Pigeons

So, walking through the parking lot to get to the gym, look to my left, and there are two cars with pigeons all over the roofs. I counted 11 on one and 7 on the other (after one or two had flown down to the ground). I have never ever seen that before. I mean, why sit on a car roof? And why those two? Can you explain it to me?

My FB update was imagining them putting on a scene in West Side Story - the rival gangs building their masses for the big fight. Not sure how you determine which one wins - by the amount of poop on the roof?

Nature moment - cardinal

I saw this in action in my driveway! Way cool. Learn something new every day.

Cardinal Mating Habits

Cardinals like to “mate feed”. During mate feeding the male cardinal picks up a seed, hops over to the female bird, briefly touches beaks with her before the female takes the food. The ritual of mate feeding continues from the start of courtship till the end of the incubation period. Cardinals remain faithful to their pair for till the end of breeding season.

Ha! rereading this, I realize that I need a cardinal. Feed me!!!

Nature Moment

Biking to work this morning, I heard first, then saw three ospreys flying around fighting with each other. Luckily I did not get into an accident, as I was looking up watching them while trying to bike.

Since the Mrs doesn't know what they are, here's a cool video of a pair building a nest. You hear the chirps and it's cool how they work together.

Birds and Clowns and Tumors

Yesterday biking to work I noticed a hawk on a telephone wire (on a side street). It was so close I stopped and turned around to look. There was much screeching by blue jays, and I noticed a bunch of blue jays in a big tree behind the house. I've never seen blue jays in a flock. The hawk jumped over to a fence that went between the two properties with high bushes. Then he flew into the bush and I could not see him, but a small bird flew out and away in a hurry.

So, I'm away climbing this weekend until Monday night. With my ex-ish. Using two tents. And Tuesday am I go to court to finalize the divorce. Yes, odd. Yes, might create some drama. Am I a clown? Sadomasochistic? Maybe.

Just checked a blog of a friend/acquaintance. She's recently married to a man she had rediscovered after a long time apart, and he's diagnosed with Grade 4 Glioblastoma brain tumor. How sad. Prognosis is bad (51 weeks average survival after diagnosis). But truly I believe it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. I hope it does not come to that for them; though signs point to that, miracles can happen.

(Susan's comments made me add this. Would be nice to be able to sing it someday.)

Things Fall Apart

Have you ever read that book by Chinua Achebe? The book describes the effects on Ibo society of the arrival of European colonizers and missionaries in the late 1800s. I think recently it was the 50th anniversary of the novel. Read it, it's good. As well as other books that he's written.

You thought this was going to be a literary post. Well, I sucked you in... escape before it's too late! It's 3:30 in the morning - I didn't even make it to my normal 4 am when issues wake me up.

You know the saying, when it rains, it pours? Well, it seems that God's dog is not just peeing on me, but taking a shit too. Or perhaps diarrhea. (that is one of the harder words to spell - I'm glad blogger does automatic spell check - I recently saw a comic related to that, I'll try and find it). I prefer to think I am not cursed and thus cannot spread my bad mojo to others, but rather I'm taking the hit for others. I hope the people I'm staying with feel the same! Else I'm out on the street (just kidding). When I related the second of two blows last night, my friend just said 'holy shit - it keeps coming'. Or something to that effect.

One I can write about, one I can't. My uncle died yesterday. Long time coming, had a long life, blah blah blah. He's still dead. The other one affects a person close to me and when I heard it my first reaction was laughter because it was so shocking. I'm not sure I've ever had that response before to something of that nature. It of course was horrible to this person and thankfully after a bit they yelled at me (the equivalent of slapping me in the face) because it brought me back to reality and I could be supportive, hopefully.

I know I'm still in shock. And I'm so worried about the second person. And I'm not sure I have the energy to go to my uncle's funeral. Which brings on guilt feelings. Arrrrrrr! I had my warm milk and a snack, and hopefully I'll be able to go back to sleep. One neat thing that happened when I got up is that I heard some sort of winged animal making noises outside. It always amazes me to hear such things in the middle of the night. Not even sure what it was. I heard somewhere that birds have different songs for nighttime, or was it when they migrate? I'll have to look that up.

Mark your calendar - Total lunar eclipse

For all of you sky watchers, like me, look up February 20th and you will see a total lunar eclipse. Go here to see what time what part of the eclipse will be happening. Everyone in North America at least should be able to see it. Also I think South America. Go to the site and take a look...

