Moose Darting

 The doorbell rang about 10am this morning.  A man in a fluorescent vest was outside.  I'd gotten a red tag on my car a couple of weeks ago saying it would be towed if I didn't move it.  I have moved it since then, but my first thought was that this was the tow truck.  

But no, he was from Alaska Fish and Game.  Could he have my permission to go into my backyard and dart the moose.  I didn't even know there was a moose in my back yard.  I said sure and went to look out a back window.  

Sure enough.  In fact there were two resting in the yard.  (That brown lump in the upper left is the second moose.  

He shot the dart at the closest moose which went up the hill and scampered over the fence. (I'd noticed the other day when I went to the compost heap that there was only about a foot and a half of fence above the snow these days.)  Then he was aiming at the second one who'd gotten on its feet by this time.  

They found the dart for the first moose in the snow.  The assistant is holding the dart in the red circle.  

The ADFG agent gave me this card.  It's the weekend they're getting DNA samples as part of a moose population census.  Maybe a neighbor called.  I don't know.

I'd read the article in the Anchorage Daily News yesterday, but didn't think I'd be quite this involved.  

“We could drive around all we wanted, but we would never find that moose in the back of somebody’s house without without the public calling in,” Saalfeld said.

When someone calls in a moose sighting this weekend, it will trigger a series of events. Biologists receive the alert — they average around 1,000 moose tips each weekend. Then, one of seven two-person teams will head to the location of the report.

From there, they fire what’s known as a “biopsy gun,” which lightly strikes the moose with a dart, Saalfeld said.

The dart is designed to pop out quickly, only retaining a bit of tissue that scientists can use to determine that moose’s unique DNA and record it as part of the Anchorage moose population.

“Most of the moose don’t even feel it, or if they feel it, it’s very light,” Saalfeld said. “And they actually typically lay down or sit on top of it, and we have to wait sometimes a pretty good amount of time before we can actually go in and recover that dart because the moose is standing right on top of it for so long.”

The moose in our yard didn't take it that casually.  They got out of there as soon as they felt the dart. Or maybe it was seeing a guy with a gun.  Now I feel a little guilty giving permission to dart them in our yard.  The moose looked like they'd found a comfortable place to rest and then they got shot with a dart.  I doubt they'll be back in our yard for a while.  

Neighbors Came By To Welcome Us Home

I went out to check on the snow conditions of the driveway yesterday.  We'd gotten back late the night before.  Two of the neighbors came by to welcome us home.

The biggest issue I saw was that the mailbox had been barricaded by the plowed snow.  

I emailed Nordic Lawns, the company that was taking care of the snow in the driveway while we were gone so our house sitter could get in and out.  Then I went back out and carved some steps to the mailbox for the time being.

When I got in there was a call from Nordic Lawns apologizing profusely and saying they would come out.  This was NOT something that should happen.  Meanwhile the mail carrier managed the steps I'd made and stuffed the mailbox with about as much mail as it could hold.

And then Nordic showed up to clear in front of the mailbox.  So I went back out and asked if he could also just clear a space in front of the house for me to park the van, which is still sitting in the neighbors' driveway.  It's great to have good neighbors.  When I called him to ask if I could rent part of his driveway (his is double wide) he said no - I could just use it.

So now the berm the city left in front of the house - which would have meant I would have to park well into the traffic lane - has been rearranged with a space.

Then I rushed off with my wife's car to the Alaska Public Media Community Advisory meeting.  I figure I can't reasonably complain about their practices until I know more.  They went through their listener/viewer statistics for the Anchorage area.  KSKA is the most listened to radio station for a number of time periods during the day.

And by the time I got home, my knee was bothering me again.  So today I spent a lot of time with ice on my knee.  That was good enough to allow me to shovel the deck.  Tomorrow it's supposed to be warmer - into the 20s - so I'll wait til it's toasty to see if my car will start up after sitting there so long next door.

