Flower Bee

I snapped this picture of a bee on a purple flower. Actually, I’m not sure if it’s a flower or a weed, but it’s nice…

Here’s a close-up:

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Planets

There were some planets around the moon this morning when I let Piper out. That’s Mars lower left and Venus upper right.

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Wolf Pack

One of my morning Driggs to Victor kids has a dad who works for the Forest Service. Tristan frequently climbs on the bus along with his daughter and we’ve had some great chats over the last couple of years.

He mentioned a while back about an encounter with a wolf pack and how he grabbed some video with his cell phone. He was out on a field assignment with Lance Pekus, who apparently is some famous Ninga Warrior TV personality. Here’s the video:

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Eclipse

The Blood Moon made its appearance high in the Driggs sky this morning and I was up to shoot it. I’d been watching the moons light shine into our bedroom through half-awake eyes and a little after 0400 it started fading.

I went out to the front porch, mounted my camera on the tripod, zoomed in and began recording. I let it run for twelve minutes while I made my coffee then my video editor stripped out the sound of the creek, and speeded it up.

It’s a very cool video and I recommend you give it a watch. There are some dark artifacts passing over the moon which I have no explanation for.

Here’s a higher definition view.

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Hamilton

A guy was walking around Broulims today with an adorable baby animal in a flowery cotton bag. It’s name was Hamilton Hamilton (first,last) and was a species you don’t normally see around here. The guy said he acquired Hamilton down in Texas.

It’s a baby kangaroo :-)

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Close Call

Two years ago on July 23 (my birthday) I was hanging out with Skoge and Grant on their couch in The City. A major solar storm was taking place at the time and fortunately it missed the Earth, otherwise my return trip to Idaho could have been dramatically different.

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Our Babies

Steph took a shot at our little deck dwelling chiseler this evening with the pellet gun, and missed. I was glad.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the killing of our fellow creatures. If it has two eyes and a nose and mouth it deserves to live as much as we do. I’m really beginning to believe it is not our right as superior beings to take a life for any reason other than to protect ourselves from attack.

As much as I enjoy free-range organic chicken and grass-fed beef, I am becoming strongly at odds with it due to this gradual realization. I don’t know yet if it’s going to force me to become vegetarian. Steph ain’t going to be happy…

I feel my karma weaken when I accidently hit a bird with my vehicle or flatten a rodent with my tire. My heart truly aches for a bit. I just killed a fly here in my office and thought, what the hell did I just do?

This is one of our baby robins who managed to survive nest raids by hungry magpies and ravens and the occasional furtive dash of our overweight cat. She is beautiful and deserving of every bit of life she can realize. Without some human taking her life…

Update: Steph said she aimed high on the chiseler, just to scare him off :-)

Here’s a closeup of that little cutie with the reflection of a nearby house in her eye.

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Borehole B944

On February 1, a seismometer inside a borehole at Yellowstone National Park started going crazy. I’m a pretty connected guy and I didn’t find out about it until yesterday, which indicates to me that the government powers that be didn’t want us to know about it. Well, it’s all over the place now.

I’ve grabbed a couple of shots showing the activity, for us all to make our own conclusions. Needless to say, Yellowstone blowing up would not be a good thing.

Especially since the borehole is only 53 miles from our little town…

Update: Now it’s all over the Internet that it was an equipment malfunction.

Who knows?

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Moms

I’ve encountered some incredible Flickr images during the development of Suhck and when a theme jumps out, I capture the images. Breaking off from my position of nothing but original photos taken by me, I give you four moms and their kids…

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Young Moose

I spotted an animal out of the corner of my eye while driving today, and I suspected moose. Sure enough, upon closer inspection it turn out to be a young moose. It didn’t mind my presence at all while munching out on something.




SlideShow (Young Moose)

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NOAA Outlook

Headline: Elusive El Niño challenges NOAA’s 2012 U.S. Winter Outlook!


Bottom line: Less snow for the resort, less water for the farmers, less stress for BDJ :-)

SlideShow (NOAA Outlook)

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Snow Demon

I was relaxing in front of my computer this evening, on a very cold and clear night in the high-country, (it was -1 this morning), wondering what to blog about.

Then, I clicked on our current weather radar map, and saw this thing. We’re the dot…

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Fall Colors

The foothills come alive this time of year. You can easily see the shades of Halloween, bursting from the beauty of nature.

In a moon phase heartbeat, the color will fade to white.

SlideShow (Fall Colors)

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Big Leaf

No comment required…

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Bates Road Eagle

I’ve been watching the eagles on Bates Road for a couple of weeks now. They’re pretty territorial with their power line perches, about one eagle for every eight poles.

Hwy 33 construction between Driggs and Victor is now done, and I knew this would be my last Bates detour. So, I pulled over and visited with this big boy.

I’m sure he didn’t leave on my account, he just wanted to show off, to you!

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