Winter is Coming!

Saturday as I was walking the dogs, I saw a Southern Rocky Mountain Junco sitting in the pine near the swingset. It was singing, "Winter is coming! Winter is coming!" These birds come down from Colorado at the beginning of the winter season. That evening, when I took the dogs for their pre-bedtime walk, there was a ring around the waxing moon. It was 55 degrees and warm. "What winter?" I wondered.

But this morning as the sun rose, altocumulous clouds blew rapidly across the sky. Definitely the sign of an upper level disturbance and weather coming in. It was 36 degrees just before dawn, but by 9 AM it was only 31. Today the temperature never rose above 36.

This afternoon, as MLC and drove over the mountain to Sandia Mountain Ranch to look at a house on the Parade of Homes, we noticed low cumulonimbus clouds sweeping across the plains of Estancia. "Looks like snow," we both said together. And it was. A few hours later, back home, I caught the picture above as the snow fell around the swing set.

It had been snowing rapidly as we looked through a house over on Sedillo Hill. As we drove home, we saw the deer heading for the woods.

And then one, two, and many white flakes came out from the clouds, feathering down past the still bright leaves on the scrub oak above the driveway.

I stepped out the french doors to the back patio to catch this picture on my camera. Here I used the sports photography setting to catch moving objects. The timing makes the snowflakes look like white threads falling past the clearstory window.

The Aspen tree, so gold last week and now faded to brown, is reflected in the glass.

A few more good days of wind and those leaves will be gone!

Funny thing, but the last time we had snow showers was in early May, at Lag b'Omer, when MLC ran the 5K Run for the Zoo race. She ran in a sweatshirt in May, on a blustery morning with clouds racing across the sky. We saw the last snow showers of the season that afternoon

Today she ran the Duke City Marathon on a blustery morning. And lo, and behold! The first snow showers of the season.

This evening, it snowed some more while we ate dinner. And when I took the dogs out for their last walk it was 31 degrees. A dusting of snow covered our metal roof, the car tops and the grill. There was a ring around the moon and to the west I saw more snow clouds making their way up the valley.

Winter is coming!

Incidental Education While Doing Floors

Overheard while my guys were working on the floor.



N: Who invented physics, anyway?



Bruce: Well, it really goes all the way back to the Greeks you studied last year. But other people like the Egyptians and the Chinese and tribes we don't even know about use physics whenever they build something. They understand the practical results even if they didn't invent the calculations.



N: Would there by life in the universe if there was no physics?



Bruce: No. Well, what I mean is that our universe in governed by physical laws, and those laws are at the basis of life. The chemical interactions that make DNA work, those are all physical at the core...



N: What about inside black holes? The laws of physics don't work there, do they?



Bruce: Not like we understand them. We really don't know what happens inside a black hole, but time, for example, slows down when you watch something get closer to the even horizon on the black hole it slows down until it appears frozen there. So time is different in a black hole....

N: Is the black hole at the center of our galaxy caused by...I mean is it gravity...?

And a discussion of mass and acceleration and space-time ensued, ending with the following--

Bruce: Mass tells space how to bend and space tells mass how to move.



N: Wow! Just a minute, I have to get the glue even here...



Bruce: Did you know that this one row has probably $5.00 to $7.00 worth of glue?



N: Really? Wow, and it's not even very much Bostik...Does anybody actually burn money?



Bruce: Well, the treasury does when it has to get rid of worn out money...



And they went on to talk about the paper cloth content for money, what will happen if we just print more money, and why counterfeiting is a problem, and from there, why it is wrong to take or accept bribes.



N: Do you really think you could bribe a cop with donuts?

Bruce: Well, you shouldn't.

N: Remember the 'Fly-By Donut Caper'?



Note to readers: DON"T ASK!



Oh, well, if you insist.

Monday October 8, 2001ALBUQUERQUE (Reuters) - An Albuquerque policeman and his pilot face disciplinary measures after using a police helicopter this week to swoop in for a midnight snack of doughnuts, officials said on Friday. The officer and the civilian pilot were on night patrol over the city in a Kiowa OH-58 helicopter when they landed in a vacant lot next to a Krispy Kreme doughnut store around 1 a.m. on Thursday morning.``The contracted pilot and a police officer landed the copter early in the morning, ran in and grabbed a dozen, came back out and took off,'' Albuquerque Police Department spokesman Brian McCutcheon said.... An eyewitness told the Albuquerque Journal that he saw the APD helicopter circle the Krispy Kreme and land in a nearby dirt field.... A Krispy Kreme employee who asked not to be identified said he didn't see why people were making a big deal of the unusual doughnut run.``Cops got to eat, too,'' he said.



