Wednesday, May 21, 2008
More Backyard Birds
In this case, a very relaxed Harris' hawk, fat and sassy in summer mode.
I was sitting on the back porch last night reading Dan Manix's wonderful, self-indulgent A Sporting Chance: Unusual Methods of Hunting. I've read the book numerous times; it was one of my early influences, neatly containing short treatises on several interests of mine: falconry, coursing, boomerangs, blowguns, bolas and more. There's even a bit about using trained bullfrogs to catch house sparrows. I kid you not.
I found again Manix's funny, pre-PC line in the chapter on falconry about the task of weathering a trained hawk and how watching the bird was "traditionally woman's work, usually the falconer's wife or mother." (Comments Rebecca? Helen?) Manix adds quickly that it's important for a falconer to make sure he has the right sort of wife or mother before obtaining a hawk.
I first read that line as a young teen and tried to imagine whose mother or wife that might describe. None came immediately to mind.
While I've learned since that I do very much have the right sorts of women in my life, none so far share my interest in this particular task. Fortunately for me, I've always enjoyed watching my own hawks weather and bathe.
In the summertime, anyway, there's not much else to do with them.
(Eight minutes of a Harris' taking a bath? Sure, why not? It's YouTube!)
I was sitting on the back porch last night reading Dan Manix's wonderful, self-indulgent A Sporting Chance: Unusual Methods of Hunting. I've read the book numerous times; it was one of my early influences, neatly containing short treatises on several interests of mine: falconry, coursing, boomerangs, blowguns, bolas and more. There's even a bit about using trained bullfrogs to catch house sparrows. I kid you not.
I found again Manix's funny, pre-PC line in the chapter on falconry about the task of weathering a trained hawk and how watching the bird was "traditionally woman's work, usually the falconer's wife or mother." (Comments Rebecca? Helen?) Manix adds quickly that it's important for a falconer to make sure he has the right sort of wife or mother before obtaining a hawk.
I first read that line as a young teen and tried to imagine whose mother or wife that might describe. None came immediately to mind.
While I've learned since that I do very much have the right sorts of women in my life, none so far share my interest in this particular task. Fortunately for me, I've always enjoyed watching my own hawks weather and bathe.
In the summertime, anyway, there's not much else to do with them.
(Eight minutes of a Harris' taking a bath? Sure, why not? It's YouTube!)
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Quote of the Day
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man --Mark Twain
Feeder Friends
Returning from California, I finally got my act together and placed a couple of bird feeders on my deck, something I'd been meaning to do for some time. We've been enjoying our visitors and I have been having fun trying to get pictures of them. Like this downy woodpecker...
this black-headed grosbeak ....
...and these house finches trying to grab breakfast after a spring snow. I'll post some more if I get quality pictures.
Bottom of the Barrel
This Denver Post article tells us that United Airlines and US Airways, who are in merger talks, are the two lowest rated airlines in customer satisfaction in this country. I wasn't asked to vote, but having to fly both of them fairly frequently out of DIA, I wouldn't disagree.
The Shroud
When I was a young man I was fascinated by the Shroud of Turin, mostly I think because of the striking image that it carries. In the late 1980s the game seemed to be up on its status as a religious relict when radiocarbon assays on cloth fibers from the Shroud showed it dated no earlier than 600 - 700 years ago.
This morning's Denver Post carries the story that a physics professor at University of Colorado - Colorado Springs is trying to reopen the question of the Shroud's age by contending that the samples used for the assays were contaminated. John Jackson believes that the cloth of the Shroud has likely been contaminated by handling and exposure since its first documented appearance in 1360 and may have absorbed carbon monoxide when it was saved from a fire in 1532. If true, the contamination would yield an artifically more recent date.
His argument is persuasive enough that the radiocarbon laboratory at Oxford University, one of three labs that performed the assays, to revisit their results. Contamination of samples is always a big issue when working with radiocarbon dating and it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
This morning's Denver Post carries the story that a physics professor at University of Colorado - Colorado Springs is trying to reopen the question of the Shroud's age by contending that the samples used for the assays were contaminated. John Jackson believes that the cloth of the Shroud has likely been contaminated by handling and exposure since its first documented appearance in 1360 and may have absorbed carbon monoxide when it was saved from a fire in 1532. If true, the contamination would yield an artifically more recent date.
