I did not sleep well at all the night before the eclipse. It took me a long time to fall asleep. And then, unbeknownst to us, our hotel room's alarm clock was set to go off at 6am. That was... an unpleasant surprise. I never really got back to sleep after that.

After breakfast at the hotel, I loaded up on caffeine, and we started the 2 hour drive west to Vincennes. Along the way, we saw people preparing for the eclipse. There were several parking lots full of RVs, and some people out setting up telescopes. The weather went from partly cloudy, to totally cloudy, to "we can't see the sky because of all the fog", and back to partly cloudy. Wendy was texting with her family along the way, and we arrived at the golf course around 11am, just a few minutes after they got there.

We found a spot underneath a shade tree and started to get settled in. Wendy and I brought 2 folding chairs, which we hadn't used in a long time, and it was at this point we discovered mice had thoroughly chewed up one of them. Yuck. I threw that chair into a dumpster. Thankfully, Bill and Beth were ultra-prepared (as usual!) and had an extra chair we could use, so everyone had a place to sit.

There were already a lot of cars parked at the golf course when we arrived, and they just kept coming. The staff did an impressive job packing a bunch of cars (and a couple of school buses as it turned out!) into a fairly small space. Thankfully, people could sit anywhere they wanted on the golf course, so everyone spread out and it didn't feel crowded despite a lot of people being there.

We had about 4 hours to kill before totality, so to pass the time, we:

• sat around and chatted
• ate the picnic lunches we all brought
• waited in long lines at the bathrooms
• took a walk around part of the golf course
  
• rolled down hills:

The golf course offered a catered lunch, but we did not take part. I grabbed a moon pie at one point, though, and I discovered that wow, moon pies are not very good. I must have known this back in 2017 because our hotel gave us free moon pies, but I apparently forgot what they taste like, because it was not good at all.

Amazingly, the entire time we were at the golf course, the sky was almost totally clear. There were a few very thin, very faint clouds, but there was no doubt we would be able to see the eclipse. How nice!

Finally, at 1:47 PM, the moon made "contact" with the sun, starting the partial phase of the eclipse.

As it progressed, the effects became noticeable. Our shadows got sharper:

And you could see evidence of the moon covering up the sun:

In the few minutes before totality, the sky grew eerily dark, and we were able to see Venus, Jupiter, and the star Capella. Then we saw the "diamond ring" effect, and then totality began! It was very cool and awesome and hard to describe. It was absolutely wild that the sun turned black. The corona was easily visible, and very impressive. I think it might have been more impressive than in 2017. We also saw a Bailey's bead (a tiny bright speck of sun caused by hills and valleys on the moon).

Totality lasted for about 4 minutes and 6 seconds, but it went by fast! It did not feel like four minutes. Just like in 2017, I set up a digital camera to record reactions during the eclipse. The video is embedded below, which starts about a minute before totality. (At the beginning you can hear a motorbike in the distance, but thankfully whoever it was took a break when totality began.)

One thing I did differently for this eclipse is I brought along a compass and checked it periodically before, during, and after totality to see if the compass needle changed at all (at one point in the video you see me run to the camera where I grabbed a flashlight so I could check the compass). This idea came from Gregory Little who has done a lot of research on Native American mounds. He organized a small citizen science project to get people to check for any magnetic changes at Native American mounds during the total eclipse. Obviously I was at a golf course, not a mounds site, but I decided try the experiment anyway. (Although there actually is a mound in downtown Vincennes, the Sugar Loaf mound.)

I did not observe any changes in the compass. Later I learned that some people used a video camera to record their compass during the event, and Little said five people detected a small half-degree blip in the compass needle right at the start of totality. Interesting! Now I wish I'd aimed my camera at the compass, and somehow attached a flashlight for when it got dark. (Maybe that will be a project for the 2045 eclipse!) I'm not sure how valuable my observations were, but I did send them to Little, and to say thanks for participating, he sent me a free t-shirt:

(He joked that he even autographed it to "make it worth less"!)

Shortly after totality ended, Wendy's family headed out, since they had a long drive back to Kentucky. Wendy and I stuck around a bit longer, but then we drove the 2 hours to our hotel. There was a lot more traffic on the way back, but it wasn't too bad. We were both starving and exhausted by the time we got to our room, so we ate our leftover pizza (hurray for hotel rooms with refrigerators!) and sat on the couch reading/watching TV for the rest of the evening.

The next day, Tuesday, we drove home. Traffic was heavy, due in part to construction and accidents, so it took about an hour longer than it would have normally.

And that was our trip! I'm so happy we got to see the eclipse. It was a lot of fun to share the experience with Wendy's family.

Last week Wendy and I traveled to Indiana to see the total solar eclipse!

Seven years ago we went to Nebraska to see our first total solar eclipse. For that trip, I did a ton of research ahead of time: reading books, attending lectures, scouring over maps, and making a lot of lists. I was determined to be prepared for any eventuality. If you recall, that trip ultimately culminated in an epic 4-part series of blog posts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 (the actual day of the eclipse), and Part 4.

Although I was still excited for this year's eclipse, I did not do nearly as much preparation. In 2017, we picked Nebraska for our viewing location because, historically speaking, it had the best odds of clear skies. Since that worked out well, I decided to follow the same line of reasoning for this year's eclipse. The historical cloud cover maps said south-central Texas was the place to be for clear skies, so around this time last year I booked a hotel for us in San Antonio, which was just inside the path of totality. I figured we could drive a bit closer to the center to get an even longer totality experience.

Right after I made the reservation, though, I started to think about backup plans. Bill had mentioned possibly going to Indiana to see the eclipse, since it wasn't too far from Abby and Matt. The historical data said the odds were not good for clear skies in April in Indiana, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to make a backup hotel reservation since it could be canceled if needed. So I looked around and was able to find a hotel in Columbus, IN, which was just south of Indianapolis and would get roughly 3 minutes of totality. I felt better having a backup plan.

As the eclipse got closer, plans came into better focus. Wendy's family was going to drive north from Kentucky to a town called Vincennes, IN, and watch the eclipse from a golf course. Vincennes was almost right on the center-line of the eclipse path, and would get just over 4 minutes of totality. Plus, it was only a 2 hour drive from our Indiana hotel, so it was feasible for us to drive there the morning of the eclipse, and watch it with Wendy's family. That pretty much sealed the deal and made Indiana become our eclipse destination. I canceled our San Antonio hotel.

The week before the eclipse the forecasts were predicting around 50% cloud cover for Indiana, which wasn't great, but it turned out San Antonio was looking even worse! So I was thankful I was going to the better spot, and I crossed my fingers and reminded myself cloud cover forecasting was very difficult to do.

Sunday morning, the day before the eclipse, Wendy and I drove down to Indiana. It rained during the first leg of the trip, which was not an auspicious start. To our surprise, though, traffic wasn't that bad. However, when we pulled into a rest area in Indiana there were so many cars that we had to wait in line to find a parking spot! It turned out there were plenty of spots at the end of the lot, but no one pulled forward far enough to see them. The rest of the drive was fairly uneventful, and by late afternoon we were checked into our hotel. The city of Columbus was going all out for the eclipse, and had tons of events going on. We heard about a renaissance fair, and saw a bunch of people out jogging as part of a 5K run.

That evening we went out to eat at a place called Hot Box Pizza, which was surprisingly good. Afterwards, Wendy remembered she had recorded a Nova episode about solar eclipses on our DVR at home, but had forgotten to watch it before we left. I discovered the entire episode, called "Great American Eclipse" was available on YouTube, which the TV in our hotel room could access. So we watched that, and it was pretty good.