Alaska's - particularly further north - has had one of its coldest winters while the rest of the US and northern Europe have been having an unusually warm winter.  It is nice to have snow that doesn't get turned to ice on a regular basis because the temp snakes above and below the freezing point regularly.

Green Grass In December, Parasite, Broken Glass

This is not what our front yard normally looks like in December.  And it was covered with snow a few days ago.  But then it got into the 40s.

OK, we've often had bits of warm weather once or twice in winter, but we've had record warm months just about every month this year.

Trump calls Climate Change a hoax.  Note that he also calls the impeachment a hoax.


I also managed to fix a faucet that had been causing a drip.

And last night we skipped the film festival to see the movie Parasite.  They'd been showing the trailer at the Bear Tooth during the festival and people were saying it was really good.  It was playing here just for three nights and I decided this was the best night to miss the festival films.  

Director Bong Joon-ho's Parasite won the Palme d'Or at Cannes this year.  Bong's Snowpiercer was one of the early Netflix films we saw that convinced us to stick with Netflix.  All I'll say is that Parasite is a dark movie about rich and poor in Korea.  And the preview that we saw several times waiting for film festival movies, was always worth watching and didn't really give anything away. That's all I'll say for now because I think people should see it for themselves.  

And in line with the theme of economic inequality, when we got out to the car, J found the passenger side window had been smashed in.    911 told me to call 311 and they told me to report online.  

I went back into the Bear Tooth to tell them and they said they'd check the security cameras.  Meanwhile outside J saw another woman who's window had also been smashed.  

Here's what it looked like when we got it home after a chilly ride.  From what we can tell, nothing was actually taken.  J had a cloth shopping back on the seat, but nothing was in it.  The quarters for parking meters weren't touched.  The garage door opener was there.  The timer light plug and the book I'd just bought were all there.   I think they probably couldn't figure out how to unlock the door on that old Subaru.

State Farm and Speedy Glass were quick and efficient and J's waiting for the new window already.  But whether this is a homeless issue or a drug issue or just petty theft, it's a symptom of our economic inequalities and our lack of good, effective schooling and and physical and mental health care.

Back to the film festival tonight.

Been Busy - New Kitchen Floor, Not Yet Winter, Fog

It's November 11, 2019.  We haven't had any snow in town.   Friday when I went to my OLÉ Homeless class, it was sunny and comfy and the snow was disappearing on the mountains.

And this yarrow flower is hanging in there outside in the yard.

A few times things have gotten frosty,

like Saturday when I rode over to UAA for the Citizens Climate Lobby meeting.







It was also foggy that day.

Our delayed winter has me not wanting to stop biking and Saturday didn't offer any problems, but I decided to break down and get studded tires for my old mountain bike that I've used for winters.
 I didn't realize how speedy [spendy] studded tires are.  It cost more than the old bike, which I'd gotten at a YMCA auction maybe ten years ago.  But if they keep me from breaking an arm, they'll be worth it.  This bike's old wheels were perfectly fine in packed snow, but as winters have gotten warmer, there are a lot more icy days.  We'll see how often I actually use the bike and how well the studs work.

This morning was probably the coldest this fall - about 27˚F outside.












Meanwhile, inside has been rather chaotic.  Our old carpet is wearing out, very noticeably in spots.
And the linoleum in the kitchen was getting yellow, so we went for a new floor there too.  But they said to do the kitche/dining area first.  And that had to be shipped up from Outside.  We've been waiting for a few months now,  It looked pretty bad from time to time as TK determined that the old floor had to go so the kitchen wouldn't be higher than the carpet with the new bamboo panels.  

But he cleaned everything up pretty well each evening.  But there are tools all over the place.









But we're almost done.  This was actually Saturday night when we put up a temporary folding table up.

This side was finished today, but there's a little more on the kitchen side where a wire to two outlets got cut.  Fortunately, the electrician is scheduled for Wednesday to do some work on our old fixtures and putting in LED fixtures and other trickier jobs.

