Ural Mountains

The Ural Mountains is a large range of mountains, mainly in Russia. There are minerals there and titanium.
They aren’t gently sloping hill, but ragged peaks that look barren.

Russia is the largest country in the world. It has 11 time zones and except for tropical, every climate zone.

Most of the pictures are from Wikipedia Commons. I will label those that aren’t.

The maps.

World map  by, gerardgirand  Russia is on the right at the top.

This shows the different areas of Russia. By,  User: Local Profit

From Worldatlas.com.

This is map of the Urals  by Captain Blood.

The name Ural always looks like it’s spelled wrong. I found 6 wondrous pictures taken by ugraland from Moscow, Russia.

Mountains in the Arctic Circle region

Near Saranpaul

This is from the Library of Congress. It is the Macsimosky Rock in the Chusovaya River.

These are stairs to the top of Masim Mountain, South Urals  by,

There are minerals in the Urals. Also titanium. This is a picture of titanium  by, RTC

These are some of the minerals.

Golden Beryl  by, Vzb83

One type of Anderdite  by, Didier Descourens

Another kind of Beryl  by, 1Chiny

Morganite  by, Gery Parent

Quartz  by, Didier Descouens

 The last picture is of Beryl, an emerald. By, Gery Parent

Odds And Ends

We’ve had rain for a couple of days and as I type, the sun is coming out.
I had taken pictures on my walks around and I have some pictures from those.

If you want to get spring bulbs, you have to wait to plant them until at least after Halloween. It’s too warm before that. What happens if you plant them too soon is that they start to grow and then when there’s a cold snap, the leaves freeze.
Spring bulb plants need six weeks of cold weather for them to sprout up healthy and vibrant.
Always plant bulbs pointy side up.

The famous spring bulb plant  by, I don’t know the name.

This is an Aster. It comes back every year.

These are three Arborvitae. They made it through the hot summer.

A fuzzy picture of Goldenrod growing between the curb stone and asphalt road.

Picture of wild Daisies in between curb and parking lot.

Impatiens in October.

Zinnias in October.

This last picture is of a spring bulb plant. I took it on September 9th. I sat down on the pavement ans was so glad no one was around as I snapped this. it is a white Iris.

 

 

Hubble Telescope, If at First You Don’t Succeed…

The Hubble Telescope had a rough beginning. The brief version is that it was the first space telescope that would be serviced by astronauts in space shuttles. They got it up into a low orbit around Earth with the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1990.
The first image to come back was marred by defects in the optics of the telescope.
To put it mildly, NASA had a very bad time with its public image until Hubble was fixed. A lot of jokes were told and nasty cracks made about NASA.
In 1993, Space Shuttle Endeavour did an upgrade and the Hubble was in working order.

The pictures are all from NASA. I’ll start with images that are before the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery carrying Hubble into orbit.

The mirror being polished at Marshall Space Flight Center.

The launch.

These pictures show what Hubble looks like in orbit. The photos are taken from space shuttles.

The image that showed the flawed optics.

NASA figured out what was wrong. This picture is of the Space Shuttle Endeavour crew fixing the troublesome optics in 1993.

Mission accomplished. This is a well known picture of a cloud lighted by the Horsehead Nebula. Taken in 2001.

Spiral Galaxy, taken in 2003.

Picture taken in 1999 of a nebula.

Veil Nebula, taken in 2007.

The last picture was taken recently this year. It is the Helix Nebula. They say it is coming apart at the seams.

Canada Thanksgiving and Autumn Foliage

Happy Thanksgiving, Canada.
The harvest is celebrated in Canada pretty much with the same foods as the US.
I am not interested in the dinner, only the pumpkin pie.
The autumn foliage in Canada is breathtaking.

The pictures are mostly from Wikipedia Commons. I’ll label those that aren’t.

The Maps.

Map of the provinces and territories by, User: E. Pluribus Anthony

Satellite Image by, NASA

This is a picture of a Blue Hubbard Squash  by, Badagmani. It is great for making pumpkin pies.

Pumpkin pie by Evan-Amos

The foliage

Aspen tree  by, Fairsing

Montreal  by, AnnaKucsma

Ontario  by, User:Jok2000

Quebec City,  by, Cary Bass

The next two pictures are of Maple trees, but not in Canada. They give an idea of how brilliant the colors are in the fall.

By, Common Pics

The last picture is of a red Maple tree leaf by, Jim from Lexington, KY, USA. For Canada.

A Short Sunday Walk, October 7, 2012

It is a gray and cool day. I went out to look at some of the plants I had taken pictures of in September to see if there were changes. There were and I took pictures of them.

I’ll start with the mums.

This first picture was taken in September. It gets mainly eastern light.