Before going to bed, I checked the forecast again. A popular website among amateur astronomers for cloud cover forecasts is cleardarksky.com. It showed two different models for Vincennes. One said the sky would be completely clear, the other said it would be completely cloudy. Go figure!

A few weeks ago, Wendy and I were in Arizona doing some sight-seeing with my family. One day, after lunch, we stopped at Insomnia Cookies for dessert. I ordered a triple-chocolate-chunk deluxe cookie. The employee went into the back room, came back, and said they were out of those. I thought he said I could have two regular chocolate chunk cookies instead, for the same price. So I said sure. He handed me the bag of cookies, but when I opened it a moment later, there were actually three cookies inside!!! I was totally excited and ate all three. I regret nothing. They were delicious.

This reminded me of another momentous occasion, one that occurred in high school, and which I enshrined in a college application essay. I looked through the files on my computer and found a copy of it. The application had asked me to describe a dramatic moment in my life. This is what I wrote:

“Yeah, I’d like two quarter pounders and a medium Coke.”

“Okay, that’ll be three twenty-three, please.”

I paid the money, got my food, and sat down in the same seat of the same booth I always sit in when I go to that pinnacle of fast food franchises:  McDonald’s.

I was in my senior year of high school, and it was a wonderful time because McDonald’s was having a special offer:  two quarter pounders for two dollars.  By far the best fast food burger in town, the quarter pounder was now being offered at nearly half off it’s original price.  O Glorious Day!

However, the day was not going to be so glorious.  It was 3:30pm, and I had just gotten out of school, I had to be at work in half an hour at a local grocery store where I was employed as a stocker, I had to work until 10 that night, I had a Physics test the next day over momentum, a Calculus assignment on derivatives, the deadline for our high school news broadcast was in two days, and I, being the editor, had quite a bit of editing to get done by then, and, finally, to top it all off, it was Halloween.

My mind was racing as I finished my first burger, racing around and around, wondering how I was going to get everything done in time.  I stopped.  Looking, with great anticipation, at the box that held my second burger, I opened it.  But wait!  A mistake had been made:  instead of another quarter pounder with cheese, I had been given a double quarter pounder with cheese!  O Joyous Rapture!  I ate the whole thing and enjoyed every bite of it.

You may be wondering how this event is a dramatic influence in my life.  Well, it isn’t.  Not now, anyway.  But at the exact moment I discovered the mistake, it changed the way I looked at everything I had to do that night.  I got through work with a smile, finished my Calculus assignment, got an A on my Physics test the next day, and had our news broadcast edited and turned in on time.  That little surprise provided me with the enthusiasm I needed, and it’s little surprises like those that make life all the more fun. 

I don't remember which college the application was for, or if they even accepted me after reading my essay!

Anyway, returning to cookies: Last night Wendy made two huge chocolate chip cookies, following a recipe called Two Huge Chocolate Chip Cookies. They were delicious! Highly recommended.

If you have a favorite cookie recipe, please feel free to share in the comments!

A couple of Decembers ago, I wrote about the cat cubes I bought and how adorable it was when Chili and Jalapeno curled up inside them. Unfortunately, they have not done that in a quite a while. Recently, though, we put some cat beds in the bay window, which faces southeast and gets a lot of sunshine. The cats now love sitting there; it's become their favorite spot in the house, especially on sunny days:

There was some excitement a week or so ago, when I noticed a possum in broad daylight in our backyard, eating the seed that had dropped from the bird feeder. The cats were super interested!

Since possums are nocturnal, I wondered if maybe it was sick, but after some research I learned that it's not uncommon for possums to be seen during the day, especially during harsh winters when food is scarce. That was most likely the case here, as an arctic blast had just come to an end. I could see the possum shivering, and I felt bad for it, so I put out some wet and dry cat food for it, which it enthusiastically ate up before eventually wandering off.

While all this was happening, a rabbit stopped by to see what was going on:

All this talk of animals reminds me of a blog post I never got around to writing. For my birthday this past summer, Wendy booked us a visit to a local alpaca farm! We got to feed and pet the alpacas, and take lots of pictures and videos with them. It was very cool.

Here's a video of an alpaca chewing the cud. Wendy was quick to notice the figure-eight pattern its mouth made:

The last alpaca we visited was very, very friendly and enjoyed lots of pets. At one point, though, he stood up on his hind legs, and it was kind of terrifying to realize just how big of an animal he was!

Coming back around to cat beds, at the alpaca farm we bought a small mat made of alpaca fleece that was advertised as a pet bed:

The cats really liked it at first, but then they started biting it and pulling it apart, so it went into the closet. I will occasionally get it out and use it as a mat for me when I'm using my standing desk. It feels very luxurious!

For a long time (I've forgotten how long, exactly) we've subscribed to the Northwest Herald, which is the local newspaper in our neck of the woods. It's been a fine newspaper. You could tell they were cutting back on costs over the years, like when they switched to a smaller paper size, and when they stopped producing a Sunday newspaper, opting for a Saturday paper instead. We subscribed to the Saturday-only paper.

Last summer, when we took a trip to Kentucky, I put a hold on our newspaper delivery as usual. After our vacation, our newspaper didn't start delivery again. I didn't take any action at first, thinking it was a fluke and delivery would start again soon. But it didn't start again. So I called customer service and was told they would "send an email to upper management" about the problem, and credit my account for the missed delivery. That seemed fine and dandy.

Except the paper still didn't get delivered. So I called again, and they said the same thing about upper management.

But the paper still didn't get delivered. So I called again, and was told the same thing about upper management. Surely, this time would fix it, I thought.

I was wrong. The paper still didn't get delivered.

I don't know how many times we went back and forth like that, but none of it helped. At one point I got an email from them asking me to fill out a survey. I did. And l gave them negative ratings and left them a nasty note explaining my problem. I didn't hear anything back immediately.

At this point I devised a new strategy. I decided to stop calling and complaining, so they would stop crediting my account for missed deliveries, so they would charge my credit card again. Then I would file a dispute with my credit card company, hoping they would get involved and finally get the attention of the paper's "upper management". It took about a month for all of that to play out (can I play the long game or what?). And I never got a newspaper during that time. When I filed a dispute with my credit card company, they instantly refunded the charge from the newspaper, but that was it. I was disappointed; I was hoping for more fireworks.

A few days later, though, I was contacted by the newspaper. They were finally following up on my negative survey response. (Did my dispute with the credit card company actually help? The timing makes me think it did, but I don't know for sure.)  They put me in contact with one of their customer advocates. This was a friendly man who apologized for the issue, and explained they recently switched to a 3rd-party contractor for deliveries in my area, and they were having a lot of problems with that contractor, he said. A lot of problems. 

Since I hadn't called to complain in a while (due to my credit card strategy), he wanted me to start calling him directly when I didn't get a delivery, so he could have evidence that would "hold the contractor's feet to the fire", so to speak.

At this point, I should mention that what started as failed deliveries over the summer had now dragged on into the fall.

So I started a new cat-and-mouse game, following his suggestion. Every Saturday morning when I didn't have a paper, I would leave him a voice mail stating that fact, and then I would call customer support to request redelivery. They would routinely say the paper would be redelivered by 1pm. AND IT NEVER WAS! So I would call the man back after 1pm and leave him another voice mail saying I never got a redelivery. Then he would call me back Monday morning, confirm I never got a paper, express dismay and disappointment, and then credit my account.

THIS. WENT. ON. FOR. WEEKS.