So we've juggling things a bit this last week.  And I'm working on more film festival posts.  The documentaries look great.  I'm just going through the features and they look interesting too.  My enthusiasm has been renewed and I'm looking forward to the festival which begins Dec. 6.  There's a new AIFF 2019 tab under the header.  Good night.

We're Back In This Strangely Warm And Smoky Anchorage

Coming home after a time away means getting back into the routine.

The non-stop from LA is a nearly five hour flight.  (The same as Buenos Aires to Lima)   We didn't get pre-check, but they bumped us up to first class which was nice.  The lights below us kept reminding me we had left LA, not Seattle.  Eventually, the descent began.  It was 3:30am and when I looked out the window, I could see bits of the Chugach peaks and glaciers, though the ground was still fairly dark despite the dawning horizon.

Soon we were home.  It was hot and stuffy when we opened the door.  We dragged our stuff in and found the box of mail our house sitter had gathered.  He also left our fridge with lots of goodies including Korean takeout.  Thanks C!

After sorting some mail - why did GCI send us a bill?  We don't have GCI.  The bill was for $0, but why?  I crashed and slept til about 10am.  The toilet upstairs had been disabled - the note said it kept filling with water, so this was to shut it off.  The deck was full of aphid sap or honeydew - from Wikipedia:

"Honeydew is a sugar-rich sticky liquid, secreted by aphids and some scale insects as they feed on plant sap. When their mouthpart penetrates the phloem, the sugary, high-pressure liquid is forced out of the anus of the aphid. Honeydew is particularly common as a secretion in hemipteraninsects and is often the basis for trophobiosis.^[1] Some caterpillars of Lycaenidae butterflies and some moths also produce honeydew.^[2]Honeydew can cause sooty mold—a bane of gardeners—on many ornamental plants. It also contaminates vehicles parked beneath trees, and can then be difficult to remove from glass and bodywork. Honeydew is also secreted by certain fungi, particularly ergot.^[3]Honeydew is collected by certain species of birds, wasps, stingless bees^[4] and honey bees, which process it into a dark, strong honey(honeydew honey). This is highly prized in parts of Europe and Asia for its reputed medicinal value. Parachartergus fraternus, a eusocial wasp species, collects honeydew to feed to their growing larvae.^[5] Recent research has also documented the use of honeydew by over 40 species of wild, native, mostly solitary bees in California.^[6]"

This leaf is full of shiny, sticky honeydew as is the wood of the deck.  In fact the whole deck was sticky as were the deck chairs.  Eventually I hosed it down so we could sit out there.

Also did some serious watering in the yard.  The record high temperatures along with the lack of rain has had a serious effect in the yard. Our house sitter did water the raspberries up on the top of the hill.  It's odd though - parts of the yard look fine - the high bush cranberry is lush and the little ferns are healthy, but in other parts, some are wilted, even crinkly dried out.  And there's new planting work I didn't finish due to the rebuilding of the deck.  Lots of cotton wood shoots here and there.

Emptied suitcases - well we each had a small rollon suitcase and backpack, so not too much.  Found the things that seemed to be missing - a t-shirt I'd bought in Buenos Aires as well as a puzzle for my San Francisco nieta.  (A much easier word to write than granddaughter.)

Then I double checked on Youtube about what I needed to fix the toilet - here's the seal that was the problem - and rode over to get a new seal.

My route to Lowe's let's me bike through the Helen Louise McDowell Sanctuary, which was particularly relaxing yesterday.  The vegetation is shrinking the boardwalk a bit.  Nature landscaped this park, not CarlosThays.  People just added the boardwalks.

Got my new seal and rode home.  Not all the way as wonderful as the Sanctuary.  Also had to ride along Tudor.  But after Buenos Aires and Santiago, Tudor, one of Anchorage's busiest streets, looks pretty rural.  But it was a hot Sunday so there wasn't much traffic.  And the air is still smoky, hazing the mountains in the background.

