Calvin and Hobbes football

Another kids' favorite was jumping off the second floor deck.

Nike has a new commercial in which several NFL players gather on a snow day to play a pickup game of football in a snowstorm. In the last interchange they have split into teams and one guy asks "Touch?" and a player on the opposing team says "Tackle."

My son and I used to play football in the snow. You see, when you live in the town that regularly endures the largest yearly snowfall in the country, if you want to play football in season you are pretty much going to have to play in the snow.

In our game, we had to have snow

at least thigh deep on a 10-year-old. We called it Calvin and Hobbes football. Basically you tossed the ball to someone and that boy had to try to score a touchdown while everyone else tried to stop him. There was only one other rule. The defenders could change the location of the goal line any time during the game without telling the runner.

A game might go like this, which happened when a young friend of ours came over for the day. We hyped the game enough so he demanded to play. So three of us in our snow gear – enough padding to prevent injury even without the snow – took a ball and went out into the yard. 

We stood for a moment until the friend asked, what do we do now?

So I tossed him the ball and told him to score a touchdown.

He looked around and then asked where the goal line was.

My son pointed in the general direction of the back yard and said, "over there."

When we say snow we mean snow. The day before this photo there was 

barely an inch of snow on the ground. It didn't even cause a school snow day.

Our friend looked a little confused but took off in the deep snow.

We chased for a bit and then jumped him, all three of  us rolling around in the deep snow.

Once he was thoroughly tackled he asked if he had scored and I told him no. we moved the goal line.

What?

Yeah it's over there now.

He was befuddled. I noticed while we were all struggling to get to our feet the two boys whispering to each other. We stood up for the next play. The friend tossed me the ball, but he threw it high, just high enough so I had to look up to follow it into my hands.

Before the ball even came down both boys hit me at once, knocking me down into the snow and letting the ball bounce off us.

Fumble! my son yelled and then we looked.  No one could see where the ball went. I finally saw the hole in the snow where it had gone down and leaped for it. I shouldn't have. Getting there first meant both boys piling on.

My son rose out of that scrum with the ball and headed off for the big tree. At that I showed our friend how to play defense. We ran a few yards in the opposite direction and then got down into a lineman's stance, our chins just above the level of the snow. Just as my son went into his touchdown dance, we yelled out that the goal line was now behind us and he was going to have to go through us to get there.

The games would go on like that often ending in an argument along the lines of, "I scored a touchdown." "I moved the goal line." "I moved it back." "Anybody want hot chocolate?"

I often wondered what the mothers thought when their sons came home exhausted, their snowsuits soaked through and trying to explain Calvin and Hobbes football to them.

Here's the Nike version:

Procrastination isn't going to beat the snowstorm

Male pine grosbeak.

There's snow in the forecast for day after tomorrow so it seemed like a good day today to split and stack as much of the remaining wood as possible.

About half an hour into that project the mind began to wander and thoughts of procrastinating activities intruded into the process. As if on cue the birds showed up. Maybe half a dozen grosbeaks, males, females and at least one immature male, a downy and a hairy woodpecker and, of course the chickadees and nuthatches. They were easy to ignore at first but then the grosbeaks began hanging out two and three at a time in a low tree waiting their turns to fly to a feeder. That was too much.

Now this is where the old Alaska proverb comes in. It's been mentioned elsewhere in this blog but here it is again: Before you do something you always have to do something else first, always. The first something else was changing lenses; that was expected. Back outside and shooting away when the camera just stopped. Memory card was full. Comes the second something else. No problem, there's a spare and with that inserted, back to chasing  birds around the yard, at least until the camera stopped again. Memory card was full. Now that's a problem, no more spares and even a master procrastinator couldn’t use the excuse of downloading photos in order to clear a card in order to go back to photographing in order to avoid splitting wood. That was it.

Female pine grosbeak

It took forever for the next procrastination excuse to develop. Years ago I built a house pretty much by myself. One day a heavy glue-lam beam started to get away from me and I tried to stop it and injured my shoulder. The first day or so it hurt so badly I couldn't even drive my truck because I couldn't handle the floor gearshift. I never went to the doctor because I was up against a serious deadline building that house and I was afraid the doctor would make me stop. So I played hurt and forced myself through it.  Pretty sure it is a rotator cuff damaged. Over the years it has bothered me now and then, particularly when splitting wood so I go until I don't want to endure the pain any more. That took an hour and a half today. Now slathered in Icy Hot, relaxing and resting the arm and shoulder.

