nephew just started 1st grade. has grown into being baseball crazy somehow. parents were over the house and I played catch w him and he is pretty good for a kid that age. (could play regular catch w him at 40 feet; he fields a grounder and transitions to throwing position already; could track a fly ball that required him to go back.)
so he was signed up for his first team this fall and yesterday was the first game. watched him fit in w kids his age and a year older just fine! ended the game playing 1b and recorded all the outs on defense that inning. he was jacked up when told he completed a double play (caught the liner and stepped on 1st to get the base runner who just ran) - like the adrenaline made him shake. more importantly, he didn’t get mad and sulky when plays weren’t made to his liking. (It’s a game of failure.)
According to a report by The Washington Post¹, Working Dogs for Conservation trains abandoned dogs to sniff out environmental clues. About 45 canines are part of Working Dogs for Conservation in various countries. Most of the dogs were rescued from shelters. The dogs are trained to detect animals such as bear, cougar and kit fox, as well as plants like pepperweed, salt cedar and woad. There are certain baseline characteristics that conservation canines should have, including a high toy drive, strong work ethic and robust energy. The best dogs for the job are those that have a tendency to become fixated on a task and won’t rest until it’s completed. In other words, couch potato dogs aren’t exactly a fit for conservation work.
I know where to find a 25’ plus American chesnut. I know there are bigger ones scattered in places around the US, but it’s probably the biggest I’ve spotted. I debated whether to share the location with conservation groups as it’s rare IMO. I see lots of shoots of chestnuts in North Georgia, but due to blight they never make it
Aw, fall is the best time of year. It sure is a gorgeous week where I am… mid-70s with a nice cool breeze every single day. Couldn’t ask for better weather. And every day a few more leaves have turned.
I’m a big fan of fall. It’s cool at night here, 81° for the high today, I’ll take that. We have a big maple tree that has just started turning orange, it’ll be absolutely beautiful in a few weeks.
Hitting some business milestones this week. We’ve gone from nothing, to showing all the signs of a viable and reasonably valuable startup in about six weeks. Revenue is coming on strong and we are going to be profitable by end of year, if not by end of October.
Met with two mentors in the past two weeks. One confirmed that our path is correct and there’s no barriers in their area of specialty. The second one showed us how to solve a barrier we have likely next year in terms of growing. And that’s our last remaining barrier I didn’t know how to solve.
I’m exhilarated today. Nothing standing in my way now other than work.
Speaking of which, I guess I better get at that, I’ll have to defer my workout until later today.
Also targeting 95-100 in my courses this term, which is my last term, and that looks achievable assuming I can stay far enough ahead of the materials. I’m not the sharpest tool in the box, so my results tend to be correlated with time and effort, but so far so good.
weather turned cooler last night and the doggo gave us the first request to snuggle under covers since last spring. she just got back from the groomer 2 days ago too, so as clean as she can ever be
had a really good run this morning. cooler weather which helps, i’m down 25 pounds from my high which helps, and my overall fitness has been steadily improving. all included i was able to run 2/3 of the way up the final hill on a 3.5 mile loop that I have not been able to run all the way up in about 5 years since I was last in pretty decent shape. this 2/3 is about twice as far as I have historically made it up this hill. i think in another month I may be able to make it to the top. felt great getting there as I was able to keep running the whole time, again another achievement on this loop.
my town has a lot of wild turkeys. how they survive is something - they seem dumb and limited in movement. just watched a big one pecking aggressively at its own reflection in a truck bumper.
we do have a multigenerational rafter of 19 or so that makes the rounds on my block these days. i try and count to see how they are doing against the cars/coyotes. steady at 19 for some time
We had a flock of turkeys for a while in my old neighborhood. Unfortunately the cars and coyotes took their toll on them over time.
I liked having them visit, but a lot of neighbors hated them because they can wreak a bit of havoc in yards/gardens. I had them trained to come running when I shook the bird seed bag. The paper ran a feature on them one time, and the pictures were taken in my yard.
we’ve been coached NOT to feed them by the local animal people. trying to keep them “wild”.
they can cause some damage to flowers and things but they also eat bugs and grubs. i have seen them block a lot of traffic. they’ve attacked our mailman.
