Snow Leopards, Beautiful and Mysterious

Snow Leopards live in the mountains of Central Asia.
This map gives a general idea of where they roam. The basic map is by, Brion Vibber, Wikipedia Commons.

Before I forget to tell you, all the pictures are from Wikipedia Commons.

The pictures I found of Snow Leopards are taken in zoos. I didn’t find any pictures of them in the wild. This is because the Snow Leopards live high up in the mountains. Some are in zoos, but most of them haven’t been seen by people.
Snow Leopards can’t roar. They do make the other big cat sounds.
They have big feet and walk very quietly. Their fur is thick and their tails are long. Their tails keep them in balance when they walk in precarious areas. They can wrap their tails around their faces when they sleep, It protects them for the bitter cold.
The reason that Snow Leopards are still a mystery is that not much is known about them. I hope it always remains that way. They don’t like people bothering them.

The pictures.

By, Bernard Landgraf

By, Eric Kilby

By, Nick Wagner

By, Vassil

By, Sujit kamer Mahapatra

By, Hanmac

By, Dingopup

By, Mammalwatcher

This last picture is taken by, Notjake13.

Bobcats, Lynx Rufus, Not The Machines

Bobcats aren’t big, but they are powerful. They are a type of Lynx. I don’t think anyone has told them that, so I doubt they know their official name.

The Pictures. I’ll put WC for Wikipedia Commons.

Bill W. Ca, English Wikipedia

From US Fish and Wildlife Service

By Brocken Inaglory, WC

By Alan Vernon, WC

By, AllenS, WC

By, KCZooFan, WC

The last picture is taken in West Virginia, US  by ForestWanderer

 

 

Mountain Lions

I have not seen a Mountain Lion. They usually don’t like to be around people. I would take care if I saw one. It is probable that one would be in a tree and could be well disguised.

The first picture is  by, Trisha M. Shears Wikipedia Commons.

The next two pictures are of Mountain Lions in trees  by, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Mountain Prairie.

From the US Department of Agriculture.

From Forest Wanderer, Mountain Lion in West Virginia.

Mountain Lion kitten  by, Jim Peaco, National Park Service.

The last picture is also from National Park Service, taken by WL Miller.

October Apples

October in the north east is when a lot of apples ripen. It depends on what area you live in what types of apples are available.
I found six pictures of apples. Three of these I have never tasted. The first three are the ones I know and the last three are ones I don’t know.
The pictures are from Wikipedia Commons.

Norther Spy  by, Red58bill

Baldwin  by, Poeticbent

Crab apples  by, Wahha

Cox’s Orange Pippin  by, Sven Teschke Budingen

Brimley  by, Marcin Floryan

Bramley’s Seedling   by, David Wright

Tigers

I have seen tigers at zoos. They seemed quite content. As long as no one bothered them, they were calm and went about their daily routines.

The pictures. WC is Wikipedia Commons.

US Fish and Wildlife Services, Hollingsworth John and Karen

By, Eustraquio Santimano from Singapor, WC

By, Dick Muddle, WC

By, sylvia duckworth, WC

The last three pictures are by Dave Pape, WC and were taken at the Buffalo Zoo, USA.

Autumn Light

I was looking out of the window early this morning ans saw a couple of trees shining orange in the sun light. I wondered how they could have suddenly gotten so colorful The day before they were dull tan.
A half an hour later, they were again dull tan. I’ll try to get out with the camera at both times to see if I can get pictures of this.

I found lovely pictures of autumn light. The are all from Wikipedia Commons, except for the first one by Capital photographer from English Wikipedia. The picture is of the National Carillon in Canberra, Australia, in autumn mist.

It’s hard to do seasonal light comparisons unless I have taken the pictures at the same time during different seasons. Anyway, here are two pictures of winter light, which looks softer than the autumn light.

Winter morning light  by, Stanley Howe

Late winter afternoon light  by, Andrew Hill

The rest of the pictures are of autumn light.

By, ROWLAND TURNER

By, Christine Matthews

By flemming christensen

The last picture is by, Christine Westerback.

Garlic

This time of year on the east coast of the US, you can plant garlic. You can also plant it in the spring. It is used in a lot of cooking.
Garlic is easy to plant. If you use any kind of fertilizer, you have to check the directions on when to stop using it before you harvest.

Two drawings of garlic. The first is the of clove and the second is garlic planted in the ground.

