Happy Halloween!

Photo: Marge Ishmael

One of my neighbors (above) really went to town for Halloween this year! And today's Guardian news website carries a great article on the creepiness of vintage Halloween outfits:
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/gallery/2014/oct/31/halloween-costumes-creepy-vintage-in-pictures

Wild beasts lurk in Estonia's woodlands

Interesting article about Estonia's sparse population and large area of forests that allowed European Lynx, Wild Boar, Brown Bears, and Moose to survive. I think it's going on my bucket list of places to visit before I die!
http://www.bbc.com/travel/feature/20140903-tracking-estonias-brown-bears

Indiana weekend

Our maple tree (above) had turned gold. The apple tree was finally ready for picking - late this year due to the cooler, rainier summer. I'll be making a ton of apple sauce and apple chutney tomorrow!

And there were two deer through the bedroom window this morning...you can just about make them out on this photo but they are very well camouflaged:

Strange days!

“Nobody told me there would be days like these. Nobody told me there’d be days like these.  Strange days indeed. Strange days indeed. Most peculiar Mama.”  ~John Lennon

Photo: Seth Meyer

Annual Pumpkin Festival goes horribly wrong at the weekend:
(CNN) -- The police department in Keene, New Hampshire, is setting up a task force to identify and prosecute people who caused a long-running disturbance Saturday and Sunday at the city's annual Pumpkin Festival, the Keene city government said on Monday in a press release.

The fire department treated an estimated 30 people for injuries, mostly "the result of blunt force trauma and lacerations from being struck by items that were thrown within the crowd," the city said.

More @ http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/20/us/pumpkin-festival-goes-from-treat-to-trick.html?_r=0

When a teenage gunman opened fire at students in a high school cafeteria in Washington state last Friday, he was not shooting at random targets but at his cousins and friends.

Washington State School Shooter (above) :  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/27/washingtonstate-school-shooting_n_6057818.html

A magical black squirrel!

Photos: Marge Ishmael

We saw this magical and rare black squirrel on our afternoon walk today! Black squirrels are relatively rare - about 1 in 10,000. Here is an interesting article about black squirrels that appeared in Chicago Wilderness magazine: 
http://www.chicagowilderness.org/CW_Archives/issues/summer2005/squirrels.html

A little further into the walk we came across the sad sight of a cormorant with fishing wire entangled in its beak. http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Great_Cormorant/id

Fall colors at peak

The N.W. Indiana Fall color was at its peak this weekend. Above is a field of soybeans and below is a country road. Soybean yields of 50 to 60 bushels common in the Midwest this October, according to harvest updates from Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and North Dakota.

Unmatched rise in sea levels

Photo: Reuters

Research finds 20cm rise since start of 20th century, caused by global warming and the melting of polar ice, is unprecedented. The rise in sea levels seen over the past century is unmatched by any period in the past 6,000 years, according to a lengthy analysis of historical sea level trends. See more @ http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/14/sea-level-rise-unmatched-6000-years-global-warming

Sunset overlooking Lake Michigan

Sunset from a bluff in Saugatuck overlooking Lake Michigan.

Fall afternoon walk

Photo: Marge Ishmael

Walking the dog by a pond in a wood near Chesterton, Indiana, on a Fall afternoon.  I think the peak for the tree colors will be next weekend.

Dog Blog

Nature is Speaking

Hollywood A-listers such as Julia Roberts and Harrison Ford have made some videos about nature, the ocean and so on…..but will anybody be listening and will these videos actually change minds?

http://natureisspeaking.org

Fashion Industry linked to dried up sea basin

Can we do anything to preserve the Aral Sea?  

Yes—by not buying Uzbek cotton and demanding that clothing manufacturers and retailers don’t sell it. Read the Guardian story below to understand how the fashion industry, child slavery and environmental devastation are all interconnected. In short: “The environmental impact of losing the Aral Sea is not yet known; what we do know is that the cotton that destroyed it, is cotton picked by forced labor and destined for [Western] shops.”
http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/sustainable-fashion-blog/2014/oct/01/cotton-production-linked-to-images-of-the-dried-up-aral-sea-basin

Ebola Virus and Contagion

Is it just me or does the current furore over the Ebola virus in Texas remind them of that 2011 Steven Soderbergh movie "Contagion"?  The only difference - to my mind - is that Ebola is not an airborne virus…..yet! 

http://time.com/3455934/ebola-texas-exposed/ 

Ten facts about the Ebola virus: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/03/ebola-answering-10-basic-questions

Raise the Colorado River

Actors Robert Redford and Will Ferrell, along with professional surfer Kelly Slater, are part of a project to support RAISE THE RIVER, an initiative to breathe life back into the Colorado River Delta. Through humorous banter, Redford and Ferrell highlight the urgency to recreate lost habitats for fish, birds and other wildlife, as well as reignite communities along the riverbank. http://raisetheriver.org

Antarctic ice melt causing a shift in gravity

During its mission, GOCE produced a unique model of the geoid, which is  a virtual surface of Earth where water does not flow from one point to another. The colors in the image above represent deviations in height from an ideal geoid. The blue shades represent low values and the reds/yellows represent high values. The changes in gravity intensity were found where ice is melting fastest in West Antarctica due to man-made global warming. The discovery was made by the GOCE satellite, which was not originally intended to study climate change. More at:
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/09/antarctic-ice-melt-causes-small-shift-gravity

Politicians discussing global warming - sculpture

Fantastic sculpture by Issac Cordal in Berlin called "Politicians discussing global warming":

35,000 walrus stranded

Loss of summer sea ice as the climate warms has led to the following scenario:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska –  Pacific walrus that can't find sea ice for resting in Arctic waters are coming ashore in record numbers on a beach in northwest Alaska. An estimated 35,000 walrus were photographed Saturday about 5 miles north of Point Lay, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Point Lay is an Inupiat Eskimo village 300 miles southwest of Barrow and 700 miles northwest of Anchorage.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/35000-walrus-gather-ashore-on-northwest-alaska-beach-for-a-rest-9766616.html