They're Back!

The house wrens, that is.  Here's what I posted three years ago at the blessed event.

Emily Dickinson had it exactly right when she wrote some 150 years ago:

“I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven.” 

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Friday, April 23, 2010

Pappy's License Plate

I built this wren house from old chestnut boards from my grandfather-in-law's farm, and used his 1958 Pennsylvania license plate as the roof. (photo by Gary)


The house wrens (Troglodytes aedon) should be arriving any day now from their winter stay. They are a critter of edges, so I will encounter them along my typical rural road runs, along the C+O Canal, but not usually along the Appalachian Trail. They are not a deep woods critter.

One of the reasons I love this tiny dynamo of feathers is that the males and the females are indistinguishable from one another, and share nest duties equally. And can they ever sing—a sweet, melodic burst of sound that seems too large to come from this tiny little bird. My Audubon Society field guide calls it “…a gurgling, bubbling, exuberant song….”

The bride and I eagerly await this time of year, to see who will be the first to say, "The wrens are back." Then we know that the earth, and us upon it, have sucessfully turned another year.

[Photo credit here]

 

 

Banjos...and Ultrarunning

During today's run along the C+O Canal I had banjos on my mind.

Just before I parked at Cushwa Basin in Williamsport, MD, my XM radio (on channel 28, The Spectrum) delivered a rousing rendition of Ho Hey by The Lumineers.

And shortly before that, Mumford and Sons' I Will Wait. 

Now these songs are both sing-along, foot-stomping, banjo-featuring tunes that are perfect accompanyment for the trail...in my head.  I still don't and never plan to run with any listening device.  It just seems, well, wrong to me, when I'm in the midst of nature.  But that's just me, because it appears from my personal observation that listening devices are probably more common than not; i.e., a majority of runners I encounter are using one.

But I digress.  The point of this post is that I love the banjo and both of these groups and the tunes mentioned are excellent examples of how the banjo is making a real comeback in the world of contemporary music.

Which takes me back to the Kinks in the early 70s, who were one of the first rock groups to feature the banjo in rock music, with the iconic Lola, some 40 years ago:




[Video credit YouTube, here.  Note: what I find interesting is that the banjo is unmistakably there in the opening chords, yet I can't detect it in the video]

And for your further enjoyment here is a list of the best played banjo in a rock song, from Keno's Classic Rock n Roll.  See # 4:

Anyway, enjoy the trails, and if you're lucky, the banjos will be playing in your head.

 

Getting "Lost" Pays Dividends

While running a couple weeks ago near "my" trail and shelter over near the Tuscarora Trail (southern PA), I attempted a loop that wound up involving a poorly marked and maintained trail.  That trail also was affected by recent logging operations that obliterated some of it.

Bottom line was that I had to do some bushwhacking to reach the road that I knew was downhill, so no real problem, just an inconvenience.

But along the way I found this treasure.  It's interesting to speculate when this place was last lived in and by whom....

 

 

[photos by Gary]

 

 

 

Lost Cargo of the Titanic

This post, an annual ritual, should have run yesterday, but around here cats get priority.

Even dead cats. 

Enjoy!

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Lost Cargo of the Titanic

In honor of the day....I send this out each year as a sort of annual ritual.

Image credit here

Most people don't know that back in 1912, Hellmann's mayonnaise was manufactured in England. In fact, the Titanic was carrying 12,000 jars of the condiment scheduled for delivery in Vera Cruz, Mexico, which was to be the next port of call for the great ship after its stop in New York.

This would have been the largest single shipment of mayonnaise ever delivered to Mexico. But as we know, the great ship did not make it to New York. The ship hit an iceberg and sank, and the cargo was forever lost.

The people of Mexico, who were crazy about mayonnaise, and were eagerly awaiting its delivery, were disconsolate at the loss. Their anguish was so great, that they declared a National Day of Mourning, which they still observe to this day.

The National Day of Mourning occurs each year on May 5th and is known, of course, as Sinko de Mayo.

 

 

Cats in Art: The Dead Cat (Gericault)

Sorry, but life has interfered with blogging.

This is a repost from last summer of one of the most popular posts in my series, Cats in Art.

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Sunday, June 3, 2012

Cats in Art: The Dead Cat (Gericault)

From my continuing weekly Sunday series of cats in art. I'm using some ideas from the coffee table book, The Cat in Art, by Stefano Zuffi.

Click image for larger, ESC to return. Image credit Wikipaintings, here. The Dead Cat, Theodore Gericault, 1821, oil on canvas, held by Musee du Louvre, Paris, France.

