Anyone who lives around here should be well aware of the erratic weather as of late. For those who don't, here's a brief summary: November and December have been unusually cold for the most part. Last week was unusually warm, and it rained every day for a week. Then on the solstice it went from 60 degrees one day to 9 degrees the next night.
On the 60 degrees day I went for a nice walk up "Sapling Mountain," looking for oyster mushrooms and found instead some really nicely defined bear tracks in the mud. It was actually a stretch of mud that contained tracks of bear, dog, raccoon, human and deer. Two days later, after an intense Winter Solstice night of a great bonfire in some strong ass wind and then a 1:00 in the morning (9 degrees) adventure wrestling with my awning so it wouldn't blow away (it felt like a long lost tribe of sasquatch was yanking and banging on the Airstream, but it was only the wind), I went back up "Sapling Mountain" with my camara to see if I could find the tracks again and document them. I had a beautiful and painfully cold walk. I found the tracks, but the freeze made them less pronounced. I will post the photos anyways, along with some others I took on my winter walk.
1 comment:
am copying below an insightful conversation of late with bt
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Bud is in some way irresponsibly lunar. 12:05am - 5 Comments
Milkweed V. Pussywillow at 10:04am December 31
where do you think the word "loony" came from?!?
Bud Howell at 12:33pm December 31
didn't it come from the mystical screams of loons?
Milkweed V. Pussywillow at 3:49pm December 31
I have always thought it was derived from "lunatic" which was derived from lunar. Since I am a nerd, I did an etymolgy search and found 2 slightly different etmologies for "loony' : one confirmed my lunar hypothesis, and here is the other : "1853, Amer.Eng., short for lunatic, but also infl. by loon (2), which is noted for its wild cry and method of escaping from danger. Slang loony bin "insane asylum" is from 1919. Looney left in ref. to holders of political views felt to be extreme is from 1977" So apparently you are lunar in more ways than one. Me too.
Bud Howell at 4:14pm December 31
and proud of it! thanks for that bit of research, amiga.
Bud Howell at 5:01pm December 31
come to think of it, there's also that expression "crazy as a loon." but dang with either scenario both the moon and the loon (which are almost the same word) are stigmatized. let's take back the good name of both that big rock and that beautiful animal!
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