Finally, one week I got a newspaper delivered. Unbelievable! Finally, the problem was solved. Except the next week it wasn't delivered. And not the next week, either. Or the next week.

I forget how many weeks it went on like that, but finally in mid-November I reached my limit. I'd gotten precisely one paper delivered in over 4 and a half months. I called customer support to cancel. When they asked why, I explained I hadn't gotten a newspaper in months.

They replied that they could "send an email to upper management".

I don't remember if I laughed or scoffed or threw the phone out the window. It probably wasn't the last one because I still have my phone.

But, anyway, I canceled, and decided to try a subscription to the Chicago Tribune instead. So far they have delivered my newspaper every day it's supposed to be delivered, and it's wonderful. I love it.

This afternoon I got a phone call from the Northwest Herald retention department. They stated right up front they wanted to win me back, and asked why I canceled. I said because they didn't deliver my paper for 4 and a half months no matter how many times I called to complain. The woman was stunned, quietly exclaiming "4 and a half months?! That's a long time." Yes. Yes, it was, I said. And then I added, with a fair amount of frustration: "I'm not coming back." She said she understood and thanked me for being honest.

I hung up the phone and now I've written this blog post and my rant is over.

A few nights ago the trail cam recorded video of a deer in our backyard! This is the first time we've gotten video of one, so I was quite excited.

In his book Animal Speak, Ted Andrews describes deer as symbolizing a "gentle luring to new adventure":

There are many stories and myths of deer luring hunters or even kings deep into the woods until they are lost and begin to encounter new adventures. One such example is found in the tales of King Arthur... Sir Gawain follows a white hart to many adventurous encounters.

• Once, 7 years ago, when we got a picture of two deer investigating the fake deer in our neighbor's yard.
• Another, 2 years ago, when we encountered two deer while riding our bikes on the Stone Bridge Trail near Rockford. I distinctly remember it because one of them had enormous antlers!

Fun!

A couple of weeks ago it got really hot around here, like 100 degrees hot, which is rare, and an 80-degree dew point, which is even rarer. One of my coworkers remarked: "No need to go to Florida, because Florida came to us." During one of those days I looked out the window and saw 3 little birds standing in the empty bird bath in our backyard.

"Okay, okay," I said. "I get the hint." I went outside and filled the bath with water. The next day, also a hot one, I looked out the window and saw 4 little birds splashing away in the bath. I was pleased for having done a good deed. Later, Wendy and I both saw a chipmunk on the bird bath getting a drink.

Chipmunks and birds weren't the only animals interested in water, though. A few days later, the bird bath was knocked over during the night, and there were some clear paw prints left on the surface:

After some online searching, I decided they were raccoon prints. The trail cam didn't have anything on it, but it faces away from the bird bath. Anyway, a few minutes after taking the above picture, I looked out the window and saw 2 birds standing on the deck railing, looking down at the empty bird bath. "Okay, but give me a minute!" I said.

A few days later, the bird bath was knocked over again during the night. The trail cam did show a raccoon in the yard, likely confirming my suspicion. This time, I re-positioned the trail cam so it shows the bird feeder and the bird bath in the same shot. The bath has not been knocked over since.

Then, in the early hours of Saturday morning, Wendy and I were awoken by a terrible screeching sound from one of our cats. We got up and hurried downstairs. The thought that ran through my very groggy head was that somehow an animal had gotten in the house and was attacking the cats. When I got downstairs, I could see the cats on the floor, warily looking up at the basement window. When I flipped on the light, I saw the faint shape of a small animal just outside the window run away. The cats seemed fine, but both had very puffy tails. If I hadn't turned on the light immediately, my eyes might have adjusted to the darkness and I may have gotten a better look at the animal.

It took a while to fall back asleep after that excitement. The next morning there was nothing on the trail cam. I'm guessing they were scared by another cat wandering through our yard, just outside the window. It might have even been the same cat that showed up on the trail cam in May (see this post).

Anyway, all of this excitement has reminded me of other backyard events that I've written about over the years, most notably:

• The Trapped Bird
• Backyard Turkeys

Our backyard has been the source of a number of interesting events -- and blog posts!

Today marks the end of meteorological summer. Here's a look back at some of the photos I've taken the past few months.

These giant pancakes declared Hopkinsville, KY as the Batter Capital of the World:

The pond near our house, at sunset:

Some sandhill cranes we spotted in the same pond:

While walking around our neighborhood I was spotted by an Alert Cat:

The Fox River as viewed from the Fox Bluff Conservation Area:

A strange sculpture from a sculpture garden in McHenry County:

Another sculpture from the same garden, this one in the middle of a labyrinth:

Looking towards the end of the Infinity Room at House on the Rock:

Looking down into a room at Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin:

A poster of some fun pictograms in the restroom of a diner near Madison, WI:

A monstrous, 2.5 pound heirloom tomato we got from our CSA farm share:

And finally, Jalapeno from on high:

This post presupposes that:

• You've been fascinated by UFOs since you were a kid.
• As a teenager, you read all the UFO books in your small town's public library
  
• ... and you became terrified of being abducted by aliens
  
• ... and you paid $20 to get a library card at a large metropolitan library so you could read more UFO books
  
• ... and you talked all about UFOs for your valedictorian speech at your high school graduation.
  
• As an adult, you've written well over a dozen posts about UFOs on your blog.

If you don't meet the above criteria, this post may not apply to you.

To stop believing in UFOs, follow these steps:

• Buy a copy of the book Mirage Men by Mark Pilkington, but don't read it because you sense it might poke holes in your UFO belief system. Instead, let it sit on your bookshelf for 13 years.
• Meanwhile, discover a book called Cranioklepty by Colin Dickey in a cruise ship's library (see this post). Read it and love it. Start following the author on social media.
  
• Get excited when Colin Dickey releases a new book, The Unidentified, all about UFOs and other paranormal topics. Read the book and discover the author is a huge skeptic of all things related to UFOs and spends much of the book debunking numerous claims. Be disappointed, even depressed about this for a while. And be angry at the author for being so stoopid.
  
• Stumble across a cheap copy of a book called Escaping the Rabbit Hole: How to Debunk Conspiracy Theories Using Facts, Logic, and Respect by Mick West and read it. Learn that we all have our own personal demarcation line when it comes to deciding what constitutes believable and unbelievable conspiracies. Learn that sometimes it's a single piece of evidence that makes a person believe a conspiracy, and that providing alternative explanations for that evidence can help a person break free from their belief. Also, be very glad you never fell down the "9/11 was an inside job" rabbit hole, even though you may have peeked into it a few times.
  
• 13 years after buying it, finally read Mark Pilkington's Mirage Men. Be completely astounded at the damning evidence that for years some U.S. military/intelligence agencies have been feeding fake information to the UFO community to promote belief in UFOs, and that at least one of the UFO researchers you've followed over the years has been duped by it. Be sad after reading the book because you, too, have been duped. Realize that your intuition was right, although the book didn't just poke holes in your belief system, it tore down load-bearing walls.
  