A view to the east

One of the things I love about my house is that the bedroom window faces east.

This morning I woke up and I couldn't get out of bed. I just didn't want to move. Or open my eyes. But I had to to find the alarm clock to turn it off. And I saw a beautiful sight - the whole sky was orange, like it was on fire. The tree outlines which were black set against that was beautiful.

But my eyes closed again for a bit. Couldn't get up. Snoozed for a minute. Peeked one eye open and now the bottom half the sky was orange and the top half was turning blueish. Really neat. But not enough to keep my eyes open and get me out of bed.

Snoozed for a bit, then peeked an eye open. No more orange which was too bad, but now I could see details (as many details as I could see without glasses) of trees - they were no longer black against the sky background.

And so I figured it was time to get up. It was a nice morning.

If it's not a person...

So, my husband and I went climbing today. Beautiful fall day, and we hiked up 2 hours to the top of a local mountain to rock climb. The place where we climbed has some great granite cracks, and he wanted to do a few. So I agreed to go as an anniversary present (it's a 2 hour hike uphill one way, carrying gear, so it's a trek). There was noone in the area we went to, partly because it's all overgrown, and it was silent.

We did one climb, and he tried the second pitch and decided it wasn't to be that day. So we went back down, and were figuring out what to do next when we hear some rustling. It sounded like a person - not a deer - so he called out 'hello there'. His back was to the bushes/trees and all of a sudden I see a black furry head with a brown snout no more than 15 feet away. BLACK BEAR! I just said, it's a bear, whatdowedo whatdowedo whatdowedo, as I walked up the hill against the rock. My husband a little stressed, but not too bad, says to me, you treat it like a big dog - oh, you dont like those either - and roared and jingled the gear to scare it away. So, it went away.

We just stood there looking at each other and laughing a little bit in amazement. And started cleaning up again, and thinking again about what to do.

Then I as I'm looking at him standing looking at the climbing book, I see a black head peer around a tree from the other direction. And screamed (because I knew it was ok to make noise). My husband jumped around and picked up a small rocks and threw them towards the bear, roaring again. So the bear walked off again. And we started thinking, maybe we shouldn't stay around anymore.

And then I see some movement of black between the two spots the bear had appeared before, screamed again, and this time my husband picks up a BIG rock and throws it towards the bear, tells me to pack everything up quickly while he makes sure the bear doesn't come back yet again. We hightailed it out of there, roaring all the way.

We saw some Search and Rescue guys on the way down, and they said there were a couple juveniles wandering around that were too inquisitive for their own good and/or maybe someone had fed them. CRAZY! But the one we saw was pretty damn big, so not sure it was the same one.

Please don't ever feed wildlife.

Green Flash at Sunset

Last year I went to Olympic National Park. I had just read about the green flash at sunset, for some reason (scroll down on the link to read). And so I was watching at sunset, and just so happened to use my binoculars to look, and I SAW IT! It was sooo coool.

Photo credit.
Another good link on green flashes.

Disclaimer: Blogger will not be held responsible if you burn your retinas staring at the sun...

Roofies

Back in 2001 I was a true burly girl. I was strong and was doing some hard climbs (for me = 5.9 trad - see explanation below). Once in a while I would get on something that was exceptionally challenging, and my poor belayer would stand there for 1.5 hours at least while I did the climb. I did one climb that had the word 'roof' in the title. And there were multiple roofies on the climb. My husband was not my husband at the time, but we climbed together a lot, and he was the lucky belayer.

The crux on the long first pitch is a roof (imagine that). I did not have the correct size gear to place something in the obvious place. I did not have the strength to go halfway up the roof and stop to place gear. And since I was pushing my limits, I lost some of my technique, and apparently put my leg behind the rope as I was pulling the roof.

Now, putting your leg behind the rope places you in a very dangerous position. If you fall, you catch your leg on the rope, and flip upside down, with the potential for serious injury. I once fell on a climb in the indoor gym, caught my leg behind the rope, and flipped. Luckily instinct kicked in and I went into a fetal position as much as I could, and I ended up not hitting anything and being ok. (You don't wear a helmet in the gym usually, so it could have been bad.)

