Virtual Brush Box

Awareness of the outside world. ArcGIS Online: Alberta Wildfire Status. ArcGIS Online: BLM California Wildfire Dashboard (Public).

~~~

Virtual Tevis Cup 2023
100 Miles in 100 Days
19 April to 30 July

Rodney – 12 miles this week, 79 miles total
Milton – 13 miles this week, 70 miles total
Tues 16 May to Mon 29 May

As last week, mileage was handwalks in the morning, short rides & drives in the afternoon/evening. Mornings walks are done together. Work sessions are done individually. Hence the different mileage.

Sartorial Requirements

Rodney’s dress for a morning handwalk.

Long leadrope. Lets him swing his head – swat flies, look at cows – without jerking my arm.
Ear bonnet. Protect ears from flies.
Sweatshirt. Protect against morning chill.

Me: It’s a simple walk!
Rodney: Do I look like a simple horse?

Virtual Tevis Posts [Pack Train Practice, Strolling Through The 60s & Flourishing in the 50s, Virtual Tevis 2023] & [Archives]

Posts on Rodney and his fuzzy sheet. [The Old Man Card] & [Life Choices]

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Vox: How African-Americans in South Carolina invented Memorial Day, Yglesias, 2014. Have not watched video. Plan to. Speaker cited here, Vox: How a group of African Americans was almost erased from the history of Memorial Day, Massie, 2016.

~~~

Milton, you have a big, nasty bug on your belly. Lemme get that for you.

No touchie! No touchie!

Boing! Boing! Boing!

Remember the little dangly bits he had from his zipper? We think they were old stitches. [Milton’s Stubborn Zipper] & [Milton’s Belly 30 March 2023, photos, unsightly but not overly gory]

Looks like a new one popped out.

Little dangly bits are sensitive. Apparently.

Been a long time since he has run all the way back to the barn.

Fortunately, he is not the type to deliver a flying kick on the way by and when he’s done, he heads to his people. After he ran to the barn, he came out to meet me coming in.

Dangly bit gone by the next morning.

Sorry, Dude.

Photo behind the jump, not unsightly but I figured I’d stay consistent with above. [Milton’s Belly 29 May 2023].

Onwards!
Katherine

Art of the outside world. “Donald Jackson’s illustration of “Creation” shows seven vertical slices representing the days of creation, beginning with fractals and the Hebrew word for chaos.” Library of Congress: Illuminating The Word, IRL exhibition. Also, LOC: Illuminating the Word: The St. John’s Bible, Online Exhibition. Same image, without fractal in the description. The Saint John’s Bible.

~~~

My first fractal, a Sierpinski triangle. Draw triangle. Draw second triangle from the midpoints of the sides. Center stays open. Repeat.

I figured I’d “cheat” and use Inkscape instead of drawing by hand. Didn’t help as much as I thought it would.

1) I couldn’t get the math right to reduce compound figures. Had to draw each new size & then copy to the required locations.

2) Still confused the crap out of me.

Started with outer shape. Moved in. Five iterations.

About halfway thru, I filled in the center triangles with yellow as a clarification aide.

Hat tip to Gement for introducing me to drawing fractals.

Onwards!
Katherine

Gold is great. Don’t get me wrong. Who doesn’t love a soft, clinky pile of gold? But after a few hundred years, you get the knack of acquiring it. More is nice. More is always nice. But not exactly a challenge, ya know what I mean?

Some of us have branched out.

History Dragon. Collects facts. Not just names and dates, although many of those. What plants grew in the the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. How *was* Stonehenge built? Will often be found staging historical reenactments in pursuit of possible answers. History Dragons are great fun at LARPS, as long as you are willing to listen to the occasional 20-minute lecture on how to correctly recreate the historical accuracy of the fabric in your costume.

Cooking Dragon. Collects recipes. Knows over 200 ways to make dumplings. Collects cross-cultural comparisons, such as the prevalence of fried bread products: doughnuts, zeppole, churros, and so on. Good cooks, although accepting a dinner invitation from one is a gamble. Might be a three-star meal. Might be a seven-course meal focusing on legumes. Chickpea ice cream anyone?

Pop Dragon. Collects the zeltgeist. What song holds the record for #1? What was the hottest selling toy in 1969? It is considered unsporting to have a Pop Dragon on your trivia team.

Art Dragon. Collects art techniques, from fine oils to paint-by-number, from origami to reworking Breyer models. Will get into long discussions with history dragons over the composition of pre-modern dyes. Likes to work as a substitute art teacher to see what kids will come up with when presented with a pile of toilet paper rolls & an Erector Set.

Animal Dragon. Collects animals. Very conservation minded. Do NOT ask them about specimens. They “collect” animals by being in the presence of each one, the same way birders keep a life list. Some animal dragons are avid birders. One animal dragon who specializes in insects went into the Amazon basin several years ago and has not been seen since. They’re fine. We get emails.

Rock Dragon. As above, with minerals.

Dragon Dragon. Collects literature & art about dragons. Can often be prevailed upon to read aloud the more amusing passages.