• Find a YouTube video of a talk Mark Pilkington gave in 2011, shortly after releasing Mirage Men, and think long and hard about the part at the beginning, where he reads this quote:
• "They are not material creatures, they are spiritual beings. They live in outer space, and when they feel hungry, they swoop down and kill innocent women and children. They eat the corpses, and then fly back to their spatial residences for a siesta in their bedrooms in space. It has been going on and on like this for years."
• The quote is from a Pakistani villager, who is actually describing CIA drone strikes.
• Discover Jack Brewer's blog, The UFO Trail. Get a copy of his book The Greys Have Been Framed as a birthday present. Read it and learn that:
• Hypnosis, which has long been used to recover alien abduction memories, has been firmly established as an ineffective technique for memory retrieval. It is, however, very effective at creating false memories.
• One of the most influential books you read as a teenager was written by a researcher who was not practicing sound research, but rather using questionable methods like hypnosis to seek confirmation of his pet theory.
• In the 1950s, the CIA was out of control, performing many involuntary human experiments, and these "blatant violations of human rights continue to disturb and anger researchers well into this century."
• It's possible that some claims of alien abduction, including some of the very first claims, may have nothing to do with aliens and everything to do with those CIA experiments.
• Discover a new book called "The Reliability of UFO Witness Testimony" that contains 57 cross-disciplinary essays from academic researchers. Download a free PDF copy of it and learn that:
• There are credibility issues with some of the more famous UFO cases. That includes the alien abduction of an Arizona logger (which was made into a terrifying movie you watched in high school) that has been exposed as a hoax.
• Even competent, highly trained, intelligent people can misperceive a mundane event and become convinced they've seen a UFO.
• Studies of criminal cases show that when witnesses are highly confident in their testimony ("I know what I saw!"), all it indicates is that they have constructed a coherent story in their mind, not necessarily that their story is true.
• Claims of UFO sightings and encounters with aliens can serve a psychological purpose, such as self-esteem regulation (e.g., feeling special for being chosen). They can also help alleviate feelings of loneliness.
• Similarly, alien abductions can serve psychologically as a metaphor for traumatic events the person can't face. The abduction scenario allows the trauma to surface in a "quasi-hallucinatory form".
• The above points are just from the first half of the book. What else will you learn when you read the second half?
• Realize that for years you've thought people who don't believe in UFOs are ignoring all the evidence that the phenomenon is real, and it turns out you are the one who's been ignoring evidence of hoaxes, deception, and shoddy research.
• Be sad about all that you've learned, and write a blog post about it.

Those are the steps that worked for me. Your experience may be different.

Here are 60 seconds of Jalapeno enjoying this morning's Wimbledon match:

On September 3rd, 2001, eight days before the 9/11 attacks, I dreamed that I went outside and saw dark storm clouds in the distance. Then an American Airlines plane appeared, flying very low. Suddenly, it swerved and crashed into the woods. I ran inside and called 9-1-1. When I went back out, emergency crews had arrived and were finding body pieces in the wreckage.

I completely forgot about the dream until 2 weeks after the 9/11 attacks, when I suddenly thought: didn't I have a dream about an airplane crash recently? I looked in my dream journal and there it was. To be honest, it freaked me out! Was it really possible I foresaw the 9/11 attacks in a dream?

I finished reading the book Precognitive Dreamwork and the Long Self by Eric Wargo, which I mentioned in a recent post.

The author lays out a whole framework of how precognitive dreams are possible and how they work. One of the key points he makes really helped resolve the freakiness I felt with my 9/11 dream. After spending years studying precognitive dreams he and others have had, Wargo suggests that when you have precognitive dreams, what's happening is that you're sensing your reactions or thoughts about a future event. You're not actually seeing future objective events. Essentially, you're remembering your own future thoughts: memory, he suggests, can work both backwards and forwards in time! For some reason, I find this idea much more palatable than being able to foresee the future. 

Wargo builds upon the work of J.W. Dunne, who published a book about precognitive dreams in 1927 called An Experiment in Time. When both Dunne and Wargo studied their dream journals, they discovered numerous precognitive dreams. Dunne (and Wargo, too) challenged his readers to do the same. Wargo even says you should assume all your dreams are precognitive.

That's all well and good, but I have a dream journal going back a number of years, and my dreams that could be interpreted as precognitive are very few and very far between. I linked to a couple of them in the previous post mentioned above. So, to convince myself that I rarely have them, I sat down with my dream journal a few weeks ago and started looking for any evidence of precognition. And I could not believe it, but I found one I'd had just the previous week! To say I was stunned is a bit of an understatement. 

In the dream (which I had on April 12th), I was eating pancakes with syrup at a table, for breakfast. Somehow, I accidentally knocked my plate on the floor, and maple syrup got all over the carpet. I got really upset, but then started cleaning it up. At the end, I noticed a Christmas tree in the kitchen with a lot of unopened presents.

Four days later, on April 16th, Wendy was making pancakes when the bowl suddenly tipped over, and pancake batter got all over the counter and floor. She got really upset, but then we both started cleaning up the mess. I very rarely dream about pancake accidents, and we very rarely experience them in reality. And yet, my dream preceded the actual event by 4 days.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized this dream followed several patterns Wargo identifies in his book. For one, it is extremely easy to not notice precognitive dreams if you're not looking for them. He likens it several times to the River Lethe from Greek mythology. In my case, I probably would never have noticed this dream was precognitive if I hadn't been reading a book about them and looked through my dream journal for examples.

You'll notice one big difference is that I had the accident in the dream, whereas Wendy had the accident in reality. Precognitive dreams 1) are symbolic representations, and 2) are never specific enough to take action to prevent them. There are some deep sections in the book that explain this. According to quantum physics, sending information back in time is allowed. But any information sent back in time will always result in a future where that information is sent back in time. It's called the principle of self-consistency. Wargo suggests there's nothing I could have done to prevent the pancake accident. If there was, I never would have dreamed about it in the first place. (He stresses this means it's not your fault if you have a precognitive dream that comes true.)

Another pattern is that a big sense of relief (what he calls thoughts of "I survived") are often the target of precognitive dreams. That's exactly what happened here. When Wendy had the accident, she initially gasped and then was silent. I was in the living room and got up to see what happened. Part of me was worried I would discover she'd cut herself and blood would be everywhere. So when I saw the bowl had spilled, and batter was everywhere, I was greatly relieved. It was a mess, yes, but we could clean it up. No first-aid or hospital trips were required.

And finally, let's talk about that Christmas tree. When I first had the dream, I thought "That's weird. It's April, why am I dreaming about Christmas?" Well, the book claims that precognitive dreams often contain a symbolic representation of your thoughts about the dream when you later realize it's precognitive. I think the tree and unopened presents were a sign this dream was a gift I hadn't opened yet, and foreshadowed my excitement when I later realized its value (like a kid at Christmas).

Now I want to dig deeper into my dream journal to see if I can find other precognitive dreams. Wargo points out these dreams often have "calendrical resonance", where you have the dream a few years before the event, on or about the same day. He mentions an astronomer who dreamed he discovered a peculiar exoplanet around a specific star, and 9 years later to the day discovered an exoplanet, with the same peculiar properties, but around a different star!

There are some things in the book I don't agree with, like Wargo's suggestion that all dreams could be precognitive. I now want to dive deeper into the Edgar Cayce readings, to re-familiarize myself with what Cayce says about dreams. He had a decent amount to say on the subject, and helped a number of people interpret their dreams. I was a little disappointed Wargo didn't cover it in the book, even though, funnily enough, he mentioned someone who had a precognitive dream about giving a talk at the Edgar Cayce organization.

Lastly, Wargo says he now believes that precognitive dreams have a sort of social orienting function, which draws us to the reward of human connection. He encourages readers to share their dreams with others (hence this blog post), and says that the precognitive dream itself may be unimportant. What is important is what the dream leads you to do, or the connections it helps you make.

So, let's just say I found this book extremely interesting.

You might recall that part of why I got a trail cam a few years ago is because food in the bird feeder was mysteriously disappearing in large quantities over a very short time frame. See this post. I was hopeful the cause was a Sasquatch, and that I would get proof of its existence. After several years of watching the trail cam videos, it pains me greatly to say that the food disappearance likely has nothing to do with Sasquatch, and everything to do with birds.