It's nice to be doing this post on my MacBook instead of the iPad I got for the trip.  Blogger works here without all the bugs it has on the iPad.  But I did figure out some workarounds to make it possible to post, though not easily.  I might do a post on that for people struggling with it.

More to do as we ease back into Alaska.

New Steps And A Footnote

Children are still separated from their parents, Trump's doing what Nixon and all other guilty folks do - denying everything, the ADN seems to be reporting gun and traffic deaths on a daily basis, but even with that backdrop, we all have to keep on maintaining our daily lives.*

Our front steps have been commented on by friends visiting us for a number of years now.  The railing snapped off last fall and had to be welded back together.  My attempts to envision a whole new entry way kept me putting off the new steps until I had a bigger plan.  But my attempts at that have proven fruitless and so finally today the workers began taking out the old, very cracked and split up steps.

Here's what they looked like Monday.

And here are some pictures from today.

Presumably, the new steps will get put in tomorrow, and we may be able to actually use the front door again in a few days.  It's not raining hard, but it's not sunny either.  And yes, I dug up those hostas that were in front and put them in another hole for a while.

*I've made comparisons to Nazi Germany at times.  Some people reject any such comparisons as hyperbole.  But many of the steps Trump is taking to dismantle democracy ARE similar to steps Hitler took.  We aren't talking about concentration camps, but Trump's detention centers treat immigrants as though they weren't human.  The  MAGA slogan isn't much different from Hitler's call's for reviving Germany's greatness after the humiliation of losing WWI and the Versailles Agreement.   The Trump administration's attacks on the media, the callous treatment of refugees and Muslims, the lies and alternative reality we hear daily from the White House, and the stirring up of hatred and violence, all happened in the 30's in Germany.  He's creating a whole new vocabulary - Fake News, Witch Hunt, the derogatory nicknames he repeats and repeats like Crooked Hillary - as did Hitler's regime.  Hitler too was elected on a populist wave of nationalism and making Germany a great nation again.  Hitler scapegoated Jews, Trump scapegoated Muslims and immigrants.

But, there are a lot of things that make it harder from Trump to pull a Hitler.  For one, he's not nearly as smart as Hitler, who actually did build infrastructure -  the Autobahn, not a wall.  His messages were more focused and consistent.  And the power was centered in Berlin.

Our advantage is states having much more independence from DC than German states had from Berlin.  The various state lawsuits against various Trump policies are examples of this. For me right now, fixing the steps is something that still makes sense.  That wasn't the case for my grandparents in the 1930's in Germany.  So in that sense, things are very different.  For me at least.  For immigrants with uncertain status, repairing steps is probably not something they are thinking about.

Still Life With Steller Jay (And PhotoShop Filters)

When I came upstairs, J, with calm urgency, asked me to get it out.  I had no idea what she was talking about until she pointed at a Steller Jay in our living room.  This was a different experience than when we had the black capped chickadee earlier this summer.  It was struggling to fly against the windows.  When I lowered the shades and opened the sliding glass door, it found its way out quickly.

The jay was not as bold as it is when it visits us out on the deck.  It hid under the couch and side tables.  I tried to take pictures with my rebel, but the shutter jammed on all the different settings I tried.  So I had to use my little powershot.  This picture below was the best shot of the jay, but part of the picture was totally washed out and the rest a bit fuzzy.  So I cropped it and put it through different filters in Photo Shop.  Except for poster edges, the differences are very subtle (to my eye anyway.)  There is more or less light in different parts of the images from filter to filter.  Some parts are sharper than others.  So here they are:

Sparks

Busy around the house as fall moves in and trying to get things ready for winter.  Raking leaves, trimming back the perennials, mulching the flower beds.  Getting the moss of the roof.  Got someone painting the trim on the house and Jody came out to weld the railing back onto our front steps.

And that's the reason for the sparks.