This picture was taken about a week later. The mum gets mainly northwestern light.

I took this picture this morning. This mum gets mainly eastern light.

I took a picture of this tree in September.

Same tree, this morning.

This is a picture of a Montauk Daisy I took in September.

I took these pictures today. The first one is of the Montauk from the south side, but buildings block the light.

This is from the north side where fewer buildings block the light.

The last picture is a closer look at the Montauk from the side that gets the northern light.

Herons

People with Koi fish ponds are not fond of Herons. Herons eat fish. You can buy Heron decoys and put them near the pond. Some say it works well.
Herons are seen in a lot of places and not always by water.

The pictures are from Wikipedia Commons.

Herons squabbling on a golf course  by, Gary Rogers

In flight, you have to look for a minute to see him  by,Gordon Griffiths.

Grey Herons on nest  by, Neil Phillips

Camargue Herons  by, Deuxtroy

By, Calibas

Regents Park Herons  by, SE7

Herons at Duddingston Loch  by, Chris Booth from Edinburgh, UK

By, Tony Hisgett from Birmingham

Great Blue Heron with immature Bald Eagle on the Platte River, author unknown.

The last picture id of Green Herons  by, Lilac Breasted Roller.

We’re in Kansas, on The Oregon Trail

I looked around for pictures of the Oregon Trail in Missouri, starting at Independence.  I could find nothing that showed anything about that short part of the trail.
We are starting in Kansas.
The Missouri part of the trail was sixteen miles.
The distance the travelers went was about one to two miles an hour and around one hundred miles a week.
I read a lot of times that Kansas was the easiest part of the trail. It has gentile slopes. Well, that may be true now, but a wagon that weighed about one thousand pounds was no picnic getting up or down the hills. Also, the company of travelers were new to each other, new to their wagons, the animals and new to the trail. And new to the sounds of the hens in the coop inside of the wagons complaining every time they hit a bump. The trail was very bumpy.
It was all new and they were going into the unknown. Some of them would never see their relatives again.
One aspect that is important, is that the travelers didn’t bathe or wash clothes too often. There were also the hens in the coops in the wagons, the oxen, mules and horses. The cows followed the wagons. It was a smelly trip.

Let’s say that the travelers got to the Kansas border the first day. The distance of the Oregon Trail was 165 miles.

The Maps. Most of the pictures are from Wikipedia Commons. I will label those that aren’t.

Map of the Oregon Trail by National Park Service

NASA topographical map, Oregon Trail drawn by Matthew Trump, Wikipedia Commons

The travelers would get up at about four in the morning. They would start moving at seven. Lunch was at noon and back on the trail at one. They stopped for the day at five.

Depending on the start date, the early mornings could be frosty.

Frozen Grass  by, Antonio Borrillo

This is an example of the bonnets women wore to protect their faces from the sun. From 1909  by, Percy Wenrich and Stanley Murphey.

Next is a picture of cowboys. It is an example of how men dressed in the west. By, National Park Service.

This is a picture of covered wagons  by, Gary Halverson, Oregon State Archives.

This is a picture of railroad lamps. It gives a general idea of the kind of lamps they used when it got dark. By, get directly down.

A map of the rivers in Kansas.

Kansas River  by, Kmussen, Wikipedia Commons

This is a picture of the Kansas River  by, US Geological Survey, USGS.

They had to take ferries to get across the river.  This picture is from Kansaspedia.

They had to ford rivers where there was no other way to get across. The scouts would find the best place to cross. The banks couldn’t be too steep. The good wagons were built to float when the water got high enough.

Here is a picture of cowboys fording a river. The word fording means crossing without a boat of some kind. The picture is by National Park Service.

The trail followed rivers as much as possible. They needed the water and lush grasses to feed the animals.
The two other rivers of note were the Big Blue and Little Blue Rivers. They went close to the Little Blue. This is the river they followed when they entered Nebraska.

Here is a picture of the Big Blue River. It is from the Gutenberg Organization.

This next picture is of Little Blue  by, Ammodramus.

I had a hard time figuring out where in Kansas the trail went. I only have a general idea.
They followed south of the Waukerusa River. This was also used for the Santa Fe Trail.
This is a picture of the Waukerusa Valley, south of Lawrence  by, Alexander Gardener, Boston Public Library.

This is a picture of the Oregon Trail to Fort Leavenworth  by National Park Service.

Fort Leavenworth is by the Missouri river. Here is a map of the river  by, Shannon1.

Here is a picture of Fort Leavenworth from the Boston Public Library.

