Gray Squirrels

I see gray squirrels  around this area every day. There are a lot of them.
Sometimes they sit and watch as you walk down the sidewalk and then dart up a tree or elsewhere.
Gray squirrels are quick movers. They dash around in a hurry. They are also good climbers.

All the pictures are from Wikimedia Commons.

By, Zipamapa.

By Whpg.

By Sebastian Wallroth.

By Robert Bauer.

By Bonnie Gruenberg.

By Ed Sweeney.

These last three pictures are in order and taken by, waferboard.

Finches in Flight

I found a picture I wanted to share with you.
There has been snow and ice at the Knoxville Zoo in Kentucky.
Here is the US map of the states by the Environmental Protection Agency. I drew a red circle around the state of Kentucky.

The crews at the zoo were breaking up ice and clearing the ground.
Baby bear Monty was playing with the ice that had formed over his pool.

There are so many different kind of finches. I decided to just show some pictures of finches in flight. Finches are songbirds and eat seeds.

All of the pictures are from Wikimedia Commons.

Green finches at a feeder with a chaffinch trying to join in  by, David Stoker.

House finch in flight  by, thefixer.

By Gogik.

By Helen L. Cave.

The last picture is by, Shawn.

Winter Fog

Lately, the temperatures have been moderate around here, that is, until this morning. It was cold, in the 20’s F and quite windy. I ran an errand and my eyes teared and my nose ran. It will moderate for a few days and then get very cold.
I heard on the radio that Heathrow Airport in UK is closed due to snow. That makes things difficult for people who need to take planes.
Fog leaves moisture on everything. It is hard to see and if driving a vehicle, very hard to see other cars. You have to use regular headlights in fog. If you use the brights, you can’t see as well.

All of the pictures are from Wikimedia Commons. Except for one which I’ll label.

By, Thermos.

In Nederlands  by, Kareldemeulemeester, nl. wikipedia.

In Croatia  by, istra1977.

Allegh Port Railroad in Gallizin, Pennsylvania  by, National Park Service.

By, Migel1301xm.

Wicklow Mountains, Ireland  by, Sarah777.

Eastern slopes of Twyn Du  by, Jonathon Billinger.

Achensee, Tirol, Austria  by, Fredrich.

By User: Malene.

This last picture was taken in llsan, Korea  by, Dalgial.

Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, She Went Up, She Came Down

 

The NASA Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) had a mission to study the upper atmosphere of the Earth. The mission was to be for 3 years and it lasted 14 years.
The Space Shuttle Discovery was used to launch the UARS into orbit in 1991.

All the pictures are from NASA except one, which I will label. The launch pictures are from Discovery launches, but I didn’t find the UARS launch pictures.

This is the control room at Kennedy Space Center in the state of Florida. I don’t know when it was taken. It might look different now.

This is the Discovery being flown to the Kennedy Space Center.

This is the Space Shuttle Discovery. at Kennedy Space Center.

This is Discovery heading to space.

The next two pictures are of Earth’s upper atmosphere.

Two drawings of UARS in orbit. She was 375 miles above the Earth.

UARS was decommissioned in 2005. She fell to Earth on September 23, overnight into September 24, 2011.
Satellites have fallen to Earth because they can no longer stay in orbit. When NASA announced that UARS was going to fall, the news media was all excited. This was going to be a major story for them. NASA gave updates on where they expected UARS to fall.  This set off speculation of UARS falling in a populated area and that would be a huge story.

UARS was going to land in the Pacific Ocean. NASA showed this picture of where she would land.

This is a picture of UARS at the time she was going to fall to Earth. At the bottom right of the picture is the solar array.

This last picture is UARS heading toward Earth.

 

 

Cats And Catnip

A lot of domestic cats like catnip.
Catnip, in this area of the northeast is a perennial, which means it can survive winter and return in the spring.
As I was looking around for pictures, I found out about two things I hadn’t thought about before.

All the pictures are from Wikimedia Commons.
I’ll start with cats. I read that domestic cats may, at least it is thought,  descend the African Wild Cats.

African Wild Cat  by, Sonelle.

Domestic cat  by, Leveetated.

I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t know which cat was domestic and which was wild.

These are pictures of domestic cats.

By, Lady Lightning.

By, Luiclemons.

By, Pusleogpixl.

Cat’s whiskers are the width of his or her shoulders. They can walk and tell if they can get though a tight spot by their whiskers. This picture is by, David Corby.

The second thing I found out was that Spearmint plant leaves look like catnip. Not only that, the flowers on these two plants also look somewhat alike.

Spearmint leaves  by, Tu7uh.

Catnip leaves  by, Calliope.

Spearmint flowers. I didn’t find a photographer’s name.

Catnip flower  by, Jon Sullivan.

If you don’t know what any plant is, ask someone who knows and don’t touch it. It is wise to be careful with unknown plants.

This last picture is of the result of a domestic cat who has been into the catnip  by, Montrealais.