Having accepted this fact, I check the trail cam much less frequently these days. I did check it this morning, though, and of the 28 videos it had captured in the last 12 days, here are the notable ones.

First up, a couple of ducks have discovered the food that falls underneath the bird feeder. I think this is the first time I've seen ducks here.

Next is a black and white cat that briefly made an appearance. It walked right in front of our basement window. I can't help but wonder if our black and white cats (which are inside-only cats) saw it.

And finally, there's this hilarious video. Not only did the squirrel fail to climb the pole, but it also got a rather rude surprise from a chipmunk!

This morning I saw two sandhill cranes waiting to get into a local rec center. I didn't have the heart to tell them that it's closed on Friday, though.

It's always fun to see (and hear) sandhill cranes!

I'm currently reading a book about precognitive dreams; it's called Precognitive Dreamwork and the Long Self: Interpreting Messages from your Future. I stumbled across it at the employee bookstore, and was excited to find it. I recognized the author, as he previously wrote a book called Time Loops, which I haven't read, but which received a lot of high praise.

Anyway, the book has gotten me thinking about a few dreams I've had over the years that turned out to be true. I've documented a couple of minor instances previously; see my Cherry Cordials Alert and Darkhawk posts. In this post I want to share another instance that might not count as precognitive, but I still found it quite funny.

Close to two years ago, on the night of May 28, 2021, I dreamed that I was at a conference. I asked the man next to me what his name was; he replied Royc. I looked at his nametag and saw it was spelled just like that: Royc. When I woke up the next morning, my first thought was "How funny, there was a typo in my dream. It left out the letter 'e' in Royce."

Out of curiosity, though, I searched the web for "royc", and the first results were about a soul singer named Roy C. I listened to the first song of his that appeared in the results... and it was one of the funniest songs I'd ever heard! I listened to a few others, and found another song that was hilarious! I don't know why I didn't blog about this at the time.

So, if you don't mind a bit of adult humor, let me recommend these two songs by Roy C. The first is called "Peeping through the Window":

And the second is called "Infidelity, Georgia":

I hope you enjoy them as much I did.

As far as the book goes, we have precognitive dreams thanks to quantum physics, where sending information back in time is entirely possible. From what I understand so far, my future self was so entertained by these two songs that it sent Roy C's name back in time via my dreams to ensure that I discovered them!

Last week my trail cam captured a rather grim video: a coyote chasing down a rabbit in our backyard. Fortunately, the final seconds of the chase are shrouded in darkness, but it sure seems like the coyote is closing in on and about to catch its prey. If you turn up the volume you can hear what is, perhaps, the cry of a rabbit as it gets caught. I know it's the circle of life and all, but man, I feel bad for that rabbit.

Here it is:

And a few days later a coyote wandered up close to the trail cam, in daylight hours. It may be the best coyote sighting my trail cam has recorded:

I just searched for "do rabbits make sounds" and the first result includes this text:

The sound of a rabbit screaming will send chills down your spine for two reasons. First, it sounds eerily close to a terrified child. Second, rabbits only scream when a predator is chasing them down or they are dying. It is never a false alarm when a rabbit screams.

Sadness.

RIP little rabbit.

This winter has finally turned snowy! We've gotten several rounds of snow the past week and a half, with the biggest coming on Saturday, when we got nearly 6 inches! I've been dutifully measuring snowfall each day and reporting my totals to CoCoRaHS (I've mentioned this citizen science project a few times in previous posts). It's fun to see how my measurements compare to others in the area.

When it comes to weather around Chicago, Tom Skilling is the go-to meteorologist. He's the chief meteorologist for WGN TV, and has been the most popular weather forecaster in Chicago for pretty much forever. He's basically a celebrity, known for his love of weather. That really comes across in the WGN weather blog, where he has an "Ask Tom" article each day, and generally geeks out with all kinds of weather information.

For example, here is a fun fact: Today on the WGN weather blog, I learned that this January Chicago received only 18% of possible sunshine, making it the cloudiest January on record! The records began in 1894. It's also the 2nd cloudiest month ever in Chicago! That's the kind of geeky weather fun Skilling provides. (Here's a not-so-fun fact, though, that I learned today: Tom Skilling's brother was CEO of Enron during its accounting scandal and spent over a decade in jail.)

I mention all of this because sometimes Skilling will report CoCoRaHS totals on the weather blog, and sometimes my measurement makes the report. It's very cool when it happens. This morning, though, one of my co-workers said that during last night's TV forecast, Skilling showed McHenry as having gotten 11.1 inches of snow in the last 9 days. My co-worker wanted to know if that was from my snow measurements. I didn't know, so I looked up my data, added up the totals, and discovered I had exactly 11.1 inches! It really was my measurement!

I eventually found the video of the forecast, but I couldn't find a way to link to it. So instead, here's a screenshot of Tom Skilling himself pointing at my snow totals for the last 9 days!

How cool is that!

For at least the past month, if not longer, every time I've gone to the store to buy pet supplies I've seen these little collapsible cat cubes for sale. When collapsed, they form a small cat bed:

When expanded, they form a little cube that cats can curl up inside:

Even though I really wanted to buy them, I resisted. It's a slippery slope because there are so many cute cat accessories out there that I want to buy.

Fortunately, my patience paid off. I went to the store the weekend after Thanksgiving, and there was a big display of these cat cubes with a sign saying they were 60% off. My will power collapsed, just like the cubes, and I bought two.

Shortly after I got home and set them on the floor, both cats went inside:

Now they sleep in their cubes on a regular basis, and it is adorable. As I typed this, I realized I hadn't seen Chili in a while. I went upstairs and he was curled up in his cube. I am so glad I bought them, and extra glad I got them on sale!

Finally, I am happy to report that Jalapeno has become a soccer fan thanks to the World Cup. He was really into the France-Poland game this morning! Here is a short video of his enthusiasm:

About a month or so ago I was vacuuming the house in preparation for Wendy's parents coming for a visit. I don't remember what I was thinking about, but I must have been a bit hungry, because I turned off the vacuum and said to to Wendy: "Isn't there some kind of crunchy, cheesy snack called Conquistadors?"

Wendy was using her laptop right then. She did a quick search, and discovered that there's not one called Conquistadors, but there used to be one called Cornquistos:

That's exactly what I was thinking of! I have no idea why it popped into my head while vacuuming, but it did, and it led to a trip down memory lane.

First of all, Cornquistos came out in the 1980s, and are no longer made, which is a bummer. They had a crunchy corn shell with Mexican-flavored fillings, like nacho cheese, taco, and picante. They're similar to Combos, which are still made, but Combos use a pretzel shell and are not nearly as good, according to Cornquistos fans.

Secondly, there are a couple of memorable commercials for Cornquistos. One uses the slogan "The corn crunch with fillings that say... Olé!":

And the other commercial, which is where I must have gotten the conquistadors confusion, features CORNquistadors on an airplane, on a quest to bring Cornquistos to the United States ("One crunch and you're conquered"). Click the link below to watch it; I couldn't get it to embed properly.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x926s4

The funny thing is that I don't even remember if I liked Cornquistos! But I figure I must have, and I wish they were still made so that I could try them again.

Anyone else remember them?

In a recent blog post I wrote about 2 wild turkeys Wendy and I saw last month during a walk around our neighborhood. It turns out that was just a prelude to even more turkey excitement! (I've already shared most of the pictures in this post with family and friends, but I wanted to document it on my blog for posterity.)

