Peasant's Revolt

Watch me (it's short, trust).

Today is Dia dos Namorados in Brazil.
In 1381, rebellious English peasants, led by John Ball, Wat Tyler, and Jack Straw, arrived and rallied at Blackheath, London.

tRead Carefully

The red things are the tiny flowers I found on the hike, that I think I mentioned before. By 'tiny' I mean dinky: the 'fern' leaf there is actually a moss, and the red things themselves were no larger than peppercorns.


John McCain wants more of this. Larisa Alexandrovna calls it treason, and I have to agree.

As the election -and the constitutionally-dictated end of this administration-- approaches, expect the iron fist of corporatist fascism to close ever more tightly on our first amendment and other rights. They have secrets they will do almost anything to protect. They are a wild animal, trapped, and the noose is tightening. Crazy things happen when panic ensues.

Today is Kamehameha Day in Hawaii. In 1184 bce, Troy was sacked and burned, according to the calculations of Eratosthenes. In 1864, Richard Strauss was born. In 1933, Gene Wilder was born.

Nice is different than good

As I said, some parts of the trail were hard to follow. We knew we were looking for a way to cross the river, but didn't know where... was the 'bridge' supposed to have been here? We didn't even know what to expect in terms of kind of crossing. I spotted tracks going further along the bank. I followed them with my eyes and saw more flags ahead. We were still on the right track.

The 'bridge' turned out to be a downed tree (predictably enough), and that's where the real fun started. The big washed-out section of trail -where you're hiking across a broad, sandy, rocky riverbed/flood zone on which tracks are almost invisible-- made me think about the trail to Sheep Canyon, which I'd hoped to hike this summer. The road to that trailhead was almost undrivable last year; if winter treated that 'road' like it treated the rest of the region, there might not be anything left to drive on. We shall see, I suppose.

I tried to get a pic of Phil in action, crossing the log bridge, but the camera had its own little camera agenda. Here's a rule to live by: technology should not think for itself. How well would we function if our hands had their own brains, which only occasionally -and always imperfectly-- communicated with Brain Central? Gimme a break! What a nightmare.

On this day in 1752, Ben Franklin’s kite was struck by lightning.
In 1801, Tripoli declared war on the U.S. because the U.S. refused to pay tribute.
In 1910, Howlin’ Wolf was born.
In 1922, Judy Garland was born.
In 1976, Margot Swatton's house in Newlyn, Cornwall, was attacked by rooks [ravens] for seven days and nights, beginning on this day. Dive-bombing from trees and powerlines, they returned to their perches dazed and bleeding to launch another attack. They gave up after a neighbour shot one dead.

And in 2008, Rep. Dennis Kucinich introduced articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush. Best news in eight years. Call your congressperson today to urge their support.

Snow trail

Yesterday, hiking by the Sandy River on the shoulder of Mt Hood. One of those fun hikes- large sections of the trail had been washed out, so for part of it we had to follow just tracks and flags through the brush and rocks (as opposed to a developed, marked trail), while for other large sections we were walking on/in snow that had yet to melt. Fun hikes because I like the challenge of tracking and figuring out how to cross that river or that chasm or where the hell did the trail go? or whatever.

We had read about this trail and had been wanting to check it out since we moved here, but the bridge had been washed out. Yesterday, we saw that it had been replaced, so we followed the road for as long as it lasted and found the trailhead. For a mile or so, the trail was in fine shape. It wanders along through the forest beside the Sandy River. Very pretty. But the Sandy is a mountain river (gets pretty wild with the spring melt), and the soil here is volcanic (somewhat sandy-and-ashy, loose), so the river's course isn't exactly stable. And so we found the same sort of conditions I found when I went to look for Sheep Canyon: the trail was suddenly gone, replaced with a field of boulders.

When you're out hiking and you find that you've lost the trail, just stop. Don't move, just look around a minute. If you're on a well-developed trail, a few steps back should set you on your track again. If you're on a less well-developed trail (eg, packed earth or just a worn trail), look around for flags. Flags are those plastic strips you sometimes use to mark things- in this case, they're tied to branches, logs or trees to mark a new trail.

So we followed the flags, and when we couldn't see the flags we followed tracks, and when we couldn't see tracks we guessed (mostly right). We crossed the Sandy on a big log, jumped across another part, found where some critters had spent the night, saw some cool flowers, but eventually just turned around.

Anyway, it's not much of a story, but it was a fun hike. The trail leads to some waterfall or other, but I don't remember its name, and we didn't make it all the way because we got tired of trudging over melting snowbanks in our not-hiking-footwear (we didn't expect the snow).

On this day in 1603, English astronomer William Lilly was born. In his autobiography, he tells a strange anecdote of teleportation about fellow astrologer John Evans, a Welshman residing near Aldgate in London. In 1630 or 1631, Evans was asked by Lord Bothwell and Sir Kenelm Digby 'to shew them a Spirit... upon a sudden, after some time of Invocation, Evans was taken from out of the Room, and carried [five miles] into the Field near Battersea Causeway...' The next morning, a laborer found him asleep there.
In 1891, Cole Porter was born.
In 1915, Les Paul was born.
In 1963, Johnny Depp was born.