1. Bird House 2. Northern Lights Inn Is Out

1.  I didn't realize that the bird was INSIDE the window until J pointed that out.

It was a black capped chickadee and it was trying to figure out how to get out to those trees.  I did wonder how it was sitting on the glass like that.  But it wasn't.  We have shades that you can pull up from the bottom or down from the top.  If down from the top, there are cords which I can't even see in the photo.  It was holding on to that.  

It didn't panic when I went toward the window.  It just flew to a nearby lamp.  I closed the shades and we opened the sliding glass door to the deck and it found it's way out quickly.

2.  I had a chance last night to take a picture of the lot that used to house the old Northern Lights Inn. It's totally gone now.

The four or five story structure has stood there empty since 2002 according to this ADN story from last October. (It has pictures too)  It went down sometime last month.   It seems like the building has been empty for much longer than 15 years.  Builders complain about no available land in the Anchorage bowl.  But places like this remind us it's there.  But the owners aren't ready to do anything with it.

Like Father Like Son, Or Like Mother Like Daughter, Or Like Father Like Daughter, Mother Like Son?

The magpies are still spending parts of their day in our back yard and they aren't exactly welcoming if I want to spend some time on the deck.

Enjoying And Sharing Our Summer Room With Steller Jay

It's summer enough that we are using the deck a lot now.  Breakfast, lunch, dinner, if it's not raining or too cold, we're out there in this great room.  And the birds get pretty close too.  Black capped chickadees, nuthatches, and particularly the Steller Jays.

I was finishing the newspaper the other day when two Steller Jays showed up eyeing the peanuts I
was eating.  I like peanuts in the shell because I can't eat them as fast as shelled peanuts.  I have to open them first and there are only two inside.  You get the point.

I had the peanuts on a plate and a bowl to put the shells.  Some shells had fallen to the floor.  The birds were calculating whether it was safe to hop down to the table with me sitting there.  I covered the plate of peanuts with the newspaper and went inside to get my camera.

And one of the jays struck.  Below is the video.






Here's dinner a couple of nights ago.  When we bought this house, aside from it being close to where I worked, we loved the natural backyard.  It's just a normal little city lot, but with the hills and the natural foliage, it looks much bigger.

J made Maqluba - from a cookbook called Jerusalem.  I bought the book because of the picture of this dish.  And it's incredible - so many flavors.  (The first link is to a website called Multiculturiostity that describes making this dish from this book with better pictures.  The second one links to a Jerusalem Post review of the book.  It's MUCH cheaper online than what I paid for it at a bookstore, but the bookstore price was worth it for just this recipe.  And I must thank my wife for having the patience to put all the different ingredients together now and then.)

Home Building - Are Stellers Moving In? And Home Show

There were four Steller Jays poking around under the dead leaves in the backyard.  Yes, the snow is pretty much gone, except on the north side of the house, and that follows the shadow line as the sun gets higher each day.

The Stellers seem to be having a territorial fight over our backyard with some magpies in the last couple of weeks.  But I haven't seen more than three at a time before this morning.  This one came up on our deck.  The others were too far away and obscured by the branches of our still bare high bush cranberry bushes to get a decent shot.  The last time we had a magpie nest in our yard, we lost access to half the yard to screeching, dive-bombing magpie parents.  But we also got to see a nest full of chicks learn to fly.

Stellers have seemed more comfortable with people, often coming very close.  But that might not be true if they have babies.




 It's gray today, after lots of sunshine.  While the bike trails through the woods are still full of snow, the last two days I've been able to take a loop along the street-side bike trails/sidewalks with only a little water here and there.  But even with a fender on the back tire, my jacket or backpack shows I've been on the bike.





We went to the home show yesterday.  I still object to having to pay to get to have companies pitch to me, but since we have some long delayed home repairs - starting with our front porch.  We're comfortable with it, but guests do make comments.






