What's good for the goose …

Snow geese and Canada geese (background) gather in a field  left uncovered by spring near Pioneer Peak

With overnight snow in the forecast for the next few days, winter still clings to the landscape like a puppy who won't let go of the rope.  But winter is losing as temperatures rise and more of those spring signs show up daily.  Although the flights must have been in progress, I hadn’t noticed a wedge of geese until maybe a week ago.

Snow geese begin to encroach into Canada territory.

Then driving out of town yesterday I noticed a line of cars parked along the roadside just near the farm right at the edge of the residential area.

White spots against the sandy tan background of a fallow field had drawn the attention of passersby and I pulled over as well.  Snow geese and Canada geese were picking their way through the field very close to the road, much to the delight of folks who stopped.

I made the photograph at the tip with my iPhone, took a few more and just before I left I spotted a fellow with his daughter of 3 or 4 attempting to take one of those long-armed self portraits of the two of them so I offered to take one for them with their camera.  I hope it came out, glare was so bad it was difficult to see on their phone's screen.

Diversity in the goose world.  I only saw one little dust up.

Upon waking today I looked at the photo on my facebook page and decided it was too fuzzy (camera shake in an old guy's hands) and with the sun coming out wrestled with the idea of going back with a real camera, wrestled at least until I realized there would be no more sleep until I did.

Of course, when I reached the field the geese had moved way back from the road and the closest approach (it is private land with a healthy fence around it) would not have the mountain in the background.  Still  a sharp picture was worth making and I did.

A flight of geese approaches the field.

As I was preparing to leave I drove back to where I had taken the picture the previous day, thinking white spots way off in the field with the mountain in sunlight might still make a good photo.  But  before I could get the car in position and get out, all together the snow geese rose from the field, formed a loosely organized wedge and flew off toward the mountain. They didn't circle like birds will do when they are disturbed by something. looking to come back and land once it's safe. Those birds were going somewhere. Oddly, none of the Canada geese flew way, but continued pecking about in the field. What trigger had signaled all the white geese to take off in the same direction at the same time?  Obviously nothing had frightened them into flight or all the geese would have taken off.  But something basic had sparked all the snow geese to rise at once and leave while their darker cousins couldn't have cared less.

By the time I recovered from that thought process enough to remember the camera in my hands, the snow geese had disappeared into the white of the mountain background leaving me and maybe a Canada goose or two to wonder what the heck caused that.

Snow geese not long before the big takeoff.

You'll never eat anything again

A couple of years ago I went through a complete cardio exam.  Afterward there was an appointment for a discussion of results.  To this day I have no idea what the credential of the woman I spoke with was.  To begin with she told me nothing of the results of my testing.  After advocating the mantra of diet and exercise, the consultation consisted of her asking me questions mostly analyzing my diet.  At the end of it, she told me essentially nothing I eat regularly is healthy except  orange juice.  

This year's solution: more vegetables, fewer flowers.  In front spinach,
middle snow peas and the big ones in back are beans.  I may have
started them a little early, given the garden soil is still frozen solid.

At the time a large part of my diet consisted of a Subway (eat fresh) sandwich for lunch at work every day, a sandwich loaded down with vegetables.  The vegetables didn't matter to this woman.  It was the three thinly sliced pieces of processed turkey that were bad for me.  So, I left there having no clue what the tests had uncovered but unsure what to do about a diet in which nothing but orange juice was good for me.

Fast forward to my next appointment with my regular doctor.  He asked how things had gone and I told him about the analysis of my diet, ending with the one healthy ingredient, that orange juice.  He hesitated there,  made a note, looked at me and said, "Well, you know, orange juice has a lot of sugar in it."  Oh, great, now nothing to cling to.

Fast forward to a more recent visit.  The office I go to seems to cycle through dispensing nurses on a regular basis.  Often that is who I see rather than the doctor.  I don't mind that; I have dealt with them in smaller clinics around the state and for the most part have found them to be competent.  A new one  examined me during this most recent visit.

Again the subject of diet came up.  I had been reading about the various fads of danger and health that circulate regularly through the health media. Mostly what these people want me to eat are fresh vegetables.  But reading about what goes into growing those and the pesticides used in that effort would scare a Syrian watching a government airplane flying overhead.  You are supposed to wash all vegetables but one article I read said with most thin-skinned vegetables, the pesticides have penetrated into the meat of the plant and can't be washed off.  Hormones and other additives to meat, genetically modified plants and animals all increase the dangers in the diet, not to mention the plastic containers they are packed into.  So, I looked at her after this discussion, none of which she disagreed with, and asked her what a guy is supposed to do; her answer was, "well, you just have to take your chances."

