The Burpee catalogue showed up in the mail today.
Spring Must Be Coming
Mourning Doves
A ghostsniper comment
Watching the Mourning doves in the yard walking around, their heads constantly bobbing back and forth as they are in motion only stopping when they stop moving. How can they see, plainly, while their heads are bobbing?
Triangulation.
Simple geometry.
When the head is in the forward position they snap a picture, then a microsecond later when the head is in the rear position they take another pik. Instantly, their brain compares the 2 images and gives them the info they need.
Distance, height, color, etc. And much more. Their eyebals do not rotate in the sockets, the position of each is fixed, and from different sides of their heads. It can get complicated. To you. To them it is the only life they ever knew. From the day they are born.
To you it may seem a handicap, to them it just is. Imagine flying, through the branches and trees of a forest with eyes like that. They do it well. You, though, would crash and burn instantly.
You think your eyes see continuously while moving them around in their sockets but they do not. They are like a movie camera in that they take many pictures per second and stitch them together in your brain and make you think it is one continuous movie. Movie cameras take pictures rated at number of frames per second. Old skool TV was about 60 frames per second, and if, while viewing, you turned your head quickly from side to side you could catch a glimpse of this reality. Newer TV have a much higher frame rate.
While reading this, if you stop and focus on each letter in each word you will notice that in each position your eye is focused on you will only be able to see a few letters and the rest will sort of blur out. Then, seemingly fluidly, you will move your eyes to the next “group” of letters, that were formerly blurred and they will now be in focus and the previous letters will be blurred. There is no continuous focus. You can see this more clearly at night, with clear night vision.**
With each advancement of your seeing eyes they are doing what the doves eyes do. Sending a signal to your brain that then stitches all of the stops into a seemingly continuous movement. What your eyeball does while rotating in the socket is what takes the Mourning Dove an entire head movement to do.
Fascinating, no?
**If, in darkness, you look directly at something at a distance, it will seem to be in an unfocused cloud. This is because of a blind spot on the rear of the eye where the retina cord connects. (there is a technical term for this but it eludes me at the moment) Therefore, if you want to look at a thing in the dark you need to avert your focus a little to one side or the other. In a way, your peripheral vision is better than your direct vision.
Not A Petting Zoo
She’s not friendly and you’d best be advised to keep your distance. Those horns are not for looks … and that udder is not for you.
This is all “open range”. Many, many square miles of open range. The owner may only see his cattle twice a year.
Closed range is fenced in; open range is not.
The important difference for us’ens?
If you hit livestock on the road in closed range territory, it’s the rancher’s fault; if you hit livestock on the road in open range, it’s your fault.
Back east, our family farm raised cattle. Other farms nearby raised cattle. Out this way, ranchers raise cattle.
Rough definition: A farm is cows per acre; a ranch is acres per cow.
Not for sure but I’d guess the boundary between “farm” and “ranch” is the “dry line” at roughly the 100th Meridian – roughly a N-S line passing through Cozad, NE, Dodge City, KS, and Abilene, TX; close to following US283.
Both my grandfathers were raised on farms. Both got out of that business as soon as they were old enough. Granted, they were raised before tractors were in use and staring at the south end of a north-bound mule all day tends to give you time to think of alternative lifestyles.
So Much Evidence,
So few indictments.
If any of us had the merest hint of a “maybe” in any of these crimes, we’d be dumped in a very deep cell and held incommunicado.
Which simply tells us life goes on as normal …
It would be less effort to list the not-guilty.
Joe – Again
On this date one year ago, one of this site’s earliest posts was about my childhood friend and his untimely – perhaps – death on this date in 1988. By common consensus, Joe was a f*up. I can’t/won’t deny it but we’d been friends for more than 20 years and I’m biased. He got himself into something ugly and didn’t survive. Suicide? Murder? At this point, what difference does it make?
But that was the past – water long under the bridge.
Fast forward about 10 years.
I was sitting in a bar with a friend – the Ace High in Golden, Colorado. The Ace High was as close to a dive bar as would be allowed on Washington St in downtown Golden. Many if not most of its clientele were Coors workers – the brewery was just a few blocks away. Coors was not a big seller there. Did I mention that I had once lived in an apartment above the bar? That’s OK, it’s not part of this story anyway.
Just as an aside, it appears downtown Golden has been highly gentrified since I lived there. Including the Ace High.
Ron and I were sitting back in a booth BS’ing about something not important when over by the pool tables, I swear I saw Joe doing his Joe thing around the table: taking on all comers, clearing the table, getting free beers as a result, and working his bedroom eyes on the waitresses.
Joe had died about 10 years earlier …
I swear it was Joe. I’ll swear it to my dying day. It looked like him, same hair, same face, same body. He was dressed like Joe, he acted liked Joe, he played pool like Joe. He flirted with the girls like Joe.
The girls reacted to him like it was Joe. We’d go into a place together and the girls would come to me asking how to meet him.
But this Joe didn’t know me and it was the first time ever I watched him as a stranger. I’d known the original since he was 13.
I couldn’t follow the conversation with Ron I was so distracted.
I swear I was watching Joe in action.
There’s not much to this tale. I didn’t walk up to see him up close – the pool table was maybe 10 feet away – but I watched him for about 20 minutes or so.
Ron & I finished our beers and left.
Of course I can rationalize this.
Maybe.
There’s more to this world than what rationalization can explain …
Headshake; Facepalm
It really doesn’t matter what belief you may or may not have but this? Oh me, oh my .
Headline: “Politico Claims That The ‘Far-Right’ Has “Stolen” Christmas By Daring To Call It Christian“
Memory
It’s not the first thing to go; it’s the last thing you remember going.
Yesterday (12/26) would have been Gerard’s 80th birthday …
I forgot to make mention of it.
One Year Ago Today
This site went public and this was the image I presented.
An abandoned chair in an abandoned house. Clean as it looks here, the house was overgrown and difficult to enter; the chair was not as clean as it looks. I didn’t need to worry about trespassing; I knew the owners. The house – and chair – are no longer with us but there’s a symbolism here in this image that perhaps only matters to me.
One year anniversary. Wasn’t sure the site would make it this long; wasn’t sure I’d make it this long.
Now – Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Program
For those of you who may not know, Scott Adams – the creator of Dilbert – has a daily podcast known as “Real Coffee With Scott Adams“. Scott Adams also has advanced Stage 4 prostate cancer but he still carries on with his daily program.
He had something interesting to say on Christmas Eve, particularly his comments starting at 41:35:
Utube dot com/watch?v=Cw4qjWeBkkw
“Is it going too far if I said that the Democrats are a criminal organization?“
Etc …
No Scott, not at all. Perhaps not far enough.
The Night After
Christmas is over but the decorations remain in place – until New Years, a week away. Traffic is light this Boxing Day evening; the Christmas rush to buy … something, anything … is over, the day-after “I don’t want this” returns have been completed or await another day.
The people take a break, preparing for the evening of wild abandon coming soon.