From the sublime to the ridiculous!



Homeschool is always in session.

Even on Sundays.


Even if there are no more Krispy Kreme Donuts in Albuquerque.

Ask A Stupid Question...

I just e-mailed the take-home portion of my Psychological Assessment midterm to the professor, and now I have completed midterms.



I had a test on the construct and measurement of intelligence yesterday in that class.

I also had a presentation on the reliability of motoneurons in the pontine nuclei for Neuroanatomy and Physiology. I did quite well on the presentation and actually managed to generate some discussion. It was an interesting paper and I enjoyed it.


I don't know how I did in the Psychological Assessment exam.


I find that I am having trouble changing the "set" (as they call it in psychology) from Neuroscience to Psychology as I run from one to the other. The neuroscience classes tend to have a very tightly focused research orientation and the psychology class seems to be looser and more clinically based. Also the culture of the departments is different, especially with respect to the interactions between students and professors.



It gets really difficult for me to change my set when the subjects interact, as they did on Tuesday, when in Psychology, the professor did a presentation on basic brain anatomy. At one point he was discussing the Pons and he said that injuries to the Pons tends to cause widespread neurological problems due to the importance of the Reticular Formation to the function of the higher centers.



I was excited by his comments. At last! Something that I could relate to my other class. I was, after all, in the middle of developing my PowerPoint for the Hu paper on the Pons. My focus, alas, was on that research, so I asked the following:
"Do clinicians look for visual-motor signs that could indicate Pontine Reticular Formation damage? Like problems with saccades?"

The professor paused for a moment and gave me a funny look.
Then he said: "Well, generally people with massive damage to the Pons are either dying or dead."



The class giggled. I felt like a total idiot. I was thinking of the research level, in which induced lesions in the deep nuclei of the Pons are shown to have specific effects on saccades--which are a quick movements of both eyes in the same direction in order to direct focus at a new stimulus. But the good professor was talking about clinical situations in which a person suffered massive head trauma. And anyway, he was introducing general brain anatomy to the class. He wasn't interested in tightly focused details. We were talking on completely different wavelengths.



I didn't get the social cues. At times like these, I am sure that the apple does not fall far from the tree. N. has Aspergers, an Autism Spectrum Disorder. I can see that I do display the Broader Autistic Phenotype, as Tony Attwood calls it. This is probably why I do better in neuroscience than in psychology.



And you know what they say:

'Ask a stupid question and you get a stupid answer.'

That's exactly what happened.



Naturally, my curiousity led me to take a look at Kandel--our neuroscience text.

It turns out that there are two problems that can arise from lesions in the Pontine Reticular Formation that can lead to visual motor problems.

One is nystagmus--the inability of the eye to fix on a stimulus after saccading to it. This means unwanted, repetitive saccades because although commands are coming from the frontal lobes to pay attention to certain sights and sounds and not others, the visual-motor neurons are compromised and cannot carry them out.

The other is seen in patients with MS. It is called internuclear ophthalmoplegia, and is caused by dysfunction of the motor commands to the medial rectus muscle--the one on the side of the eye nearest to the nose--but only when it moves laterally in saccades.



You see, I asked a stupid question. That is, wrong focus, wrong time, wrong place.
And I got a stupid answer. That is, one not directed to the level at which I was asking the question.



I did learn from it.



But I am especially mortified because as we talked about intelligence tests and the concept of intelligence, this professor specifically stated that understanding social situations--that is issue like "set"-- are an important component of intelligence.



I guess that makes the somewhat socially inept, technical geniuses in my family...stupid.



What we need to do is make a new movie in which introverted neuroscience grad students take over the psychology department by virtue of their higher performance IQs.

We could call it Revenge of the Geeks!

My Son the Hobbit?

Some bloggers I frequent do "Wordless Wednesday."

On Wordless Wednesday they post one picture. That's it.



