Chicken Feathers: November 2018

Friday, November 30, 2018

Friday Night Steam (draft)

We're off to Oklahoma tonight!

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If you would like to visit the museum, you can find all the info here:

https://www.oklahomarailwaymuseum.org/

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Dawn in Coopville

Looking East as the sun comes up:

My junky camera does NOT do the sky justice it was breathtaking

Ran to the back of the house to see Sunrise Mountain lit up!

I never get tired of looking at it!

Found a nice video from a woman that lives near me - 'Hope you enjoy it!

Sunrise Mountain is a peak of the Kittatinny Mountains in Sussex County, New Jersey, United States. The mountain is 1,650 feet (503 m) tall, and overlooks Beemerville to the east. It lies along the Appalachian Trail in Stokes State Forest.

The crest of Sunrise Mountain is one of the most frequently visited sites in Stokes State Forest. The thin soil and harsh climate characteristic of Sunrise Mountain is a difficult environment in which few plants can survive. Mountain laurel, blueberry, pitch pine and bear oak are among the natural vegetation found throughout the area. The pavilion at the summit was built in the late 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps.[

More info at: https://www.state.nj.us/dep/parksandforests/parks/stokes.html

( And yes, we did climb up to the pavilion when we first moved here!)

:o)

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

'Tis the season to.....

.... burn wood!

Keep warm!

And don't forget the chestnuts!

:o)

Today's funny :o)

:o)

sfdsf

Another blah day

It was cold, windy and cloudy ALL day yesterday:

The gang just hanging out:

Finally got an egg! Production has been awful lately.

This is from Louise:

Wilma left this is the nest box - have no idea what it is - might

have been the start an egg:

A nice visitor to the feeder:

And one that isn't so nice:

:o)

Monday, November 26, 2018

An interesting bit of history,,,,,

Mary Babnick Brown was an American woman who donated her long blond hair to be used as crosshairs in Norden bombsights in WW I

Brown was a Coloradan; the children of Slovenian immigrants. She left elementary school at the age of 12, to help support her family as a servant for $5/week. When she was 13, she lied about her age so that she could work at National Broom Factory for 75 cents a day, a job she held for 42 years. Her younger siblings pitched in by picking up chunks of coal that had fallen onto the railroad tracks. Brown's lone prized possession was her knee-length fine blonde hair.

Brown in the 1940s:

In 1943, Brown saw an advertisement in a newspaper, searching for women with blonde hair of at least 22" length, that had never been treated with chemicals or hot irons. The military was offering to purchase such hair, to be used for meteorological instruments in the war effort.

The "meteorological instruments" were actually crosshairs for Norden bombsights. The Army Air Forces (the predecessor to today's US Air Force) had tried various materials for the Norden bombsight, including black widow spider webbing, but nothing could withstand the temperature variations like fine blonde human hair that had never been treated with chemicals or heat.

A Norden bombsight and crosshairs:

Brown sent off a sample of her 34" blonde hair to the government for analysis. After analyzing her hair, they agreed to purchase it, offering to pay her in war savings stamps. But Brown wouldn't accept payment for her hair. She saw it as her patriotic duty to help the war effort. She later recalled that she cried for months after cutting her hair.

It was decades before Brown learned the true use of her hair, and the effect of her sacrifice. In 1987, on her 80th birthday, she received a personal thank-you letter from President Ronald Reagan:

Brown's hometown of Pueblo, Colorado declared an official Mary Babnik Brown day, and she also received an award from the Colorado Aviation Historical Society.

Said Brown: "Here I am, an old lady of 83, and I'm still flying high".