Last time we went was long ago at the Sullivan Arena.  There's an advantage to having lots of companies related to homes all in one place.  We got to talk to lots of folks.  Even a company that uses a helical drill to put in metal posts instead of sonotubes if we switch to wooden steps, which we're thinking about.  But it seems they're a lot more expensive.

I talked to Adam about rain gutters.  Our old plastic ones I put in myself long ago, still are working fine, except the down spouts keep detaching from the gutters.  The part you use to hold the downspouts in place has broken in each case and the ones they have are for a different size.  Adam sells metal ones.  They also have some heat wires to put on the roof along the overhang that create places for the melting snow to get to the gutter instead of building up big ice dams.  We also got ideas for window upgrades - they even sell electric shutters for windows.

I also got to talk to some solar energy folks.  For under $10,000 (plus a federal rebate of 30% until 2019) I could get solar panels installed on our house.  They aren't useful, he said, in the three darkest months, and the price that MLP buys back energy is too low to be worth it, he claimed it would pay for itself over a period of time.  I didn't catch how long, but I did notice the average electric bill prices they listed were higher than ours.  So, while gun sales have dropped after Trump's election, perhaps solar buyers may be rushing to get their panels installed before the subsidies drop. 

A woman named Lisa, who was here from Minnesota, was selling, what I learned now online, is a "whole body vibration" machine for 'only' $2495.  I did get to stand on it and do some exercises.  It essentially vibrates and is supposed to help muscle tone.  This was a whole technology I knew nothing about.  Whether it actually does what they claim, is not really proven by science according to science based medicine website which seemed to one that wasn't industry based.  I did see them online ranging in price from $3999 to under $200, though the lower ranging ones only had a base and no handles.

What stood out as we walked around the basketball arena at UAA's newish sports center where vendors had their booths - plus a few more in adjacent areas - was the number of mortgage companies and realtors.  While I'm sure they were there when we did this in the Sullivan Arena long ago, they seemed to make up a much larger proportion of the vendors.

The Moose And Me

Getting the house ready for our house sitter, I went out in the early morning dark to sweep the driveway.  I made it down and turned around to go back up the driveway and there were two moose casually munching the mountain ash right next to the driveway - less than ten feet away.  I didn't even see them until I was down at the bottom.  Obviously, they'd paid no attention to me as I'd swept the driveway, but now that I knew they were there I was less comfortable going back up the driveway.  I was just wearing a long sleeved t-shirt over a t-shirt.  No phone.  No camera.

My neighbor was starting his car across the street.  While I went over to see if I could get a ride up the driveway, a school bus, lights flashing, went by and the moose meandered off.

Here's a photoshop recreation of the scene.  Yeah Barbara, you could have done this much better.  But I'm trying to get this up before I have to board the plane.

Yes, they were really that close and were preoccupied with eating like I was preoccupied with a clean driveway.  (Just getting off the frost dust that had accumulated the last couple of days.)

New Post, Fitness, Garden Work, and Windows, While The Weather's Good

Was getting business done today while the sun was out and the sky was blue.  It was down to 29˚F (-2˚C)  this morning, but closer to 50˚F (10˚C) when I biked to the oral surgeon to get my new post checked out.  Last week, when he put it in, I had to have a driver to take me home.  But today he was just checking it and he was pleased with his work.  It's a long process getting an implant.  The dentist said an implant was a better option than a crown some time ago.  Then it had to be extracted and packed with bone that needed to meld with my own bone.  (It wasn't easy getting that picture.)


When that was set, he put in the post (last week) and now it's three more months until the post is tightly embedded in the bone.  And then, finally, a fake tooth gets snapped onto the post.  I've got a retainer like device with a 'flipper' - a temporary fake tooth, but it's a hassle.  It fits well and you'd never notice it, but it's not fun to eat with it in.  And the plastic backing rests on the roof of my mouth, so it always feels dried out.  And it catches my tongue so I feel like I'm talking funny.  I think I would have skipped the flipper if I'd have known I couldn't eat with it in.  (Well you can eat with it, but it's not comfortable.  It would make a good diet tool.)  I guess it's a question of how willing you re to walk around with a missing tooth, cause it takes a long time to be able to put in the implant.  Mine is not right in the front, but you can see it when I'm talking.

