Let me introduce you to the loves of my life...

Scrubjays



Bold, beautiful, brash... curious, funny, affectionate, feisty; I can relate to them well. I sometimes think of them as the "bikers of the bird world". They travel in gangs, are quite verbal with their every thought... often letting loose with a series of outraged, indignant squawks if spying a marauding cat or other predator. Being songbirds, they also do sing, although you must listen to them carefully to determine that it is indeed a song rather than a conversation. Jays are sometimes referred to as marauders themselves, as they will eat the eggs of other birds. They are opportunistic, never passing up the chance to get a free meal. My first encounter with a scrubjay was when I was 9 years old. As I was eating my lunch on the construction site of our family's new house in Malibu Canyon, CA, a jay swooped boldly out of the surrounding brush, grabbed my entire peanut butter & jelly sandwich out of my hand and flew away with it. I was enthralled... having never seen such a beautiful bird before. It was love at first sight, and my ongoing affair with them continues to thrive.




In 1985, after moving to the San Francisco bay area, I became the species manager for the jays at the Lindsay Wildlife Hospital, building an aviary in my yard and caring for jays of all kinds, sizes and ages. This included the little naked pinkies which have a feeding schedule of every 15 minutes, on up to the fully feathered and self feeding size, as well as injured or cat-caught adults.



Scrub jays are very intelligent. They store and cache their food, which, since they are omniverous, just about covers all the food groups! They will pick up and hide peanuts all day, ritualistically picking up & dropping each one, measuring its size to be sure to pick the biggest one before flying off to stash it. At home each day if I'm not up bright and early to put out their breakfast, I hear a huge scolding clamor, "Where's our peanuts?"




I'm also delighted to have the Stellars jays grace my yard. They are generally more shy than the Scrub jays, and prefer the conifers to the oak trees. Stellars are just as much into peanuts as the Scrubs, and will stuff as many as 3 whole peanuts down their gullet before flying off to hide them.

I always think of Bart Simpson when I see the topknot of feathers on their head. Their voices are harsh, but they also have a whole assortment of sounds they can make, ranging from the keening cry of a hawk to the quizzical trill of interest.

All of the Corvids (Jays, Ravens, Crows and Magpies) mate for life.




The babies are impossible to ignore, with their wide baby mouths open, wings fluttering wildly in an attempt to be fed.

They add much joy to my life.

Street sign in London at night...

Happy Hump Day!

Pay no attention to the hippie bf standing under the sign in the dark...he's annonymous.

I'm not usually worried about hurricanes - having been born and raised in California I've never even experienced much of a strong storm other than when I've traveled to other states, like Colorado or Arizona. After watching a documentary last night commemorating the onslaught of Hurricane Katrina and it's victims, I have a terrible respect and even fear for the powerful and killing reality which a hurricane can be. My Sweetheart's Mom lives in the Orlando area of Florida. I saw with horror that the projected path for the first Atlantic hurricane of the season, "Ernesto" has changed to cut right up toward the Cape Canaveral.

We have a close personal friend named Ernest, and we have been teasing him about this newest hurricane, but this isn't the kind of friendship we can relate to! I hope and pray this storm never grows up - never gathers its winds and rain within to wreak havoc on us puny humans. I heard this a.m. that it has the potential of growing up to a force of 3 - Katrina was a 3. The forces of nature are so beyond our grasp sometimes. Be safe, all of you who live in the southern state of Florida.

Something Gross In Your Food

EEEEWWWWWW. Blogger isn't letting me download any pictures, (bummer because the color is what I need) so I'll just let you use your imagination. I will never eat pink yogurt again.

Few people know that the food coloring listed as cochineal extract comes from female beetles. Food activists want to spread the word.

When you dig into a strawberry Yoplait yogurt, take a moment to contemplate where the beautiful pink color comes from. Strawberries? Think again. It comes from crushed bugs. Specifically, from the female cochineal beetles and their eggs. And it's not just yogurt. The bugs are also used to give red coloring to Hershey Good & Plenty candies, Tropicana grapefruit juice, and other common foods.

What Companies Do to Improve the Look & Taste of Your Food

You won't find "crushed bugs" on the list of ingredients for any of these foods, however. Companies have a bit of latitude in describing exactly what they put in our food. Many larger companies, such as General Mills, the manufacturer of Yoplait and Pepsi, the maker of Tropicana, identify the dye in their products as either carmine, or cochineal extract. Still, many companies simply list "artificial color" on their ingredients list without giving any details.

Food activists are trying to change disclosure requirements. The Food & Drug Administration has received numerous complaints over the issue and is now in the process of considering a proposal to require color additives like the cochineal extract to be disclosed on the labels of all foods that use them. "Hopefully we'll see something by the end of the year," says Michael Jacobson, executive director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a food advocacy group in Washington, D. C.

