Wednesday, December 12, 2018

Random Thoughts From Randy

The clouds moved in last night and temps did not drop quite as low as yesterday morn. 23 vs. 17!
Those same clouds are not allowing the solar gain at the tire house that happened yesterday, still throwing wood in the fire. Blue Jays and crows appear during snowy times, run off the smaller birds and are obnoxious in voice. Bird action is hot at the feeders, the brown dog likes grazing the seed, too.
He also likes anything dead and disgusting; yesterday, a deer skull. He had dragged the head, spine and some ribs into the side yard after discovering the remains in my neighbor's woods (hunts only, doesn't live here -and apparently hunts like many - most? - in Louisa, and elsewhere, shoot it, cut out he prime cuts and leave the carcass- thanks); a very proud dog. I tossed it into the giant burn pile remains, and thought I'd buried it with my skid loader. Not! Dog's can smell and are persistent and this one doesn't listen. I wasn't going to battle him for the skull but did cut back on his dinner; he was a very stuffed, uncomfortable but proud dog last night.
The waxing crescent moon was lovely in the sunset afterglow last evening. One (the only?) good thing about a clear cut is the sky view is opened up, can't see stars, etc. from the woods even with leaves mostly gone. Took a bit of sky darkening to spot suddenly bright Mars, never did spot low and dim Saturn. Did spot Venus before dawn yesterday, sparkling in the east, well, planets don't really sparkle but it was bright. The moon and Mars will get closer tonight, alas, clouds may cut into views of that and the cloud cover will only get worse for Thursday with today's Pacific coast storm evolving into our Friday evening rain event - again, little or no sky viewing until maybe Sunday.
The 10" of snow melted to 0.48" of liquid when I brought the rain/snow gauge inside.
A magnitude 4.4 quake shook things up in the southeast corner of Tennessee this morning. Took a lot of moving and shaking to make those old mountains around there, should really be no surprise to still have a shake or two around. The rest of the earthquake map is pretty normal Ring of Shake stuff.
The Chump administration continues to show its disdain for all things good in favor of corporate greed. News yesterday of rolling back of clean water regulations upgraded by both Bush administrations and added to by Obama will, once again, make it just fine to destroy wetlands and pollute any small streams with any chemicals the farmer, industry or developer wants. Oh, but can't pollute big waterways. Because those wetlands, small streams and groundwater couldn't possibly be connected to the big waterways. And, who needs clean water anyway. Long as gas is cheap and profits are high. This moron, "sure let's shut down the government", as I mentioned even before he came into office, will do more damage to the world in 4 years (he's fast becoming a lame duck) than W. did in 8 years.
My xmas cards were mailed yesterday. Red oak leaves had blown into the snow covered ruts in the driveway and sped up melting making for a casual cruise out the driveway. Gotta give Subaru some props for building a fine snow machine. The deep but fluffy snow is going away, but slowly. Forecast high temps are always too high with snow cover reflecting so much light; just won't get very warm.

Random thoughts are done
Time for a snowy dog walk
You should get out, too!

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