So, today I ran across a facebook site dedicated to safe diets.  Read it and you will never eat anything again except honey and pure chocolate.  I wonder what these doctors and nutritionists would say about that.  Here is the facebook page  Every picture tells a story.

One item in the collection caught my eye especially.  In one of my past creative daydreams years ago it hit me that I had no blue in my diet.  That led to wondering if color had anything to do with nutrition.  Just to be sure,  I started eating more blueberries (in the form of pie, so probably not to great benefit) to get something blue in my diet.

Even I knew it was an outlandish idea, but one of those fun things you think about.  So today I learned there are benefits to adding color to your regular food rotation.  In the middle of the list were blue and purple, foods that contain flavonoids which help with vitamin C in your cells and can boost immunity, help prevent damage from free radicals which are rogue molecules that can alter DNA.  The anthocyanins may be anti-inflammatorries thus protecting against heart disease and stroke.  Of course this probably is all dependent on being able to wash off the insecticides.

I won't go into all the other colors.  Here is the particular link on that site for the story of color benefits in various foods. The benefits of eating colors

This is the kind of solution I am thinking about.

Meanwhile, I am preparing a lunch of a salad including carrots, yellow peppers, a main course of squash  cooked with tomatoes and spinach (uh oh a thin-skinned vegetable) and a dessert of blueberries and cantaloupe.  I wonder if beef counts as red.

Maybe here is a better solution though one more difficult.  There is a movement under way to replace lawns with small gardens.  Maybe it is time in life to become a gentleman farmer and start raising my own crops.  What an excuse to buy a nice small tractor too. Not sure how the owner of this land would go for turning it into a farm.

And, oh boy, you ought to see the chemicals in the "organic" fertilizers available at the big box garden stores.

Later I saw an internet meme that probably has the best advice of all: "Don't eat anything that's featured in an advertising commercial."

Into the belly of the beast

What would you bet these guys are not members of the well-ordered militia the 2nd Amendment calls for?

For lack of something better to do today, I went to the local annual gun show.  Walking past the Jeep I noticed the Obama/Biden sticker still affixed to the bumper where I had put it last fall and wondered how that would go over given the volatility of gun politics these days. It didn't stop me even with the knowledge this would not be the most popular vehicle in the parking lot at a gun show, despite its big fat tires and liberal coating of spring mud.

I don't go to gun shows because I am any kind of a gun nut.  Mostly a gun is a tool for me.  I go because I continually hope one of those people will be trying to sell the two guns that were stolen from me in a burglary a few years back.  I always carry the serial numbers and check out every one of the guns of the same type as the ones that were stolen.  Other than that I find the historic gun collections interesting and there are often some cool outdoors gear vendors.

Neither one showed up but something new did.  Amid the tables of collectors' guns and assault rifles, knives and magazines and other accessories for sale there were at least five booths dedicated only to the gun rights, second amendment defenders, all of them stern-faced and looking determined, despite the fact they were preaching to the choir.  For the most part I noted and then ignored them as did most of the people at the show.  Among the booths, at least in the moments I was passing, I didn't see any of them engaged in any kind of discourse with people passing by.  They just sat there with cold, blank stares that seemed to be coming from and going into a void.

One claimed to be Defenders of the Second Amendment while two others called for "Trash Begich," who is one of our U.S. senators and who voted this week in the gun nuts' favor against the bill to extend background checks to purchase guns, one of the few Democrats to do so.  I overheard a couple of jokes about background checks as well.

I looked, but still not sure exactly what this means.

It didn't take long to work my way through the show.  I only found two guns matching my criteria and neither had the serial number of the stolen one.  I made one purchase, took a few pictures and left after about an hour. 

As I walked out and drove home thinking about those pompous jerks raising the constitution to defend their right to own weapons designed only to kill people, my thoughts eventually slipped to the events of the week.

I began wondering if those 18th century Boston tea merchants had had a stronger lobby would their product have ended up steeping in Boston Harbor?  Or if slave owners had a lobby would that have even been an issue.  Fortunately in those eras, the United States and the colonies had leadership with backbone. Perhaps it is an eventual result of evolution that the backbone becomes squishy and malleable and subject to acquiescence to anyone with money.

Another question that arises in this week's milieu is what exactly is representative government in a 21st century world?  Who do those senators represent voting against an issue that was supported by 80 to 90 percent of the population depending on which poll you believe.  What kind of representative can look into the eyes of parents mourning the deaths of their children at the hands of a maniac killer toting a weapon one step short of a military machine gun and then vote to let maniacs continue to wield those weapons.

