New Carel Video

Carel Brest van Kempen has a new time lapse YouTube here,, of a painting of a brown anole. I love these things. You are supposed to vote but I can’t figure out how. If you can, please do– not everyone is as cybernetically inept as I am. Update: here is a link to vote.

New Rabies

I seem to be visible again. Dr Gail Goodman and Teddy Moritz sent this biologically fascinating but scary link to a National Geographic story about a mutated version of rabies in the Flagstaff, Arizona area. It apparently originated in bats, which is not unusual, and has manifested in skunks and foxes. What is frightening is …

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Blogger off?

Can anyone see this? Suddenly I am getting a Yahoo page that says Querencia does not exist! I get a similar page when I click on Steve Brown’s Rants and Raves. If you can read this do you have an explanation? All the template etc seems to be here…

Paradox of Nutrition

A piece in our local paper seems timely: “Healthy, affordable food frequently hard to find for poor.“ The article by Sarah Chacko brings to light a paradox of nutrition, health and poverty that results in millions being simultaneously overfed and undernourished, a common condition in my state: “Poor nutrition is linked to many health issues …

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Truth Be Told

I write occasional press releases and other promotional copy. I found the following disclaimer at the bottom of a piece released by local company rather inspired. I imagine a working scribe somewhere here in town smiling as she put this together… “Certain statements in this release, and other written or oral statements made by ______, …

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Revolution in the Subtropics

Is there something about the heat that stirs rebellion? We’ve hit 90 for the past couple days and the Revolutionary Garden is feeling it. The tomatoes love it. The beans love it. But the lettuce just about died on me in a day. So after weighing my options, I tacked up some spare shade cloth. …

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My Mother’s Day

My wonderfully supportive guys asked what I wanted for Mother’s Day this year. I told them I wanted Jim to be the mother for the day (tending to all my critters), allowing me to escape alone with my camera for what I had planned to be an all-day outing. As it turns out, I wasn’t …

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Sharing Mongolia’s beauty

I’ve been thinking about Lauren, and her upcoming journey to our eagle friends in Mongolia. Thought I’d share some random images from there, from my trip seven months ago. Enjoy.

Rural views

There are three kestrels claiming territory on the lambing pasture fence this week. What beauty and fierceness.Aziat Rant is a yearling now, and in charge of the bums. They are just getting up from a nap in the kennel in this photo:And an old barn I drive past every now and then just so I …

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Santa Barbara Burns Again

Fire season has come early to California this year, and you may have seen news coverage of another destructive fire in the Santa Barbara area. We are currently in Orange County for our daughter’s wedding, and have seen the big plumes of smoke that have blown out over the ocean. A number of our friends …

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