort to quiet things down. 

One of the things they decided to do that might help is shut gradually down the US Post Office, which ought to give a strong shove in the right direction away from anything more happening.  And not a moment too soon, either.

Those people have been creating headaches for the citizenry all the way back to Ben Franklin.  If it wasn’t electric bills it was jury-duty summons postcards, registered-return-receipt letters from people trying to make things happen and shiny envelopes telling us we won a sweepstake.  Or delivering some magazine about golf, or pictures of houses and kitchens and clothes.  No end to it.

Generally speaking the newspapers all over the place telling people what happened somewhere are getting their comeuppance, too.  All those little daily and weekly papers struggling to tell people who died and what the local rich people are doing with their private lives are sinking into the woodwork.  Good riddance, says I. 

Especially the part about jury-duty summons post cards and electric bills.

That Emergency Box might find itself completely detached and rusting away if we can keep at it.  Without juries they’ll be able to just lock people up who need it without all the fanfare.

Everything’s going to be okay today provided nobody went to sleep at the wheel while praying up Old Sol.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2011, Country Life, History

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Outsmarted by a Dead Tree

Posted on December 1, 2011 by | 12 comments

Tree Numero Uno didn’t agree to my offer to let it go down without a fight.  The trunk broke but the uppidy part refused to answer the demands of modern physics.

I’m not the sort of man to sit still for anything defying science and gravity.

I got my digging bar and proceeded to put forward reasoned arguments as to why that tree needed to obey the law.

The top part of the trunk moved over on the stump every time I applied pressure to the bar.

I cut the trunk at an angle so the trunk couldn’t slip back this way when it fell and get in the way of the path I was leaving to get the cut wood out.  But now, by cunning Communist refusal to do what’s right there are several tons of potential energy trapped in the upper trunk.  If I use the bar to pry it further this way that upper trunk’s going to snap out of there like a catapult and knock the bejesus out of everything downrange.

But if I leave it standing it’s going to pick its own time to come down.  And it’s already demonstrated a lousy set of values and ideals enough create a suspicion I’ll be under it when it does.

Maybe I was actually supposed to go to Kerrville today.

Old Jules

4:04 PM edit:  I got it down, but with more style and panache than I consider tasteful under the circumstances.  No broken bones, no serious injuries, nothing destroyed I can’t live without.  On the other hand, there’s still a lot more tree left propped up on dead branches 10-15 feet in the air, so there might be another dance left in the old dame yet.  Jules

12 Comments

Posted in 2011, Adventure, Country Life, Current Issues, Homesteading, Redneck Repairs, RedneckRepairs, Senior Citizens, Solitude, Survival, White Trash Repairs

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December 1, 2011 – The Best Laid Plans

Posted on December 1, 2011 by | 7 comments

Good morning to you readers. I’m obliged you came by for a visit and read. I went to sleep last night with the thought on my mind to try a run into Kerrville today.  I figured I’d wander around in the AutoZone store for a while to see if I could locate some Chinese engineered tool designed to outsmart Japanese mechanical engineers.

But it turned out to be one of those nights when a lot goes on.  A high wind rose for a while and started dropping dead tree branches, I assume it was, with a lot of fanfare and drama, on things probably didn’t need any trees falling on them.  I recently got that fuel-line bulb replacement for the chainsaw For Want of a Nail – Something Worth Knowing Chainsaw-wise and at that point my middle of the night thinking changed my plans for the day. 

Seemed everything was stacking up for me to spend the day bringing down dead oaks and cutting firewood.   I settled back to sleep peacefully dreaming of a fire in the woodstove and a few layers less clothing on my agingly fragile bod.

Daylight was still a long way off when I was awakened by a ruckus on the front porch I interpreted as the cats telegraphing me there was a coon out there bothering them, so I got the .22 and the spotlight and went out to unravel whatever was happening.  Turned out it was the invader-cat crosswise with Hydrox, second-in-command around here.

I adopted my mean-evil-ugly persona, put down the .22 and started yelling and waving my arms around to break up the spitting growling party, then chased the invader-cat off the porch and across the meadow keeping it lit up in the spotlight.  Hydrox was playing point-man, but chasing with no intention of catching.  The invader-cat has me figured out, I reckons, and kept turning around hoping I’d say something friendly and we could come to an agreement, adding a cat to the local population.

But that ain’t going to happen.  You can’t stop a man who knows he’s right and keeps coming.  Hydrox and I chased that cat clean into the woods to the east, me breathing steam and gutsy language.

When I got back to the porch with Hydrox the other three were waiting and demanded a prayer-meeting.  They all saw me put down that .22 and interpreted it as an ominous sign I might be sneaking around wondering if we couldn’t fit another cat into the equation.  The consensus was that we can’t.

So one of the jobs today is puzzling out how to get the invader-cat into the live-trap and deliver it to one of the herd of wildlife-rescue women springing up like weeds all over the Texas Hill Country.

It looks like a pretty good cat and I’ve got to tip my hat to the fact it’s awfully well groomed for a stray.  But it’s a long way from anyone likely to be grooming it.  Just the fact it’s survived out in the woods a while, though, has me thinking it mightn’t be easy to lure into the live trap.

Anyway, after daybreak I went out for a perusal of whatever damage the trees might have accomplished and found things are normal, though one’s a lot nearer the ground than it was yesterday.  It’s foggy, cold and feels like rain.  Maybe I’ll cut wood, and maybe I won’t.

But what I originally intended to tell you this morning was that last night I came across a blog where someone’s discovered an identical replication in nature between a beetle and a parasite duplicating the relationship between government and high-finance interests, multi-national corporations, almost every facet of human organizational structure.  I think it might be where we learned how to do all the stuff we do.

Mind-controlling beetle parasite.

Instead of studying cats, chickens, deer and other critters to puzzle out what’s going on with us humans I think I need me one-each of those beetles and parasites.  I’ll keep you updated on whether I find one.

Maybe old Franz Kafka wasn’t too far wrong.

Old Jules

7 Comments

Posted in 2011, America, Current Issues, Homesteading, Politics, Senior Citizens, Texas

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