I am starting a variation of it today. It will be a way to limit the mid-week time I spend on posting.

But mine will be called Nearly Wordless Wednesday.

So here goes.

NOTE: So here goes after numerous attempts! First, I couldn't load any pictures. I went off and studied and then had lunch. Then I got the pictures loaded, and was in the middle of posting when the power went off here--probably due to those cold and persistent winds that I mention below! So I studied some more. And when the power came back, I did, too, and finished my post, and tried to post it. And blogger was down for scheduled maintenance!
Is the third time the charm???

So here goes my maiden post of Nearly Wordless Wednesday. I hope...






It's late fall.

The cold temperatures are making the Aspens turn color rapidly.

Cold winds are blowing clouds across the Sandia front from the northwest. The winds are brisk and strong.

This morning the temperature was below freezing and the temperature at eleven o'clock was only 40 degrees (F).

N. was outside at eleven.

See how he's wearing a sweatshirt?
His hands are in his pockets, protected from the cold winds.

But notice the feet.

He thinks he's a Hobbit.




Sigh. Shoes are something you wear when your mother is cold.

Carnival of Homeschooling: The October Checkpoint...

It's here! The Carnival of Homeschooling, I mean. October has been here for more than two weeks now, if you can believe that. This week's edition is the October Checkpoint.





ChristineMM has put together a wonderful set of articles for our enjoyment over at The Thinking Mother.





Unfortunately, I have a presentation in one class and a midterm in another on Thursday. So I guess it will be my Friday reading.





So go on over and enjoy it for me.


I'll catch up with you all on Friday!

Bal Taschit and Tikkun Olam: Jewish Environmental Ethics

Today is blog action day.

And although its late already, we thought we'd get in on the action.

So first, a story:

When G-d was creating space and time, G-d formed many universes, but each one was not quite what G-d had intended and so G-d recycled the materials for another go at it. Finally, G-d made a universe that was just what G-d had wanted, and in that universe, our universe, in the outer third of the spiral arm of a rather ordinary galaxy, G-d put a lovely blue planet. And then G-d formed Adam (the human being) from the Adama (the red earth) and breathed into Adam the breath of life. And G-d placed the human being on this garden planet, lush and full of all good things to work with it and to protect it (lit: l'avda u'lshamra). And G-d said to the humans: "Remember, I made you human from the humus (soil) and you belong to this land. The land is your mother. Take care then to protect and care for her, and do not destroy her, for if you do destroy then who will make her whole for you again?" (A Midrash on Genesis 2: Gan Ayden--translated and retold by Elisheva).

From this we learn that we are placed on this earth as part of creation. We did not create the earth and we cannot remake her should we destroy her. As humans beings, we are unique in creation in that we have "eaten of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" and we therefore can choose between good and evil. We cannot claim the role of innocent bystanders to whatever happens on our lovely blue planet because we literally know better.

In Judaism, we have numerous laws and ethical requirements toward animals and nature. Here at Ragamuffin Studies, we have decided to focus on two of them. They are Bal Taschit--do not destroy--and Tikkun Olam--repair of the world.

Bal Taschit and Tikkun Olam by N

Bal Taschit is a commandment from Torah:

"When in your war against a city you have to beseige it a long time in order to capture it, you must not destroy (bal taschit) the trees, laying the ax against them. You may eat of them, but you must not cut them down. Are the trees of the field like a human that can withdraw before you into the beseiged city?" (Devarim, Parashat Shoftim--Deuteronomy 20:19)

This pasuk is about how to treat trees during a war, but in the Talmud our rabbis expanded the meaning of Bal Taschit to mean that you may not destroy anything that G-d has made just because you want to destroy it. You can kill animals to eat them, but you must not waste them just to get the best parts or because you want to show what a great hunter you are. You can cut down trees for the wood to make your house, but you must not waste anything. Even throwing paper away and not recycling it would be to break the commandment not to destroy. I think what our rabbis meant was that the earth is not ours to do whatever we want to it. It belongs to the One who gave life to everything that lives here. We are part of the earth and not above it. So we have to find ways to "walk more lightly" on the earth as Tom Brown says.

