Another Small Stack of Oak

  

Four stacks of wood for my neighbor now.

It’s Public Lands Day

IF YOU ARE AMERICAN, this land is your land. You own it. Never forget it. Always protect it. Public lands are a public good. 

AND YES, THIS IS ALSO National Hunting and Fishing Day! ❤️

Cleaning Out the Shed

  

Cleaning out the shed before sectioning the tree I dropped yesterday. The Wee Wolves supervised.

Got an Extra $850,000?

Stopped in at the local Frederick County, Maryland Fair. 

This little number is a Case IH Axial-Flow 8260 combine with a base list price starting around $827,000 to $855,000.

This machine has a 317 gallon fuel tank, so at $6.45 a gallon for diesel, that’s just over $2,000 a tank.

This County has over 1,300 farms working across approximately 189,000 acres of farmland. Roughly 98% of operations are family-run, and the average farm size is 136 acres. Crops account for 54% of sales, while livestock, poultry, and related products make up 46%. Top Commodities are grain (mostly soybeans and corn), milk/dairy, and cattle.  The County ranks #1 in Maryland for milk production, hay production in tons, and corn for silage in tons. Farm land sells for 10,000 to 20,000 an acre depending on location, access, soil, water, grade, and amount of land in sale.

I pass horses, cattle, sheep, chickens, soy, corn, sorghum and two tractor dealerships on my 10-minute drive to my downtown coffee shop.  I also pass Lowes, Wegman’s, Giant, Five Guys, the bank, an auto supply store, fast food, several fancy pizza places, a brewery, and a beautiful kayak launch along the Monocacy River. 

All of this is 50 minutes to Washington, DC, and 50 minutes to Baltimore.  My own property is on a rocky knoll above a floodplain which should protect very local farms and wildlife, and insulate me from the local spreading scourge of tract houses.

The Unbelieved Dusan Popov

James Bond was named after the author of Birds of the West Indies, first published in 1936 — a book that happened to be on Ian Fleming's desk back in 1953 when he began to write Casino Royale while staying at Golden Eye, his villa in Jamaica.

The character of Bond was modeled after the playboy-gambler-spy Dusan Popov whom Fleming had seen gamble in Portugal, placing a massive bet in order to get a rival to withdraw from the baccarat table — the very set-up used as a plot device in Casino Royale.

Dusan Popov, it should be noted, was a triple agent -- a Serbian who posed as a double agent for Germany and, while working for Germany, did work for MI6 during the war.

Popov was part of the Twenty Committee, so named because the Roman number for twenty is XX, or a "double cross".

Popov traveled widely and was sent to the US by the German Abwehr military intelligence network. One of his assignments was to answer detailed questions about US defences at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. 

Popov notified the FBI that Pearl Harbor was in jeapardy on August 12, 1941, but FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover did not trust Popov, finding him too flamboyant and, as a triple agent, a likely liar.

When Trump Finds This Massive Debt….

Over at the University of Virginia Law School, professor Mitu Galati writes:

“Donald Trump, a president who has proven himself to be highly transactional and keen on reducing debt, may find a potentially trillion-dollar foreign IOU too tempting to overlook – even if it's over 100 years old. Britain borrowed roughly $4 billion from the U.S. during World War One. Afterwards, London resisted repayment, asking for the debt to be forgiven. Why? Because it was a so-called virtuous debt, incurred to fight an enemy common to both nations, and, Britain argued, it had paid in blood – lots of it.

“After some push and pull, the U.S. largely went along, not insisting on repayment, opens new tab. The U.S. Treasury does not even include these debts in its official list of foreign debts outstanding.

“However, the debt has never been officially cancelled. And given the power of compound interest, the liability would now be enormous. If one calculates interest at even the original concessionary rate of 3%, the amount owed in today’s terms would be in the trillions.”

And the lesson here is … Never let a lawyer settle a bill.

The actual amount due would be about $80 billion. 

A Wet Week Ahead, But the Ferns Are Happy

A Shower Thought

Upping My Safety Game

I’ve dropped and sectioned quite a few big dead trees, but a conversation with my small engine repair guy (he fixed some issues on my yard tractor) convinced me that chainsaw chaps were a good investment. 

The proximity of four very dead 90-foot oaks to my hives and shed, and the necessity that they come down in an orderly manner, got me investing in an arborist throw line, rope, and bags for the same.

Chainsawing is easy when it all goes right. The trick is making sure it never goes wrong. 🤞

The Holy Water That Kills Fascism

 “The devil's aversion to holy water is a light matter compared with a despot's dread of a newspaper that laughs.” —- Mark Twain

Michael K. Williams Was An Amazing Actor

This is the most haunting video I know.