ALLERGIC REACTIONS. Jacobson says that consumers want to know what they're eating. Some are allergic to bug extract; others are vegetarians. "The food product should indicate that it comes from insects so that vegetarians at least can avoid the product," he says.

Carmine may be the least of food activists' worries. It is known to cause allergic reactions in just a small percentage of the population. Food producers sometimes add much more dangerous chemical additives to make their products look attractive (see BusinessWeek.com, 3/27/06, "Hershey: A Sweeter Bid").

Indeed, who would think that chicken, eggs, and salmon are often artificially enhanced to look more appetizing to consumers? The plump, juicy chicken sitting on the supermarket shelf is likely to have been fed canthaxanthin, a pigment added to chicken feed to enhance poultry's yellow color and make it look palatable. And egg-laying hens are also given a dye along with their feed, making egg yolks vary in color from light yellow all the way to bright orange.

IN THE PINK. Farmers can have their pick from a color chart that goes from the numbers 1 to 15, coinciding with colors from yellow to red. The yellow color comes from xanthophyll and carotenoids in the feed absorbed through the intestine, metabolized, and deposited in the egg yolk. In an article published last year, R. Scott Beyer, a poultry specialist from the Kansas State University, recommended different levels of xanthophylls, depending on what color of yolk is desired. He says 23 mg of xanthophyll per pound of feed results in a "medium orange" color.

Sneaky Supermarket Tricks
The fresh, farm-raised salmon that shoppers buy also get their orange-red hue from eating the chemicals astaxanthin and canthaxanthin. Wild salmon are pink because they eat shrimp-like creatures called krill. But to achieve the same pink color, farmed salmon need chemicals, which are mixed with their feed. In the past couple of years, the European Union significantly reduced the level of such dyes that can be fed to salmon because of concerns that the dyes, at high levels, can affect people's eyesight.

Two years ago, in the U.S., Seattle law firm Smith & Lowney filed two class actions against grocers Kroger and Safeway in Washington and California, contending that they should disclose that their salmon are dyed pink. Both lawsuits got thrown out of court. However, Knoll Lowney, a partner at the law firm, says that the lawsuits raised enough public awareness that many grocers voluntarily use "color added" labels to their salmon.

Still, Lowney says that such dyes are totally unnecessary. "This is a growing problem because the food companies are using more artificial means to enhance the appearance of the product and make it appear like something that it is not," he says. A walk down the grocery aisle for processed food is an eye opener—the bacon and ham get their red tint from sodium ascorbate, an antioxidant and color stabilizer, and the Betty Crocker icing gets its bright white color not from natural cream and egg whites but from titanium dioxide, a mineral that is also used in house paints. Betty Crocker manufacturer General Mills didn't return phone calls seeking comment.

What happens when you run out of town?
In Iceland, they put up a sign which means: NO MORE TOWN.

The Bear under the sign is a rare Icelandic Bear.

Hey baby - is that your dewlap, or are you just happy to see me?

Gosling

My next door neighbor got a baby goose! I am in love, and desperately trying to stifle my urge to run out to the feed store today and get one of my own! I adore them.






I grew up loving geese















- and they are very different than ducks. Geese don't stoop to eating snails and slugs as ducks do, but they do love anything green and will strip the grass and tender foliage from all landscaping as effectively as a goat would.




If acquired very young, the gosling will become "imprinted" on its care giver, following one around everywhere, treating him/her as his mother, in fact being socially bonded for life. They will happily share whatever food you happen to be eating, and especially love treats of peanutbutter & jelly sandwiches, and lettuce. Geese can be quite affectionate, and make good pets if you have a nice lawn area. Unfortunately one of the unpleasant aspects of owning a goose is the constant fertilizer effect, which can be a problem if you like to walk around barefoot, or have a cement patio or pool (water serves as a natural laxative)!

My favorite is the white chinese goose. They have a fleshy knob at the base of their bill, and a gracefully long slender neck. Their piercingly blue eyes miss nothing, and they are great watchdogs, however, if you aren't fond of the alarm cry (a rather loud oinking noise) then perhaps owning a goose isn't for you.





Why would anyone want to own a goose? Geese have been known to have a habit of biting people, (strangers, or people they don't like) often standing innocently by until one's back is turned, at which time they strike like lightning, silently running up with their neck parallel to the ground. Often going for the ankle or calf, they bite and then twist their head, causing their saw-like teeth to grind and bruise. At the same time, the wing will whack hard on whatever body part they can reach - causing a painful blow.

I've gone for many years without owning one. But when I held that little tiny bundle of yellow fluff and heard the whistling peeps of the little gosling, all the bad reasons flew away. It was a good thing I had to give it back and go home.

