Fragments From Floyd

Here’s a question begging real opinions and suggestions, so do weigh in.

Given a short time to prepare, competition by little out of the way Floyd County for speakers invited the same April weekend to Earth Programs in other larger cities, and a short block of time in which to hold the attention of an audience (perhaps in the high school auditorium again)…

What should be the focus of such a program? It should inform and be relevant to the average citizen, not simply preaching to the choir. It should have a take-home actionable response by adults and children alike. This couple of hours should result in changes in the community for the common good. If done well, it might be exemplary to other small communities encouraging them to move in a similar direction on…

On what? Last year’s topic was water resources. I have some thoughts and preferences. But I wonder what you think. And if you have suggestions about speakers, canned programs (DVD documentaries and the like), demonstrators or vendors of hand-out information (we didn’t allow sales last year) or any other pointers, we’re a week or so away from our first meeting.

I’m thinking we need to make the general public understand the immediate nature of the problems and predicaments we will soon face. If you don’t comprehend the magnitude and personal nature of the problem, you’ll not move with adequate haste and in the right direction toward the solution–is my view. And yours?

…scientists at the National Ignition Facility in Livermore, California, are getting ready to do something spectacular: ignite a tiny man-made star inside a lab and trigger a thermonuclear reaction using 192 immensely powerful lasers that concentrate 1,000 times the electric generating power of the United States into a billionth of a second.

The result should be an explosion in the 32ft-wide reaction chamber which will produce at least 10 (and up to 100) times the amount of energy used to create it.

Let me get this straight: inside this 32 foot reaction chamber will be a force that is 10,000 times the entire electrical generating power of the country? The show must go on.

If the globe goes dark when the grid gets drained sometime in 2009 (or if, like, the sun seems to stay up there for maybe a month without setting) you’ll know why.

Pardon my calloused opinion, but if you listen to the National Ignition Facility’s “mission statement” on the video, the “strategic national defense” and “testing thermonuclear devices without underground explosions” parts make this public relations science trick seem more like a sugar coated “star wars” test with some remotely possible man-on-the-street spin-offs–maybe the world’s next TANG or pens that write upside down or super novas-to-go in a thumb drive! Or maybe clean, limitless energy?

Thanks, Neatorama and National Ignition Facility website and read more about Future Fusion here. Wouldn’t it be something if a near-term source of clean, limitless energy came out of all this. Check out this fact (but don’t hold your breath.):

Fusion fuel, deuterium and tritium is readily available in seawater. Just 2lbs of fusion fuel is capable of producing the same amount of energy as 10,000 tonnes of fossil fuel.

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If ignorance is bliss–as they say–then I should be one very contented fella. I do try to pay attention to language do’s and dont’s but have abused some of these “banned words” and phrases upon occasions. And you?

Banned Words 2009: I was clueless about the symbol <3 at number 10. I understand viewed right to left it is a heart symbolizing LOVE. I tried to make it something of it with the < on top and the 3 dangling down below and all I could come up with was a symbol that represents the outcome of a failed sex change operation. But that’s just me. from Lake Superior State U.

And from WaPo: the list of “What’s in, What’s Out” for 2009. I’m way not hip enough to even know the outties, much less the even hipper innies. I did notice that “slow blogging” replaces “twittering” and with regard to the former, I saw the Slow Blog Manifesto a few months back and it seemed so like Slow Road blogging (on most days) to not seem noteworthy. On the other hand, if you’re a beat-everybody else to the punch pundit looking a Technorati and digg ranking, well…

Lots of these glib pairs have to do, I suppose, with pop culture, movies, music and television of which I am blissfully ignorant. I find myself pleasantly insulated from most of current phenoms to the extent that, on the rare occasion I’m inflicted by a television unavoidably blaring in an airport terminal, I feel like an alien far far away from Planet Floyd. Nannoo Nannoo, y’all.

The soft still silence of snow

On the first day of winter,
 the earth awakens

to the cold touch of itself.

Snow knows no other recourse

except 
this falling, this sudden letting go

over the small gnomed bushes, all the emptying trees.

Snow puts beauty back

into the withered and malnourished,

into the death-wish of nature and the deliberate way

winter insists

on nothing less than deference.

Waiting all its life, snow says, Let me cover you.

- Laura Lush

This may look like trash on the blog, but thot I’d from time to time bring sidebar tweets onto the main page directly from Twitter since most “normal” readers (you know who you are) don’t bother to look there. If this is garbage visually, I won’t leave it up. If not, don’t know yet. We’ll see. There might be something here for somebody some time.

And on New Year’s Day, who’s up before noon and reading blogs anyway. (You know who you are.) Happy New Year, and a better one ahead, maybe? Make it so!

Never another one like Buster

I couldn’t put my gloves down for a minute or he’d gleefully “be bad” and run  off with them, waiting just far enough away I couldn’t quite reach him.

Buster was the one who would walk up to my chair here and contentedly rest his head on my leg. He never made peace with the leash, lashing and flailing like a Marlin on a deep-sea run.

I was thinking about our good friend Buster, who six years ago this month (when this picture was taken) was up to his usual tricks. Six months later at 4 and a half years, he died.

Would I want another dog exactly like Buster? And would that even be possible with regard to how he behaved and not just how he looked?

Cloned dogs are a reality. But according to this piece, only a certain portion of their behavior is by genetic “nature” as opposed to pre-natal environment and then nurture after birth.