Of course these are the same representatives many of whom voted against the Defense of Women Act and many of whom also would allow rapists to sue for custody rights if their victims happened to bear children.

Take it to its basic tenet.  These people are enabling and even rewarding violence.

And then when other issues come up they haul out the Bible to justify their stands on things like abortion and family values, while in the process denying family status to a portion of the population which now also enjoys the support of more than half the people in the country.  How Christian of them.

I remember as a youngster in school first encountering the lessons of American history and learning how this country was founded and the ideals it was founded upon.  I remember admiring those who fought for and then founded this new nation in the frontiers of the New World. I think I can still recite the preamble to the Constitution. George Washington was easy, but my admiration went as much to Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin. James Madison, people whose intellect, understanding and foresight laid out a blueprint for the world's most successful democracy.  Along with them I most admired people like Lewis and Clarke and Daniel Boone and those mountain men like Jim Bridger and Liver-eatin' Johnosn (more famously known as Jeremiah).  In time though, I also came to admire the Native Americans whom those others pushed off their land. Our history isn't always a proud one. but that's an issue for another time.  It was that period in American History from about the time of the French and Indian War into the 1870s with the spread westward that I always found most romantic.

Over the years it often came as something of a shock that the founders didn't always agree, that there were arguments and compromises and in some cases hard feelings.  I didn't want to know that.  But, out of that process they did establish this nation on principles that mostly are still valid today.  Valid maybe, but employed? Eh, not so much.

Today apparently the will of the people is not nearly as important as the will of a small group of zealots whose organization doesn't even represent its own membership but instead works only for the benefit of the people who manufacture those weapons that maniacs use to mow down elementary school children, an audience in a theater just out for some evening entertainment, and on and on.  Yes I am talking about the National Rifle Association, an organization whose solution to gun violence is to put guns in more people's hands -- teachers for crying out loud.  Do we value what teachers do so little that we think they should also pack firepower and be responsible for shootouts with deranged people blasting away with assault rifles?

It's doubtful those well-intentioned founders envisioned individuals with military weaponry mowing down children when they wrote about the right to bear arms in order to maintain a well-ordered militia.  At the time that well-ordered militia would have been armed with single-shot muskets, not the sophisticated 10, 30, 100-round rifles of today.

The idea of some form of gun control has always been a debate in my own mind.  I own guns.  I don't brandish them around, I seldom even see them as they are kept in a well-secured safe.  My defense has always been that owning a gun in Alaska is not the same thing as owning a gun on the streets of Chicago.  Originally I bought one for hunting but I seldom go  Now about the only time I haul one out is for my trips into the Bush.  There is always a very real possibility of an encounter with a bear and though some might argue, it is my preference to hold the upper hand in that power struggle.  So far, the only encounter I've had where I felt the gun was necessary was resolved without firing a shot.  That doesn't mean the next one will end the same way.  A large percentage of Alaskans hunt, I would guess the highest per capita rate in the country. Also major ethnic groups in the state depend on subsistence hunting for food. So, Alaska stands in a different position than most of the states and perhaps our senators can be given some leeway.  How many of those hunters need assault rifles is another matter.  Answer? Zero.

Yellow machinery, not a joke, this is a functioning AR-15 complete with DeWalt colors and logo.

But, with the Alaska angle involved, it is easy to see why Alaska's senators voted against strengthening ownership requirements.  Probably 75 to 90 percent of their constituents, including me, own guns.  However one of those senators is a mother and the other a liberal Democrat.  And their votes, in a national tribunal were selfish, imposing their need to pander to their constituents for votes on issues that desperately need some action.  We have had a school shooting in Alaska and several other threats so we are not immune and gun violence, particularly the domestic kind, occurs all too frequently here.  Those two particular senators still would have had a tough time explaining themselves to voters here.  But, in doing so they selfishly voted against those children killed in Newton,  the kids killed on the streets of Chicago, former colleague in Congress Gabrielle Giffords, and all the other victims of gun crimes. their families and friends.

Like I said, I own guns, but I do not in any way defend the use of military-grade assault rifles, high capacity magazines or anything else that enables the child killers of today.  They could be taken away tomorrow and I wouldn't blink an eye.  That goes for background checks as well.  While they won't catch everyone, they will catch a few, and anything that slows down the process of purchasing a weapon adds a measure of protection.  At least you wouldn't be able to get angry, walk into a gun store and buy one, then get back and shoot the source of your anger before there was time to cool down.

