The experience of rafting downstream the Rogue River.
It is Tuesday, 4th June. It is 08:45.
We are early because we are excited and because the location that we have to go to is just four miles from home.
Morrisons Rafting
Neither of us have done anything like this before. But we decided to book just a half-day trip because a) the weather was warm but not roasting, and b) it was a local event and we would be back home by lunchtime to let the dogs out.
Inevitably we are early so I can’t resist wandering around the back to where the guides were loading up the truck.
Then it is time to check in.
Almost immediately we are fitted with the appropriately sized personal buoyancy protector.
Jean is ready to go!
At first we thought we were the only people going on the 9:30 trip but then a family booked in but they were going for an all-day rafting trip. But all of us on the same first raft.
The coach towing the dinghies and kayaks, and carrying all of us, left Merlin and in about 15 minutes time came down to Robertson Bridge boat jetty where we all stepped out and assembled at the head of the ramp while the crew unshipped the dinghies and kayaks and got them ready for boarding.
oooo
We were all going in a single dinghy and the other one was, I guess, a spare. It was put to one side. But the two kayaks were coming.
It’s all too easy to forget that a dog can’t cope with hot weather.
As in too hot. Especially in a car!
I want to republish a post that appeared on The Dodo blog site recently. It is about a dog trapped in a car when it was far too hot.
ooOOoo
Guy Sees Puppy In Hot Car And Realizes What He Has To Do
Photo Credit: Jason Minson
Jason Minson, an Army veteran who runs a landscaping business, was out on a job in Norfolk, Virginia, on Tuesday when the first of several unusual things happened.
Minson was inspecting a tree in a yard when he heard a bang on the street.
When he went to check, he realized that a car driving by had bumped another car parked on the street. If that hadn’t happened, Minson probably never would have approached the parked car and discovered what was inside.
A black Labrador puppy was sprawled out on the floor of the vehicle — the noise and shudder seemed to have woken him up for a moment.
And he was incessantly panting.
“It was the kind of panting that was the last effort a dog does to try to cool himself off,” Minson told The Dodo.
Photo Credit: Jason Minson
Minson immediately called 911.
The police dispatched a unit to come help the dog — but they also informed Minson that breaking the window of the car to free the dog is a crime. (The law varies depending where you are.)
Minson watched the panting puppy from behind the pane of glass. He brought one bottle of water to the sliver of opened window and the dog jumped up on the seat and started drinking from it.
The dog went through the whole bottle. And then another.
“I’m usually a pretty cool, level-headed person but I was kind of fed up,” Minson said.
Photo Credit: Jason Minson
An animal control officer arrived and she started to try to pry the door open, but it wasn’t working. And nearly 20 minutes had passed since Minson had found the dog — and he was worried they were already out of time.
“The dog had laid back down on the floor of the car and wasn’t panting as quickly,” Minson said.
“I honestly didn’t think this pup was going to make it,” Minson wrote.
That’s when he took matters into his own hands.
“Charge me,” he can be heard saying in one of the videos he shot, “I don’t give a sh*t at this point.”
Using the baton from the animal control officer, Minson smashed the window and opened the door.
The animal control officer rushed the dog over to her van and took him to the vet for urgent care. And the owner of the dog was charged by the police. Minson received a call from the police, too — but to be a witness at the hearing about the incident.
The following day, Minson went to visit the pup at the facility where he’s recovering. Already, the dog seemed to be much stronger.
Photo Credit: Jason Minson
Minson, who has a Great Dane, hopes that if someone saw his dog in trouble in any way that they would do something about it.
“This is REAL talk people,” Minson wrote on Facebook after the dog was saved. “It’s hot out and if you leave an animal in your car [he’s] going to die from the heat … Take care of your fur babies.”
ooOOoo
I can’t think of a more dramatic way of telling you about the perils of dogs in cars in hot weather!
We took a rafting trip down the Rogue River yesterday (the 4th) and when I have finished transferring the photographs from my iPhone to my computer I will write a post on the journey.
But for today’s post I want to republish an item that appeared also yesterday in EarthSky.
“Mud ball” meteorites – full of clays, organics and water – are unique among space rocks. And a lot of them fell in April 2019 on a small town in Costa Rica, much to the delight of scientists.
This meteorite from the fall at Aguas Zarcas, Costa Rica, in April hit a doghouse. Luckily, the dog – Rocky – was unharmed. Image via Michael Farmer/ASU.