“The only problem with dogs is that they have such a short life. Cloning means you could have the opportunity to have the same dog with you for your entire life.”

Would you want One Dog to Rule Them All from kindergarten to elder day care, or is the variety of companions part of the joy of knowing another species as well as we know our individual dogs in this short life we both  share?

If you had a choice, which dog would you clone and why? What traits from your favorite would you wish for all dogs? Which traits you recall with horror would you hope to abolish for all times from Puppyhood at large?

That's not a stick! THIS is a STICK!!

Let’s see: what’s in the grab bag of goodies from the web clips goody bag this morning. Ah, I see we have one dog bone and one cat kibble to toss you.

So I’m not being overly-anxious when Tsuga runs with a thrown stick behind the house. It always worried me that 1) when he carries the stick (sometimes one of his own choosing and up to 5-6 feet long!) that he’ll run between two close-together trees and fracture his jaw or break is neck, or 2) when he picks up a shorter stick by the end and runs with it that it will get rammed into is mouth or down his throat.

Turns out that this kind of injury is all too common. So even though we usually chose short blunt pieces of wood cut for the stove, from now on, we’ll stick with tennis balls. Check out this vet’s warning.

“For vets it is one of the most frustrating kinds of injuries. Many injuries are minor but some are horrific. They range from minor scratches to the skin or lining of the mouth, to paralysis of limbs, life-threatening blood loss, and acute and chronic infections.

“The problem is that sticks are sharp - and very dirty. That means that, as the dog runs onto them or grabs them in its mouth, the end of the stick can easily pierce the skin, going through it to penetrate the oesophagus, spinal cord, blood vessels or the dog’s neck.

“Commonly, small or sometimes large pieces of stick break off and remain inside the neck. These sticks are usually covered in bacteria, fungi and yeasts from the environment.”

And I thought this was interesting: stray cats keep lost child safe. You don’t generally think about cats actually giving attention away. But apparently these did, long enough to keep a child from freezing.

“When I walked over they became really protective and spat at me. They were keeping the boy warm while he slept.”

The cats had been keeping the child alive, bringing him scraps of food that they’d collected, and protecting him from danger. “The cats knew he was fragile and needed protecting.” said Lindgvist.

Good form, great loft: Judges score--9.2

While our dog might not be able to make enough meals to live off the critters he so capably smells and unearths just about every pass around the pasture, he seems to have an unstoppable innate need to try to do so.

That’s not exactly right, because he digs up far more moles (insectivores like this one back in a winter we actually had snow) than rodents. And insectivores, well, they aren’t so tasty, apparently.

And it’s more about just acting out his Inner Wolf. He never eats his finds, only plays Wack-a-Mole and Mole Toss. He pretends they’re worthy adversaries, that he’s at risk of harm from their wee teeth and if he isn’t vigilant and wary and on full alert, he might not end up top dog.

I remembered the book about (and by) the fellow who (ostensibly) spent a winter in Canada living off mice just to prove to wildlife officials that wolves lived off mice over winter (as opposed to eating the caribou as had been supposed.)

His name was Farley Mowat. But as I rounded the pasture road with our wolf-ally Protector of the Realm on the Christmas Day, I remembered it was the opening day of a movie about a similar Yellow Lab: and so we shall hence rename our dog–

Marley Fowat! Molevolent Master of Goose Creek

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Mabry Mill on the Blue Ridge Parkway: December 2006

The Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation is partnering with The Jacksonville Center for the Arts in Floyd to hold a Poster Design Competition for the 3rd Annual Tour de Floyd Bicycle Event. This year’s cycling event will be held on Saturday, May 16, 2009.

A $200 cash award will be presented to the person who submits the winning design for the 2009 event poster. The entry deadline for the poster design is 4:00pm, Friday, January 30, 2009. For entry requirements, go here.

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View west toward Charlotte Hanes ridge seen from the Cox's Chapel Bridge, Grayson County, Virginia, Nov 08

The deed finally recorded in December 19 and 170 acres that borders the New River in Grayson County, Virginia, is free of the threat of becoming any number of things that would blemish its continued existence as undeveloped and protected mountain land along one of America’s most splendid rivers.

I was privileged to participate in the Graysonn County / Osborne story by a coincidence of chance and intention.

Ann and I came in contact with the New River Valley Land Trust a few years back and got to know Beth O. So when she was approached about this piece of property to be featured on the upcoming interactive Landscope project by NatureServe, she mentioned my name to Kyle, the online project director. As it turns out, he had just seen my name on the Society of Environmental Journalists list serv offering my introduction to the group back in September.

So Kyle contacted me to see if I might be interested in a photographic assignment (well, a little!) and I made the trip down to Grayson twice with my new friend, Mary Bishop, who fashioned a wonderful account of the Osbornes–Buster, Bobby and Norma–with whom we had lunch in beautiful downtown Independence on our final trip down on a cold gray day in November when there was ice forming at the edges of river rocks (see the image above).

There is an account of the land transaction in the Roanoke Times (with a tiny picture of mine from the location) and Mary’s story is a really good read on the Landscope beta site; this link bypasses the map which will someday be a rich resource for exploring conservation land across the country. Soon, hopefully, my photographs will be available there to go along with Mary’s words and I’ll give you a heads-up when that happens.

Needless to say, though it was more light than heat, it was a thrill for me as freelance photograph to sign a contract that said National Geographic/NatureServe. I’m looking forward to participating in more projects in the months to come.

Follow the river as it flows north into West Virginia: view The New River Gorge Bridge.