Thankfully in this outdoor climb, I made the move successfully and finished the climb. My husband told me later how scared he was watching me. It would have made no sense to tell me about it as I was doing it, because it would have freaked me out, ruined my confidence and I would have fallen. The belayer always has to judge when the time is to tell someone, and I believe he made the right decision.

So, this past weekend my husband did the climb. There are two second pitches, and I had never done the one with the big big roof (in fact, in my climbing book I had written NFW after seeing it up close). My husband had done it before and loved it, so decided to take me up it.

To be safe, he told me to bring gear to prussik up the rope in case I could not finish the climb, or fell into space and could not get back to the rock. Of course, my hackles went up ' what, you don't believe I can do it? '. When I got up there, I was glad he had said to bring it. Three to four feet of roof, horizontally away from the rock, hanging into space.

When he started it and was standing under the roof, his feet were above the horizon. Stepping on the clouds. My stomach lurched just watching him there, with the thought that I would have to follow him! He said to me, how can I be so excited yet so nervous at the same time? He managed to get a piece of gear above the roof, though as he was getting stuff off his harness, he looked down. Mistake! Looking down into space.

After a few false starts, he finally made the move, and slowly/quickly I only saw half his body, and then only the bottom of his feet and a few pieces of hanging gear. And then he was up and over. CRAP - I'd have to follow him.

So, with nothing to do except belay, I watched the trees move in the wind and the vultures spin in the air. There was one dead tree just below us, and one turkey vulture landed on it. For some reason other vultures (both turkey and black I believe) would land for a second on a branch and fly immediately off. I watched them until I heard 'off belay' and took my husband off belay.

As I stood there and he took up the rope so he could belay me, I relaxed myself by continuing to watch the birds and the trees and the clouds, etc. Just as I was about ready to climb, at least seven vultures landed on the dead tree. My husband calls out 'See the vultures? I'm sure it has absolutely nothing to do with you climbing!' Great. Thanks. :-) I actually laughed out loud, which was good for me.

And ultimately it wasn't so bad. Crazy, amazing to be hanging out in space and pulling yourself up. I found a hold out right, and at one point my entire body was almost stretched out completely and horizontal. But I made it up and over. Amazing. A gorgeous gorgeous climb. (For the record, I had to hang several times...) And since I did it, it's been taken off of my NFW list, and I think someday, if I'm strong enough, I can do it.

[though you could look this up, rating systems on climbs vary across the world. The US uses the Yosemite Decimal System (5.0-5.15). 5.0-5.4 you could climb without any gear and be ok. 5.5 and up you want to have a rope/belayer protecting you. 5.15 is the hardest anyone has ever done - look at a 5.15 and a normal person will see an almost blank face, for example, yet there is someone out there that can climb that. I can climb up to 5.11 on top rope (on a good day). I can climb up to 5.10 on bolted climbs. I have climbed up to 5.10 on trad and taken a number of falls on that one 5.10]

Mother Nature's birthday gifts to me...

- beautiful weather
- clear sky on Sunday night
- meteors galore, including flaming ones
- close-by bald eagle sighting (along with a juvenile)
- snake adventure
- warm river water to swim in (relatively)
- wild turkey sighting
- 27 chigger bites (that one I could do without)

Along with that, the discovery of a decent restaurant with a huge porch, with the view below. Just amazing...


So, shall I tell you about the snake adventure or the chiggers? OK, chiggers came first so it will come first. We went to a new climbing site, out of the way. Ran into a guy who was telling us a bit about the place, including that there were lots of bald eagles (proven right), osprey (did not see or hear one), and chiggers (proven right).

I've had chigger bites before, but never really researched them. Here's a site.


Note one sentence: You should also take a shower as soon as you get back from an outdoor expedition, to remove any chiggers before they attach to your skin. Lordy. We did not take a shower when we got to the campsite since we were both stuffed (mmmm... sweet potato fries!) and tired and wanted to just sleep (actually, I made the mistake of being influenced by my husband). HUGE mistake (it's all his fault - :-) ). I now have 27 bites on my body. Below is a picture of a few on my knee (as well as my trademark 'nasty knee' from climbing - one big bruise).