My Beautiful Sierras

Since my childhood,
the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California/Nevada has always been my ultimate icon of the earth's beauty. Something rather strange happened to me on this latest camping trip though.

As I was sitting up at the lakes edge, admiring the beautiful white domes of granite stretching far away up the distant piney canyons, unbidden a picture of Iceland popped into my head - one of stark, wide open, miles-long vistas, with nothing to block the view.

I was at once chagrined and ashamed, that I would even for a moment compare another place to my bar of beauty, the Sierras.

It was disconcerting to know just how high on the scale of splendor I really do place that little country in the Northern Atlantic...

After a soaking rain, the thick blanket of moss which covers the impossibly rugged lava fields turns a brilliant green. There are lava fields like this over much of Iceland. Now cooled and hardened, the black lava beds now hide caves, deep crevices and dangerous ankle-turning loose rocks. There are little, narrow roads which precariously wind through, up & down its sudden abrupt surfaces but they are risky to take your car on. Some have no place to turn around, or have steep blind hills to highbottom or bottom out on. But the view is irresistably beautiful, stark, desolate, and one I long to see again.

I desperately need a fix of that sweet camping air - redolent of pine needles and dust, wet grass at the lakeside and aromatic woodsmoke...

It is as if I just had an injection, and now I'm hooked. With one new taste of the camping experience after a few years of absence, I absolutely have to go back! I had forgotten how much pleasure I get out of being out there. I suppose I could just blow off the weekend chores (yep, back to house painting again) and head for those soothing granite strewn mountains...

With the wind whipping the spray into the air
I hear the waves’ glorious poundings on the rocks
The cries of the gulls
Are lost in the rush

Did you see the meteor showers? From our camp at the lakes edge, we watched the sky which was screaming with stars high up in the mountains. I haven't seen the milky way in a few years now, and it was spectacular. We let the campfire die down, and before the moon rose to light up the sky too much to see the stars, we watched the meteors stream across the sky. One was so big it looked like a comet, with a shimmering tail that never ended until it had streaked across the entire sky. It was lovely.

Dinner: Fresh caught trout that was alive 2 minutes ago.

see ya Monday!!

By day, with the fierce wind whipping and tangling through your hair, making your face tingle and your breath suck in,


... or by the bright glow of the midnight sun... the dazzling view of Dyrholaey, off the southern Iceland coast is a feast for the senses.

I'm going camping, nanner nanner nanner...



Can you smell the woodsmoke and see it curling through the morning sunlit trees?

Can you hear the laughter of little cousins as they dip their toes into the river's edge?



Do your ears pick up the lovely sweet song of the hidden woodthrush, and the harsh call of the stellars jay as he boldly looks for treats at the edge of camp?

As you lay back on your sleeping bag warmed by the sun, do you hear the wind roaring through the tops of the pines, reminiscent of the river's rush over the boulders?

Surrounded by friends and family, can you picture holding your marshmallow out over the coals to roast into a gooey delight?


Maybe you can tell I'm so excited! I'm taking off a whole day Friday to head for the hills! Can't hardly wait at all. It has been a long time since I've done family camping trip... too long.

On our way to Geysir (Iceland's tiny version of Yellowstone Park in Wyoming, US) we stopped along the roadside to glimpse this fabulous view of an old volcanic crater, filled with a sparkling blue pool of cold water at the bottom. Anyone for a swim?

You Are a Blue Flower

A blue flower tends to represent peace, openness, and balance. At times, you are very delicate like a cornflower. And at other times, you are wise like an iris. And more than you wish, you're a little cold, like a blue hydrangea.

What Color Flower Are You?

You know I can't resist these silly quizzes... I liked this one.

Icelandic lamb bbq... those folks sure know how to do it right. This was the scene at G's family reunion in Iceland last month. The gathering was held not far from Thingvillir in an old Boy Scout camp. The lamb was the most delicious I think I've ever tasted. All the boys got together and rubbed the meat with some kind of fragrant spice mixture. Then there was the discussion on how high over the coals to start the meat after the skewers went in... And then the choosing of the "turner"... as the meat was hand-turned for the next several hours. It was fabulous, and along with the lamb there was tons of food to go with - shrimp and crab salads, a superb homemade fish soup with mushrooms, fresh cream and cheese, an assortment of freshly baked breads with thick, creamy Icelandic butter, cheeses and oh, not to forget the variety of cakes and desserts! After dinner, the spirits were high - and the wine was flowing freely, and one of the cousins stepped up and sang a beautiful baritone song. Song sheets were passed out, and we all joined in singing songs about an Icelandic Cowboy, as well as many of which I had no clue. It was a lovely reunion with lots of fun had by all.

Need cooling off? Here is the perfect ice biker...

Fresh Killdeer.