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hawks and seagulls
Monday, February 24 2020
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We had beautiful weather today, with sunny skies and temperatures rising into the 60s. I had Ramona with me at work because Gretchen and Neville were working at the bookstore today, and when we went for a walk past the solar farm in back of the Chocolate Factory, I saw three or four red-tailed hawks migrating northward several hundred feet overhead. Later, as I drove us home across the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge, I saw enormous numbers of seagulls flying around the Hudson's western shore, perhaps drawn by the stench of garbage from the landfill that must be near there somewhere.
Back at the house, I wanted to take further advantage of the good weather, so I went on a firewood-salvaging foray to the depot I'd made a half mile south of the house on the Stick Trail. On the way, I stopped at one of my better bluestone cairns to make it taller and wider. Normally at this time of year, loose rocks on the ground would be inextricably frozen to the soil, but I had no trouble freeing just about every rock I tried to pick up. As I worked, I was listening to a YouTube-generated playlist of mostly-hysterical news reports of the ongoing Covid-19 coronavirus scare. Given the low lethality of the disease, it didn't seem to me like it necessitated such a widespread, hysterical response (such as the quarantining of entire cities in China).
As I carried home my pack of firewood, it felt fairly light to me, and I estimated its weight to be on the order of 80 pounds. But when I measured the pack weight (the weight of the wood plus the weight of the pack) it came to 98 pounds. This suggests my new dual-frame desing makes heavy loads 18 percent more comfortable to carry.
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Ramona investigates the e-coli contamination of some kids' toys in the little de-facto park just west of The Chocolate Factory.
Click to enlarge.
A migrating hawk today.
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