I stopped at the YMCA on the way back to check on the various exercise classes.  Two weeks ago in San Francisco, my son took me to his gym where they had an open day for potential new clients.  It was an hour of circuit training - pulling, pushing, jumping, lunging, carrying, running - and I was pleased to be able to keep up with the rest of the crowd - if a little bit slower - who were mostly 20 years or more younger.  But the next four days, muscles I haven't heard from in years, were all letting me know they didn't appreciate me waking them up.  But it felt great during that hour and the rest of the day.

J's been taking some of the Y classes and so I went to find something that might challenge my body more than biking can do, especially as we move toward winter.  We'll see.  I figure the best way to keep moving is to keep moving and to push those muscles a bit.  But I'll build up more slowly than two weeks ago.






Then back home to work out in the back yard. Yesterday I planted a bunch of narcissus bulbs.  I had a bare spot in the front yard where I'd taken out some of the mountain ash shoots that I'd let grow into small trees over the years.  But they're starting to block the sun too much.

The first bag of 18 bulbs was disappointing.  I'd say about eight were either dried out totally or they were mushy soft.  The other two bags were good, and I had more bulbs than would fit in the space.  We'll see next spring whether my plan for a stream of daffodils works out or not.


Today I raked leaves for mulch.  Online it said to mulch with evergreen branches so I trimmed a couple of the fir trees in back and then covered them with leaves.

And then I tackled the rain gutters.  The one in front had lots of wet compost.  The one in back just had dried leaves.  Finally, I washed the windows in the front.

My window washing kit makes it pretty easy and it seemed like a good idea to get this done while the weather was almost warm.  The windows look much better.

Also watched some 'good' and 'bad' videos of interviewing people for my Journalism Skills for Engaged Citizens.  It was nice to know that lots of journalists dislike the confrontation often necessary when interviewing folks for a story.  Basically, what I saw as the differences between the good and bad interviews (of the same people) were 1) getting to the point and not doing a lot of apologizing for having to ask hard questions, and 2) being prepared so you know enough to ask the hard questions.  I always admired Lisa Demer's tenacity in interviewing and not being easily brushed off - starting back in 2007 at the political corruption trials and later in Juneau.

The last several nights @Auroranotify has been proclaiming northern lights and the sky's been clear, but I've only seen, one night, the palest-you-wouldn't-see-'em-if-you-weren't-looking-really-hard wisps of lights.  I just went out on the deck and nothing tonight either.

Two Dead Mice

Mid December I posted that we had a mouse and I'd bought a catchem-alive mousetrap.  Well, we still had a mouse two weeks ago.  One day Joan saw him scampering along the wall from the kitchen to the living room.

The next day she had an arsenal of mouse catching weapons.  No more Mr. Nice guy.  Now it was no more mice guy.

There were two chic little white plastic mouse traps - variation of the old wooden ones that snap shut, but these you opened more like a clothespin.  Much less danger of trapping your own finger.  And there were sticky strips to put in their paths.  Sounded awful and I mentioned calling PETA.  She was undeterred.  There's even something called 'better than cheese' that you put in the trap.

Long story short - the next morning there were two dead mice.  One on the sticky strip and one in a trap.  Now, it was my job to get rid of the mice.  She was finished with her work.   I rarely use the page break option - not even sure it will work - but I don't want to offend anyone with a dead mouse picture.  [I had trouble with the page break option long ago when I tried to use it.  ]

I did realize that most of my mental mouse images come from Walt Disney - particularly the mice in Cinderella which is what makes this so disturbing.  But, while we'd never seen both mice at the same time, I was beginning to think we needed to end this before there were babies.

