Altivo

Ow! Murder most foul.. er, fowl.. er, vulpine?

Went out to the barns this morning and found a bloody scene in the snow. It took a while for me to decide just what it was. Blood smears over about 15 feet of the track we've made between barns, tufts of gray fur all over, but no corpus delicti. At first I couldn't find tracks leading into or away from the scene, and speculated that the predator must have been a hawk or an owl. Normally there would be feathery marks in the snow where a red-tail or an owl grabbed prey, though, and there were none. The fur appeared to be that of a gray squirrel, probably mostly from the fluffy tail. Our squirrels are generally too large for the raptors we have in the area. Those are more inclined toward chipmunks, voles, and mice.

Finally I found what I was looking for. The snow was crusty enough that the footprints were not always clear, but I decided that a red fox is the likely perpetrator. Sure enough, when Gary came out and looked at it, he followed the tracks farther and she (almost certainly a vixen because of the form of the urine marks) has been hiding in the old woodpile behind the arena. We have no shortage of squirrels this year, and she's welcome to the neighbors' chickens that run loose if she wants them. (In fact, she's welcome to the neighbors' kids if she can catch them, but that's another story.) I think we may be lucky enough to see fox kits again this spring. Last year there were none.

And one more to go.

This blurry image (camera was having difficulty getting so close I think) is a pretty green moth that has been parked on our kitchen wall since sometime overnight. It seems uninclined to move as long as the room is light, so it's been frozen there all day. Wingspan is about 2 cm and I guess it thinks it's camouflaged as a bit of lichen or something.


Survived the whole day in Woodstock, probably with a little sunburn and definitely some cramps from spinning for so many hours. First outdoors, then in the gallery once my shift came up. There will be gallery photos eventually. In the meantime, here's a view looking across the cobblestone pavement of Johnson St. toward the west entrance to Woodstock's central square. Background right of center shows the Woodstock Opera House, familiar to those of you who know the film Groundhog Day with Bill Murray. The Opera House was the hotel in the film. The park has a Civil War memorial in the middle, and a raised octagonal bandstand. The buildings on and near the square are part of a historic district and it's all fairly picturesque and except for the vehicles, looks like the 1890s or so. The gallery itself is in what was once the county clerk's office, part of the old county courthouse. Next to it stands the former jailhouse, where some big name criminals including John Dillinger and Eugene Debs (huh? criminal? Yeah, he was accused of anarchy for disrupting some proceedings or other with a protest) were at one time held.

I spun up three full bobbins, a total of 12 ounces of wool, enough to typically take me a week or more at my usual rate of an hour a day maximum. Meanwhile, a new load of hay arrived at the farm. I suspect we'll be unloading more bales in the morning, before the gallery opening reception from 1 to 3 pm.

No, not the computer kind. The real ones with six legs, wings, and often it seems a propensity to bite.

We have so many mosquitoes right now that just going out of the house quickly makes anyone resemble a single retiree who just won the lottery: surrounded by parasites and sycophants looking to suck all the blood they can get.

Myself I tend to see mosquitoes and flies as the bankers and lawyers of the insect world. They produce nothing and serve no useful purpose, but they steal the lifeblood of others in order to make themselves fat. This year we are getting those big horseflies with a bite like a vampire bat, too. I think those must be the politicians.

After guild meeting this morning and having lunch with Gary and his fellow musicians, I put Tess outside and then went to the grocery store. As usual, I had quite a bit of produce in my cart, and I got the same cashier who remarked a couple of weeks back on how "healthy I was eating."

She got to the eggplant and was stuck. It had no sticker on it so she didn't know the magic number to feed to the scale so that it would be weighed and charged appropriately. The customer in line behind me was an assistant manager at the end of her shift, and the cashier held the eggplant up and asked her if she knew the number for it. Ms. Manager (who is generally quite nice and often opens a register herself if there's any kind of backup) shook her head.

"I don't know the number," she said, "but it's an eggplant."

This made sense but also made me laugh. The cashier, who is an elderly woman with gray hair, said "I know that, but I don't know the number to weigh it." Of course they do have an index on which to look it up, and she resorted to that to find the answer.

I suggested that many of the younger women who serve as cashiers wouldn't even recognize the eggplant for what it is, and they both had to agree.

We also heard a similar comment this morning from a friend at the farmers' market in Woodstock. Gary asked if he had any kohlrabi because we like it and weren't able to grow any this summer. Keith's answer was that kohlrabi is easy enough to grow, but he'd have to explain to everyone who passed by his stand both what the vegetable was, and how to prepare it. Unfortunately, I'm afraid he's right.