Hairy woodpecker.

(That triggered a long-lost memory: At the time I injured it I was spending some time with a woman friend who called Icy Hot, "girl-friend repellant.")

About three-fourths of a cord split and stacked, about half a cord to go. Let it snow.

Feeling the Bern

The start, around 18 inches thick.

The finish, maybe a day's worth.

This idea may have been better in conception than execution, but at the wood pile yesterday I got the idea to go through the splitting process for a larger chunk of birch.
This is the result.
And this is a link to the stages in between
Random thoughts on the wood lot
Katniss and the chopping block

Hide and seek

Head and tail.

Maybe this is where the word "peckerwood" comes from. Just as I was finishing up my bout with the woodpile today, a woodpecker flew over and landed in a tree with a southern exposure. I raced for the camera, got the new lens on it and headed back out to test the image stabilization feature and hand hold for a shot. The woodpecker had disappeared.

They will work their way around a trunk so I watched for a while scanning up and down the tree where he landed. Not a bit of motion except for chickadees fluttering around the nearby feeder.

Here's a watchbird watching  you.
A nickel to anyone who can guess
the reference.

I started looking around at the other trees I know they like, mostly huge cottonwoods but still no motion. Then I noticed the new feeder I had put out a few days ago was moving but I couldn't see a bird on it. It's one of those cage deals with a block of seed held together somehow inside. It was swinging unnaturally and then some protrusions showed that shouldn't have been there. Sure enough there he was, working it over pretty good, but on the shady side with the feeder between us. The few shots available never showed the bird's whole self. If he had come around into the sun there might have been a great shot, but silly me to think the bird would cooperate.

Woodpecker pecking wood.

Then he flew off into another cottonwood, again on the shady side. I chased him up the tree with the camera, sometimes hand holding with the lens at 400 mm with somewhat positive results. Pretty sure it's a downy and that's only by judging him by his size on the feeder. Downy woodpeckers have the same markings as hairy woodpeckers but are considerably smaller. Given that only part of his head and part of his tail feathers showed from the back side of the feeder which is maybe 3 or 4 inches wide, my guess was the smaller downy.

So, that's the adventure from the wood lot today. Stay tuned.

Random thoughts from the wood lot

Progress, but there are some hella big chunks to split yet. That orange handle is on the 16-, now-18 pound maul.

It's been a while since a coherent line of thought found its way into this aging brain. That said, maybe it's time for one of those rambling, unrelated thoughts collections.

Whoever first called a weakling a pansy doesn't know pansies; 

they have to be the toughest flowers in the garden. These  

were planted in last year's garden if not earlier than that.

To begin with on my birthday last week a truck delivered a cord of birch firewood; well, it will be firewood once I get it split and it dries for a while. I always look forward to time at the chopping block and take some measure of pride that at my advancing age I can still do this. I have to admit though that every year that maul seems to get a little heavier and I always blamed that on aging but this year I came across a much better excuse. What I recall from when I bought it almost 30 years ago was it weighed 16 pounds. Now, I can swing a 16-pound maul like a 20-year-old, but the other day I was passing the kitchen scale and put the maul on it.  You know what? It weighs 18 pounds. That sure explains why it was much harder to swing this year than in the past. (Sarcastic emoji)

So I have been spending some time at the block every day for a while. Today I tried the Apple watch and its exercise monitoring function. I passed my daily quota for exercise and in the process burned almost 300 calories, and still have several more days to go.

While I was outside chopping wood, my friend Joe May posted this tidbit on facebook:

"While on a road trip between Fairbanks and Whitehorse on a moonlit winter night in the long ago John Balzar, author of "Yukon Alone", was riding with me...two of us on some mission for the Quest. John was a writer for the LA Times and was both covering the race and gathering material for a book. The road that night was a riot of rabbits reveling in the moonlight, as they sometimes do. Somewhere around Haines Junction I commented that there were more road-killed rabbits on the Canadian side of the border than on the Alaska side. A pause and John dropped a pregnant, "why?", into the darkness of the truck cab. I don't remember exactly what I told him but the explanation was the highlight of a shameless career of “putting on” journalists from south of “fifty”. Over the next forty miles of potholes, frost-heaves, and flattened rabbits I convinced him that it was fact, that there was evidence proving that Canadian rabbits were slower than Alaskan rabbits...and he believed it. There's no moral to this story. It's just a cautionary tale.. .probably something to do with the veracity of salty old dog drivers. Tim Jones and Slim Randles would understand."