To see the effects of stringent gun controls one only has to look at crime statistics in countries that have them.  The difference is startling.  And one thing really jumped out at me.  If you look at a graphic of crime statistics in countries with gun controls and another of the ones with the most and fewest people in prison, they almost match each other.  Kind of bites into the old saw that "if guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns," doesn't it?

Still it is complicated.  As I said even I am conflicted.  There was that purchase at the gun show today.  What was it?  A high capacity magazine....

.. but, this was not for an assault rifle or even what could be qualified as a high-power hunting rifle.  It was a 25-round magazine for a .22.  I have only used this rifle for target practice, instructing a couple of youngsters in the use of firearms, and an exercise we used to call plinking.  That is essentially a walk in the woods, occasionally taking a shot at some random target, a discarded can, the last leaf on a tree in the fall and once in a while, maybe a squirrel.  I have never taken that last shot.  The magazine is merely for the convenience of not having to stop and slowly force 10 rounds at a time into the normal clip made for this rifle.  That's all.  And, if it were made illegal I could surely do without it, and gladly in the knowledge some goofball could not own one either, one that would hold much more deadly ammunition, as he planned his assault on a kindergarten full of children.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

When it's springtime in Alaska, it's 40 below.  Well, 25 above anyway.

11

 It was that kind of day John Fogarty sang about.  You know, the one about put me in coach, I'm ready to play, today, look at me, I can be, center field.  Of course that was all predicated on there being new grass on the field, which in my yard is covered by eight inches of April snow.

Even the date and the unusual snowfall couldn't take away from the beauty of the day. It struck me as so beautiful I ran outside in my boots and underwear to take that picture at the top.  Good thing neighbors' views are blocked by lots of trees.  Even the one house in view is far enough away I doubt if anyone saw me they could figure out what I was wearing in the short time it took to snap the picture.  If they did they can probably chalk it up to the crazy old guy who lives across the street alone. 

The birds apparently enjoyed it too.  There were more redpolls in the yard than I have seen at one time all winter, which if you read this blog at all you know was a huge year for the little buggers.  They cleaned me out again and I had to go get another bag, the 11th this year.  So, so far, including some smaller bags I bought here and there, they have gone through almost 500 pounds of feed all told.

Even the drive was beautiful.  It gave me a chance to test the SPOT again.  That's the map -- my drive to the store and back.  And of course, along the way there are random thoughts.  These are the ones I remember:  

         

I find the most opinionated people to be the ones who disagree with me.

... and this one after learning the Kansas legislature has put the time life begins at conception:

Happens every time you think you have an original idea.

As Republicans go farther back in the conception process to define when life begins, I am beginning to think life begins in that beer I was drinking when I met her.  So, life, like a whole lot of good stories begins with a beer.  Works for me.

And tonight?  Tonight?  As the TV blares I am about to turn the south-facing windows into a greenhouse and begin the growth that will be the garden by Memorial Day.  You know pictures of that are coming.

Spring snow, winter birds

As the snow melted away to almost nothing, fewer and fewer redpolls showed up at the feeders.  Also, to kind of wean them away from dependence on the feeders, I didn't fill them as often, and the redpolls that did show up seemed content to pick through what they had spilled onto the ground over the winter.  But I knew they were around because every time I ventured outdoors I could hear their songs filling the woods.  With fewer redpolls, the chickadees and nuthatches took advantage and came back to pick through what remained.

Then overnight from yesterday to today, about five or six inches of snow fell and covered everything.  Figuring whatever natural food and what was on the ground near the feeders was now under snow, I filled them this morning.  When I went out I noticed right away no songs came out of the woods and there wasn't a redpoll in sight.  A single chickadee tested all the feeders, found what he wanted and flew off to crack open a husk.

As soon as one feeder had seeds in it, I noticed the bird sounds in the woods had picked up.  By the time I reached the second feeder, 30 or 40 feet away, redpolls had already found the first one, and likewise as I proceeded from one to another until by the time I had finished, maybe 50 were squabbling over seeds again.

Ten minutes after I came indoors not one was visible and the yard had no motion in it whatsoever.  Something must have spooked them, probably the neighbor's cat that I frequently have to chase.