Red Squirrels

The two types of squirrels I am familiar with are gray and red. Around here, we see gray squirrels Gray Squirrels are bigger than red ones. They also can travel at seems to be the speed of light. Red Squirrels, travel at the speed of a turtle.
Squirrels are cute. They don’t like you bothering them.
Gray squirrels can be destructive. If one or more gets into an attic of a house, they can cause major damage. Getting them out of there is a job for a pest control professional. It isn’t easy. They can have different access points and it is frustrating, to put it mildly.

I found two different types of red squirrel pictures. The North American has little rounded ears. The Eurasian, don’t quote me on that name, has a tuft between his or her ears.

The pictures are from Wikimedia Commons.

This first picture is by Edward Simpson and was taken in the Lake District.

By, Tony Hisgett.

By, Don.

By, Fotograf Darkone77.

By, D. Gordon E. Robinson.

By, Giles Gunthier.

By, Gacopryz.

This last picture is by, Lindsey Trostle.

 

Crater Lake National Park, Oregon, USA

I found an International Space Station photo taken by Thomas H. Marshburn of Crater Lake. The lake stands out from even that height above the Earth.

This made me wonder about this lake that I knew nothing about.
Crater Lake is in a National Park, managed by the National Park Service. It is the only national park in Oregon.
The two maps. The first is the EPA ( Environmental Protection Agency)  US map of the states. I drew the blue line around the state of Oregon.
The second map is of the county in Oregon where the lake is located, It is called Klacmath County. It is in the South Central part of the state. This map is from English Wikipedia.

Some facts about this lake.
It is called a caldera. It’s in the Mazama volcano that erupted and erupted a lot. The top of the volcano, before it erupted, sank way down into the inside. It is not a crater from magma spewing out and leaving a hole int volcano. The inside of the volcano collapse. It is more complicated than that, but beyond me. If you want to know the details, you are on your own.
The water partly fills this hole. The average depth is 1,148 feet. The maximum depth is 1.949 feet.

This is a bathymetry survey by the US Geological Survey, Department of the Interior.. In other words, it shows the different depths of the lake. The colors show orange as less deep, to blue which is very deep.

This is Crater Lake National Park  by, NASA. The outstanding fact about the lake is that is such a deep blue and clear.

This picture shows a wall of the lake  by, National Park Service.

The rest of the pictures are from Wikimedia Commons. I have been writing Wikipedia Commons and that’s wrong. From now on I will write the correct name. I figure it’s better late than never.

This shows the whole lake  by, Zainubrazvi.

Here is Crater Lake in winter  by, WolfmanSF.

This is Wizard Island in the lake  by, Stuart Seeger from San Antonio, Texas, USA.

This picture shows Phantom Ship Island  by, Yvette Burling.

This last picture has the caption, Stellar’s Jay at Crater Lake  by, Michael Sulis.

 

European Robins

In this area, the American Robins have headed to warmer places. They will come back in the very early spring. These Robins are seen as signs that spring is just around the corner.
European Robins hang around during winter and their colors stand out against bare branches and white snow.

All the pictures are from Wikipedia Commons, except two, which I will label.

First, a picture of an American Robin  by, Sujit Kumar.

The rest of the pictures are of European Robins. This one is by David Jordon.

By, Christine Matthews.

Young European Robin  by, Adamjennison111, English Wikipedia.

By Pierre Selim.

By, Miles.

The last picture is by the US Department of Agriculture.

From Space, January 12, 2013

First, there are two images from the NASA Earth Observatory of the wildfires that were in Tasmania.

The Canadian Space Agency has been busy with the International Space Station. Chris Hadfield has taken photos from there.

The Saudi Desert with a large lava flow.

This was about combustion. I don’t understand it, but it’s a pretty picture.

A bit of the moon. The gold is a solar array.

Aurora.

Back to NASA. Mars Science Laboratory took images of herself and here’s a composite of all those images. The two flaps in the front, cover her hoppers on the SAM. The SAM does rock and soil analysis.

Curiosity tested her dust brush. Here is the result.

This last picture is of the sun this past week. A couple of weeks ago I had a photo of the sun in a post that showed one little sun spot. They spots come and go frequently.

 

Cold Weather Gardening, Part Two

In the northeast US, this is a dull time of year as far as plants and trees are concerned. The leaves are all gone off the trees and bushes that have leaves that fall off in autumn. The grassy areas are still a bit green, but not pretty. It is cold and dreary.
This is great time to look at seed catalogs. You can browse for hours and pick out what you want to order.
I have pictures of some root vegetables that can be grown in this area as well as other places.
The pictures are all from Wikipedia Commons except for the first two. They are from the US CDC, Center For Disease Control.

Horseradish.

Parsnip.

These are Detroit Red Beet seeds. The captions said it takes 8 months from planting the seeds to harvesting the beets. By, Downtowngal.

These are Detroit Red Beets  by, BriannaWalther.

Scallions in a market  by, Daderot.

These are potatoes in New Zealand. Potatoes do well her in my area. By, Nzfauna.

Potatoes and radishes from the garden of Leithh, who also took the pictures.

White and red radishes  by, Julo.

The last picture is of baby carrots  by, wagatsuma.