I am hiking across acres of Southwest Colorado with my fabulous best friend, a Black Mouth Cur that I named, appropriately, “Blessing” on our morning “walk” through the fields and woods of the farm where we now live. It is out … Continue reading
“He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in Him will I trust.’.
Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the perilous pestilence.
He shall cover you with His Feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge; His truth shall be your shield and your buckler.
You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day,
Nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday.
A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; but it will not come near you.
Only…
View original post 416 more words
It really is a matter of the heart. Where our heart is, you will find our treasures, our true personalities, the things we love most, there. Unfortunately, many of us have placed our treasures in an unsafe place where the thief and enemy lies under the veil of deception ready to steal, kill and destroy. (John 10:10) After all, that is his sole purpose; destruction. Reality check: is your heart a runaway or are you prepared?
When faced with the terrorizing prospect of chaotic civil unrest across America, (which will be violent) the rampant deceptions and corruption coming from our government, false flag “drills” which are preparations for the near-future real-deal, and the potential for World War lll on our doorsteps, and so much more, it’s no wonder we want to run away. In fact, many of us already have. We may…
View original post 1,172 more words
Finally, I have reached the “want-to”, the readiness, the acceptance of furthering my “wilderness experiences” and I am willing to dive into the deep end, even though I can’t swim a single stroke on my own. Really, I can’t swim. I can fake it with fins on my feet, otherwise I’m floundering and lost in the vastness of the ocean, definitely “without a paddle”.
Recently there have been monumental mountains/changes in my life. I lost a sibling to suicide on July the 4th to name just one. Amazing how this tragedy has paved the avenue for a renewed and reconciled relationship with other family members, as only God can arrange, making beauty from of ashes. Two of us got together yesterday and it was a delightful day of reunion and of memories, discovery, jokes…
View original post 936 more words
Oct. 3, 2013 at 11:48 AM ET
In 1995, divers noticed a beautiful, strange circular pattern on the seafloor off Japan, and soon after, more circles were discovered nearby. Some likened these formations to “underwater crop circles.” The geometric formations mysteriously came and went, and for more than a decade, nobody knew what made them.
Finally, the creator of these remarkable formations was found: a newly discovered species of pufferfish. Further study showed these small pufferfish make the ornate circles to attract mates. Males laboriously flap their fins as they swim along the seafloor, resulting in disrupted sediment and amazing circular patterns. Although the fish are only about 12 centimeters (5 inches) long, the formations they make measure about 2 meters (7 feet) in diameter.
When the circles are finished, females come to inspect them. If they like what they see, they reproduce with the males, said Hiroshi Kawase, the curator of the Coastal Branch of Natural History Museum and Institute in Chiba, Japan. But nobody knows exactly what the females are looking for in these circles or what traits they find desirable, Kawase told LiveScience. [See Video of Pufferfish Making Seafloor Circles]
Unique circles
Pufferfish mating involves females laying eggs in the fine sediments in the center of the circles, and then the males fertilizing them externally. Then, the females vanish, and the males stay for another six days, perhaps to guard the eggs, the study noted.
Males of some species of cichlids (a type of fish) are known to construct crater-shaped mounds that females visit to have their eggs fertilized, Kawase said. For example, male featherfin cichlids in Africa’s Lake Tanganyika build small bowls out of the sand, and display them to females before mating there, said Alex Jordan, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin who wasn’t involved in this study.
But this new pufferfish’s geometric patterns have three features never seen before. First, they involve radially aligned ridges and valleys outside the nest site. Second, the male decorates these ridges with fragments of shells. Third, the male gathers fine sediments to give the resulting formation a distinctive look and coloring, Kawase said. [Photos: Pufferfish Make Seafloor Circles to Mate]
Strangely enough, the male “gathers” the fine sediments using the circular pattern itself, Kawase said. A fluid dynamics test using a half-size model of one of these circles found that the upstream portion of the circle funnels water and fine sediments toward the center. Then, the downstream peaks and valleys funnel the water outward. The speed of water was slowed by nearly 25 percent in the center, where the eggs are laid, the study noted.
Bowerbirds of the sea?
It takes about seven to nine days for the pufferfish to build the circles. The male pufferfish don’t maintain these formations, and underwater currents wash them away relatively quickly. Kawase said they likely give up their old formations because the circles exhaust the fine sediment in the area, and thus must be built anew in areas with fresh sediment.
When Jordan first heard about the circles, he guessed a much bigger fish would have made them. The fact that such a small animal makes such a large formation is “pretty cool, and suggests some underlying biological reason for the size, like poor visibility at depth, or distance between individuals that means males have to make large nests to be found by females,” he told LiveScience.
Research describing the pufferfish formations was published in July in the journal Scientific Reports. “It’s a nice clean study because it provides a definite answer to the question — something that is very rare in biology,” Jordan said.
The formations are very similar to so-called “bowers” — display sites built by various animals like bowerbirds in which to strut their stuff before mating. In this case, the formations may serve solely to gather fine sediments, which females could use to choose their mate, Jordan said.
But until this idea is tested, nobody will know. “The one caveat I have is that there is no evidence that females care about anything more than the fine sand, and even that’s a stretch,” Jordan said. “The beautiful lines and structure could serve only to channel those particles to the center, and have no aesthetic purpose.”
Although Jordan said he doesn’t think that’s the case, the idea that the fine sediments are important to females would be “biologically interesting, because it would suggest that function is more important than appearance,” he said.
DNA samples and video footage of an alleged Bigfoot sleeping in the Kentucky woods have been presented this week by researchers in Texas who say it all belongs to a ‘human hybrid.’
