Musings

I was reading about mustatils today; they’re rectangular stone outlines, like low walls, that usually are very long and skinny. They date to the early Neolithic, were made by pastoralists/herders, and are found in northwest Saudi Arabia. The largest are huge, up to 600 meters long—that’s over a third of a mile. Mustatils have small areas sectioned off at each end, with different characteristics, so that researchers call them heads and bases. No one knows what they were for, and they seem to be associated with cattle, sheep/goats, and gazelles. They aren’t everywhere, and they are sometimes in clusters. To date, over 1600 have been found on satellite photos, and very few have been excavated and dated.

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Symmetry in pink.

I mention this because I’m distressed over all the “for the good of the people” laws and policies that are being overturned and ignored by the Felon in the White House and his toadies. The symmetry is to distract me.

Section 106 is part of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, and requires federal agencies (usually through contractors) to consider the potential effects of projects on historic properties, including giving the public opportunity to comment. Historic properties include archaeological sites, like buried features and objects, even roads and railroads. Section 106 does not stop projects.

If you have enjoyed reading any informational signs that mention the past, even vegetation and geology and not just historical information, then you care that Section 106 remains as it is. Call or write your senators and representatives and tell them to support Section 106 as it is, and to not eviscerate or change it.

Please indulge in collective action!

Posted at 8:56 PM | No Comments »

Cat-rise. 6:15am.

Display of unusable glass-blowing forms, Quechee.

Dam and covered bridge adjacent to glass-blowing operation (in old mill building, I assume), Ottauquechee River, Quechee.

1802 turnpike end marker, Woodstock.

Posted at 7:36 PM | Comments Off on Vermont day

Despite it being dry, the lupines are rolling into blossom-time.

I discovered this decoration after driving to Marquette via the Seney-Shingleton stretch; clearly, it has lasting power.

That distorted building in the reflection houses the Vierling, a long-time restaurant-bar on the corner of Front and Main. We’ve been going there since the first time the Guru came to the UP.

Here’s the view from the Vierling. That construction site will be a five-storey Hilton property atop a parking garage, which means it’ll block this view of the Marquette harbor. Progress.

This is the remains of the ore dock, with no attachment to the land that would facilitate human exploration. I guess the powers that be figured these ruins were safe to leave unsupervised.

On our return leg, we stopped on the dune-top on the west side of the Au Train River, where it dumps into Lake Superior. The lake-ice has shifted the river mouth so that there’s no beach on this side. That winter-ice is powerful.

Posted at 7:36 PM | Comments Off on Sight-seeing, west

Today, I learned that along the eastern flank of the eastern Carpathians are an arc of salt springs. I was looking at ones near Hoisești and Negritești. Both have nearby Chalcolithic and Bronze Age settlements, which, of course, is why I found out about the saline seeps.

Posted at 8:46 PM | Comments Off on Cause ‘n’ effect

One of the impactful benefits of academic publications shifting to digital rather than dead tree versions is that the graphics have improved greatly…by adding lotso color.

Posted at 8:22 PM | Comments Off on Science has upgraded

I’ve been reading articles about this and that, including various Roman villas, towns, and necropolises in Iberia…which reminded me of our trip to Iberia early this year.

Here’s a reconstructed porticoed ambulacrum (one corner) that would have surrounded a forum square (depression, left foreground). This is the southwest corner of the Roman forum at Empúries, in far northeast Spain. There was a major trading city here under the Greeks, later built much larger by the Romans.

Posted at 7:50 PM | Comments Off on Remembering a Roman city

When I think of viburnums, I think of these snowball bushes. Turns out Ötzi, the mummified fella found in 1991 emerging from melting ice on the Austrian/Italian border in the Alps, was carrying arrows with viburnum shafts. Of all things.

Posted at 9:44 PM | Comments Off on Genus: viburnum

We found the darkest purple lilacs I remember ever seeing, which we found on the Seul Choix lighthouse grounds.

There’s the light, with the keeper’s home to the left. [Apologies for the exaggerated keystoning.]

It’s on a point that projects out in the M of HOMES.

Contrast that with “our” lake. That’s a round rock (perhaps/probably rounded by humans, and thus an artifact) atop a binnacle. Because of this weighty binnacle that was on/near our beach, that word was part of the vocabulary of the kids who grew up in my generation on this property, and probably would not otherwise have been familiar with the term. Now, why there was a binnacle of this scale here, I do not know, because it’s way too large for a ship/boat on this lake, but not for one a HOMES lake.

Posted at 9:27 PM | Comments Off on Only choice, plus binnacle

We went through the core business district of Newport, saw looming masts, shops of various sorts, and many tourists. Then, we looped around among the fancy houses, and I mean fancy. However, this is the only photo I took during that entire circuit, and I don’t know who it is…just driving by, ya’know.

I read up a bit on Rhode Island as we drove along, and wondered where that island was, as the state is mostly not-island. Turns out this island, now more commonly called Aquidneck Island, is historically tagged as the island called Rhode, Ile of Rods, or Rhod-Island. BTW, if you can see dots out in the surf, they’re surfers. They only get short rides, but then they don’t have to paddle much to set up again.

Today’s drink I’m sure I never had: a coffee Fribble at Friendly’s (one of the dwindling few still in business). Egads, it was sweet. And huge.

I enjoyed this large knotical display 🤣 🤣 🤣 but you only get to see a few examples.

Technically, the border is more complicated, but this canal is commonly considered to separate Cape Cod from the mainland, which is where I’m standing and the cormorant is posing.

Our late-day adventure was a visit to Nauset Lighthouse, at the beach where The Guru and his fam used to hang. It was relocated in 1996 because coast erosion threatened to topple it. This lighthouse originally stood in a different town from 1877–1923, when it was moved to this area. So this is the third spot for it (I hope I’m making sense 😄; g’night).

Posted at 9:01 PM | Comments Off on Nautical-ish