😢

The Homeland of the Insane

TEN YEARS AGO, St Elizabeth's mental hospital was being repurposed into Homeland Security HQ in Washington, DC.  This is the hollowed out center building preserved for history and now filled with fascism. John Hinckley, Reagan's attempted assassin, lived on this campus for over 31 years.

Barney’s Owner

This would have been me in 1981. I was going to college and living in Oberlin, Ohio in the big Queen Anne-style house behind me, which backed up to a farm which, in turn backed up to a reservoir and a small bit of forest.

My dog in these days was Barney, a mutt terrier rescued off the streets. He was a great dog. I was known as Barney's owner, which tells you quite a lot about the both of us.

The Purple Flowers of Variegated Liriope

Tree-captured Golf Ball

Golf balls don’t break down too fast. Found this embedded in a tree stump.

Beyond Left & Right

Rain Pushing Them Up

Deep Pileated Woodpecker Holes

This tree is still living… for now. The woodpeckers are drilling for ants and wood-boring beetles. 

The back of my house (brick) can just be seen through the foliage in the first picture.The brick arches support my back deck, with the terrier yard underneath of it (30 feet by 30 feet, half in sun, half in shade, half on concrete, half on gravel). 

We have no shortage of trees, but I think we are losing ash to Emerald Ash Borer beetles that came over from Asia and were first identified in Michigan in 2002. Massive ash loss across 38 states and six Canadian provinces.

Pileated Woodpeckers are magnificent birds. About the size of a crow, they look very much like the extinct Ivory-billed Woodpecker, and have a call that could orchestrate an African jungle movie.

God Makes Spare Parts

I am an adoptive parent of two now-grown children.

I used to sit on the board of an adoption agency.

Long story short, it came to pass that I helped two Thai conjoined twins come to the US. 

Yes, REAL Siamese Twins. 

They were separated at CHOP, the Children’s Hospial of Philadelphia, (yes, I know), and adopted by a doctor and nurse.

Just a day or two after separation, the surgeon came to Virginia to attend a fundraiser for post-operative care.  I was the auctioneer, and I got to button-hole him to ask a medical question about the kids. 

His reply was that he used the appendix to solve the problem in question (they were short a bladder) and then he leaned in close and whispered in my ear: “God makes spare parts.”

I tell this story because you are the owner of spare parts.

If you think taking someone else’s body autonomy away from them is fine “to save the life of a child,” then I want you to sign up TODAY for surgery.

You see, people are literally DYING for your spare parts. 

Very sick living and breathing people need your extra kidney, your extra lung, your extra liver.

To be clear, I want every forced-birther to VOLUNTARILY donate body parts today, but I also want forced-birthers to support MANDATORY forced organ donation from the living.

Because why should only pregnant women lose body autonomy?

What? 

That’s outrageous?

Really? 

I can’t force you to give a kidney, or a liver, or a lung?

Why not?

Why is YOUR body autonomy so special, and why are the real lives to be saved from taking your spare parts now of so little consequence?

How about blood and blood plasma? 

Can we force people to donate these in order to save a life? 

If they refuse to have a needle put in their arm and a bag of life-giving whole blood siphoned off every month, can we JAIL them and fine them for failing to protect human life?

Why not?  Let's get this legislation rolling TODAY.  

Let's see Amy Coney Barrett, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch not only endorse this legislation, but volunteer to donate their organs TODAY.

And let’s see all those who would ban abortion already standing in that line.

Zulu Bohemian Rhapsody

The Ndlovu Youth Choir

Neck Deep In Deer

There are now more whitetail deer in the eastern US than there were when Columbus arrived in the New World.

In fact, whitetail deer are the most populous wild large mammal in the world, with a global population in excess of 35 million.

Local picture taken by me, Frederick, Maryland.

Joan Baez :: Forever Young

I saw Joan Baez in 1976 at Georgetown.

Getting Plants In Before the Rain

It looks like rain for the next 5 days or so, which is perfect, as I have all 20 Wood Ferns in the ground, as well as 5 Christmas Ferns, and the 4 Pieris.  I’ve also over-seeded with grass seed that I soaked for three days before mixing it with Moorganite and spreading.

I still have 16 smaller plants to get into the ground, but they’re fine in pots for now, and will get placed after — or perhaps between — the rains.

The 16 small plants include two Bee Balms, three smaller ferns of unknown type (one is labeled Tassel Fern), a Japanese Holly-fern, four Salvia, and six pink Hummingbird Mints.  These will join the many Black-eyed Susans, Day-lilies, Daffodils, and Cat Mints in the side yard and the orchard area.