Meteorite falls on Earth are fairly common, but not all meteorites are the same. Some of them are “mud balls,” rich in clays, organic compounds and water-bearing minerals, called carbonaceous chondrites. They are of great interest to scientists, due to their unique composition, and now a bunch more prime specimens have been found, which rained down after a large fireball was seen over Aguas Zarcas, a small town in Costa Rica, on April 23, 2019.
The fireball was a meteor, or space rock, entering the Earth’s atmosphere that broke apart into hundreds of smaller pieces. When the pieces of this rock hit the ground, their name changed to meteorite. One meteorite fragment weighed about two pounds and smashed through the roof of a house, destroying the owner’s dining table. Another one crashed through the roof of a dog house, narrowly missing a sleeping dog. Close calls!
The doghouse with the hole in its roof from the April 2019 meteorite in Costa Rica. The dog, Rocky, was sleeping in the doghouse at the time; he was unharmed, but probably surprised! Image via Michael Farmer/ASU.
Several of the meteorites were collected and sent to Arizona State University (ASU) for study, donated by meteorite collector Michael Farmer. ASU will also be able to purchase additional meteorites from the fall, thanks to a private donor. This is the first time in 50 years that the university has had a chance to analyze such pristine samples of extraterrestrial mud balls. As Laurence Garvie, a research professor at ASU and a curator for its Center for Meteorite Studies, said:
Many carbonaceous chondrites are mud balls that are between 80 and 95 percent clay. Clays are important because water is an integral part of their structure. These had to be collected quickly and before they got rained on. Because they are mostly clay, as soon as these types of meteorites get wet, they fall apart.
Luckily, the researchers were able to collect their samples before it rained again, and they got a nice little haul, too, about 55 pounds (25 kilograms) of the precious space rocks.
A composite element map from one of the meteorites showing the distribution of different minerals. Orange-yellow colors show tochilinite, deep-blue colors represent olivine, and red colors are pentlandite and pyrrhotite. Image via ASU.
Analysis of the meteorites was carried out at ASU’s campus in Tempe, Arizona. According to Garvie:
I was in the lab by 5 a.m. the next morning after picking up the samples to get them ready for the initial analyses. Classification of new meteorites can be like a race with other institutions, and I needed ASU to be first so that we’ll have the recognition of being the collection that holds and curates the type specimen material.
Air-sensitive meteorites like these are kept in special nitrogen cabinets. The nitrogen gas helps to preserve the meteorites, which can degrade easily due to their composition. As Garvie explained:
If you left this carbonaceous chondrite in the air, it would lose some of its extraterrestrial affinities. These meteorites have to be curated in a way that they can be used for current and future research, and we have that ability here at ASU.
This mud ball meteorite fragment from April’s meteorite fall in Aguas Zarcas, Costa Rica, looks a bit like an arrowhead. Image via ASU.
The classification of these meteorites is part of a broader international classification effort. Garvie is also working with Karen Ziegler from the Institute of Meteoritics at the University of New Mexico. They studied the oxygen isotopes of the meteorites, to determine how similar they are to other carbonaceous chondrites.
Sandra Pizzarello, an organic chemist from ASU’s School of Molecular Sciences, is also involved in the studies, focusing on the organic content of the meteorites. These kinds of organics could have provided the material needed for life to begin on Earth.
Additional scientific analysis will follow later, but first the meteorites need to be approved, classified and named by The Meteoritical Society‘s nomenclature committee. This group of 12 scientists is responsible for approving all meteorite samples for study.
These new meteorite samples are currently on display at ASU’s Tempe campus in the Center for Meteorite Studies collection.
So, why are mud ball carbonaceous chondrite meteorites so significant?
They are thought to originate from asteroids that are leftovers from early planetesimals, planets that started to form in the early solar system billions of years ago but now no longer exist. Those planets had organic materials and water, making them places where the chemical precursors to life could have started. In the case of the asteroid that these new meteorites originated from, Garvie said:
It formed in an environment free of life, then was preserved in the cold and vacuum of space for 4.56 billion years, and then dropped in Costa Rica last week.
Carbonaceous chondrites are relatively rare among meteorites but are some of the most sought-after by researchers because they contain the best-preserved clues to the origin of the solar system. This new meteorite represents one of the most scientifically significant additions to our wonderful collection in recent years.