I love to camp with my wife and two little boys, ages 3 and 5. I’d say that 75-80 percent of the campers we’ve encountered over the years have been good people who understand the need to be considerate while sleeping with fellow travelers in the great outdoors. But it only takes one dud to ruin your camping experience.
A bad camping trip can make the pleasures of home seem awfully enticing. A great one can remind you of how magical camping can be–given the right circumstances and neighbors.
I prefer to camp at state and national parks because the tent sites tend to be cheaper and more spacious than private campgrounds, where you can sometimes feel like you are stacked on top of your fellow campers. But if you don’t plan far ahead, getting a coveted site at a state or national park on a summer weekend can be extremely difficult.
No matter where you pop your tent, here are seven things not to do a campground.
iStock
What’s it like to be near someone who decides to check in late at night? Last summer, on a rainy night at a state park in Vermont, we heard noises very close to our tent after midnight. We were alarmed because it was a Monday night and the place had totally cleared out after the weekend, with just one family left in our vicinity. Our paranoia grew when a bright, blinding light illuminated our tent. When we had checked in, a park ranger had mentioned that there had been some bear sightings and we feared that the rangers were tracking a bear near our campsite. Eventually, we fell asleep without further incident. The next morning, we found out that the noises we heard were late arriving campers who used their high beams, pointed right into our tent, as they set up their tent in the rain. Some campgrounds police arrival times, but many don’t. There is no graceful way to set up camp in the middle of the night, so please, just don’t do it.
iStock
For every one person who becomes quiet and introspective when intoxicated, there are a dozen who get loud and obnoxious. If you stay reasonably coherent, you’ll be less likely to annoy your neighbors.
iStock
No one thinks that their dog is annoying, but we all know that some pets are better off left home. The only thing worse than a camper who stands by idly as their dog barks at passersby, squirrels or for no reason at all, is one who leaves their dog or dogs chained up, unattended at their campsite while they go off for the day. If you have a dog that likes to bark, buy them a citronella collar or leave them at home.
iStock
This is the most important and often ignored camping etiquette rule in the book. Nearly every campground has rules prohibiting noise late at night and early in the morning, but most places also don’t have the staff to enforce them. At a Kampgrounds of America campground near St. Joseph, Michigan, in July, we wound up next to a trio of women who woke us up at 5 a.m. (4 a.m. in our time zone) with loud chatter, right outside our tent, slamming their car door repeatedly, and allowing their dog to bark incessantly. When I got dressed and walked out in the darkness to confront them, they made no apologies. “We have a race to get to,” one said, as though that justified waking others up in the pre-dawn hours on a Sunday morning.
You might justify leaving your bar of soap thinking that someone might have forgotten to bring theirs, but I can assure you that no one wants to use your leftover soap, so please take it with you.
iStock
I don’t care how good you think your taste in music is — the truth is that no one wants to hear it except for you. Headphones are a glorious invention, but since too many campers fail to pack them, don’t forget your earplugs.
iStock
One would think that campers would know not to snap the branches off of trees for firewood, drive fast around the campground, litter, and leave a fire unattended, but I’ve seen people do all of these things. Everyone slips up occasionally but a little common courtesy goes a long way, especially in the great outdoors.
Valencia High School Teacher Pat Hadley died on Thursday while hiking in the Sequoia National ForestFriends mourned on Saturday the loss of a longtime Southern California high school teacher and running coach who died after falling 150 feet off a mountain ridge in the Sierra Nevada.
Pat Hadley died on Thursday in a fall on a rugged hillside in the Inyo National Forest, coroner’s officials said.
Tributes began to spring up online for the popular teacher who students called “Coach Hadley.”
“She is the mold that God made for teachers to follow,” wrote “Rose” in an online tribute page. “My heart is broken by Coach Hadley’s passing.”
Jim Bell, the principal at Valencia High School in Placentia, touted her accomplishments on the track and in the classroom in a statement posted on the school’s website.
“Pat tragically lost her life doing what she loved,” he said. “She will be missed and we ask you for your thoughts and prayers for her family.”
Hadley died while taking part in a series of day hikes on California mountain trails with about 20 others when she disappeared about 2 p.m. Thursday, said Jeff Mullenhour, a deputy coroner’s investigator in Inyo County.
Her body was found about two hours later. It was an accident, Mullenhour said. An autopsy set for Sunday would determine how she died.
The hiking community set up an online tribute for Hadley on Friday.
She was climbing alone on a ridge in Baxter Pass on Day 7 of the 10-day “Sierra Challenge,” a series of day-hikes to 10 peaks, wrote Bob Burd, a moderator on the site summitpost.org.
Fellow hikers found her lifeless body about 150 feet below the ridge, Burd wrote.
”All of us are devastated by this tragic loss,” wrote Burd, adding that the rest of the Challenge was canceled out of respect for Hadley’s family. “Our prayers and thoughts go out to her husband, family and a wide community of friends that will undoubtedly be greatly affected.”
The Wisconsin native taught ceramics and coached the boys cross country and boys and girls track teams in her nearly 20-year career at Valencia.
Hadley’s storied athletic career included national titles in mountain biking and a stint in the first unofficial female World Cup Soccer tournament, Bell said.
“Now cracks a noble heart,” wrote “MoapaPk” in the online tribute, referring to a line in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” “Good night sweet princess: And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!”
Spiders are everywhere! There are over 30,000 species of spiders in the world. The good news, though, is that in most cases, spider bites cause little more than local pain and inflammation. Most species of spider are unable to penetrate … Continue reading
Wilderness Training 