[I tried it and it didn't work on Safari or on Firefox.  The right code is in, but there's no page jump option.  If anyone has some tips, please let me know.  Meanwhile, I'm leaving the pictures off.  If you must see them,email me.  I also did leave the page break code in, so if you DO see it, let me know that too. ]

[Yet another Feedburner problem.  This seems to be getting all too common.  Though I seem to have made it two weeks this time without having to post something twice.  I add these notices for two reasons. 1.  For those who found this post another way, I'm sorry if you were fooled into coming back. And 2.   I'm also keeping track of how many times Feedburner takes more than an hour or two to kick in.]

Blue And White

These are two Mexican shallow bowls and three candle holders that we brought back from my mom's house.  Each has its own unique pattern.  They were small (about 6 and 3 inches in diameter respectively) and easy to pack.  And their colors and patterns pleaded with me to take them.  Looking at them makes me feel good.


And when we got home I thought about a post I'd started before about all the blue and white items we have.  Is there something special about these colors?  Is it just us or are lots of other human beings particularly fond of this combination?

I took pictures of other objects we have with these colors.  I looked for some answers, but didn't find much.  There's lots of stuff on color wheels and color combinations, but white isn't in most color wheels.  Finding info specifically about blue and white was more difficult. But I'll put in what I found.  Maybe Mark, if you see this, you'll have more to add.




   Here's a Chinese vase, and that leads to the origin of this color combination.   From the Blue and White Porcelain page on Wikipedia.

"In the early 14th century mass-production of fine, translucent, blue and white porcelain started at Jingdezhen, sometimes called the porcelain capital of China. This development was due to the combination of Chinese techniques and Islamic trade. The new ware was made possible by the export of cobalt from Persia (called Huihui qing, 回回青, "Islamic blue"), combined with the translucent white quality of Chinese porcelain.  Cobalt blue was considered as a precious commodity, with a value about twice that of gold.[4] Motifs also draw inspiration from Islamic decorations.  A large portion of these blue-and-white wares was then shipped to Southwest-Asian markets through the Muslim traders based in Guangzhou."

This Thai bowl surely originates from the same Chinese tradition.















And this Japanese vase as well.





















But what about this Portuguese plate that was a present from close friends of my wife's parents who were always so good to us?
















And here's a Japanese cup and saucer made for the US market that has a completely different look.

And here's a very American bowl that is basically blue and white, but adds a few other colors.

Were you getting the sense it was only pottery?  I was.  But here a couple blue and white shirts.

As I was photographing all this I was reminded of how wide the range is of what we call white and what we call blue.


But I still hadn't found much on why people like this combination.


This short introduction from  From Houzz   succinctly repeats the Wikipedia info and adds some aesthetic reasons for the color combination.

"Blue and white is a popular color scheme steeped in history. This classic color palette dates back to the ninth century, when cobalt-blue pigments were used to create motifs on white pottery and porcelain in China. During the 18th century blue and white printed fabrics began popping up in France. 

Blue and white is an appealing combination because it is a very serene palette that looks natural to most people. In design it creates a feeling of elegance and simplicity that is unparalleled."

"Unparalleled elegance and simplicity."  Did the writer just make that up, or is there something more concrete to support that conclusion?

The Anthrotorian, in a post on blue and white in Greece, adds a political reason for the combination:

It wasn’t until 1967, when a military government was in power in Greece, that the other colors disappeared for good.  Thinking that the blue and white showed unification, and supported their political agenda, this government mandated that all buildings must be repainted in blue and white if they weren’t already.

When you do internet searches, you get hits that are vaguely related, but really take you off in a completely different direction.  Like this Harvard Law School paper on the history of the regulation of lipstick from 3500 BC to the present.  I think it showed up because, in addition to more traditional reds, Egyptians used a blue-black lipstick.

For more focus on color, here's a favorite post, from 2011, Are Color Distinctions Natural or Culturally Created? More on Language and How We See the World?