Something New Every Day

I opened my phone this morning to this — a “historical novel” called ‘Terrierman’ by Ezio Bassano.

The ad copy from Mr. Bassano says “this book grew out of many years spent studying the history of British terriers, and particularly the working tradition from which the Jack Russell Terrier emerged.

“TERRIERMAN takes the reader back to Britain in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when terriers were not primarily dogs for the show ring, but working dogs shaped by the countryside, the Hunt, the earth and the men who worked alongside them.

“Through the story of a terrierman and his dogs, the book explores the world of working terriers, fox hunting, otter hunting, earth work, Hunts, breeders and the gradual development of the terrier breeds.

“Although written as a historical novel, its background is based on extensive historical research using period books, records, articles, photographs and contemporary sources.”

Cool.

And yet I wonder how a novel bridges a pretty long history?  Characters with Biblical longevity?

The ad blub has a kicker in the lower right corner: “For everyone who loves the true history of the Jack Russell Terrier.”

Ah yes, the true history of the man (John Russell) who bought his first dog based on appearance alone, who bought and sold dogs his whole life, who went bankrupt several times, and whose obituary never mentions terriers at all, as he was mostly a houndsman?  Is that the story we are going to be told?

Maybe. I don’t know. I do know that the last time I was sent “historical fiction” about terrier work, from a fellow in Texas who claimed to be British, it was filled with enough romance and error that I set it aside without comment. Oof!

In any case, there’s a new book out there, and folks are free to have at it.  I hope it’s good.

A quick search tells me Mr. Bassanno is Italian, and most of what he has put up that I can find on the internet is AI-animation of old photos with music added.

For those who want the true history of the Jack Russell Terrier without the novelization part, I give that away for free here >> https://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-real-john-russell-and-his-terriers.html? and in other posts.

For those looking for a practical book on terrier work, without any romance or fiction get “American Working Terriers” on Amazon >> https://a.co/d/007LwSRc. 

This book is so old, it was written before AI.  Imagine!

We Are Stardust

The iron in our blood was formed in stars, billions of years ago, and trillions of miles away.

No wonder we're all so tired.

There Is More to Life Than Increasing Its Speed

A 45 of Dolly Parton singing “Jolene” at 33 rpm.

Anwar and Jimmy Making History

This is Anwar Sadat and Jimmy Carter at Camp David, just 15 miles up the road.. 

The only successful Middle East peace treaty was forged in Frederick County Maryland on September 17th of 1978.  

Menachen Begin and Anwar Sadat shared the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize for the Camp David Accords, but the achievement led to Sadat’s assassination in October of 1981 by members of an Al-Qaeda-linked group calling themselves the Egyptian Islamic Jihad.

Putting in 25 Wood Ferns

Nine holes dug, and Wood Ferns now in the ground at the base of 90 foot oaks.  11 more Wood Ferns to do tomorrow, and then nine others the next day.  The tree roots are less of a problem than the rocks.

Wild Animals Fear Humans

In the last week, I’ve written a bit about Limbic Imprinting, which occurs when baby (neonatal) animals, often only a day or two old, are taken away from their parents and love-bombed with food and attention by humans.  

The result is a permanent change in the animals Limbic System (aka, the paleo-mammalian brain cortex) which is involved in emotional processing and motivation in vertebrate animals. 

Limbic Imprinting is a physical thing, and it permanently changes the “fight or flight” part of the still-developing brain of a very young neonatal mammal or bird.

Limbic Imprinting is key to understanding why the “taming” of wild animals captured when only a few hours or days old, is so often successful.

It also explains why scientists who are breeding endangered species to return to the wild (California Condors, Black-footed Ferrets, Whooping Cranes, Red Wolves, etc.) are so careful to mask their human identities while caring for neonatals.

Limbic Imprinting (or the lack thereof) also explains why adult feral versions of “domesticated” animals are so difficult to work with despite descending from thousands of years of domestic stock.

As for wild animals, raised without close contact with humans, few things are more terrifying than humans.  As J.A. Baker writes in his book, “The Peregrine”:

“No pain, no death is more terrible to a wild creature that it's fear of man…. A poisoned crow, gaping and hopelessly floundering in the grass, bright yellow foam bubbling from its throat, will dash itself up again and again onto the descending wall of air, if you try to catch it. A rabbit, inflated and foul with myxomatosis... will feel the vibration of your footsteps and will look at you with bulging, sightless eyes….We are at the killers. We stink of death. We carry with us. It sticks to us like frost. We cannot tear it away.”

