A project finished...

A project finished...  Well, one phase of it, anyway.  Way back in December, just before I drove back to Virginia to move my brother Scott out here, I was working on an electronic clock kit.  I'd actually finished the assembly of it, but I still had a bug of some sort.

Well, this afternoon I spread the kit, its manual, my 'scope, multimeter, and soldering iron out on the kitchen table and went to work.  An hour later, I had it all working, after fixing two more issues.  First issue was a broken circuit board trace (for a total of three in the kit).  The second (and last!) issue was all my own fault: a cold solder joint.  But now it's all running!

Next step on this project: a nice wooden case of some kind.  I'll have to ponder exactly what I want that to look like...

Fire in Paradise!

Fire in Paradise!  But it's fire we actually wanted :)  This year the Hyrum Irrigation Canal folks are sending two separate cleanup crews down the length of the canal.  The first crew started today; they're burning weeds and roses along the sides of the canal.  They're also burning some ancient brush piles that were left by canal cleanup crews in prior years.  The second crew will be along in a couple weeks; they'll be clearing brush and downed trees that are in the canal.  We have a little over a quarter mile of that canal that runs through the eastern edge of our property.  We did a lot of cleanup ourselves last year, plus had a horde of local Mormons come by on a service project that got even more.  Between the canal company's work and what we plan to do ourselves this year, we should have a much better-looking property!

The crew today used a large propane torch powered from a 250 propane tank trailer they hauled behind a pickup.  Here's what it looked like while they were working:

Quote of the day...

Quote of the day...  Scott Adams.  Watch the video; the quote will make more sense then.

“Reason will never be a satisfying explanation of what you see.”

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  We took a ride out past Hardware Ranch toward Ant Flats yesterday afternoon.  It was a good wildlife viewing trip – we saw an American Dipper, several Belted Kingfishers, a beautiful view of a Bald Eagle (sitting on a fence post in full sunshine!), lots of mule deer and elk, a Northern Harrier, and a mostly white undersides hawk that was probably a Ferruginous Hawk (at right) but could possibly have been a leucistic Redtail Hawk.

This morning, using Sibley's guide, we tentatively identified three swans we saw on a previous trip as juvenile (first year) Tundra Swans.  We're just barely within their normal winter range, and the pond is exactly the sort of place they visit when migrating.

The photos here are not mine, but I hope to have some bird photos of my own here soon.  I've ordered a telescope that can mount my iPhone 6 to.  I've seen some photos taken through it with an iPhone, and they're quite good...

An insider's view...

An insider's view ... of why the U.N. is failing.  His description does absolutely nothing to my conviction that the only “right” thing to do with the U.N. is to dismantle it...