His argument is persuasive enough that the radiocarbon laboratory at Oxford University, one of three labs that performed the assays, to revisit their results. Contamination of samples is always a big issue when working with radiocarbon dating and it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Groundstone
We've just finished the current phase of fieldwork out in the Imperial Valley and I'll try to do some catch up posts to talk about some of our finds. My apologies for my long pause in posting.We found quite a few groundstone artifacts on our survey. Above you can see a mano (hand stone) and metate (grinding slab) found on the surface next to each other. The Kamia who lived in the area in late Prehistory, were opportunistic farmers who grew maize and beans and used the manos and metates to grind corn meal.
If you look closely at this fine slab metate you can see the pecking scars that were used to shape it and to "sharpen" it after use. The glassy-smooth ground surface of the metate would have to be roughened periodically to more efficiently grind corn.
This picture shows an unusual discoidal shaped mano. In addition to maize, these implements were also used to process various wild plant seeds as well as mesquite beans.
This last find really surprised us. You see me in the picture above holding a large pestle. It's very heavy and made of granite that must come from the mountains twenty miles or more west of where we found it on the desert floor.
Stone mortars and pestles are representative of acorn processing technology that is very common in the non-desert portions of California. The Kumeyaay who lived in the mountains where this pestle came from, processed acorns from the oaks that grew there, and traded the meal for maize with the Kamia who lived down here in the desert and had no oaks of their own.
This pestle would have been pretty useless where we found it. It was found all by itself, no other artifacts or features in association. As heavy as it is and as far as it had been carried, you can just imagine someone on a hot day a few hundred years ago dropping it and saying, "I not carrying this thing another step!"
Seaweed at Monte Verde
The NY Times has a piece today on seaweed quids that have been discovered at a 14,000 year old level at the site of Monte Verde in Chile. Monte Verde is about 50 miles from the coast, so this shows that there was travel to the coast or trade with people who lived there.
Tom Dillehay, the lead researcher at the site, asserts that this discovery supports the coastal migration theory for the population of the New World, a topic we have discussed here many times. I suppose you could say that, but only very indirectly. Demonstrating that people were familiar with the coast and its resources during this period of the peopling of the New World might indicate that they traveled down that way. I find discoveries like Arlington Man from the Channel Islands in California (who dates a few hundred years after the Monte Verde finds) more convincing proof of Paleoindian seafaring.
Tom Dillehay, the lead researcher at the site, asserts that this discovery supports the coastal migration theory for the population of the New World, a topic we have discussed here many times. I suppose you could say that, but only very indirectly. Demonstrating that people were familiar with the coast and its resources during this period of the peopling of the New World might indicate that they traveled down that way. I find discoveries like Arlington Man from the Channel Islands in California (who dates a few hundred years after the Monte Verde finds) more convincing proof of Paleoindian seafaring.
Friday, May 09, 2008
Fast Times
(Update: why tomatoes go quickly once they turn...)
Maybe it's me, swamped at the office and ferrying the kids around to uncounted activities, or maybe it's life in the warm South, but hasn't the spring sprung past us in a hurry?
My "new" Harris hawk is about a year old; and just two months after dropping his first tail feather, today he dropped his 12th, the last of the brown ones. Already his tail is mostly full and jet black. His body is mostly black. He looks like someone else's old hawk sitting in my mews.
Where did little Ernie go? Where does the time go?
My kids went to a tea party tonight, a catered affair at an old plantation house on Highland Road. We dropped them off. They wore summer dresses and nice shoes. Several of the other girls wore their white gloves. When the hell that that start to happen?
In the last of the evening light I checked my tiny garden for late-feeding hornworms and other weeds. I grabbed a couple pictures to contrast with the last installment, just a little more than a month ago.
Amazing. We've been eating peppers and basil for several weeks already, and this week pulled the first tomatoes. The world is spinning faster.
My "new" Harris hawk is about a year old; and just two months after dropping his first tail feather, today he dropped his 12th, the last of the brown ones. Already his tail is mostly full and jet black. His body is mostly black. He looks like someone else's old hawk sitting in my mews.
Where did little Ernie go? Where does the time go?
My kids went to a tea party tonight, a catered affair at an old plantation house on Highland Road. We dropped them off. They wore summer dresses and nice shoes. Several of the other girls wore their white gloves. When the hell that that start to happen?
In the last of the evening light I checked my tiny garden for late-feeding hornworms and other weeds. I grabbed a couple pictures to contrast with the last installment, just a little more than a month ago.