In spite of forecasts, only sun and a few clouds today. Gary picked up many wheelbarrows full of fallen bits of tree, though. Mostly pieces a foot long though some were much larger, and both included many two inches in diameter or more. That was some wind gust.

Another burst of Red Admiral butterflies this afternoon, very noticeable in the evening sun as they fluttered and danced in the same spot where we noted them earlier. That nettle patch is getting a workout.

The Alpha here at home is now set up with the full suite of software I need for my development, and I know what I have to do to get the larger one at work to the same point. Linux servers are often similarly configured, with Apache, MySQL, and PHP, to create what are called "LAMP" systems (Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP.) I guess since the Alphas run VMS, mine will be "VAMP"s. I loaded some test code this afternoon, the database and examples from an O'Reilly book on the subject, and they seem to work just fine in spite of the change in operating environment.

(For anyone who came in late, I'm planning to recode an intranet application that I previously wrote in a hurry to run on Windows 2000 with IIS, ASP, and MS SQL Server. I want it to be operating system independent this time, so I'm going to use VMS as the development platform even though it will probably run on Linux eventually.)

Summer hit all at once today, with high temperatures in the upper 80s(F) and humidity to match. Insects came awake with a vengeance, and the pasture was full of mosquitoes. As we were sitting in the dining room starting our dinner, I noticed what looked like a large number of butterflies swirling madly around the edge of the woods. I took the camera out to investigate, and indeed they were butterflies, the Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) to be specific. These are pretty common here in summer, though the guide book says they don't usually overwinter here. In any case, an entire brood must have hatched from the chrysalis today in the heat, and they were madly chasing one another around. There are a couple more photos if you click through the thumbnail here. Unfortunately, even the fastest speed of my little camera was insufficient to stop the movement. What you see in the photos is much like what I saw myself. When they flew into a sunbeam, they looked like bits of burning paper whirling in the breeze. When they moved into shadow, they nearly disappeared, in spite of the brilliant red arcs on their wings. It appears that they favor nettles as a larval food source, and there are some pretty substantial stands in that area. I've been thinking of cutting some to try them as a fiber source, though recently I've been hearing that they make good soup as well (the nettles, not the butterflies.)

In other news, aside from the usual Sunday chores, I prepared a small warp for the loom today. This is for the guild challenge for the year, to "Weave a Green Bag." They left it up to the individual to decide what "green" means. I am using some leftover green perle cotton as warp, and will use handspun cotton as weft, some from recycled denim, some from organic colored cotton plants (green and brown.) I'm weaving the fabric in a tube with a 24 inch circumference, so no side seam will be needed. It will form a small drawstring bag in which a drop spindle and a supply of fiber can easily be carried. Recycling fiber and using leftover yarn is "green" in one sense, and the preponderantly green color of the finished item will be "green" in another sense.

Sheep shearer is coming next Saturday (May 29,) says he'll be here at 8 am. Presumably this is to avoid working in the heat of the day. A couple of you have expressed interest in helping to wrangle sheep for shearing. If you can make it, I'll promise you a nice lunch and a cool place to rest afterward (indoors in the air conditioning or outdoors in the shade, depending on conditions.) Let us know if you can be here. Shearing usually moves quickly, and with only eight sheep it should be done in an hour or so.

Finally. If you were waiting for bird photos, no dice. I'm not fast enough to get those. But here are some nice flowers, scenery, and foliage. Our first stop of the day was Coral Woods, a well-maintained park area that is largely wooded and harbors many native species of both plant and animal. Reportedly there are gray foxes in the wood there, the only species of fox that climbs trees. I haven't seen one in the wild since I was on Isle Royale back in the early 1980s, and I need to go back and do some watching.

This reflecting pond actually had a few ripples from drips and breeze, but the camera was quick enough to smooth most of them out. It's a little hard at first to see where reality ends and the reflection begins, but the delineation is there. I couldn't resist trying to snap photos of it, and I may try to paint this eventually.

More from Coral Woods.

The other place that I took photos was on a 160 acre plot of closed land now owned by the county conservation district. This area has been closed to the public since it was purchased in 2008 or so, but will probably be opened as a recreation and wildlife area similar to Coral Woods at some time in the future. It needs work and will probably need a continuous ranger presence due to risks such as the old quarries that are now full of water. As a potential wildlife and wetland area, it has tremendous promise, though the scars of human exploitation will take a while to heal and disappear.

