Europe wants to bring back top predators like lynx, bears and wolves. In the US national parks brought back certain wild animals and it helped to control the population of elk and other herbivores, and to control the biosphere. The challenge, with Europe, is that it is tiny, compared to the wide open American spaces, and it’s densely populated. Wild animals can roam thousands of kilometres for food and more. Europe is thousands of kilometres wide, with plenty of people, especially in Northern Italy, Switzerland etc.
Northern Exposure is a series about a doctor who finds himself sent to Alaska to be a doctor for a few years. He thinks that it is the middle of nowhere and he has to adapt from enjoying life as a New Yorker to life as a frontier town doctor. Early colza in the Canton of Vaud
Although the series is thirty plus years old it still remains relevant today with its exploration of global warming, pollution and more.
Today I could have taken the scooter to some shops but I went for a walk. The result of that walk is that I reached twenty one thousand five hundred steps. I often take a lot of steps per day. I wish I was walking somewhere more interesting than in circles.
According to Sports tracker my daily workouts saved 4.74 kilograms of CO2 this month.
I was amused during this walk.
Over the last few weeks I have been thinking about the absurdity of life during this pandemic. People are pretending the pandemic is over and falling sick with a disease that keeps them sick for months.
Entire professions are now unstable so finding work is harder.
Millions of others are unable to work.
Living with COVID is absurd. I wish the world would stop being absurd. I am tired of the absurdity of people being okay with living in a pandemic.
For several months I was not bothered by the noise of an environmentally unfriendly farmer. This farmer loves to use a really old tractor. He loves to turn on the engine and let it run for minutes at a time, without moving. It is running now, as he fills the container with water and pesticide, or whatever he is concocting. A rational human being would cut the engine when a tractor is not moving, to save on fuel, and cost, and to protect the environment.
Recently I repotted Orchids and now they seem to be doing fine. I see evidence of new buds and suspect that they have continued to grow despite my intervention. For months I considered repotting them but I was afraid that it would kill them. I waited until they were between blooms but they’re constantly blooming so that wait was long.
In the end I repotted them when I noticed that a plant was growing and flowering in the air.
During a recent walk I thought about existential crises and the pandemic. I thought that it’s a shame that we spend so much time speaking about depression rather than looking for a new reason for being, a new existential identity, or goal in life. We treat the search for a new identity, due to the pandemic as if it is a depressive moment but I think this is wrong.
The pandemic has changed whether we can socialise, and how we socialise.
Since the start of the year I have been running regularly. Yesterday I went for a run and I found it easiser than other runs. It might be thanks to the audiobook, on the one hand, and to consistent training on the other. I am not pushing hard. The training program is a 5k programme over twelve weeks. I don’t need twelve weeks for this. I was a runner before. I don’t care about beating distance records or other things.
In Spain I keep seeing the BKL Prolimp bikes and I like them. They’re tricycles rather than bikes but I think they could be useful. Instead of transporting a broadcast camera and tripod in a car or smart you could transport them on the back of this bike. Instead of a bin bag though I would have the tripod bag and find a way to fix the camera as well.
When the conditions are just right fractals form on veluxes and they are beautiful. It requires the air to be cool enough for ice to form, but as thin layers, rather than thick. If the wind is just right then you end up with patterns such as the one below.
Fractal frost on a Velux
This morning all of the windows had a nice pattern so I photographed them twice. The first time when they were lit by indirect sunlight and the second time when they were.