Now here's a twist...or is it?

Many of my Utah associates send me email after email, without checking the content on Snopes. A large amount of those emails are about illegal aliens, how they are stealing from the taxpayer and how much crime is committed by them. A new study out in the Desert News (a paper I seldom trust due to association with the Mormon religion) states that illegals are not responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime in the state of Utah, even though a majority (62%) of Utahns believe that they are. Only 5% of the penal population in Utah are illegals...which is misleading, since they can't apply for parole and are not eligible for rehabilitation programs for an early release. This means they tend to stay in jail longer than non-illegal offenders.

Coming across the border, at least in Utah, is a civil offense...one they shouldn't even be in jail for, but "the majority of undocumented immigrants in Utah jails are being detained solely for border-crossing violations."

This same paper reported in September that the illegal population in Utah was declining, and the day before that they had reported that the national population of illegals was declining.

This will surely have some of that majority up in arms about a biased media...but then, everything in Utah seems to be biased. Makes me wonder what they will develop a hatred for next.

On a lighter note, buy your kids iPhones, so they can escape would-be kidnappers. In reality, it wasn't an iPhone, just an iPod Touch, but when this twelve-year-old was accosted and her attacker demanded she get into a van, she pretended to use the iPod as a phone and told the assailant she was calling for help.  Smart kid!!! The perp hurried off.

Birds: Cooler weather is here, my birds are not drinking near as much as they were during the heat, and they want more food. This is a delicate matter: too much and they will get too fat to breed as successfully as you would like; if they don't get enough feed, their immune system will weaken from fighting the cold. This is a good time of year to handle your birds often, check to see that they are maintaining weight. Adjust the feed accordingly.

This is also an important time to watch for rodents who are looking for a permanent food source through the winter.  Like the story of the grasshopper and the ants, the mice and rats want the easy way out. Besides disease, rodents can be a problem by attracting other predators.

Honey: I am thinking of adding some blackberry juice to a batch of the Backyard Blonde to see if that adds a delightful twist to it.

ATVs not a family affair

The ATV industry is advocating an ATV as being the perfect gift for children as young as five.  This creates the use of ATVs as a family activity. Children involved in ATV accidents are becoming an epidemic, according to recent studies. We are losing 150 youth a year to ATV accidents, and thousands more are being seriously injuried. Children under 16 should not be allowed to operate them, according to both the Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Surgeons.

Even the Consumer Product Safety Commission began getting involved, as early as 2005. At that time over 1/3 of the 6,000 fatal ATV accidents reported since 1982 involved children under the age of 16.



Even adults often suffer serious injury on ATVs

 And then there is this headline: ATVs are more deadly than Motorcycles. The researchers said that even when the severity of injuries was the same, the patients who had been riding ATVs were 50 percent more likely to die, and 50 percent more likely to need treatment in an intensive care unit, as compared to the motorcycle riders.

Regulations are in place in the state of Massachusetts and in Canada that require operators to be 14 years of age.  This brings up a personal delima for me. Do we legislate morality? Parents should be responsible for the raising of their children, and this requires the common sense to say no to dangerous activities. I personally don't believe that we need laws to create a safe environment for children, but we need laws that make a parent or guardian responsible for ensuring they learn common sense.

Birds: My blog got mentioned in a blog in the UK, I often enjoy reading Pigeons as Pets. A different approach to having pigeons than I am used to, but maybe one that works well for them...and that is what the hobby is about: the pleasure we get out of it individually.

Honey: Time to start the next batch of wine...still waiting for suggestions from friends, but the response to Backyard Blonde tells me I have to make another batch of that.

Massage my back

Almost 5 years ago now, I suffered a fall at work that resulted in some serious back problems. I have been through several procedures to find some relief from the pain. Surgery in my case is not a procedure with a good prognosis. Although some people think that there should be some miracle medical cure for all injuries in this day and age, it just isn't so. I have been told this by every spine specialist I have seen both mine, and the 2nd opinion doctors for the Department of Labor.

Spinal specialists have tried prescription medication for both pain and muscle spasms that occur...these are just bandages that cover the pain and give very limited and temporary relief. Although I still have prescriptions for these, I try to limit the use of them.