Nuthatch

My own comment on it was: Once in a while I would tell people on the boat we seldom saw whales when it was raining because they didn't like getting wet.

Now for something serious. There is an offensive word in this, one that certainly is not politically correct. However it is a direct quote from a book and the whole point might be lost if it were omitted. So here goes.

Every time I see some of the vitriolic hatred aimed at President Obama this anecdote comes to mind.  Of course most of those insults aimed at the president often are proceeded by "I'm not a racist, but …" And we all know they are. Anyway, the anecdote occurs in the first chapter of Joseph Heller's "Catch 22." In it Yossarian and his buddy Dunbar have taken refuge in the hospital attempting to avoid going on any more missions that have been added to how many they have to fly before they can go home. The man in white was encased in plaster casts so fully no one could see any part of him. A tube came out of his mouth and another out of his groin, one for giving him fluids and one for taking them away. The tubes led to jars and when the evacuation one was full the nurses simply switched the jars. Another patient called the Texan would talk to the soldier in white but without ever hearing a response. Then one day attendants came and took him away.

The group discussed his demise until Dunbar said the word "murderer." After which Dunbar and Yossarian gang up on the Texan calling him alternately a killer and a murderer until finally Dunbar shouts: "You killed him because he was a nigger."

Now, no one could have known that, but that was the blatant accusation and to my mind that is what all these critics of President Obama are at least thinking if not saying in their attacks on the man or maybe we should be shouting that back at them. So, that's off my mind now that it's written.

JJ Watt prepares to split. Here's the video.

Jennifer Lawrence
 in "Winter's Bone."

So back to the woodpile. A year or so ago I wrote a post about how I was impressed at the authenticity with which Jennifer Lawrence chopped wood in the movie "Winter's Bone." It was the little motion of going up on the tiptoes before bringing the axe full force down onto the wood. Well, now
there are three of us. There's a TV commercial going around where Houston Texans' defensive end JJ Watt, who has some legitimate woods cred, is chopping wood in a forest. And, how does a 288-pound defensive end in the National Football League swing his axe? He goes up on his toes just before he brings it down the same way a 73-year-old skinny Alaskan and a beautiful young Hollywood star do it. Awesome sauce! But wait. Has it come to this? Do JJ Watt and I BOTH swing an axe like a girl?

Follow the line of sight to the upper left corner and that's about
as close as we got.

Birds have used up a 40-pound bag of sunflower seeds already and it hasn't even snowed yet. They get so frantic sometimes they will land on me while I am filling the feeders. Of course when we tried to take a picture of that the other day, no one would approach, hence that obscure one here.

Still trying to avoid the politics of the day, but it's difficult. There was one bright spot and that resulted in the picture to the right. If it needs an explanation, you need to do some catching up.

The days are growing shorter and darker (wait, can growing be used to describe diminishing?). Anyway it's still two months until the solstice – not my favorite time of year at all. That's another benefit of the woodpile, makes me go outside in what daylight there is and that helps keep the spirits up somewhat.

PDF Catch 22

Katniss and the chopping block

In search of truth and beauty

Yesterday driving to Anchorage I was able to slow down along that blind slough of the Knik River where in the past I've seen swans. There were four, two adults and two cygnets. Note to self: 2 p.m. lots of sunlight, four swans, tomorrow for sure, another exercise for this fancy new telephoto lens.

You can see the nubs from antlers on this one and he looks
 heavier and more developed than the other two.

So with great anticipation I set out early this afternoon with all the new camera gear and drove over there – not a swan in sight. I even sat there for about half an hour to see if they might show up, but nothing white anywhere in the landscape. There were, however pans of translucent ice floating on the surface of the water and I wondered if that might be the trigger that sets them into flight southward.

Disappointed I drove home slowly, scanning the woods for signs of life or, as the common knowledge tells it, something out of place, a color or a shape. But everything seemed to have followed the swans.

Then I turned off the highway onto the road to my house and after about 300 yards or so noticed something dark ahead by the roadside. Absolutely convinced I couldn't have this kind of luck, I sped on but then one of those dark shapes crossed the road, the unmistakable silhouette of a moose. I slowed to a crawl and approached. The shape I had seen turned out to be three, two eating grass on one side of the road and a third across from them. They looked at me as I approached and one moved off into the thick woods, but the other two just went on grazing even after I stopped.