A couple of weeks ago, we had unseasonably warm weather for early November. It was late afternoon, and I was working from home with all the doors and windows open so I could enjoy the weather. At one point I decided to look out the window, and I saw two wild turkeys in our backyard! They were eating the food from our bird feeder that had fallen to the ground.

I ran downstairs, grabbed my phone, and starting taking lots of pictures and videos. Our cats were super interested, as you can imagine! The turkeys were right outside our basement window. At times they were only a few feet away from myself and the cats.

They hung around our backyard for nearly 30 minutes! At one point they walked up onto our deck; one of them flapped its wings to sort of fly/jump up the deck steps. I ran upstairs to get a better angle, but I think I scared them off the deck. Then they wandered into our neighbor's yard for a bit, and I thought they were gone for good, but they wandered back into our yard again. After a while they disappeared to the side of the house and were gone for good.

Here are some pics of the event, starting with some very interested cats:

A cat-turkey stare down!

I really liked this picture, because if you look closely, you can see cats, turkeys, a squirrel under the feeder, and a bird at the feeder: 

And finally, here's a video of the turkeys:

It was a very memorable afternoon!

The weather was so nice today that I decided to take the afternoon off and rake the leaves that had overtaken the yard. I took these photos before I started:

And about 2 and a half hours later I took these photos:

Now I am quite tired!

A couple of Fridays ago, Wendy and I went for a walk around the neighborhood during lunch, and we saw 2 wild turkeys!

I was super excited to see them, because I've never seen turkeys in our neighborhood before. For Wendy, it was a routine experience, since she often sees turkeys on her commute to work.

I don't know why the turkeys crossed the road, but I do at least have video evidence of them doing so:

Exciting!

Trees

The past week or so we've heard the first acorns drop from the trees, bounce off the roof, and land on the deck. It's a sure sign that summer is nearing the end and fall is right around the corner. And with fall, leaves. 

Last year was unusual because the majority of leaves fell remarkably late. Our trash company comes by twice each fall and vacuums up any leaves that we rake to the curb. Because the leaves fell so late, we barely had any for them to collect both times they came by. I assumed they would make a third pass at some point, so I raked the leaves to the curb once they finally fell. As the days went by with no sign of a leaf-vacuum truck, I started to question my assumption. So I called to find out what their plans were, and they said they would not make a third pass, but they were still accepting bagged leaves as part of normal trash pick up for a few more weeks.

Being rule followers, Wendy and I spent an entire day bagging leaves. It was a lot of work. When we finished, we had 27 bags of leaves sitting by the curb! Trash day came and thankfully they took them all. However, the next week the trash company sent a brief, strongly-worded statement to our subdivision stating there was a limit of 8 bags of leaves per household! Well, at least our leaves were gone!

As it turned out, we didn't need to bag the leaves. Enough people in the county complained about the leaves that our township rented a leaf-vacuum truck(!), and made a pass through all the township roads. I think they visited our neighborhood sometime in late December, but I don't recall for sure. Anyway, it was rather frustrating that our bagging effort wasn't necessary!

It will be interesting to see what transpires this year with the leaves.

Trail Cam

I can't believe it was only last year that I bought my trail cam. It feels like I've had it for years. Perhaps that's a sign of how ingrained in my daily life it's become. For example, there have been many evenings in the last year and a half, where we think we hear something outside (or smell something, in the case of a skunk!), or our cats are looking out the basement window with great interest, and we take note of the time, so that when I check the trail cam the next morning, we can see if there was an animal in the backyard at that moment.

Well, not a single time has it ever happened that I found a video of an animal at that moment. Not once, until this week!

Thursday evening the weather was very pleasant, so we had all the doors and windows open. Shortly before 11pm, we heard our neighbor's dogs start barking, and keep barking for a while. The neighbors came out and yelled at the dogs to stop. Wendy looked up at the clock and said "It's 10:55pm. We should remember that to see if their dogs are barking at an animal on the trail cam." That was a good point; it hadn't occurred to me.

And sure enough, she was right. The next morning I checked, and at 10:51pm there was this video of a coyote running through our yard. Mystery solved!

Several months ago I got this awesome book called Animal Speak:

It's an incredibly thorough guide to interpreting the signs of nature through the animals you encounter. What does it mean when a fox crosses your path? Or a particular type of bird keeps catching your attention? Or you dream of a certain animal? According to the author (Ted Andrews), "nature -- in the guise of animals -- is a means by which the spiritual links to the physical." Throughout the book he examines "the symbolic and mythical aspects attributed to animals and how that should speak to us personally."

He also says:

When we learn to speak with the animals, to listen with animal ears and to see through animal eyes... it is then that the animals are no longer our subordinates. They become our teachers, our friends, and our companions.

Fish Kill

On Tuesday, March 8, I went for a walk around the neighborhood during lunch. I noticed a surprisingly large dead fish on the shore of the pond:

Then I looked further along the shore and was horrified to see hundreds upon hundreds of small dead fish along the edge of the pond:

At first I didn't believe they could all be fish, so I started to get closer for a better look. I didn't get very far, though, because the stench was overpowering. That answered my question. It really was a bunch of dead fish. Apparently fish kills like this occur when there are large temperature swings that affect the oxygen levels in the lake. A few days before this it was unseasonably warm, so that likely explains it.

I think our HOA must have hired a company to clean up the mess. Several times I saw buckets, shovels, and large plastic bags sitting by the edge of the lake. The awful smell lingered for weeks, even after the dead fish were gone.

I haven't found much mention of fish in Animal Speak, other than a reference to fish and water symbolizing intuition and the creative element of life. There was an entire chapter, though, on signs and omens. People around the world "have held strong the idea that the changing aspects of Nature reflect changes that are likely to occur within their own life." In other words: "The divine forces speak to humanity through Nature and its varied expressions."

The book cautions that there's a difference between omens and superstitions. Reading omens is based on reason and a strong knowledge base of the environment and animals within it. Superstition is based on irrational fears. Having taken many walks around our neighborhood over the last decade and a half, I know from first-hand experience that a fish kill like this is unusual. Given what happened with both my dad and Wendy's grandfather right after this event, I can't help but think it was an omen.

Hawk

Exactly one week later, on March 15, I was in the kitchen and heard a loud thud from downstairs. I looked around the corner and saw a hawk right outside the basement window!

It must have flown into the window and been momentarily stunned. Fortunately, it was stunned long enough for me to grab my phone and take a picture. It flew off shortly afterwards. Later, Wendy did some bird sleuthing and determined this is probably a Cooper's hawk. It eats other birds, so it makes sense that it would be around our backyard bird feeder!

Animal Speak says that, in general, hawks possess great visionary power that "awakens our vision and inspires us to a creative life purpose". Also: "the ability to soar and glide upon the currents is part of what hawk can teach." There are many different species of hawk, so the book picks only one to look at in-depth (the red-tailed hawk). It encourages study of the specific species you encounter, but it does mention Cooper's hawk briefly, saying that since it mostly eats other birds, it "reflects the old idea that what you eat, you become." 

Skunk

Around the same time, on March 12 and March 14, my trail cam finally recorded video of a skunk! I've smelled their presence numerous times over the years (and once I even caught a skunk in a chipmunk trap!), but it took almost an entire year for my trail cam to record one:

According to Animal Speak, the skunk is an animal of great respect ("Just look at how people respond to it") and it can teach us to give and expect respect by recognizing and asserting our own qualities. "The skunk does not get out of the way of any animal... It is self-assured and confident in itself." Skunks are fearless, but very peaceful, and always give warnings before spraying. Those warnings include:

• Stamping its feet and turning its back on you.
• Raising up its tail
• Looking back over its shoulder.