~~~ Curtain ~~~

Afterword.

Influenced by Dragon Ever After, by Louisa Masters, 2021. M/M romance with shape-shifting dragons.

Fiction 4U. Tor.com The Fifth Dragon, Ian McDonald, 2015

Non-fiction 4U. Tor.com: The Ultimate Fantasy Beast: The Dragon, Judith Tarr, 2022. The Atlantic: No Old Maps Actually Say ‘Here Be Dragons’, But an ancient globe does, Robinson Meyer, 2013. Hic sunt dracones. The latter may be paywalled. Shows up on my desktop, not on my phone. Go figure.

Answers. Smithsonian: Taylor Swift Sets Record for Longest No. 1 Song, Beating Out ‘American Pie’ and the Beatles, The pop star’s 10-minute, 13-second rerecording of “All Too Well” debuted at the top spot in Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, McGreevy, 2021. Snoopy Astronaut. Reader’s Digest: The Most Popular Toy the Year You Were Born, Roland, 2022.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Coosa Riverkeeper.

~~~

Coosa River

Gate to Nowhere

Mise en scène

Highway 280 over the Coosa River in Childersburg AL, USA. Bridges do not have names that I could find.

Technical Details

Water. f/14.0, 1/125 sec., 80.0 mm, 1SO 400

Truck. f/13.0, 1/125 sec., 38 mm, ISO 200

Gate. f/9.0, 1/125 sec., 30.0 mm, ISO 400

The old fart in me would like to pause to point out the ability to change ISO.

This adventure was all about finding access. Since I was picking up shavings at Tractor Supply in Cburg, I figured I’d look for a photo outing in the area. The bridge! Not so fast. Apparently, riverside parks are not a thing in rural Alabama. Internet maps showed an unlabeled right turn just before the bridge. I found a gravel road that I assume served a small electrical substation. There were no signs indicating a private or closed road. I looked. I was surprised to find no indications of squatters hanging out nor high school students partying. [Teenage Wasteland]

Note to self. Watch your step. I could see how one could be looking through the viewfinder, sidling this way and that, thinking about what you see, taking one step the wrong way, and splat. End up in the river.

Links

“Oldest Occupied Settlement in America… 1540.” Official Site for Childersurg, Alabama

Only in Your State: Most People Have No Idea The Oldest City In America Is Hiding Right Here In Alabama, Young, 2016

I’m sure there is discussion with St. Augustine, Florida, over this claim. “Founded in 1565, St. Augustine is the oldest continuously occupied settlement of European and African-American origin in the United States.” St.A: Our History

Bridge details. (Why Detroit?) Detroit Free Press: Bridge Inspections, US 280 over Coosa River. According to this, the road is also AL 38.

I knew neither of these things. TIL.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Hand In Paw.

~~~

As you may know, we adopted/inherited two senior dogs.

We had some scheduling issues at the beginning. Our long center hall is now lined with waterproof indoor/outdoor rugs that can be hosed off.

We built them a ramp, because senior.

We have a spacious, well-fenced dog pen out the side door. Unfortunately, that side of the house has a large drop-off. Too many stairs. A ramp would be too steep or too long. So, we built the ramp out the front door, over three steps with a rise of two feet.

They often do not clear the ramp before squatting. If they do clear the ramp, they go to the base, squat, turn around, and come back.

As a result, the area at the end of the ramp smells strongly of dog urine. We have spread gravel. We have used neutralizer. Not much you can do when 100 pounds of Basset Hound uses the same spot multiple times a day. The entire area immediately outside the front door reeks.

The silver lining? The key word in that sentence is OUTSIDE.

Good dogs.

Post Archives [Jasmine & Rose Fan Club]

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Brooke USA. For the horses who support families. For the horses who work for living, including driving.

~~~

Milton trotted!

Milton trotted with the cart!

Milton trotted with the cart at home!

This is the first time he has pulled (technically pushed) the cart at a trot this year. It is the first time he was trotted with the cart at home EVER.

Working at home is so much easier. So! Much! First off, it is easier on the face of it. No packing up of gear. No loading of horse. No driving of truck.

More importantly, it is easier to do good work. Short, daily repetition is better training than occasional wodges of longer effort. It is easier to go out for a short session when that session is in the backyard.

When one has to haul, it is tempting to a) not go as often, and B) do more work once one is there.

Little and often works for so many things.

Onwards!
Katherine