I carefully rolled down the window and fumbled for my camera and that's where I learned
something. Moose don't seem to appreciate Lady Gaga blaring at them. Both stared at me but went back to their meals as soon as I shut off the music

This one seemed to be getting agitated. Notice the ears laid back and 

hair standing up on the neck.

Now, I have been talking about this fancy long lens I bought. It stayed in the bag. These were all shot with a 28-105 zoom lens mostly in the middle of that range. I looked at all that money resting in the camera bag and just had to sigh.

For their part, the moose were very cooperative even when I moved the car to stay with them as they moseyed along the roadside, affording me ample opportunity to come up with at least one good shot. Fortunately there was no traffic so I could stop in the road or move at my own pace without worrying about other cars. It seemed like I stayed with them for maybe half an hour but it was probably less than that.

What's going on back there?

Finally another car approached from the rear and I prepared to move. I could see him slowing down but as he approached, the remaining two moose meandered back into the forest, invisible again but probably still within 20 feet of that tempting green grass along the ditches.

Over all it made the trip much more satisfying and I still have the swans to anticipate.

And, as for truth and beauty, there certainly is truth here, but it would be difficult to compare the ungainly ambling of a moose with the grace of a swan yet they do have a journeyman's sort of beauty about them.
A post for Suzy
In Alaska you have to pay attention all the time

It shouldn't be this easy

The Republicans spent months and millions of dollars trying to discredit Hillary Clinton and in the end ruined it with one slip of the tongue. Not only did this Kevin McCarthy slip up and admit that was the whole reason for the Benghazi investigation, two days later it turns up he is probably having an affair with another representative. And this is the guy the GOP was trying to put up as speaker of the house, third in line to the presidency.

And for all they did to hurt Clinton's campaign, they only ended up with a noose around their own necks and all the Democrats had to do was sit and watch, and, oh yes, laugh.

Time after time the Republicans have tried to come up with campaign issues, some promoting their own agendas, some trying to embarrass their opponents, but with no foundation and then all somebody has to do is shout out a buzz word and that particular  Republican disintegrates.

For example, shout "separation of church and state" against Mike Huckabee and you get a rant about how this is supposed to be a Christian nation, not, mind you, some reasoned argument, a few slogans and a call to change the Constitution.

Shout out "gay rights" and Ted Cruz wants to get rid of lifetime appointments for Supreme Court justices to stop "activist judges." Sure and then we get politically motived judges which was the reason the Constitution's authors wrote lifetime appointments in there in the first place.

Shout out "disaster relief" at Lindsey Graham and he forgets he voted against relief for victims of Hurricane Sandy a few years ago but begs for aid for his own state which has been inundated by historic flooding. Same with Cruz and Texas.

Shout out "gun control" to any of them and they will cite you the straight NRA line but Jeb Bush did it best. Remember the old t-shirts that read "shit happens?" What do you think "stuff happens" is a euphemism for? Or how about this Carson guy who says if the kids had been carrying guns and challenged that Oregon shooter it would have turned out better. But he topped it since then saying the Holocaust might not have happened if Jews had been carrying guns. And that guy's in second place.

Trump? All you have to do is challenge something he says and he begins frothing at the mouth. This guy is dumb enough to pick fights with news media if he doesn't like what they say. Think about this: If President Obama blew his stack every time a news outlet or a critic or a racist ranter sounded off, how much would he have accomplished?

So it's this easy: Pick a buzz word and repeat it again and again, then sit back maybe with popcorn, and watch them trip over each other on the downhill slide as they take off on senseless arguments and outrageous statements instead of actually addressing substantial issues.

GOD! GUNS! IMMIGRANTS! HILLARY! IRAN! DISASTER! ISIS! STUDENT DEBT! INCOME INEQUALITY! GAY RIGHTS! and that big elephant in the room CLIMATE CHANGE!

But, let Hillary Clinton change her mind on something important like the Trans Pacific trade agreement and all you get from the media and the GOP is criticism and questions about changing her mind (of course, she's a woman), and nothing about the real issue which is the agreement itself. Please.

A new game

FIND THE NUTHATCH

I know. It's easier than I thought it would be but it does show off the bird's natural camo protection.