However: "Once the skunk has seen you over its shoulder, it is too late. [It] can spray 12-15 feet with tremendous accuracy." It can also "repeat the spraying five to six times before it must build up again naturally."

A skunk can also indicate a need to use or study fragrances and aromatherapy. Since skunks are mostly solitary animals, they can also represent a need to balance attracting people and spending time alone.

There's a great deal more about skunks in the book, but it concludes by saying "When skunk shows up as a totem you are going to have opportunities to bring out new respect and self-esteem... Remember that people are going to notice you. How they notice and remember can be controlled by you. This is what skunk can help teach."

Cardinal

It's fairly common to see cardinals in our backyard and at the bird feeder. What is slightly unusual is that a couple of weeks ago, as I went outside for a walk during lunch, I saw two male cardinals in one of our trees, chattering away at each other:

Animal Speak says "That which you most notice when out in nature has spoken to you." So what do these two cardinals have to teach? The book summarizes these birds as "Renewed vitality through recognizing self-importance". It also says that while most female birds are quiet, the female cardinal joins in on the whistling with the the males, which is unusual. "This reflects that we should be listening to the inner voice (the feminine) more closely for our own health and well-being."

Also noteworthy is that cardinals eat many weed seeds and injurious insects, such as the 17-year cicada. This "can reflect a need to be more careful about your diet, that what you are eating may be injurious to yourself and affecting your overall vitality." It did not escape my attention that I saw these two cardinals right after eating a Jimmy Johns sandwich for lunch!

"When [cardinals] appear as a totem, they do so to remind us to become like them. Add color to your life, and remember that everything you do is of importance."

Wrapping up

I could go on with the coyotes, raccoons, rabbits, and turtles I've seen recently, but I'll wrap up this post here. I'm not done reading the book, so there is still much more to learn. I'll end with this quote, which I quite like:

Humanity has lost that instinctive tie to the rhythms and patterns of Nature, and with that loss has come a loss of the reality of magic. Nature tries to show us everyday that all forms of life can teach us. As we learn to listen to Nature, we break down our outworn perceptions. We find that magical creation is the force of life inherent in all things. And it is this, above all else, that Nature teaches to those who will learn from Her.

Last week we drove down to Kentucky to see Wendy's family for Christmas. It was cloudy for most of the drive; towards the end the sun finally made an appearance and I was surprised how much it lifted my mood. It was just nice to see a bit of sunshine.

A couple of days ago, while running some errands around town, I heard the song "Sunshine On My Shoulders" by John Denver:

That perfectly describes how I felt seeing the sun on the drive to Kentucky!

Yesterday the new year greeted us with close to 4 inches of snow. When I shoveled the driveway this morning, the sky was clear and the sun shined brightly. I thought again of the John Denver song, especially the line "Sunshine nearly always makes me high".  It occurred to me that it's pretty much the polar opposite of the song "Rainy days and Mondays always get me down" by the Carpenters.

This afternoon, as we took down the Christmas tree, I streamed some John Denver songs through the speaker, including "Sunshine On My Shoulders". Great music!

In other news, we've adopted two kittens! They are 5 months old, both male. We're keeping the names they had at the shelter: Chili and Jalapeno. Wendy has nicknamed them the "Spicy Pepper Boys", which I quite like. So far Chili seems to be the more outgoing of the two, and Jalapeno the cautious one.

When we adopted our previous cat, Gordon, he was 6 years old. This is our first experience with kittens, and I don't think we realized just how much energy they would have! The first couple of days we alternated between "They're so cute!" and "What have we done?!"

They've just about fully explored the lower level of our house, and identified the best running lanes when sprinting all around. It's so funny when they spot each other from across the room. They'll crouch down and stare intently at the other one for a few seconds. Then they'll wiggle their butt, run full speed, and jump up and attack each other mid-air. Yesterday one of them landed in the trash can! It was hilarious to see the confused look on his face, with his head and paws sticking out of the trash!

Bird Feeder

A few posts ago I wrote about the trapped bird and how I bought a new bird feeder called the Squirrel Buster Plus. Unfortunately, it just didn't work out, and I have no idea why. The birds seemed to like it at first, and ate a decent chunk of the food in it, but then they just stopped coming by. Week after week went by without any birds, which turned into month after month. It was kind of depressing. I never had this problem with the old feeder.

So a couple weeks ago I bought another SquirrelAway bird feeder, which is what the old one was (this post was the first time I mentioned it). Here's what it looks like:

As you recall, the problem with the old one was that two times a bird got stuck in it (the first one died, detailed here). But that didn't start happening until after squirrels managed to grab hold of the feeder, gnaw on some of the port holes and make them wider. I'm hoping that birds won't get stuck on the new feeder with normal sized holes, and that the baffle I installed on the pole a few years ago will prevent squirrels from ever gnawing on it again.

The day after I put out the new SquirrelAway feeder, the birds were back in full force, and I was happy to see them! For whatever reason, they seem to really like this feeder, and as I type this I see a cardinal eating away at it. So, hurray! The birds are back!

Trail Cam

I didn't check my trail cam for videos Saturday morning because it was cold, wet, and snowing (we got almost two and half inches of rain that night before a cold front moved through). When I checked it this morning (Sunday) there were 11 videos on it. Normally when it captures a bunch of videos they're almost all of rabbits, patiently hopping around our backyard and eating away at the grass. So I asked Wendy to guess how many of the 11 were rabbits. She guessed 8. I guessed 10.

It turned out to be zero! There were 6 videos of raccoons (some quite fat) and 5 videos of coyotes. Here are some of the better ones:

A fat raccoon:

A curious raccoon:

Coyotes:

Bike Ride

Finally, the weather today was sunny and upper 40s, so Wendy and I went on a rare December bike ride around our neighborhood. We rode for 3 miles. I bundled up with a jacket, ear muffs, and gloves. It was cold, but still enjoyable. A week or two ago I went for a bike ride at lunch because it was in the 50s. I may actually have another chance this week, because Wednesday the predicted high is 62.

A couple days ago Wendy was reading through old posts on this blog, and she came across this post from several years ago, where I mentioned we had gotten a lot of rain and that the pond near our house was the highest I'd ever seen it. Here's the picture I included in that post, which was taken in May 2019:

How times have changed! Our section of northern Illinois is currently having an "extreme drought" that's lasted most of this year. We didn't get much snow last winter, then had a dry spring, summer, and now fall. Here's what the same bench and pond look like today:

The pond is now the lowest I've ever seen it!

Last week the Illinois State Climatologist blog had an interesting post comparing this year's drought to the severe drought years of 2012 and 1988. I was surprised to learn that this year's drought hasn't been as bad. There are several reasons for it:

• This year had less rain in the spring, which actually helped crops. Dry springs allow plants to develop longer roots so they can reach deeper moisture. Some trees also produce smaller leaves, which leads to less water loss later in the year.
• This year didn't get as hot as the other 2 years. I was very surprised by this, since temps were warmer than normal this year. But the daily high temperatures never got really hot, like in 2012 and 1988.
• It was more humid this year, which led to less evaporation.
• The little rain we got over the summer came at just the right time to prevent widespread crop damage.

The article points out we got a decent amount of rain in October, but we're still up to 10-inches below normal. The long range forecast predicts a warmer and wetter winter for Illinois. The more precipitation we get before the soil freezes, the better shape we'll be in next year.

