I took the dogs out for a long walk through the forest in 16 inches of snow. The moon was full and no wind. I’ve never been in hardwood forest on a night like this before, but it was pure magic. Just gorgeous. My phone wasn’t much use for photographing it, but this is the best I could get.
However, here are some better pictures. Open carry in Texas.
h/t Dave G
Gilligan trapped in hell by a climate change induced tropical storm.
Did the moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow give a luster of midday to anything?,
Ginger or Maryann? The age old question. I still can’t make up my mind! Can’t I have both?
I don’t think so, the Professor had to have been bedding one of them! Never could figure out which one though. I love the high heals in the 60s era “bikinis”. Both beautiful women, and any man would be lucky to to be castaway with either of them, but because of the characters, I preferred Maryann.
Oh come on, it’s a no brainer. Mary Ann, farm girl, self sufficient, cooks, sews, drives tractor, milks cows etc. Ginger, Hollywood actress, only skill, pretending to have the skills of a make-believe character (that are written down for her) for a minute at a time between “action” and “cut” and she gets do-overs until it looks right (unless ego and self-involvement are skills.)
Hey some men just prefer Ginger! By that I mean red heads.
I’m married to a redhead who has all of the pluses I listed for Mary Ann… I’ve got the best of both worlds.
Hey neilszoo! I have asked many of my friends “Ginger or Mary Ann?” The (so far) unanimous decision is “Mary Ann! Definitely, Mary Ann!” When asked why, the reasons are pretty much just what you commented.
And rah… Pick Mary Ann, and get her a box of hair dye!
🙂
Best personality, Mary Ann all day. Sexiest, Ginger hands down.
You cannot stretch Mary Ann’s legs, and you’d never get Ginger to milk a cow.
I still cannot decide. I vote for a bigamy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ust6bUwqqUc
Well, I Pick Mary Ann. Now can I take her home and put her to work?
The stalls need to be mucked out and the tractor needs work….
Gail, when you’re done with her send her to my place, farrier day tomorrow and my formerly abused rescued mule STILL doesn’t like being trimmed. 600 lbs and I give her 6ml of acepromazine, triple the dose for a 1,200 lb horse. My 950 lb Arab would be sleeping for a day on that dose but it barely fazes her. Maybe Mary Ann will have better luck keeping here calm and I can take a break.
Neil,
My smallest pony, ~300 lbs if that, HATES the farrier. We finally gave up the first time and put him on the ground and I sat on his head. Ace did absolutely nothing ( For non-horseman , the feet HAVE to be trimmed or you can lame the animal permanently or worse. Neglecting the feet can literally kill from hidden infections.)
The pony is now to the point we can trim him while he is standing up with out him rearing up and striking but it still is a bit of a trial.
Normally I consider rear and strike a death sentence but this guy is really nice otherwise. He was just terrified of having his feet done.
fear of pedicures?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0784353/?ref_=ttloc_ql
In “Beauty is as Beauty Does” Gilligan picked…Gladys!
Courtesy of Uncle Sam I got to spend many a night in diverse magical places–including hardwood forests both snow-covered and in summer greenery. It was nice–and even back then I appreciated my blessings–despite cold, sometimes an empty stomach, and fatigue. I guess that makes me a “half full glass” sort of guy.
They return the buffalo?
http://videowall.accuweather.com/detail/videos/top-videos/video/4088977333001/yellowstone-buffalo-rams-car-head-on?autoStart=true
Sixteen inches of snow?
My dog isn’t even sixteen inches high, and he has a very thin coat (for a Jack Russell).
Don’t you yearn for about sixteen inches (or a bit more) of global warming.
NO! I left NH/MA to get away from the sixteen inches of snow. I still have the picture of my VW rabbit buried in 21 inches of Gore Bull Warbling in April.
I’m in a northern suburb of NYC and I don’t know how many total inches we’ve gotten this year, less than last, but with little to no melt, only compaction, I have more snow on the property than I can remember. Its about 3/4 covered the bench in the backyard.
