Cop Car's Beat

14 Feet!

No, that's not how much new snow we received last night (which was about three inches), but the maximum length between bounds of which a deer left tracks in the snow. Hunky Husband and I were amazed to see the long length between tracks, as seen from our windows; but, I just went out to measure and it was almost precisely 14 feet. There were shorter intervals between some tracks; but, that was the maximum.

The following photo shows the tracks of several deer as they visited our feeders and frolicked about the yard. (The tracks are more easily discerned in the larger version that is observed by clicking on the photo.)

Below is a photo showing the front of our house and how pretty the foundation plantings are with their coats of snow.

To add some spice, we close with a photo of a lady at her bath.

Yes, I can!

Yes, I can still make snow angels. Unfortunately, it didn't occur to me to make one until the snow was warmed enough to clump instead of being cleanly swept aside. Oh, well. This is just outside Hunky Husband's bedroom window.

Don't ask me about the challenge I had getting myself up without spoiling the image. My head was lower than my feet.

The last time I made snow angels was at midnight when the new millenium rolled in.

Birds in the snow

Our bird feeders have been hosting a fair number of birds these snowy days. For anyone who hasn't already seen quite enough of my bird photos, here are some more.

On occasion, a small flock of rock pigeons wheel above our yard on their flights between commercial places and farm fields. Unusually, this one (two photos, below) stopped in to peck around the seeds that had been scattered for ground-feeding birds, on our patio.

Earlier this afternoon, I spotted a sparrow skritching about in the underbrush (they repeatedly leap a few inches into the air while scraping the detritus - snow, in this case - backward with both feet), where I had tossed some seed while refreshing our feeders next to the woods. It took me a while to identify it and its companion who showed up later as fox sparrows. In the shadows of the brush, the coloring was pretty non-descript. Fox sparrows are usually pretty secretive; but, one of them showed up under the feeders below our living room window.

Also out of hiding, today, came an American tree sparrow - of which I have no photo. From yesterday, however, come more photos. First, one of our resident Carolina wrens.

While considering the wren, the next photo was taken Thursday - wren with peanut firmly in beak.

Next, an aerial ballet for siskin and house finch.

A split second later, I got this shot of the pine siskin flashing its yellow more blatantly!

And the finches settled back in to snarf up more black oil sunflower seeds.

 

Still dancing

One of the joys of the snow ice cream that I had yesterday, was the joy of flavoring it with the rum vanilla that Bogie had sent us several weeks ago. Most of the "haul" that we received from her is in the photo posted at Goodies from Bogie. (I write "most" because Bogie alerted me to search the packing materials in the box, again. Thereupon, I discovered that I had missed finding two of the bottles of vanilla that she had made and sent us!) Scrumptious!

The snow had stopped in late afternoon, yesterday, but took up again in the evening. During the night, the snow (and a bit of lightning and thunder) continued to fall. Below are photos to be contrasted with those of the last posting.

From the front porch:

Photos from the back door:

The following photos are included because I find the scenes so pretty. (You may close your eyes if you don't wish to see them!) Please note the budding-state of the tree in the first photo.

The final photo is of a gorgeous tree that belongs to a good neighbor. I love the sight of it in any season, any weather, any light.

 

Now, they're cookin' with gas!

From Slashdot.org:

Tech Leaders Create Most Lucrative Science Prize In History116

Posted by samzenpuson Thursday February 21, @05:27AM
from the bucks-for-brains dept.

redletterdave writes "Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin and Yuri Milner have teamed up to create The Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences Foundation, which now offers the most lucrative annual prize in the history of science: A $33 million pot to be split among 11 people, with individual rewards worth $3 million apiece. Comparatively, the monetary value of the Nobel prize is just $1.1 million. 'Our society needs more heroes who are scientists, researchers and engineers,' Zuckerberg said. 'We need to celebrate and reward the people who cure diseases, expand our understanding of humanity and work to improve people's lives.'"

It's about time some of the folks who have the big bucks recognize the worth of scientific research and development. Yay for Zuckerberg, Brin, and Milner!

(Sorry for the title that harkens back to the 1950s. Well, almost sorry.)

Doing another Happy Dance!

It is snowing, my friends, it is snowing! I had my first bowl of snow ice cream in who-knows-how long, and I'm happy. We won't accumulate the 30-40 inches that some folks in the great Northeast accumulated; but, we'll be happy with whatever we get. Presently, there is a blanket 2" to 3" deep, and accumulating. Below are photos to prove it! (The tire tracks turning into our driveway at the left edge the first photo are mine - from having gone swimming just as the snow was starting.) The pretty flags sticking out of the ground mark where various utility lines pass under our front yard. Evidently, the cable company (Cox) plans to replace some of their line - about four front yards' worth. They plan to horizontally bore so as not to disturb driveways and lawns any more than necessary.

The first two photos were taken from our front porch.

The last two photos were taken from our back door.

Undergraduate physics lab for felines

Thanks to Math is ʃexy for having embedded the following video on their blog.

Great-Grandpa S would have loved this.

Another goody from Slashdot.org:

    Bionic Hand Wired To Nerves Can "Feel" When Touched21

Posted by samzenpuson Monday February 18, @10:30AM
from the all-the-better-to-feel-you-with dept.

An anonymous reader writes in with a breakthrough in prosthetics. "The first bionic hand that allows an amputee to feel what they are touching will be transplanted later this year in a pioneering operation that could introduce a new generation of artificial limbs with sensory perception. The patient is an unnamed man in his 20s living in Rome who lost the lower part of his arm following an accident, said Silvestro Micera of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland. The wiring of his new bionic hand will be connected to the patient’s nervous system with the hope that the man will be able to control the movements of the hand as well as receiving touch signals from the hand’s skin sensors."

 

As a youngish man, my great-grandfather worked for Missouri Pacific Railroad Company. During one unfortunate run, Grandpa S leaned too far out of the locomotive, looking toward the back, and was knocked off and under the train resulting in surgical amputation of his left arm just below his elbow. Although he had a prosthetic, I don't recall having seen it (although I had nightmares about Grandpa's arm being in the closet of our bedroom when I was three or four years old). Had Grandpa S gone through the experience, today, he might have a totally different attitude toward a prosthetic. Grandpa could do just about anything he wanted to do and worked at one job or another for another 50 years following the incident. Nothing kept him down! I still miss Grandpa S. He died during my freshman year at college.

Addition of three hours later

It was Grandpa S who showed me the lack of reverence that people held for human cells in the early 1950s. An 18-year-old who was slicing pickles at the warehouse that Grandpa supervised was showing off to a friend who had stopped by to visit - and - managed to slice tips off of three fingers on his left hand. Grandpa, after loading the guy into a taxi for a trip to the hospital, nonchalantly picked up the finger tips and tossed them out the window where they landed atop the heap of pickle-leavings that had accumulated there.

This bit of family/personal history was brought to mind by my having just heard, on Talk of the Nation (transcript not yet available online), a discussion of the cell-line of Ms Henrietta Lacks that has been propagated since 1951. The linked article mentions that, "The history of this event, described in the Johns Hopkins Magazine, is a commentary on the lack of informed consent common in medical research at the time." Lack of informed consent was not a big issue in the early 1950s. Nobody really gave it a second thought.

Note to Bogie: I was listening to Talk of the Nation while making the blue cover for your boudoir pillow. Done!

Elgar's is my kind of music

Seize the data

Hunky Husband alerted me to this video. (You'll understand the title of this posting if you watch the video to the end.)

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 

IMHO, anything (other than death) that keeps people away from hospitals, clinics, and medical offices has to be good!