I have had another sighting as well.  I was sitting on the porch at the East Pole a week or so ago and enjoying the sunlight.  When I shovel snow off that deck, I always leave a pile for melting to make water.  When the wind blows, these little brown what I thought were seeds blow off the birch trees and land in the snow.  I think those are called catkins and they are what redpolls eat when there are no feeders around.  I watched seven of them land on the deck and begin picking up all these little brown tidbits. My first thought was they followed me there, knowing they could find food if I were around.  Silly, of course. Every time I would scrape a layer away to take some snow indoors it would expose another layer of the catkins and back the birds would come.  As they did, I began to wonder what else I was drinking besides melted snow.  Not a pleasant thought, but boiling should take care of it I figure.

So, now, thanks to a late winter snowfall, I have the redpolls back in big numbers and am almost to the bottom of the tenth 40-pound bag of feed.  I had hoped that was the last for the year, but maybe not.

Saga of a redpoll invasion

Help! I've fallen and I can't get up

I am now the proud owner of an official panic button.

After 30 years of going to the East Pole without feeling the need to check in, this last time someone let me know there was some concern for worry because no one knew when I planned to come out and a huge storm was approaching, a storm that turned out to be more in the imagination of drama queens in the news media than any serious threat.

Now, I have spent whole winters out there, and before the advent of cell phones, without a peep from anyone about worry.   I know all the manuals say don't go alone and let someone know where you are going and when you expect to return.  Long ago I learned I could spend my life waiting for someone to go with, so I have always just taken off when I felt like it.  I have seen needless worry lead to unnecessary search and rescue efforts too.  I can't think of anything more embarrassing than having a rescuer show up when I didn't need one.  I don't want people worrying, largely because some over-imaginative person might mobilize such an effort.

On the other hand,  at one point during this last trip I was thinking, wow, here I am still banging around in the Alaska woods at the age of 70 and took some pride in that.  Then I thought holy crap on a cracker I am banging around in the Alaska woods alone at the age of 70.  That  was a bit sobering and then when I learned both a friend and a family member actually worried about this sort of thing, maybe it was time to do something about it.

So, I bought a panic button. I had read about these devices and for several years have considered buying one, but the price was a little daunting and as I made choices for what to buy for my trips to the East Pole, and sailing for that matter, the idea fell away in favor of things like cameras and guns and new socks.  This week they were on sale at the Great Alaska Sportsman Show and I bought one and I am now connected if I choose to be.

I had heard of a fellow in the Wrangell Mountains a few years ago activating a SPOT locating device, saving his life and since than it has been in the back of my mind. A few years ago the folks in charge of the Iditarod sled dog race began requiring mushers to carry them.  I had even looked at the locaters in stores and checked their website a time or two.  But Sunday I took the next step.  I now own one of the little devices called a SPOT Satellite GPS Messenger.

The unit provides four means of contact, each activated simply by hitting a button:  1) an "I'm OK/check-in" message; 2) an "I am OK but I need some assistance" message; 3) a custom message where you might put a note such as "I am going to the East Pole and expect to be out no later than..."; and then the panic button:  You hit the SOS button and it calls out the troops.  You program the first three messages to go to up to 10 contacts either by email or text or both. Each message sent also includes the latitude and longitude location. The SOS goes to the closest rescue/emergency response agency according to the GPS position of your unit.  This one does not go to your contacts because the thought is that they might interfere with an SAR operation.  However their contact information does go to the rescue agency so they can be alerted if necessary.

In addition as part of the outdoors show promotion I received a free year of their tracking option.  As you are moving along, the unit sends a signal at intervals and this produces a map of your progress by those waypoints.  My official contacts will get this information automatically, but I have a "share page" on the company's web site where they also will be recorded and can be accessed by anyone I give the web address.  When I return from the trip I can pull up the map from that page and it will have my trail on it with the waypoints.  I can even add photos to go with the trip presentation. 

All in all, this is probably a good investment. If it stops people from worrying about me in the woods, or prevents an unnecessary rescue effort it is worth it.  And, on the (impossible, you know) chance I might really need help, well, I now have a panic button I can hit to call in the troops.  Given that I live alone in a fairly remote area anyway, this would serve the same purpose as one of those "I've-fallen-and-I can't-get-up" medical alerts. 

So, now, doesn't  that give us all a little peace of mind? 

The SPOT web site

Those redpolls are still at it

The day after I emptied my 10th 40-pound bag of sunflower seeds this winter I received this email:

We've got your friend Cheryl.

Bring 500 pounds of hulled sunflower seeds (no fillers) in unmarked 5-pound plastic bags or the Texan gets it.

The Redpolls


Frantically bagging seeds now to save my friend.

Enough redpolls yet?

The invasion of the redpolls is on!