{"id":11155,"date":"2020-08-21T18:14:08","date_gmt":"2020-08-22T01:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/?p=11155"},"modified":"2020-08-21T21:06:47","modified_gmt":"2020-08-22T04:06:47","slug":"not-so-nasty-news-august-21st","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/?p=11155","title":{"rendered":"Not so Nasty News August 21st"},"content":{"rendered":"

Item #1: in the driveway <\/span>
\n\"\"
\n\"\"Monday morning there was a feather in the driveway. I always wonder why an intact feather separates from the bird. In this case it appears to be from the outer part of a wing, a primary flight feather. The pennies help with scale, but end-to-end it is 5 5\/8ths inches. In the smaller image, note the series of whitish\/rosy humps on the lower edge. This one is more like the 5 or so on the upper right, no humps.
\nI did some search up on the web. The source of this pink-rosy shaft apparently was a Western Flicker (Colaptes auratus<\/em>). Eastern cousins have a yellow shaft.<\/p>\n

Item #2: Color this week <\/span> <\/p>\n

Just off the driveway about 50 feet is a small bunch of Choke Cherry trees. This week the small trees (about 10 feet high) provide new color on the Naneum Fan.
\nBased on their location in dry rocky soil, I’ll call them Prunus virginiana<\/em>, known across much of the USA.
\nWashington State has a similar tree called Bitter Cherry, Prunus emarginata<\/em>. Our native plants site claims they may be found in moist, second growth forests, often along streams. There is more I could investigate, but haven’t. \"\"Unlike our domestic cherry trees, plums, and walnuts, these plants were not harmed by our spring frost. I need to compare the bloom times next spring. There has been no rain for many weeks and the leaves are showing browning, but the berries look fine, but will now darken as the summer continues.
\nA neighbor sometimes makes jelly with these. My take is that they provide color and a bit of flavor in a sugar that has been boiled.
\nSee invert sugar basics<\/strong><\/a>. Note the part about light passing through regular sugar and its direction, but goes the opposite direction when the sugar has been “inverted.”<\/p>\n

Item #3: Almost <\/span> <\/p>\n

Years ago we set up a horse “round pen” and wanted the surface covered with a coarse sand. The truck almost got stuck. There was one spot of very fine sediment with some water beneath. The concept is termed “thixotropy” and you can search it up. Start here: Link<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

After the sand dump, the driver got his big truck moving as fast as the distance allowed and rolled over the danger spot. Later, a backhoe removed all the fine material and left me a big hole.\"\"I was slowly throwing rocks in the hole to not much effect. Then a 13 year-old neighbor showed up. She explained she wanted to earn money to go to our County Fair. So for a time she and I collected rocks from the property, threw them in the pickup, and then sat on the tailgate, and while visiting, threw them into the hole. Any time she could come (she had younger brothers and sisters to help with) we did that from 9 to Noon. The hole wasn’t quite full when Fair and School rolled around, the family moved, and that episode ended. I went back to the occasional rocks in the hole routine.
\nBy this year the hole was mostly filled. The photo shows basalt rocks, now with two small piles of gravel. That’s about half a truck load of nearly 16 tons. The other half is nearer the house where it will be used in the new landscape.
\nNow I have to spread it out. Thus the title above: Almost.<\/p>\n

Item #4: What’s up? <\/span>
\n\"\"
\nHere is a USA Total Stock Market chart for 1 year. Note this market is up 0.24% from the same date a year ago.
\nThe blue line shows the Panic2020 action and the rebound.
\nWhile many companies’ stock price dropped and many are bankrupt, several are doing very well. Those big companies that were involved with e-commerce and related providers, and major components of stock indexes are leading the rebound.
\nIt is somewhat amazing, but that’s what is up.<\/p>\n

Item #5: Good news is hard to find <\/span> <\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"
\nEach week I look for funny, odd, or otherwise interesting good news.
\nSuch has been scarce this week. <\/p>\n

This photo sums up the feeling. It has been a tough couple of months. California is the poster image for many things. Weather this week was not kind to the State.
\nThe hot and dry period was punctuated by a massive display of lighting strikes over most of the Western U.S.
\nThe Corn Belt was host to a serious wind storm, and now the south has tropical storms (hurricanes ?) approaching. <\/p>\n

Looking forward to September.<\/p>\n

And that, for this week, is the not so nasty news.
\nJohn <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Item #1: in the driveway Monday morning there was a feather in the driveway. I always wonder why an intact feather separates from the bird. In this case it appears to be from the outer part of a wing, a primary flight feather. The pennies help with scale, but end-to-end it is 5 5\/8ths inches. … Continue reading “Not so Nasty News August 21st”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random-issues"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p72iNf-2TV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11155"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11162,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11155\/revisions\/11162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}