Here's a view of part of the old limestone quarry, now filled with water. I have no idea how deep it might be, but it looks clean and clear. The water fowl are finding it acceptable, and I imagine at least some fish might do well if introduced, even if the water is hard and alkaline due to the limestone walls. In any case, it's very pretty. The sun wasn't really shining, but even in the subdued light it looked good.

More from the limestone quarry.

This is a surprise to me.

Apparently as a result of hacking attempts originating in China and seeking to pry into gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists, Google will no longer censor search results as demanded by the Chinese government. They announced that they will close their Chinese operations completely if forced to do so. All I have to say is "It's about time, Google." Now watch out for reprisals by the Chinese government against former Google employees who are Chinese nationals.

Saw a dead coyote beside the road on my way to work this morning. I've never seen a live one around here, but this is the third that was roadkill. I have seen live ones in closer to Chicago and just north of Elgin, however. Right around our place we get foxes instead and locals tell us that the two don't seem to share territory.

Warmer air temperatures today, though still below freezing. The ground, however, is starting to heave up with frost beneath the nine or so inches of snow we still have down. This is bad when it happens, making barn doors stick and gates hard to open. Four years ago it was so bad that the "freezeless" hydrants in both barns froze up and we had to haul water in buckets on a sled for the rest of the winter. I sure hope we don't see that again, but it seems unlikely. The hydrants were replaced with much better quality brand name devices.

Meeting to lead tomorrow afternoon in Loves Park, with a full agenda. Then the usual late Wednesday hours. Gonna be a rough one, I suspect.

It was a bad day. I know that because I was the first one into the library (not all that unusual) and yet didn't get to my own desk to do anything until 11 am. There I found a stack of 20 or so new books waiting to be cataloged, in addition to the network technical stuff that I'd left over from Friday.

Tails completed. Argos has a new, bushier tail, and his old one has been improved and handed over to the storyteller who will wear it under her granny dress for the presentation Wednesday evening. I built the canine tails using a length of 5/8 in. vinyl tubing for support, and adding padding and fur over the top. They swing and wag pretty convincingly and would probably be really effective on a dance floor. ;p

I think I'll do paws tonight. Loose seam in one boot, and both need some stuffing added. Paw gloves or else the body suit sleeves need some lengthening to keep my bare wrist from showing when I'm not being careful as necessary.

There are improvements to the head that I want to make, but they are mostly fairly complex and I may put them off. It's usable as is for this event, needing only some minor work around the neckline.

While I was sitting in the staff kitchen taking a break around 2:30 pm (no lunch for me...) I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to see a baby cottontail bunny looking in at me through the glass door to the butterfly garden. We stared at each other for a few seconds, and he hopped away only to come back again half a minute later and repeat the whole thing. I watched him sniffling around the doorstep and looking at everything for a couple more minutes before he wandered off into the flowerbeds. He couldn't have been more than five weeks old, I think. His ears were only about an inch long, his tail so small as to be near invisible. Very cute. I hope he avoids being eaten by an owl or hawk.

Lessee, what happened today.

Well, mowing. Gary did a lot of it. I got to sneeze. Grass pollen does that to me, and because of the heavy rain we haven't been able to mow until now. The pasture grass is rank. Almost waist deep. It would make good hay if we had the equipment to do that, but we don't.

I fertilized the strawberries, which was a bit of a production because it took several trips between the house and the garden (about a thousand feet, or a fifth of a mile, each trip.)

Mosquitoes are out with a vengeance, but mostly biting Tess and Gary as usual. I think my skin temperature is lower, as I get fewer actual bites. Tess, being the warmest of the three of us, attracts them like a magnet pulls in iron filings. Her normal fly spray doesn't seem to repel them, and I think she needs something that will do that. I don't think DEET is recommended for animal use, so human repellents are for the most part ruled out. Maybe citronella will help if I can find some.

At least at the moment, this lot of skeeters will have some trouble finding water in which to breed. But there's rain on tap for the next few days, so that could change. We're seeing a lot of (ugh) ticks too.

Heard from the neighbor across the road that they have a fox with at least one kit hiding out under their gazebo. Now we know where she's denned up and that there is a kit. Once she starts taking the tod out to teach it, we'll likely see her as in the past two years.

And that's about it for today.

Gary snapped this today. We've been trying for several years to get a decent photo of a red headed woodpecker. This is only mediocre but good enough to prove that we do have these rather hard to find birds around. Generally we see one only about this time of year. They prefer large dead trees for nesting, and we have several now so perhaps they'll stick around longer.