Doctors have also attempted epidural injections to my spine...OUCH!!
These have had a very poor response and do not last long enough.  There is also a problem with location of the impingement of nerves in my neck, making it almost impossible to place the injection in the proper position.


So after all this time, the conclusions have been reached, that there are two specific treatments that are effective in my case. Trigger point injections of a steroid and numbing agent directly into the muscles surrounding the areas of the spine where the pain and reduction of movement is located. These are effective for about six months, by rotating between the two major areas, I can find continuous relief by a quarterly treatment.

I also have to limit my activities in regard to bending, stooping, twisting and lifting weight above 20 pounds. 

The other treatment is a weekly session with a massage therapist and Chiropractor.  This gives me the most relief and lasts for 5 to 7 days,  I quite often can go almost a week without using prescription medication following a massage session.

If you are experiencing back pain, perhaps you should see if massage will help you.  The best I have found, are the women at Alta Vista.

Arch Canyon

Another one of my best less known areas has fallen to invasion by motorized traffic.  The first news that we here about it comes 7 days after the decision by BLM...

Soon, there will be no where to escape the noise and tire tracks!

The ruins in Arch Canyon when I first viewed them over 20 years ago were almost as pristine as any I had ever seen.  At that time, there was no motorized traffic in the canyon.  A recent trip to the Butler Wash area put me near enough to check in on some old haunts...no longer the same, the tranquility of the canyon was ripped wide open by the drone of OHV motors running up and down it...maybe its not so during the week, but on that Sunday morning, I was pestered by the sounds of four different groups in the three hours I was in the canyon.

I think a permit system needs to be put in place like they have done on many of the rivers, and many of the more popular hikes in National Parks. 

What a shame to loose another memory to the greed of Corporate America!

Rain and motorcycle, pigeon racing and the environment

So, yesterday was not the most pleasant weather for getting out on the motorcycle. The forecast for the next few days has got me thinking about water, in the form of rain and in the run-off that affects our environment.

Erosion is generally the first thing we think of when we consider water and the environment. There are so many other factors that water affects in our environment. Especially here in the desert...which is where we are, regardless of how people act here in Utah. This is a desert with a finite amount of water.

Erosion in the desert is not only caused by water, it is also generated by wind...both water in the form of run-off and wind can carry the loose bits and pieces of sandstone. In effect, this is like having walls sand-blasted to remove the dirt or outer covering.

Water also affects the desert environment in its ability to sustain life. With a finite water source, there are finite populations that can be supported. Not only must consideration be given for the amount of water that is available for use, consideration must be given for those living down stream.  

In the middle and early portions of the last century, many, many "water retention" areas were created to resolve issues of water lost to run-off...basically, this is a very selfish idea, as putting up the dam creates a pool of water behind it. This pool is subject to greater evaporation than the running water.

The west is now overpopulated...not too many people per square mile if compared to the east, but too many people for the land (and water) to support.

In this region, water is the source of life...if you don't think so, try going without it for just 4 days.

The current issues that are extremely pressing now that the human population is in place, and constantly growing, is where will we continue to get more water. Who owns the water in the rivers?  Water rights have led to more than one homicide in the west. Everyone and everything wants the right to water, and how and when do we tell them there is not enough?  People are becoming pretty inventive in finding more water. Actually not more water--remember there is a finite amount--but water they feel they are entitled to.  I recently watched a documentary on the Green River. 

There is a 37-mile stretch that flows through the state of Colorado, so now they are looking at old water right laws and saying they want their cut. The basic idea is to dig a canal or pipe water from the Flaming Gorge area of Utah and Wyoming over to the Front Range area of Denver.  Somehow, the idea that the answer maybe a reduction in population in that area does not get through.

If you have any good ideas, I am certain someone will listen...Saint George, Utah, and Washington County are running dry pretty quick. It wouldn't take too many years of drought to make a big problem for the humans there.

And if it is affecting humans in such a manner, how is it affecting the creatures that can't adapt their environment?  The ones that were here first?