We previously saw Gericault's Portrait of Louise Vernet as a Child in this space back in Dec 2011, where a young girl--Louise Vernet--was holding one enormous cat. With respect to this dead cat painting, Zuffi comments:

Rarely has the death of an animal been depicted in a more dignified way. On a bare bench, the cat's pale body is analyzed in all its stark reality, in the stiffness of death--its face contorted in a tragic grimace, its paws limp. It is true that whoever has seen his or her cat die cannot be happy with a replacement, so important is the individuality and character of the one that has passed away.

So sad, so realistic. Gericault gets it right.

"The Sadness of the Short Obituary"...Part 2

A year and a half ago I wrote about an obituary for one Caleb Christiansen, of California, whose obituary I happened upon accidentally via his mother and another Janet Christiansen sharing the same name.

See, I have a Google Alert set up for "Janet Christiansen--of North Carolina--who was murdered and is interred in a cemetery about half a a mile from my home.  Although she is a stranger to me, I pause there from time to time to bring flowers, and have previously blogged about reflections on her death, most recently here.

Anyway, turns out I was right about the short obituary for Caleb, not that it gives me any satisfaction.  He apparently struggled with drug abuse and died of an overdose (the link is to a story of the criminal prosecution of the dealer who sold Caleb the drugs).

The empty, senseless hole left in that family will never quite heal.  The death of a child, regardless of age (Caleb was 21) is an event that no parent ever wants to face.  My heart again goes out to that family that they may find peace.

When I run tomorrow I'll place an extra flower in the cemetery--one for Janet, and one for Caleb.  I have some mighty fine daffodils right now that are simply beautiful.

 

 

Walking is SO Inefficient

Or, "5 Miles of Walking Vs. 5 Miles of Running"....

Recently (say the past year or so) as I do my beloved Harshman Road loop, I have been occasionally encountering a young lady who walks with a pair of dogs.  The dogs are large--setters of some sort--and she is a brisk walker.  She and the dogs are friendly but focused on their mission of covering ground quickly.

As I run the route I have encountered the young lady and the dogs at various point around the loop.  Because the route has no opportunities for short-cutting, I have concluded that the woman and the dogs walk the whole 5-mile loop.

Which must take them 1:15 or so at 15 minute brisk walking pace.  In the big scheme of things, an hour and fifteen minutes is certainly very doable, but I cannot personally imagine walking that route.  Not that it's dangerous or ugly, it's just that walking that far seem to be SO inefficient.

But I must acknowledge that in my 100 milers, I wind up walking at least 20 miles...but that usually comes in short chunks of a mile or less at a time.  Not 5 miles in a row.  Walking.

I guess the young lady may be looking at me and thinking, "I can't imagine running this loop!"

Obviously, YMMV.

 

Syria is a Mess...and Ultrarunning

Some pretty good analysis below about why we should be careful in dealing with Syria.

Also, my particular question is why should we--meaning the United States--be the one to get all concerned about Syria?  This should be a conundrum for the United Nations, of which we are a member, not a unilateral response by one country.

Anyway, an excerpt via Hullabaloo.  You should go read the whole thing, it's short:

You see he gassed his own people with WMD and they might get into the hands of terrorists. We can't let the smoking gun come in the form of a mushroom cloud. We must disarm the tyrant because if we don't the terrorists will win. You know the drill. Very well. Too well.

 --SNIP--

The world is an ugly place full of injustice. If it were up to me, and I could pick countries to liberate, I can think of a half dozen off the top of my head, starting with Burma. But sometime in the last half century I learned that war is very rarely a good way to "help" people and that the motivations for waging it are always far more complicated than that. Moreover, I just don't think the US is a very good "humanitarian" empire. Even if you assume we have the best of intentions, the US just doesn't have the right political structure to be a benevolent hegemon. I'm not sure any nation state does.

--SNIP--

It's a horrible, bloody mess in Syria and it's terrible to feel impotent in the face of horrible bloody messes. But considering the huge risk we take of making things even worse, there is no doubt that we must be extremely skeptical of calls for intervention. The US has a bad hubris habit and considering our hot war success rate of the past 50 years or so, we really should take a good look in the mirror before we act.
 

And, of course the (however tenuous) link to Ultrarunning?  Just a recognition or acknowledgement that we too often take our running freedom for granted here.  We can run any public trail we want and we don't have to be afraid of land mines or armed militias or regular troops or drones or Scud missiles.  We have rules and laws and a functional government, and by and large, things work rather well here.

Not so in Syria or any number of other places on the planet.