The Saiga Saga

Kazakhstan’s wolf population, once said to number 90,000 (years 2000-2005), has now fallen to 13,000 to 15,000.

Kazakhstan’s wolf population fell dramatically following a collapse in food sources, which led to hungry wolves predating on domestic stock, which led to the Kazakh government green-lighting culls of up to 15,000 wolves a year.

The main driver in the collapse of food resources for Kazakhstan wolves was the collapse of the Saiga Antelope population. 

As I noted in a 2007 post entitled “Dead Man’s Curve”:

“The Saiga is a kind of odd-looking Eurasian antelope that inhabits the open dry steppe grasslands and semi-arid deserts of Central Asia.

“In 1993 the total population of Saiga was estimated at over one million. By 2000, however, the Saiga population had decreased to less than 200,000, and by 2003 surveys indicated that less than 30,000 remained in the wild.

“This represents a population collapse of over 90% in a span of just 10 years.

“Ironically, the conservation community bears some responsibilty as a causal agent in the Saiga's rapid population decline, as Saiga horn was promoted by the World Wildlife Fund as a replacement for the Rhino horn sometimes prescribed by traditional Chinese apothecary shops.

“Increased pressure from apothecary suppliers in China resulted in rapid overhunting of the Saiga, and a population crash that appears to have pushed wild populations past the tipping point.

“Right now, there is a very real possibility that the Saiga may become extinct in the wild within the next decade.

“I tell this story as a cautionary tale about unintended consequences, hubris, and the speed of destruction in the modern world.

“The goal of the World Wildlife Fund was not to wipe out the Saiga -- it was to offer buffering protection to critically endangered Rhino populations while giving a nod to the demands of traditional Chinese apothecary shops. With more than a million Saiga running free in large herds in Central Asia, getting traditional medicine shops to use Saiga horn instead of Rhino horn seemed a reasonably safe and culturally-sensitive idea.

“The problem, of course, is that things are rarely as simple as they appear. With a population of over 1.2 billion people, the apothecary demands of China cannot be appeased by any animal in the wild -- an important point initially lost on the good people at the World Wildlife Fund.

“When an insatiable demand for wild animal horn was coupled with increased access to modern rifles, Central Asia experienced its own version of The Last Buffalo Hunt.

“I am reasonably certain the Saiga will eventually be brought back from the edge, just as the American Buffalo has been brought back from the abyss here in the United States.

“That said, a turnaround is going to be slow and expensive.

“The troubles of the Saiga are not entirely unique. In this country alone, we have stopped just short of wiping out the Condor, the Buffalo, the Black-footed Ferret, the Peregrine Falcon, the Manatee, the Red Wolf, and the American Crocodile.

“The developing world is poised to follow our path in all things. What remains unknown is whether they will employ the conservation brake in time to prevent their own wildlife treasures from tumbling into the abyss.

“A central problem is that in this modern world we can no longer afford to go slow. It took 2 million years to go from ‘Adam and Eve’ in the Olduvia Gorge to a human population of one billion people, but it took only 100 years to add the second billion people, 30 years to add the third, and 15 years to add the fourth. Today, the world's population is past six billion and is sure to climb past seven billion within the decade (note: it is now past 8.2 billion).

“Even as human population has soared, so too has technological progress. Muzzle loaders and iron sights have been replaced by spiral cut barrels and powerful optics. Hemp gill nets a hundred yards long have been replaced by nylon drift nets that can stretch for miles. The ax has given way to the chainsaw, and the chainsaw to the feller-buncher. The shovel and sledge hammer have given way to massive mechanical earthmovers and sequentially-fired dynamite relays. The backyard vegetable plot has given way to thousand-acre monoculture farms planted and and harvested by massive and complicated machines.

“Along with technological changes have come cultural and social changes as well. Limited local demands filled by well-known suppliers have fallen away to unlimited international demands and a global marketplace oblivious to the cause-and-effect ramifications of satisfying global needs.

“The bottom line is the bottom line, and nothing more.

“Chinese demand for horn means disappearing herds of antelope in Russia and Mongolia. Japanese demand for cheap plywood means disappearing forests in Indonesia and Malaysia. The need for catalogue paper in the U.S. means huge swaths of Canada's boreal forests are being cut to the ground to supply bright white copy. What we eat in the grocery store (including what we feed our dogs) may come from China, Chile, Australia, or Antarctica. The fibers we wear on our back may come from pesticide-soaked fields in Africa and may be sewn in sweat-shop factories in Asia.

“Out of sight is out of mind. We have no idea where things come from, or under what conditions.

