I found out inadvertantly last week that Blogger apparently limits the amount of “content” you can put in a single post. If you have a lot of pictures to show you have to break them into different posts, as I am doing here with more Atascadero Creek/Goleta Slough bird pictures. As I said, it’s a …
Author: Reid Farmer
Goleta Pelicans
One of the things I enjoy most about living here is the birding. We go from the beach to 4,000 ft in the mountains in the space of five miles or less. We pack in a lot of habitat types in a small space which results in a large number of species. This is my …
Words to Live By
Moderation in some things!
On the Trail
Last Sunday I took Sadie, our Aussie pup, and Maggie, our Lab, for a hike on the Jesusita Trail. The trail starts on the north outskirts of Santa Barbara, and winds its way up northward into the foothills of the Santa Ynez Mountains in the Los Padres National Forest. The trailhead is at about 500 …
Early Figs
The NY Times reports the discovery of 11,400 year old remains of figs from a prehistoric site near the town of Jericho, in the West Bank. This is apparently the earliest known evidence of domesticated fruit.
Costly Signaling
I really like John Hawks Anthropology Weblog and urge all of you interested in those sorts of things to visit it often. Earlier this week, he commented on a journal article that tested a current anthropological theory on show-off behavior among hunter-gatherer peoples. Traditional models of hunter-gatherer behavior used by cultural anthropologists and archaeologists have …
Boy Pirate
The pirate ship Whydah sank in a storm off the Massachusetts coast in 1717. When it was discovered by underwater archaeologists in 1984, it was the first authenticated wreck of a pirate ship ever found. The wreck has been the focus on an on-going research project since its discovery, with over 100,000 artifacts recovered that …
Dust in the Desert
I listened to this piece on NPR this morning while driving in to work. It says we have a dust problem in arid areas of the western states because the biologically produced crusts on the soils there are being disturbed. Off-road vehicles and cattle-ranchers are blamed, “…dust storms are the result of tires and hooves.” …
Matchmaker Lawsuit
Only in California could you pay a matchmaker $125,000 to introduce you to men to date and later sue and win $2.1 million when you don’t meet one you like. I hope Overlawyered sees this.
A Contract Written in Blood
That used to be a figure of speech, but the LA Times tells us of a real one that is the center of a lawsuit in Orange County. It’s an IOU for $170,000 written in blood on a cocktail napkin. The dead-tree edition has a picture of it – sorry they didn’t post it on …