Because these meteorites contain so much mineral-bound water, they could also be useful in learning how water can be extracted from asteroids, a great resource for future astronauts. According to Garvie:
Having this meteorite in our lab gives us the ability, with further analysis, to ultimately develop technologies to extract water from asteroids in space.
Location of Aguas Zarcas in Costa Rica. Image via Google Maps.
The last time a carbonaceous chondrite meteorite fall similar to this one occurred was in 1969 near Murchison, Australia. Those meteorites were curated by another ASU professor and founding director of ASU’s Center for Meteorite Studies, Carleton Moore.
The meteorites in Aguas Zarcas have also been found to be similar in composition to asteroid Bennu, now being explored by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Bennu is thought to be a remnant carbonaceous chondrite planetesimal. OSIRIS-REx is carrying ASU’s Phil Christensen-designed Thermal Emissions Spectrometer (OTES) instrument, which is being used to make mineral and temperature maps of the asteroid.
Garvie and other scientists will be studying these mud ball meteorites for years to come, unlocking more secrets as to how our solar system formed and evolved, and how the ingredients of life originated and were spread throughout the solar system, including to Earth.
Bottom line: This new meteorite fall in Costa Rica has provided scientists with a great opportunity to study multiple mud ball meteorites, one of the most unusual kinds of meteorites known to exist, and one that could help answer the question of how life started on Earth.
I don’t know about you but I found this very interesting indeed. I guess I hadn’t looked at meteorites as different entities, depending on the source, before.
Fascinating!
Must repeat that closing paragraph again: “Garvie and other scientists will be studying these mud ball meteorites for years to come, unlocking more secrets as to how our solar system formed and evolved, and how the ingredients of life originated and were spread throughout the solar system, including to Earth.”
As I spoke about yesterday in my introduction, when my mother remarried my sister and I had a new man about the house, so to speak. He was Richard Mills.
I was 13 or thereabouts and already struggling with my school work (the result of my father’s sudden death). And ‘Dad’ as we called him was finding his feet in the strange world of going from having no children to instantly having two step children!
Anyway, Dad found a theme with me that I enjoyed: building a shortwave radio receiver. It was full of learning for me and over the years I became hooked on listening to radio stations both near and far transmitting in morse code. I also joined the Harrow Radio Society and went across to their weekly meetings by tube and bus. (Despite the Society no longer being at the Harrow address it is amazing that they are still going strong.)
It was also a time when there was a great deal of ‘radio surplus’ equipment going for next to nothing and I ‘upgraded’ to an R-1152 receiver.
War surplus R-1152 receiver.
In time I became sufficiently old to take driving lessons and pass my driving licence. I then got a secondhand car. It helped because then I could drive up to Bushey and spend Sunday mornings at the house of Ron Ray. Ron was a keen amateur. On Sunday mornings Ron had a small group of people who wanted to pass the morse code test and apply for a licence.
I was already a member of the RSGB, the Radio Society of Great Britain, and that surely encouraged me further to study for my amateur licence.
In time, I sat the exam and much to my amazement passed!
oooo
oooo
So that is the story of me and amateur radio.
Well, almost the full story.
In 1963 I volunteered for the Royal Naval Reserve, London Division. In time I was accepted and chose the join the radio branch, my G3PUK status coming in useful, because I reckoned that when we went to sea, on flat-bottomed minesweepers, it was better to be sick into a bucket between the knees than be sick on deck!
A delightful story of one man’s bravery for another – dog!
This was published on The Daily Dodo a week ago and really does need retelling.
It shows how much we love our dogs.
ooOOoo
Man Jumps Into An NYC River To Save A Drowning Dog
Photo Credit: Erin O’Donnell
Ever since she was adopted from North Shore Animal League in March 2017, Harper has been absolutely head over heels for her mom, Erin O’Donnell, but is definitely a little nervous in new situations and can take some time to warm up to new people.
“She is a sweetheart but very anxious outside and around strangers,” O’Donnell told The Dodo.
On Saturday, O’Donnell was performing with the Brooklyn Irish Dance Company in Manhattan and left Harper in Brooklyn with friends and a trusted dog walker. Harper and her dog walker were out taking a stroll when a cab recklessly ran a stop sign and hit both the dog walker and Harper.
