Friday, December 11, 2015
Last year....
.... on this day, we had:
This year, Mother Nature is giving us a break. It was 60 degrees in the sun today!
(Notice how the d@mn deer are eating the forsythia already..sigh)
Just some neat looking clouds:
The gang waiting to be let out to look for bugs and eat grass:
Just another pretty sunset; I never get tired of looking at them, either.
(Well, at least it's better than looking at the ol' thermometer, right?)
:o)
Thursday, December 10, 2015
I want one!
| Specification | Description |
|---|---|
| Length | 13'7" |
| Width | 6'8" |
| Height | 6'0" |
| Interior Height | 3'11" |
| Hitch Weight | 90 lbs |
| Dry Weight | 875 lbs |
| Axle Weight | 2,200 lbs |
| Sleeps Up To | 2 |
| Tire Size | 175/80/D13 |
| Exterior Color | Silver, White |
Today's funny :o)
Why this nation is in sooooo much trouble......
I was looking up something on 'Yahoo! Answers' and came across this question:
I was looking up something on 'Yahoo! Answers' and came across this question:
How do i take care of my pet potato?
I just got a pet potato but i don't know how to take care of it.
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5 answers
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Well, you could give it a nice home in the ground and water it to have more pet potatoes.
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Preheat your oven to 350F then wrap your potato in aluminum foil and let him rest in the oven for 90 minutes. Then slice it in half and add butter or sour cream and delish!Anonymous · 3 hours ago2Thumbs up0Thumbs down
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Set it in a dish and train it as a bonsai.
Google "Potato bonsai" if you don't believe me. -
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Since it has no mouth make sure it gets water ;)
Hawk!
A hawk was hunting squirrels in one of our trees! In this pic he is hanging upside down still holding the squirrel in one talon and using the other talon to grip the tree. Lots and lots of screeching going on!
A flock of crows came and started dive bombing him. The dead squirrel was still in the tree.
*
Now you know why I have to stand guard over them when they are out in the yard. This hawk would have no problem picking up Charlie or one of the girls. I realize they have to hunt in order to eat, but I definitely do not want him to get fond of the taste of chicken.
He's above the clothesline right in the middle of the pic. *
*
A flock of crows came and started dive bombing him. The dead squirrel was still in the tree.
Flying back to get his prey. Notice the squirrel's nest on the left:
*
The crows chased him away again!
*
Hawks are really quite beautiful - but deadly! Thankfully Charlie and the girls were in the pen.
He would sit in different trees because the crows just kept after him.
He's still waiting to get back to his meal!
*
There he goes!
*
Now you know why I have to stand guard over them when they are out in the yard. This hawk would have no problem picking up Charlie or one of the girls. I realize they have to hunt in order to eat, but I definitely do not want him to get fond of the taste of chicken.
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
In a single teaspoon of ocean water.....
... are all these amazing creatures! But you'll need a microscope!
By: TEDed / Parafilms
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Source: http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/155259/
May 1, 2014, 5:30 pm
| Topics: |
Hyperia
macrocephala (Source: Uwe Kils at the English language Wikipedia [GFDL
(www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons)
Free-swimming echinopluteus sea urchin (Echinocardium cordatum) larva feeds on microplankton captured with its ciliated arms. (Source: NOAA Coral Reef Information System (CoRIS); Photo: Jan Parmentier)
Plankton are drifting organisms in aquatic environments, including marine and fresh water. They are the base of the food web in these environments.Plankton can be divided into broad functional (or trophic level) groups:
- Phytoplankton are tiny (usually unicellular) algae that live near the water surface where there is sufficient light to support photosynthesis. Among the more important groups are the diatoms, coccolithophores, cyanobacteria and dinoflagellates.
- Zooplankton are small protists or metazoans (e.g. crustaceans and other animals) that feed on the phytoplankton. Larval stages of larger animals, such as fish, crustaceans, and annelids are included here. Zooplankton are in turn consumed by small fishes.
- Bacterioplankton are bacteria and archaea which play an important role in nutrient cycles in the water column.
Planctonic polychaete worm from genus Tomopteris. (By Uwe Kils, via Wikimedia Commons)
This classification divides the plankton into broad producer,
consumer and recycler groups. In reality, the trophic level of some
plankton is not straightforward. For example, although most
dinoflagellates are either photosynthetic producers or heterotrophic
consumers, some species can do both, depending upon the circumstances.Within the plankton, holoplankton are those that spend their entire life cycle in the plankton, while meroplankton are those organisms that are only planktonic for part of their lives (usually the larval stage), and then move into the nekton or a benthic habitat. Examples of meroplankton include larvae of sea urchins, starfish, clams, crustaceans, worms and most fish. Plankton can also be categorized by their size range (e.g., macroplankton, microplankton, nannoplankton, and picoplankton).
Some zooplankton can swim up to several hundreds of meters vertically in a single day (called diel vertical migration), but their horizontal position is primarily determined by currents in the water. Plankton are unable to swim against ocean currents, while larger nekton such as fish and squid can swim against the flow of the water. Diel vertical migrations by zooplankton consist of moving up in the water at night and down in the day time. Being in deeper water during the daylight provides protection from predators that use vision to capture prey. This behavior is seen in animals from all different phyla that are in the plankton, so it must have enormous survival value.
Assorted diatoms as seen through a microscope. These specimens
were living between crystals of annual sea ice in McMurdo Sound,
Antarctica. (Source: Prof. Gordon T. Taylor, Stony Brook University
(corp2365, NOAA Corps Collection) [Public domain], via Wikimedia
Commons)
Plankton abundance and distribution are strongly dependent on factors such as nutrient concentrations, the state of the water, and the abundance of other plankton. Their abundance varies horizontally, vertically and seasonally. The primary sources of this variability are the availability of light and nutrients. In temperate climates, springtime brings increased light and higher temperatures, resulting in a spring bloom of phytoplankton, followed by zooplankton. During the summer, dead organisms sink to the bottom where bacteria and fungi break down the tissues in the process of decay. This decomposition restores the nutrients, which concentrate on the bottom, although the phytoplankton that need them are on the top of the water column. Consequently the rate of photosynthesis declines. During the summer, the water column is stratified with warmer water staying on top and cooler water staying on the bottom. Only when water movements can bring the regenerated nutrients up closer to the surface can the phytoplankton bloom again. This happens in the fall, when temperatures fall and the now cooler surface water sinks down and bottom water comes up (upwelling) causing the stratification to break down and another small bloom to occur. Although tropical oceans have abundant light, they have relatively low primary production because of low levels of nutrients such as nitrate and phosphate, due to perpetual stratification of the water column. While plankton are found in the greatest abundance in surface waters, in areas that are too deep for primary production to occur, zooplankton and bacterioplankton can make use of organic material that sinks down from the surface waters above.
Citation
Weis, J. (2014). Plankton. Retrieved from http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/155259
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