Tikkun Olam means to repair the world. Mom will tell you the story of these words. I will tell you what I think it means. As I said above, G-d made the earth and it belongs to G-d not to human beings. But G-d did put us here to do more than just stop destroying things. We are also creative, like G-d is, since the story of creation says that we are "b'tselem Adonai". That means that we are in the image of G-d. And G-d is creative. So it is our job to fix up the world and make it better. We are creative when we find new ways to live on the earth, like inventing PV (photovoltaics) so that we can catch the sun's energy directly to make our electricity or use the sun to heat our water for showers and baths.

At our house, we do Bal Taschit by turning off lights we are not using, recycling more than we throw away, using a set-back thermostat for our heater, heating most of the house with a pellet stove, and by being very careful with water. Mom and Bruce are always saying things like "Turn off the water while you brush your teeth. We live in a desert, you know!" We also try to consolidate our errands when we go into to town so that we do not have to drive in as often. And whenever we can, we take the Focus instead of Henry the Big Red Truck.

We are also doing Tikkun Olam. For one thing, we take care of our trees on our acre by taking care of deadfall and thinning them so that they get the most sunlight and put more oxygen into the air. We also take a bag with us when we walk so that we can pick up litter. You'd be surprised at how many people litter in the mountains. We have even found old coke bottles that have filled with dirt! We went to the Solar Fiesta right after Rosh Hashanah because we are getting more creative. Mom and Bruce and I are going to install a PV system so that we can use the sun for some of our electricity and put some back in the grid. Mom is talking about rainwater harvesting for some of our fresh water and compost toilets to save water, too. So we are doing some things right now to help the environment and we are working on doing more. And it is kind of neat that some of the Tikkun Olam that we are doing will also help us with Bal Taschit. For example, to use PV for electricity, Bruce says that you have to get very good at not wasting any of it either.

Back to you, Mom!

It looks like N. has explained things very thouroughly. As he promised, I will tell the story of the words Tikkun Olam.

In the Jewish mystical tradition it is written that G-d first created light and then created vessels to contain that light. But when G-d poured the light into the vessels, they were too weak to contain it. The vessels shattered and the shards make up the material world that we commonly experience. But everywhere in the material world are hidden sparks of light. They are within you and me, plants and animals, rocks and earth. It is our job to gather these sparks and raise them up whenever we find them, bringing the material world closer and closer to the world of Holiness and Oneness. This job of gathering sparks is called Tikkun Olam--the repair of the world.

There are many meanings to this story, as is true of all good stories. But I think the one important for today is that everything in the world contains sparks of holiness. We just don't see it because we notice only the broken shards. When we look beyond only the material, we uncover the beauty and the spirit in everything. And we want to preserve and protect, "tend and till," and fulfill our role as creative stewards of Creation.

Jews believe that Creation itself is the sign of a covenant between G-d and all of the universe. We are not responsible only for ourselves alone, but for the care and protection of all of creation. When we learned of the knowledge of good and evil, and of life and death, we were pushed out of the womb of creation and born into a role of responsibility as stewards of creation. We have a duty to maintain the covenant of creation itself.

And if we do destroy our birthright wantonly, then who will make whole again?

'Cesar Says:' Training Lily on Autumn Walks

Even though I've never met him, Cesar Millan is taking over my life.
And it's a good thing. Really.

We have two dogs. Both are rescue dogs. Zoey, the white mutt with black spots is my dog. We've had her seven years and she is my dog. She has always been a calm and submissive dog in general, and now, at about 8 or 9 years old--we're not really sure-- she is really, really calm.



Lily, the tri-color dog that the pound called a harrier cross, is N.'s dog. And she is another story altogether. When we went to the pound to see her, she was a bundle of energy. She still is. She learns rapidly, which is a good thing, or she would have been returned to the pound after the first exciting week at our house. However, being responsible people, we felt we couldn't abandon her, so we had to set about training her. She is great with us, but she dislikes other dogs, men in ties, and strangers who come to the door. We got her to a level that we were happy with until she took off after a real-estate agent one day when she escaped. He was very nice about the whole thing since he wasn't hurt and is not lawsuit happy, but we realized that Lily needs more discipline. There are others in our neighborhood who might sue at the drop of a hat. And besides, we'd like to enjoy our walks and be friendly with everyone. I mean, talking with our neighbors is a lot more fun than dragging a fearful, barking dog away from them. And Lily deserves a calmer life, too.