Amazing. We've been eating peppers and basil for several weeks already, and this week pulled the first tomatoes. The world is spinning faster.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Pursuits of Happiness
Helen finally came back online Monday with a revealing post in signature Pluvian style. For everyone in search of the naked self---your truest incarnation---and the way to be where it belongs, Helen's discovery suggests it may not be so far away.
Pursuit of happiness is one of our stated missions at Querencia. How many of you are making gains in this effort?
Monday, May 05, 2008
Links
Frantically working on a book proposal, but still surfing. Here are a few links for fun and annoyance...
I am with the Codger on this one: can't fault a tame bear for acting like a bear. More fatalistic societies don't:
"When an elephant kills its mahout in Sri Lanka and India, new mahouts clamor to take over. I co-advised a masters student who studied the macho phenomenon among Sri Lankan mahouts, and she found that 34% of mahouts said they would prefer a killer elephant to a non-killer. Why? Because they would gain status among their peers, and because the elephants' owners would be less likely to interfere with their work."
Julie Zickefoose visits the Fuertes paintings at Cornell. if you ever get a chance, go. Especially good on raptors of course.
WEIRD stuff on pigeon navigation (and by extension migration.) We knew they could detect magnetic fields: now they can see them?
And please run "Quantum Zeno effect" by me again...
"This is a known quantum effect, an utterly scientific version of "a watched pot never boils" - the more you observe such a statistical quantum process, the slower it gets, because each time you check you redefine the particle as absolutely being where it is. It's like driving the family car, but every time a kid asks "Are we there yet?" you get teleported back to where you started."
This NYT piece by Natalie Angier discusses our human tendency to make heroes and villains out of animals in nature. While some controls may be needed to re- balance situations that we have affected, I always have a soft spot for starlings, pigeons, crows, gulls and other "weeds".
Gary Nabhan has a new book coming on local and endangered food plants and animals. It is on my list!
Could Alzheimer's be a form of Diabetes?
Food and Big Nanny: the politics of raw milk (HT Bittman.) Sure there are dangers, but.. pasteurizing and, now, putting bugs back in because we need them? Hmmmm. Good quote:
"But grass-eating cows have become so rare that, to California health officials, they seemed unnatural. The norms of industrial dairying had become so deeply ingrained that a regulator could jump to the conclusion that all milk is dirty until pasteurized."
"Horrible Creeping Statism" as Peculiar says: apparently MANY states(twenty including NM) allow you to be asked for your papers on the street-- and the Supreme Court agrees! HT hb of Monadology, in our comments.
And finally, Andrew Stuttaford joins the chorus against Ben Stein's anti- science movie and silly- ass interviews, quoting Jacob Bronowski in The Ascent of Man:
"It’s said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into numbers. That’s false, tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance, it was done by dogma, it was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods. Science is a very human form of knowledge. We are always at the brink of the known; we always feel forward for what is to be hoped. Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible. In the end, the words were said by Oliver Cromwell: “I beseech you in the bowels of Christ: Think it possible you may be mistaken.”
I am with the Codger on this one: can't fault a tame bear for acting like a bear. More fatalistic societies don't:
"When an elephant kills its mahout in Sri Lanka and India, new mahouts clamor to take over. I co-advised a masters student who studied the macho phenomenon among Sri Lankan mahouts, and she found that 34% of mahouts said they would prefer a killer elephant to a non-killer. Why? Because they would gain status among their peers, and because the elephants' owners would be less likely to interfere with their work."
Julie Zickefoose visits the Fuertes paintings at Cornell. if you ever get a chance, go. Especially good on raptors of course.
WEIRD stuff on pigeon navigation (and by extension migration.) We knew they could detect magnetic fields: now they can see them?
And please run "Quantum Zeno effect" by me again...
"This is a known quantum effect, an utterly scientific version of "a watched pot never boils" - the more you observe such a statistical quantum process, the slower it gets, because each time you check you redefine the particle as absolutely being where it is. It's like driving the family car, but every time a kid asks "Are we there yet?" you get teleported back to where you started."
This NYT piece by Natalie Angier discusses our human tendency to make heroes and villains out of animals in nature. While some controls may be needed to re- balance situations that we have affected, I always have a soft spot for starlings, pigeons, crows, gulls and other "weeds".
Gary Nabhan has a new book coming on local and endangered food plants and animals. It is on my list!
Could Alzheimer's be a form of Diabetes?