At least the dog loves it though, Hanzo, our Shiba Inu, spends 45 minutes or so in the backyard every morning. He’s got corridors trampled down and with every new storm of fresh snow he seems to view it as a new adventure. In the middle of yesterday’s storm he found a gift from the sky, a big chunk of squirrel left by a hawk (maybe an owl, but not likely). Shiba’s are very possessive so he put up quite a fit when I trudged out back to take it away from him.
Some good appropriate cartoons here: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/02/the-week-in-pictures-freethegrijalva7-edition.php
The big question is why did they bring high heels on a three hour tour?
Flotsam and jetsam. Everything else on the planet* managed to wash up on the beach in that little lagoon, why not several complete wardrobes for hip young 60’s gals?
[*I believe the Coast Guard are the only ones who never made it to that island.]
And what’s with the Professor? The man can make a transistor radio out of a rotten coconut — but he can’t patch a hole in the side of a boat? What gives?!
Couldn’t make fiberglass resin out of coconut milk? I never figured that one out either… especially as they had balloons, planes, rockets, submarines and every other form of transportation known (and unknown) wash up as well and couldn’t get off. It’s one of the Universe’ great mysteries.
Nothing like the quiet muffled solitude of a snow covered woods/forest at night. it is magnificent.
A common tactic for a team to take up a defensive position on a slope in winter warfare is a hook. As with any steep or even moderately steep incline the team progresses by a series of traverses across the face. Angle up going across, turn and go across the other way.
When one wishes to stop for some reason it is best to do so on a shelf or a place where you can make a shelf. The tracks from your last traverse pass 20-30 yards below that shelf and so you have an over-watch position over your track making it easy to detect a patrol tracking you and giving your team the tactical advantage if it is decided to carry out a hasty ambush.
It is impossible for the trackers to be stealthy in their approach if they are coming up your trail even in a heavy snow. If you can’t see them you can hear them.
The smart tracker team will have their point man at least half of a traverse ahead of the main body for this reason. But still the team above will have the drop on them and know that.
That’s why the best trackers track off-track. Following in another’s footsteps is often a recipe for ambush. Besides, following each foot-step is time consuming–get the general direction and leap-frog. Sometimes this puts tracker ahead of the tracked.
It’s hard to apply in this situation–is the quarry merely going up or off to one side?
Usually, when breaking trail in virgin snow, there’s nobody ahead of you. Not always–usually
They’re ski tracks generally and believe it or not there is a formula for calculating the size of the body being tracked by counting the pole basket impressions in a given distance just as is done for footprints.
Tracking off track will gain you little in that situation unless you KNOW that the enemy has stopped. Either way your tracking up a slope and you too have to traverse. One can stick to the wood line IF the terrain allows but will be taking a chance of losing the trail because your traversing also and the trail stretches from one side of the open face to the other in places and in other places it does not.
For stopping for any period on flatter more forested terrain we laid a multitude of confused false tracks. Two or three guys on skis can make a hell of a lot of tracks in a half hour. At times trip flairs and booby traps are laid along the trail in particular in places where movement is channelized by terrain or snow conditions.
Tracking on the ground even in snow when your enemy is taking precautions is a tough deal. The best way is by helicopter. It is easy to follow the trail in winter in the winter and you have a much better chance of locating what your looking for with minimal risk as long as the largest portion of the team stays together.
Helicopter tracking is “off track” in the vertical dimension–but your points are well-taken.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Rogers'_28_%22Rules_of_Ranging%22
Since at least the 18th Century the professionals figured out where the tracked prey is going and attempted to establish an ambush for the prey down the trail. It’s a good trick if you can pull it off. And it’s why smart evaders break their own trail when there isn’t a pressing need to put distance between themselves and their last location. Minus that pressing need to “run away, run away!” using Rule 21 works, too: “If the enemy pursue your rear, take a circle till you come to your own tracks, and there form an ambush to receive them, and give them the first fire.”
There’s more along this lines, including making a lot of trails, included in these standing orders. It is the earliest Combat Standard Operating Procedures that I have seen–unless I count Machiavelli’s The Art of War