MLC watches a National Geographic Channel program called the Dog Whisperer when she stays with her college friends in town several times a week, and she took over the training first. She runs with Lily and taught us how to use the choke-collar correctly, as well as how to correct Lily when she starts after something or gets excited, but before she starts barking. So far, so good. Lily can now run past another neighborhood dog, Buddy the Dachshound (he thinks he's a Rottie), who does not like anyone. But since N. brought home Cesar's book, Cesar's Way, we began to realize that there was a lot more to it.

Training Lily has become one of N.'s homeschool projects. Um...actually...it's not training Lily, it's training us. We've made just about every mistake in the book with Lily. Thank goodness she's a fast learner and pretty forgiving. But now when I am dealing with the dogs, N. is around, book in hand to give us the low down on what we should be doing.

"Cesar says..." he'll announce as he corrects all of our mistakes. It takes a lot of motherly love and forbearance, not to mention a good deal of humility (a virtue I am convinced I was sent here to work on) to try it Cesar's way.

But it is working. The dogs are happier. I am happier. N. is in his element.

"See that guy?" He'll say as we are walking in the meadow, sans dogs. "Look how he's got three dogs straining at the lead? They're pulling him. He's not being the pack leader." He says it loudly enough for the passing guy to hear. Well, tact is not exactly an AS characteristic.


Enter the autumn walks.
N. told me a few weeks ago that I am doing one thing right with the dogs. (Thanks, N. Or should I say 'Thanks' to Cesar?) Anyway, I walk the dogs for a good 50 to 60 minutes each morning before breakfast. So I'm a good dog mommy. Oops. "Cesar says you're not supposed to think of the dogs as your kids," according to N. Well, anyway.


"Cesar says" also that the dogs need lots of exercise and that we must "master the walk."
And the weather is absolutely perfect for doing some exploring in our mountains. So, since Sukkot began, we are also taking the dogs on long walks in the moutains several times a week.

As we walk, we practice being the pack leader, correcting Lily--and occasionally, Zoey, when they get fixated on squirrels or whatever. But they don't get to correct Mom when she stops to sniff out a good picture! There are many great advantages to being pack leader. Above is a picture of the mountain path just below the saddle between Rancho Verde Moutain and Five Hills to the west. Look at those colors. Too bad we can't bottle them!


Here is a picture from the side of Rancho Verde Mountain, just above and east of the saddle. I was looking northwest to the Sandia Mountain front. If I had been looking south, I would have seen the ridges and valleys of Juan Tomas.

We passed a man walking his dog on the saddle just before I took this picture. N. brought Lily in close to the heel, and then corrected her with an almost inperceptible upward tug on the leash as he said "psssht!" It was quiet and I doubt the man noticed.
But Lily's attention was immediately focussed on N. and she walked past the man and his dog without as much as a whimper.


We walked on around the mountain and down an animal trail to a clearing near the bottom of the hill, almost in the valley between Rancho Verde and Juan Tomas. There we stopped to eat some lunch.

After giving the dogs water, we had a good drink. Lily sat right smartly to N.'s command, and then he said: "Cesar says, first exercise, then discipline and then affection."
And he proceeded to give Lily the last.

Zoey was lounging near my feet as I stretched out and ate some nuts and an apple. No begging was allowed from the canine contingent. And they didn't do it. Did I say there are advantages to being the pack leader? Yep.


After several hours and about five miles up and down hill, we made our way home.

Here Lily rests in the shade of the porch garden while N. is getting the cats rounded up inside. She was tuckered out. Zoey was beyond tuckered, and after having a drink, she stretched out on the dining room floor and refused to move.

We had a snack and rested for an hour and then did our library run and a shopping trip for N.'s campout.

As I write, N. is at Herron Lake with the Boy Scouts, fly fishing and I hope, having a great time.

I have noticed that my energy is increasing and my muscles are becoming more defined. Today, Bruce and I took a shorter walk through the woods before breakfast.

Since Cesar Millan started taking over my life, the dogs have been happier, N. has been developing a new passion, and I am getting into better shape. And I am getting a bird's eye view of autumn in the Sandia Mountains.

Homeschooling. It's a dog's life.