Food and Big Nanny: the politics of raw milk (HT Bittman.) Sure there are dangers, but.. pasteurizing and, now, putting bugs back in because we need them? Hmmmm. Good quote:
"But grass-eating cows have become so rare that, to California health officials, they seemed unnatural. The norms of industrial dairying had become so deeply ingrained that a regulator could jump to the conclusion that all milk is dirty until pasteurized."
"Horrible Creeping Statism" as Peculiar says: apparently MANY states(twenty including NM) allow you to be asked for your papers on the street-- and the Supreme Court agrees! HT hb of Monadology, in our comments.
And finally, Andrew Stuttaford joins the chorus against Ben Stein's anti- science movie and silly- ass interviews, quoting Jacob Bronowski in The Ascent of Man:
"It’s said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into numbers. That’s false, tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance, it was done by dogma, it was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods. Science is a very human form of knowledge. We are always at the brink of the known; we always feel forward for what is to be hoped. Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible. In the end, the words were said by Oliver Cromwell: “I beseech you in the bowels of Christ: Think it possible you may be mistaken.”
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
News and Views on Meat
A friend recently gave us some antelope tenderloin, shot with a bow in Wyoming last fall. I grilled it last night, along with some venison sausage that my wife added to her catch-all pasta and feta dish. A Meat-lovers Tuesday.
Having never grilled this particular critter, I kept it simple: cut to small steaks, let sit overnight in olive oil, pinch salt, ground pepper and red pepper flakes. I grilled on low for about 20 minutes, turning every 5 and basting frequently with clarified butter and a little Mr. Stubbs. Result? Tender enough to eat with a fork (although we ate most of it with our hands) and delicious. Now I know why they have to run so fast.
This morning our reader Arthur Wilderson forwarded two links of interest, here and here. The first begins a discussion of "meatless meat," the Soylent Green concoction some posit as a substitute for animal protein. Evidently PETA is offering $1 million to the first mad scientist who invents the stuff.
The second is a discussion thread from a hunters' group who wonder if there's anything they wouldn't kill? Shades of our question about eating dogs, below. However, read a few comments--some are quite unusual. Hard to imagine what sort of hunters' group this might be?
Samples:
Rabbits? My daughters share your soft spot for them, but both agree with me they're delish!
And these folks (some of them "senior members" of the hunting group) seem somewhat conflicted.
Huh! Sounds like there might be a larger market for meatless meat than I thought!
Having never grilled this particular critter, I kept it simple: cut to small steaks, let sit overnight in olive oil, pinch salt, ground pepper and red pepper flakes. I grilled on low for about 20 minutes, turning every 5 and basting frequently with clarified butter and a little Mr. Stubbs. Result? Tender enough to eat with a fork (although we ate most of it with our hands) and delicious. Now I know why they have to run so fast.
This morning our reader Arthur Wilderson forwarded two links of interest, here and here. The first begins a discussion of "meatless meat," the Soylent Green concoction some posit as a substitute for animal protein. Evidently PETA is offering $1 million to the first mad scientist who invents the stuff.
The second is a discussion thread from a hunters' group who wonder if there's anything they wouldn't kill? Shades of our question about eating dogs, below. However, read a few comments--some are quite unusual. Hard to imagine what sort of hunters' group this might be?
Samples:
"Some animals I would kill in a pinch for food, but there are a few different species that I simply will not kill at all. Primarily, rabbits, chipmunks and skunks. For one, I am not fond of eating scavengers, none of them taste good IMO and I really have a soft spot for all 3..."
Rabbits? My daughters share your soft spot for them, but both agree with me they're delish!
And these folks (some of them "senior members" of the hunting group) seem somewhat conflicted.
"Me being quite squeamish when dealing with the blood and guts part of hunting, I stick to varmints...."
"I don't like the taste of any game save it be fish. Yes, I know that someone has a recipe that would make me change my mind but I've tried most of them and just don't like it. I used to hunt, elk, deer, pheasant, duck, dove and most any game that Utah has to offer. I found that I usually had to find someone to give my kill to as I didn't want to eat it. This typically wasn't a problem there is usually someone you are hunting with that will take the game. I guess for lack of a better description I had a streak of morality hit me..."
"I'm not really a fan of hunting ducks because they mate for life. Just seems weird. Not against other people doing it by any means, just not my thing. Don't really like bird hunting at all, come to think about it..."
Huh! Sounds like there might be a larger market for meatless meat than I thought!