Plant pointy side up.

The real pictures of garlic. All the pictures are from Wikipedia Commons.

Garlic growing  by, Leo Michels

The next three pictures are by H. Zell.

This is how you see garlic for sale  by, User:Nino Barbien.

Garlic and the cloves  by, Donovan Dovan.

Garlic and garlic press by, Les Kindness.

Garlic and chopped garlic  by, Samedi1.

The last picture is of a slice of garlic. The center is where the leaves grow from. By, Flik R.

Lions

I was up in the air about what to post today. Lions seemed like a good topic.
In some of the pictures, the lions look cute. They are, but not for people to bother them. They don’t like you doing that.
The first pictures are of lions in the wild, or rather, in wildlife parks where they are protected. It isn’t really the wild because people are there looking at them and taking their pictures. This means that for the most part, the lions have gotten used to people.

The second group of photos are taken of lions in zoos. The lions see people all the time and are used to them. In zoos, the lions are very protected.

The pictures. All of the pictures are from Wikipedia Commons.

Just one lion. By, User:Robek

A pride of lions  by, Rick marin

Two pictures taken by, Miroslav Duchacek from Czech Republic.By, Giraud Patrick

By, Shuyler Shepherd

By, Charles J. SHarp

Lioness warns cub to stop playing with her tail  by, John Storr

The rest of the pictures are taken in zoos.

By Edradour

By, Appaloosa

By, Frank Vencentz

The last picture is by, Aaron Logan.

Space Shuttle Endeavour, Last Trip

The Shuttle Endeavour  made her final journey from Kennedy Space Center in Florida to Los Angeles California. It is going to be in the California Space Museum and can be seen starting on October 30th.
You might think it wouldn’t be hard to move the Shuttle, after all, it went into space 25 times. You would be wrong.
First, here are three pictures of a later Shuttle, Atlantis on her final launch in July of 2011.
Taken from the International Space Station. Atlantis is flying over the Bahamas before docking at the space station.

Using a parachute to slow down upon landing.

Endeavour weight 170,000 pounds.
There is an airliner that is a modified Boeing 747. The Endeavour was loading onto the airliner at Kennedy Space Center in Florida to start her trip west.

There she is, ready for take off.

The following pictures are of Endeavour flying over parts of the United States. I forgot to mention that all of the pictures are from NASA.

Over Houston Texas

Over the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco

A Star is Born

Arriving at Los Angeles Airport.

All over the country, if you were reading comments on some blogs, you would read, I saw it! I saw it!. Endeavour just flew right over.

Now, comes the sticky part. They got Endeavour off of the airliner and onto a land transport vehicle or in other words, a trailer.

Getting ready to start the overland trip through Los Angeles.

The last picture shows Endeavour on the road.
Endeavour is still in transit. She will get to the museum this evening. She has been driven through the streets of Los Angeles. Some people were asked to stay inside their apartments because Endeavour’s wings would be over their driveways as she went by. She also crossed a bridge. They had to take down power lines to do this.
Her rate of speed on this part of the trip is about 2 miles an hour.

Mars Rover Curiosity finds out Jake is like felspar on Earth

In reading about the analysis of the rock Jake that Curiosity test, I ran into a lot of complicates language. Had to put my head out the window and scream type of language.
Basically, the rock Jake and the rocks called feldspar are quite a bit alike. Feldspar is from magma, which comes from volcanoes. The type of feldspar, and there are a ton of types, is called igneous.
Igneous is a form of crystallized rock from magma and from there, you are on your own.

Curiosity also scooped a bit of soil and ran it through the hopper. No results on what is in the soil yet.

A map of the world, this one, where feldspar is found.

By, Anwar saadat, English Wikipedia

A NASA diagram of Curiosity.

The now famous rock, Jake.

Jake again when Curiosity put her hand on it.

This is a piece of feldspar on earth, in Portugal  by, Chmee2, Wikipedia Commons.

This is a picture of the soil sampler on Curiosity when she was still in the lab on Earth.

A picture that NASA made to show where they tested Jake.

Now, for the soil samples.
Two diagrams of the soil sampler on Curiosity.

This is a picture of the sampler on Curiosity in the lab on Earth.

Curiosity roughed up a bit of soils with her front wheel.

The result.

The last picture is of Curiosity holding a sample of soil in her scoop.