“Where it will all end, no one knows, but it's clear that at the speed we are going, we are going to miss a few turns and end up in the ditch -- or worse -- a good percentage of the time.

“When that happens, it will not be an ‘accident,’ but a predictable consequence of our speeding down the highway, addled by too much population growth and turbo-boosted by technology.

“Yet, when the crack-up occurs, it is sure to be labeled an ‘accident’.  That's what they call every wreck at Dead Man's Curve.  Never mind the signs, full speed ahead!”

——— ▪️ ———

So was all that Saiga mortality due to Rhino Horn substitution alone, and are Saiga still nearly extinct in the wild?

No, and no.

Not all Saiga mortality was driven by demand from Chinese apothecaries. 

Between 2010 and 2017 there were mass Saiga die-offs linked to atypical wet weather and epizootic illnesses variously described as ruminal tympany, Pasteurellosis, and Hemorrhagic septicemia. 

The global Saiga population has has also bounced back at incredible speed, rising  from about 30,000 20 years ago to 2.8 to 4 million individuals today, with 90-95 percent of that population in Kazakhstan.  

This phenomenal rate of Saiga population growth (30 percent growth per year, year-on-year, and a doubling time of about 2.6 years) was made possible by the fact that two-thirds of Saiga females give birth to twins every year.  

What about the wolves?  

Kazakhstan reports that wolf population numbers have been slowly climbing in the last few years, but about 2,000 wolf predation permits a year are still being authorized, suggesting a near steady-state management plan is now in effect.

The Stolen Wolves of Kazakhstan

As I noted in an earlier post,

“Wild wolves are still being tamed every day.

“Why?

“Simple enough: for pets.

“The same trend is true for every other animal under the sun: coyotes, red fox, monkeys, apes, hyenas, tigers, lions, tapirs, sloths, crows, hawks, parrots, badgers, fenecs, servals, raccoons, cheetahs, bears, bobcats, rats, agoutis, possum, groundhogs... the list is endless. We routinely make pets of them all, in modern culture as well as primitive.”

In the first picture, we see a modern Kazak hunter who has raided a wolf den to steal away the cubs. These wolf cubs are then raised and later sold to dog fighters or killed for their skins.

How close can a Kazak dog be to a wolf? That obviously depends a lot on the particular dog, but take a look at the Kazak dog in the third picture (source >> https://sl1nk.com/nN3ycFQ ) and compare and contrast with the second image of a wolf-fighting dog.

Just two decades ago, Kazakhstan was said to have the largest wolf population in the world, with about 90,000 animals spread over about a million square miles. Since then, a government program of permitted culling has reduced the Kazakh wolf population to 13,000 to 15,000.

Wild Pets Are Older Than Domestic Animals

When I was a kid and living with my folks in North Africa, I would cruise through catalogues my father would order.

I think he got a lot of the references from Stewart Brand's Whole Earth News and The Last Whole Earth Catalogue, but I'm not sure.

In any case, I lived to flip through the catalogues of Carolina Biological Supply and Edmund Scientific, and one year we got a copy of the Stromberg company catalogue, which sold all kind of cool things from Squirrel Monkeys to Quail, and from Jagarundis to Ocelots.  

The 1972 Stromberg Catalogue has now been scanned in for everyone to see what I salivated over in my youth.

Wow.  Seriously?  You could buy black-footed ferrets through the mail??

It was all there for anyone to buy:  Live Woolly Monkeys, Skunks, Chimpanzees, Raccoons, Giant Anteaters, Black Bear cubs, Great Horned Owls, Basenjis, live Trout, Afghan Hounds, Black-footed Ferrets, Porcupines, Zebras, Red Fox, Peacocks, Chipmunks, Spider Monkeys, Beaver, Badger, and English Bulldogs too.

No, we never ordered anything.  There are no dead Squirrel Monkey or Giant Anteater stories in my house.  

As a kid in Africa I had a goat, a dog, 20 chickens, a hedgehog and a couple of rabbits, and for a while a chameleon and an African Gray Parrot as well.  I did not lack for wildlife, and spent a lot of time collecting beetles and butterflies, as well as slingshot-plinking at cats, chickens, and pigeons whenever I was not trapping birds.

But the Stromberg catalogue?  Damn!  That was the thing to spark the imagination of a 12-year old boy, wasn't it?

Now, of course, the internet has made catalogues redundant. Nearly any animal you want is a click away, and most can be sold legally and kept with permit and some legal restrictions, from Bobcat to African Lion, from Vulturine Guinea Fowl to Hyacinth Macaw, from Canadian Wolf to Sun Bear.