In the meantime, I'll continue my daily precipitation measurements for CoCoRaHs. Just for fun, I ran a report comparing my measurements for the months of March-October in 2020 and 2021. In 2020 I recorded 31 inches of precipitation. In 2021 I recorded 18 inches! Here's hoping for more rain.

I don't like horror movies, and it's all because of The Exorcist. I watched it during college and it scared me out of my mind. For the most part, I swore off horror movies after that. There are a couple of exceptions, though. One is Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, which I always enjoy watching. (Funnily enough, one of my coworkers says The Shining is what made him stop watching horror movies.) The other exception is vampire movies. For whatever reason, I still enjoy watching them. Here's a list of some of the more obscure vampire movies I've watched.

We Are the Night (2010)

This is a German lesbian vampire movie. I watched it years ago, and while I don't remember much about it, it was really good. From what I recall, the music and cinematography are excellent, and the movie drives home what is lost when one becomes a vampire.

Vampire's Kiss (1988)

A young Nicolas Cage stars in this movie. I kind of love Nicolas Cage because he's so crazy, and this is one of the craziest movies of his career (he famously eats a live cockroach in this one). He plays a man who thinks he's been bitten by a vampire, and thinks he's slowly turning into one, but really he's just going insane. It's kind of sad. Parts of the movie haven't aged well (his character continually harasses his secretary), but overall I really liked it.

Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)

This is directed by Werner Herzog, who has made some fantastic movies in his career (e.g., Fitzcarraldo). I cannot describe, though, how bleak and depressing this movie is. If you are ever in the mood for bleak and depressing, this is the movie you MUST WATCH. A lonely Dracula leaves Transylvania and brings death and the plague and lots and lots of rats everywhere he goes. I think I liked this movie, but I'm not actually sure. It is so depressing.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)

An Iranian vampire movie. It moves along at a glacial pace, but has an awesome soundtrack to make up for it. A young man falls in love with a lonely woman. What he does not know is that she's a vampire who's been terrorizing the town at night. She tries to warn him she has a darker side, but the two fall in love regardless. Gradually, the young man realizes who and what she is, and their relationship is put to the test. An excellent movie.

Ganja & Hess (1973)

I saved the best for last. With a black director (Bill Gunn) and an almost all-black cast, this offers a much different take on vampires. It is slow, meditative, and very surreal. One reviewer described this as a "scholarly" movie, and I think that fits. An anthropologist (Hess) is stabbed with an ancient knife that turns him into a vampire. As he adjusts to his new blood lust, he falls in love with a woman (Ganja) and turns her into a vampire so they can live together forever. Religion figures prominently in the movie, with several scenes at a black church. There is also a lot of emphasis on the blood references within Christianity; by the end it's almost overwhelming. I loved this movie, and kept thinking about it for weeks afterwards.

Here are some notable videos from my trail cam over the past few weeks:

Fox videos

Two foxes in the same video! This is the only time that's happened.

A nice closeup view:

This is rather rude, but funny:

Raccoon videos

The family of raccoons is back! The little ones have grown a lot since the previous video.

A few weeks later they return again, this time for a nice closeup.

Three years ago I posted about a bird that died at our bird feeder, with its head stuck in the food hole. That was very weird. A couple of weeks ago, in the evening as it was getting dark, Wendy looked out the window and saw a bird at the feeder with its head in the hole. She looked again a while later, and the same bird was still perched in the same position. "Is that another dead bird?" she asked.

We both watched the bird for any sign of movement. Suddenly it flapped its wings, so it was alive! But it also didn't change its position. Its head was still in the hole. We realized then that the poor thing was stuck, and we had to do something to help free it. Otherwise it would stay stuck until it died. Probably just like the bird from 3 years ago!

We went outside and tried to figure out what to do. The bird made no effort to fly away, so it was clearly stuck. I got a stick and tried to gently nudge the bird from side to side, hoping that would help. But it didn't. All that happened is that the bird flapped its wings every so often. I needed another course of action. So I went inside, got some gloves, and very gingerly took hold of the bird and tried to gently pull it out. This was terrifying, because I was afraid I was going to hurt it. But I couldn't get the bird out. It was really stuck in there. A couple of times as I held it, the bird squawked at me, at which point I immediately let go. I needed to try something else.

At this point I took the feeder off the pole it hangs on, and tried turning it this way and that, thinking that maybe a different angle would help the bird get free. But that didn't work either. I tried again to nudge it with a stick, but still no luck. Wendy was watching all of this, holding a flashlight for me, and offering suggestions and moral support. The only other thing I could think of was to remove the bottom of the feeder, which was held on by screws. I didn't think it would help, based on where the bird's head was stuck, but I couldn't think of anything else to do, and neither could Wendy.

So I set the feeder on the grass, went inside, and got a screwdriver. When I came back out, I walked up to the feeder and started to kneel down. The feeder was sitting slightly unevenly on the grass, and as I was kneeling, it suddenly lost balance, and started to tip over. Wendy gasped, and I watched in horror as the feeder seemed to tip over in slow motion.

When it hit the ground, somehow the bird popped free! It flew a foot or two off the ground, hovered for a few seconds, and then flew off above Wendy's head, at which point she screamed. I watched it fly to the very top of one of our trees. It's flight path was slightly wobbly, but only slightly, and it was able to fly to the top of the tree.

Wendy and I both breathed a huge sigh of relief! The bird was free and seemed to be mostly unharmed. We were so worried it would be badly injured, or that we wouldn't be able to free it. I'm not sure how exactly it popped free, but I'm so glad it did. I decided right then and there to throw the bird feeder away. One dead bird and almost another one was enough, so into the garbage bin it went. When we got back inside, Wendy said "That was stressful!" Yes! Yes, it was! (I'm exhausted from just typing up the story for this post.)

The next morning I got to relive a few scenes of the trapped bird, because my trail cam dutifully recorded videos of the event! It didn't get any particularly good videos, though. There's one of me nudging the bird with a stick, one of me looking at the feeder while Wendy holds the flashlight, one of me taking off my gloves to go inside and get the screwdriver, and one of me watching the bird fly away right after it got free. I was hoping it would get a video of the bird popping free, but it didn't.

Here's the best screenshot I could get from the videos of the trapped bird (it's on the left):

Later that evening I started looking online for a new bird feeder. I found two different feeders on Amazon where someone left a review saying the same thing (a bird getting stuck) happened to them! One of the reviews even had a picture of it. This is crazy; I never knew such a thing could happen!

Eventually I did buy a new bird feeder, the Squirrel Buster Plus from a local wild bird shop. It took several days for the birds to get used to it, but they're now starting to use it more:

I sure hope this one goes better!

In my recent post about Wildlife, I mentioned a bunch of different animals: raccoons, ducks, fish, foxes, toads, and turtles. But I did not mention egrets, despite seeing them frequently at the pond near our house. The main reason I didn't is because I couldn't get a picture of them. They often hang out along the shore of the pond, but every time I got close enough to take a picture, they would fly away as soon as I pulled out my phone.

Finally I realized I should get my phone's camera ready in advance. A few days later, while I was out walking, I saw an egret on the shore in the distance. I pulled my phone out, started the camera app, held it up for a picture, and kept walking towards the bird. Once I got close enough, all I had to do was press a button. It still flew off when I got too close, but at least I got some semi-decent pictures:

A couple weeks ago, I was out for a walk in the evening, and I noticed an egret with a fish in its mouth! I pulled out my phone and snapped a picture. Apparently it was too focused on dinner to fly away this time.

As I was looking at my phone and taking this picture, I heard a crunching sound. I looked up, and it had swallowed the fish!