Both were OK and only sustained minor injuries, but poor Harper was so scared and shaken up that she ran and ran and ran — until she reached the East River, and jumped right in.
Still in a panic, Harper swam with determination and ferocity, and while at first onlookers thought she was just a dog with an owner nearby going for a swim, they soon realized that wasn’t the case at all.
“I was at the Brooklyn Barge celebrating my B’day when we saw a dog ‘going for a swim,’” Gabe Castellanos wrote in a post on Instagram. “The day grew hot and we all figured a nice swim could do us all a service. We assumed the owner was on shore keeping a watchful eye until a patron ran up to the north side of the Barge with a panicked voice saying that the dog, Harper, had run away.”
Photo Credit: Lorenzo Fonda
It was around that time that everyone began to notice Harper losing speed. The river was incredibly cold, and with the amount of energy Harper was exerting in her panicked state, it was likely that she wouldn’t be able to keep herself afloat for very much longer. This fact settled in for Castellanos, and he immediately knew he had to do something about it.
Castellanos happens to be a graduate of SUNY Maritime College and has extensive water survival skills knowledge — and so he decided he was going in.
“Since there was no sign of her making an attempt to swim back to shore, I knew something had to be done,” Castellanos told The Dodo. “I looked on the barge for any type of floating device to use if I were to jump from the end, but then I noticed there was a life vest, so I grabbed it.”
At this point, a crowd of about 300 people had gathered, invested in Harper and her well-being, and as soon as everyone realized what Castellanos was about to do, they all broke out into cheers of encouragement. Lorenzo Fonda, a Brooklyn-based filmmaker and artist, was hanging out at the Brooklyn Barge when he suddenly realized what was happening, and quickly began recording the entire ordeal.
Photo Credit: Lorenzo Fonda
Knowing the water was going to be cold and the conditions less than ideal, Castellanos strategized quickly with those around him as he prepared to jump into the water. He stripped down to his underwear, climbed over the rails, and then lowered himself as close to the water as he possibly could before letting go and diving in.
“There was a grand cheer when I entered the water,” Castellanos said. “After that, I was no longer focused on the crowds and my surroundings but focused on my breathing and swimming over to Harper. The crowds went mute during my swim. I’m sure they were still cheering, but I could not hear anything other than the water.”
Harper was still swimming at a steady pace, and Castellanos had to work hard to catch up with her. As soon as she realized someone was swimming towards her, she became even more panicked and tried as hard as she could to swim away from him.
Castellanos was persistent, though, and even though Harper struggled and lashed out a bit out of fear when he finally reached her, he stayed calm and determined and was finally able to secure her.
Cheers erupted from all over when Castellanos finally had Harper safely in his arms, and the pair quickly returned to shore. Both were exhausted and needed medical attention to make sure everything was OK, but luckily they were both completely fine, and are now recovering at their respective homes.
Photo Credit: Lorenzo Fonda
O’Donnell was in the middle of a performance when all of this occurred, and didn’t find out until later about Harper’s river adventure and the man who saved her life.
“Her paws are in rough shape, so she will need some trendy boots for a few weeks, but otherwise she’s in great spirits,” O’Donnell said. “It is definitely so refreshing to see the positive responses from people at the Brooklyn Barge and on social media expressing their sympathy for Harper and praising Gabe, who definitely saved the day.”
As an innocent onlooker that day, Castellanos didn’t have to do anything to help. He could have just sat by and watched and let someone else handle it, but instead he took a leap of faith and ended up saving Harper’s life, making him a true hero.
ooOOoo
I take my hat off to Gabe Castellanos. It’s something that 99.9% of us wouldn’t do yet Gabe didn’t think twice. OK, he had specific training but still there was a degree of risk. But he took it!
A week ago I was casually reading a copy of our local newspaper, the Grants Pass Daily Courier, and inside was a piece by Kathleen Parker, a syndicated columnist, entitled It’s the end of everything – or not.
I found it particularly interesting especially a quotation in her piece by Robert Watson, a British chemist who served as the chair of the panel of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The IPBES had recently published the results of the three-year study by 145 authors from 50 countries.
So I wrote to Kathleen Parker asking if I might have permission to quote that excerpt and, in turn, received her permission to so do.
Here it is:
Robert Watson wrote in a statement that:
“the health of ecosystems on which we and all species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundation of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.”