After crossing the Kansas River near Topeka by ferry, the next spot that was appreciated by the travels was Alcove Spring. The travelers named it that because it was a lovely sheltered place to camp.
Here is a modern road map showing where Alcove Spring is located. I drew the circle on the map. It is by National Park Service.

Here is a picture of Alcove Spring  by, Kansas Geological Survey.

Here is a picture of camping with tents that shows what they were like. By, H.P. McIntosh from the New York Public Library.

The last two pictures were taken by Edwin Olsen. They are at the Konza Prairie Preserve in Kansas and they show what the travelers saw when they came upon the Prairie.

Weather on The Oregon Trail

The people who traveled the Oregon Trail started their journey in April or May. The trip took from four to six months, depending on a lot of factors. One of those factors was the weather.
If they started earlier, they would have problems with winter type cold and possible snow storms. If they started later, they could run into trouble in the late autumns in the mountains at the end of the journey.
At the last part of the trail, the terrain was rugged, everyone was dog tired and they were low on food.
I have pictures of they types of weather the travelers could run into. On some parts of the trail, they were out in wide open prairie. There was nowhere to take shelter.
One thing to consider is that there was a herd of cows that were behind the wagons. The cows were for mainly milk and to be part of the homestead in Oregon. Cows get nervous at some things and if they stampede, disaster would at hand. A stampede could kill people, overturn wagons and cause the other animals to panic.

The maps.

Oregon Trail Map  by, National Park Service

NASA Topographical Map with the Oregon Trail drawn by Mathew Trump, Wikipedia Commons.

Most of the pictures are from Wikipedia Commons. I will label those that aren’t.

Dry spells are common in this area of the US. There are droughts, but simple dryness can cause the water sources to dry up. The travelers depended on these sources and could carry only so much water in the barrels.

Dry river bed  by, gin e, Japan

Dried up river bed  by, Bruce McAllister, National Archives and Records Administration, NARA

This is from the 1930s drought. A dust storm  by, NARA

In the summer months, it would get not.

The next picture shows a tree blown down by wind  by, Nigel Mykura.

If there was a great deal of rain, there would be deep mud and flooding.

Field of mud  by, Ian Patterson

Field of churned up mud  by, David Hawgood

Shetland Ponies  by, Eric Jones

Temporary Lake  by, Roger Gilbertson

In the early spring, there could be hail storms. This usually didn’t last long, but were damaging. Large hail, speeding down from the sky could injure people and animals.

Hail Storm  by, Trevor Manteranch, Ballantine, USA

Lightning was also dangerous.

By, Lyoha123

Scotto Bear from North Beach MD, USA

The last two pictures by NOAA are of tornadoes. These are two different tornadoes. First in Texas and second in Oklahoma.

Mars Rovers Opportunity and Curiosity, Martian Rocks

Mars Rover Opportunity has been on Mars for nine years. In September of this year, she sent back a photo that is of unknown objects.

Curiosity has also been busy.

I’ll start with a pictures and diagrams of both rover. All pictures are from NASA.
First, Opportunity. She is called Oppy.

The text on the diagram is hard to read. When I do a post on Oppy, I’ll try to find a better one.

If Oppy is a sports car, Curiosity is a tank. Here is Curiosity, picture and diagram.

Here are the blueberries Oppy took a picture of and sent back.

Curiosity took a picture of the Mars moon, Phoebos over Mars at twilight. The moon is small. it is that round black spot.

Here’s the same picture with the blue arrow I drew to show Phoebos.

Here is a dry stream bed that Curiosity saw.

Rocks in the same place.

They have names a Mars location Bathurst Inlet.
The last two pictures are of a rock that Curiosity took a picture of. The first picture is five parts put into one photo. The last picture is a close up of a rock.

 

Sparrows

I see a lot of Sparrows around. Usually they are in the air and going like the speed of light. They dart around and dive for a morsel of food on the ground and back up in the air without pause. I have seen them get a tiny piece of bread from the sidewalk, right near people.
All the rest of the pictures are from Wikipedia Commons.

Sparrows on a slim limb  by, Keith from Newark DE, USA

House Sparrows bathing  by, Audrey from Russia

Chestnut Shouldered Sparrow  by, J.M. Garg

Sparrows  by, Oleg Shelyov from Russia

Rufous crowned Sparrows  by, Tim from Ithica

Seven Sparrows  by, Jimmy Palma Gil

Sparrows, Kitanomaru Park  by, Tomoyuki Kawshima from Japan

Sparrows in Manhattan, NY  by, User: Jamiel

Sparrows on a beach in Egypt  by, Kormoran

House Sparrows at feeder  by, Matt MacGillvray

Father House Sparrow feeding baby  by, Rootology

The last picture is by User: Jamiel of Mother House Sparrow and two hungry babies in Manhattan, NY.