Wednesday, December 28, 2005

 

Early Winter Gray

It is one of those early winter days that is cool, but not cold, and gray. In fact, it is warm enough that thunder is rumbling around. We've had lightening and a little hail storm. The hail was BB -sized and came down while the sun was brightly shining. If you closed your eyes and didn't look outside or at a calendar, it would almost remind you of spring. But, it's just the unsettled prelude to the cold of the coming winter.

Birds visiting feedersBirds have been visiting our feeder regularly. You can see the little Downey Woodpecker just below the suet hanging on the Maple tree. We have Jays, Nuthatch, Chickadees, Redbellied Woodpeckers, Cardinals, Goldfinch, Titmouse, Dove, and Robins. I haven't ever seen the Robins eat any of the seeds, but they scratch around in the mulch on the garden. I've been trying to get a closeup of the Chickadees on the feeder we have hanging off the deck railing, but they are too shy.

I found a buck scrape in the back lot. It doesn't seem very big, so I'm guessing it is a younger, less experienced buck. He has, however, done a good job marking several trees and scattering his dung about. There isn't a strong smell, so I'm sure he was up to his shenanigans much earlier in the fall. These saplings are from seeds scattered by critters eating the fruits of O'Dell's trees. They are pear and apple and attract deer and possums among others. One tree (a pear) remains propped with the piece of PVC pipe O'Dell put there years ago. These trees are just uphill from the blackberry brambles that O'Dell planted. I imagine I'll get out the weed eater this spring and cut more paths for berry picking. We had good access to the berries last year. The hot and very dry weather didn't make for very good berries, however.

Thursday, December 22, 2005

 

What I'm Listening To (Right Now)

When I was planning to attend the reunion of my father's WWII pilot's association, I decided I needed a compact digital audio recorder. The plan was to be able to record the veterans telling their stories and answering my questions. When comparison shopping, I found a 20G iPod for a very favorable price (it was an "open box"). With an iTalk microphone, it worked just great; I could record for hours.

To the subject at hand. The morning and afternoon commutes between Frankfort and Lexington give me ample time just to listen. I admit I listen to Bob and Tom in the morning; a solid dose of humor gets the day off to a good start. In the afternoons, however, I've been switching around between NPR and music stations. I discovered podcasting and there appears to be wealth of programming available. Here are a few I've tried and liked.

Skepticality: Hosts Derek and Swoopy discus a variety of topics from a scientific, critical, skeptical, and humorous point of view.

The Naked Scientists are from the University of Cambridge.

Science Friday is an NPR show with host Ira Flatow that isn't broadcast in our area. I notice the upcoming episode has a segment on the verdict in the Kitzmiller v Dover Area School District trial.

The Skeptic Tank is a show from the Australian Skeptics association. I've listened to their episode on Intelligent Design that includes an interview with Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education.

Berkeley Groks
is mostly about physics from Einstein to the Big Bang.

Slate just has interesting commentary.

I have found (but not yet listened to):

5 Questions, an interactive show where five questions are posted and the answers are discussed. Actually, I discovered this one by listening to a show they did jointly with Derek and Swoopy of Skepticality. The questions are chosen to be thought provoking and sometimes whimsical.

Have fun listening.

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