But, Watson also said, it’s not too late to repair and sustain nature – if we act now in transformative ways.
It is time to change our habits both at an individual level and the level of countries working together.
Moreover we haven’t got decades. We have got to do it now!
On April 30th I published a story that had been on the BBC News website about a dog that had been rescued from the sea some 200+ kilometres from the Thai coast.
Vitisak Payalaw sits behind Boonrod, the dog he helped rescue from the ocean, as he prepares to take him from a shelter in Hat Yai district, Songkhla, to his home in Khon Kaen on Saturday. (Photo from Boonrod Facebook account)
Seafaring dog Boonrod is heading to a new life in Khon Kaen with his new owner — one of the oil rig workers who rescued him from the ocean in a story that captured international attention.
“We’re leaving,” owner Vitisak Payalaw posted in a message on the Boonrod Facebook page on Saturday evening.
Mr Vitisak, an planner of Chevron Thailand Exploration and Production, met Boonrod — in Thai — on Saturday for the first time since the team found him to an oil platform in the Gulf of Thailand about 220km from the shore in Songkhla on April 12.
How Boonrod got there remains a mystery, but it is believed that he must have fallen off a trawler. After helping rescue the deepwater dog, Mr Vitisak offered to be his new owner.
The exhausted animal was brought ashore on April 15 and lodged at Dog Smile House, a shelter in Hat Yai district of the southern province, with financial support from the US oil firm and Watchdog Thailand, a non-profit group.
Boonrod appeared delighted to see Mr Vitisak and the other members of the oil rig team who rescued him.
Mr Vitisak said he was taking annual leave from his work at the oil platform to transport the dog to his home in Khon Kaen, almost 1,500km from Hat Yai. The house in the northeastern province has been prepared to accomodate a new resident, the Chevron employee added.
Mr Vitisak asked for privacy and requested that well-wishers not visit his new pet at his parents’ home in Khon Kaen. But fans are welcome to greet Boonrod when he walks the dog, he added.
He also encouraged other animal lovers to adopt pets if they can.
The story of Boonrod was carried by global news agencies, including CNN. He can be followed on his Facebook page.
This remarkable story of a dog that was rescued some 200+ kilometres off the coast of Thailand was featured on the BBC news website.
It’s quite amazing and truly miraculous.
ooOOoo
Dog rescued 220km from Thai coast by rig workers
A dog discovered some 220km (135 miles) off the coast of Thailand has been rescued by a team of oil rig workers after the exhausted pooch was spotted paddling near a drilling platform.
The brown aspin swam towards the workers when they called out to him last Friday afternoon. He was then pulled to safety.
It is not clear how the dog became stranded so far out at sea. Some reports suggest he may have fallen from a fishing trawler.
The rig workers named the dog Boonrod, a Thai word that roughly translates as “the saved one” or “survivor”.
Boonrod was said to have been exhausted and in need of fresh drinking water and food.
He was nursed back to health on the rig while staff radioed for help, requesting the assistance of a tanker that was heading back to shore.
Boonrod had to have a proper wash to cleanse his fur of salt from the seawater. Afterwards, he had a nap.
The conditions were said to have been calm during the rescue, which workers said made it easier to spot Boonrod among the rusty metal bars of the rig.
Boonrod was lifted by crane on to an oil vessel that was passing through the area on Sunday to be transported to a veterinary practice in southern Thailand.
The dog was said to have been in good spirits when he arrived on land to be taken to the vet.
(All images are copyright Viralpress.)
ooOOoo
The fact that this dog was rescued so far out to sea is incredible. Clearly, the poor dog had fallen off another vessel but the details of that incident are not known and it is purely conjecture.
But what is really important was that the dog was rescued and returned to health.
At the start of the week, indeed last Tuesday, a pair of geese hatched a brood of goslings.
I tried very hard to take some photographs of them but they stayed their distance and all I got was the following. (These are cropped down from the original.)
They are at the limits of the camera lens.
This is the morning of birth, Tuesday 16th April, and the goslings are still in the nest underneath the mother’s belly.
oooo
oooo
Five or six goslings; it’s still too difficult to tell.
oooo
oooo
oooo
Nothing to do with dogs but I’m sure you enjoyed them! This is the second time that we have had a pair of geese build a nest, lay eggs and bring the goslings into the world. The last time was April 23rd, 2015. Pictures here!
Learning from Dogs 