So, on we go to the snake adventure. Well, we did a long, hard climb and decided to end the day early and go to an out of the way river that we had been to before and go swimming. There has not been a lot of rain for a while (obviously I don't live in Texas), so the water level was really low. We started walking in the riverbed, from rock to rock, looking for a good spot. My husband told me to watch out for snakes and I thought he was just kidding, but he was serious. Copperheads like water, apparently. I had only seen them at the base of climbs, which at least where I go are never near water. So I let him go first. :-)


Anyway, we walked quite a ways and finally found a spot that was deep enough at least to get to your waist. I wasn't sure I was going swimming, so my husband waded across to the other side to put his stuff down and go swimming. All of a sudden something breaks the surface and heads in the direction of my husband - fast. I just yelled 'holy crap' (what a good girl I am - no swearing) and then when I realized it was a snake I yelled for my husband to get out of the way. He managed to move a few feet away without killing himself tripping/slipping on a rock, and then we both see what it is. A big copperhead with a fish in its mouth!

First off, it came from exactly where he/we were going to swim. Holy crap all around. A bite won't kill you but it sure would hurt. Secondly, I never knew copperheads could/would fish! But this thing had a 4-5 inch fish in its mouth. It went to the shore and held on while the fish flopped. Slowly slowly it moved its head down the body of the fish to the head, and then rather quickly (5-10 minutes) swallowed the fish head first (and every 15 seconds I'm looking around to make sure there isn't another one). Incredible. Then it went into the water and swam off away from us.

Needless to say, we did not go swimming in that river. We went to a different, much more populated swimming hole and swam there.

All in all it was a wonderful time. And I got the following too via email!

The sky is falling! Aug 12.

Or, at least it will be. Every year for my birthday there is a meteor shower -- just for me*. The Perseid meteor shower. This year it's going to be wonderful, because there's a new moon, thus the sky will have no light pollution from the moon. I hope hope hope the weather will cooperate because I plan to be in the middle of nowhere staring at the sky. *(My astrological sign is really Narcissus - look to the right of Leo and you'll see a square - it's the mirror that Leo looks into.)

From the NASA website: Got a calendar? Circle this date: Sunday, August 12th. Next to the circle write "all night" and "Meteors!" Attach the above to your refrigerator in plain view so you won't miss the 2007 Perseid meteor shower.

If scientists use exclamation points you know it has to be good.



For the first 18 years of my life we would be on vacation in Maine, on a lake, in a cabin for my birthday. And we would go out and oooh and aaaah at the meteors. And sing snippets of two songs: "Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket, save it for a rainy day..." and "Are the stars out tonight, I don't know if it's cloudy or bright, 'cause I only have eyes for you......." It's a wonderful thing...

So plan ahead.

Maybe if I get a new camera for my birthday I'll try to photograph some.

Four and Twenty Buzzards

Except not in a pie, but in the sky.

Yesterday, driving out of town, saw a mess of buzzards on the side of the road. They had found a dead deer and were having their breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Much later in the day, after being out all day, driving back to town, I saw an amazing sight. A column of buzzards circling from the ground up into the sky, in a perfectly round column. They had found an updraft and were circling tightly, gliding round and round, up and up. If I didn't have other people in the car, I would have pulled off to just watch. I think they were the same buzzards as the morning, with bellies full, just taking advantage of the updraft. Perhaps letting others know there was food there? I don't know the habits of buzzards...might have to look it up.

Reminds me that I should go out and float again. I went hanggliding in Brazil several years ago (tandem) and it was the best experience of my life - or at least close to it. Floating on air, very little sound...amazing.

Save the turtle, save the world

Driving this morning to work along a waterway, saw an object in the road. Avoided it, and wondered what it was so looked in the rear view mirror (thankfully there was a stop light). And saw it move! It was a turtle! So, two lane road on either side of a median. 35 mph zone, but most people, including me, go faster. It was amazing that he hadn't gotten run over. So, I turned off, got out of the car, and went to transport him to a safe place. Of course, the cars coming at me didn't know what the hell I was doing, so I pointed down at the turtle. He was huge! Like one foot long. And moved fairly quickly once I tried to get him. But I managed to pick him up by his shell and carry him to the other side of the road. He hissed. As I drove off, I worried that I hadn't brought him close enough to the water, but he was probably turtle-cussing me out because he wanted to be on the OTHER side, near his girlfriend or whatever.

PS-I've been told it might have been a snapping turtle, which could have whipped its head around and bitten off a finger. Ack! But it didn't... Also, possibly a female going to find a place to lay eggs.