Birds: And what about pigeons and racing in the rain? Every year, there is debate over whether or not a race should have been released based on weather. For the most part, pigeons negotiate the rain well enough if they do not become too wet to fly. A theory that I have about thunderstorms has gotten some local and national interest.  From my time in the military, I know that helicopters develop static electricity in flight. Enough, that when doing sling loading of supplies, I have seen loaders tossed across the LZ when the person that was supposed to "ground" the bird missed the hook with grounding rod. I would suggest that our birds, when flying in a massive flock such as during the beginning stages of a race, also created similar static electricity with the motion of all those wings. I suggest that they actually will draw a lightening strike from the static electricity in the clouds of a thunderstorm...resulting in poor results on a race where they may come in contact with a thunderstorm. On such races, the birds that come in first are usually the birds we lest expected. I surmise that the reason is they were not with that front group that attracted and were dispatched by a lightening strike.

Honey: My 2010 Backyard Blonde can be deemed a success. My friend's mother enjoyed it thouroughly when I provided her with a bottle.  She is quite the critic when it comes to wine, so I am very proud of what I accomplished with the backyard vine.

Bike weekend...

First issue, avoid drunken pedestrians running out to cross the highway.  A long story, but that is how the bike got this way.  The bike is all better now, and once again she is ready to ride.

This may be the last weekend before snow!  Yes, I said that ugly word...but of course once it is on the ground it can be quite wonderful...cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, no lawn mowing!

I am off on the bike today, first to the final production by dancing daughter...then 70 miles the other direction to pick up a new corker for bottling wine...then back home and clear additional space in the drive way for my honey's car.

Have a wonderful and safe weekend!!

Ozone as pollution and the breeding season

L.A. Smog

Ozone: the word was coined back in 1840.  It is actually a triatomic molecule consisting of three oxygen atoms.  Ozone serves a particular purpose where it belongs in the upper atmosphere, protecting us from the sun's harmful ultraviolet light. But in the lower atmoshere, it is a pollutant that can cause respiratory problems in animals, including humans. In the lower atmoshere, we often call this heavy oxygen "smog." The link above provides some really interesting history on Wikipedia about ozone.

We have always been told, "move to the country to escape these types of emissions." An article today in the Salt Lake Tribune refutes that idea. The Uinta basin of northeastern Utah is about as rural as you can currently find. Vernal is the gateway to Dinosaur National Monument, but due to the oil and gas fields surrounding the basin, the air held unhealthy levels of ozone for 40 days last winter.

That puts it on a level with Los Angeles and the San Bernadino Valley. Hard to believe rural Utah, was ranked right up there with the highest pollution-ridden areas of the world.  And at a time of year when ozone is not normally a consideration as a pollutant. 

Bottom line, we have to reduce emissions, or we have to find another planet to live on...this one will kill us off if we keep causing her harm.

Birds: The most important part of the race season is starting all over the country in major competitive lofts.  They are preparing for the breeding season. Many will start around Thanksgiving, hoping for birds that can be banded on the first day of the new year.  Many breeders will be standing on the club secretary's porch, waiting for bands on January 1, 2011.

Now is the time to prepare for that. Healthy parents create healthy youngsters, creating a better possibility for a winning season.  Breeding lofts should be sanitized. A simple water and bleach solution will work when sprayed on to scraped surfaces and allowed to sit and air dry.  Many pigeon breeders will paint the lofts at this time too.

The birds themselves should be getting a 4 in 1 or 5 in 1 treatment.  My primarily concerns are paratyphoid; canker; coccidiosis; e. coli; and worms.  I treat the birds for 5 consecutive days, then use a probiotic for 5 days then repeat the whole process. So now is the time to start if you want the breeders ready by the end of November.  I also do this treatment on the Old Bird race team while I am at it. A reminder, it is show season, and you never know what the bird in the next pen might be sharing with your birds, so this is a good practice to prevent an outbreak in your loft.

 

Honey: Does anyone know of wineries on the Hawaiian Islands? We will be taking our honeymoon there next month, and a wine tour would be a fantastic way to find a good local wine or two for the beach, along with some cheese and crackers or fresh local bread.