Alaska Brown Bears at Brooks River Falls photo from National Park Service website
Here’s a link about Alaska brown bears. It includes the article below plus the option to go directly to the live streaming camera. You will see salmon leaping up the beautiful Brooks River falls and the immense bears wandering around, hoping to catch them.
“Wildlife lovers around the world can once again tune in to a live stream of Katmai National Park and Preserve’s salmon-grabbing brown bears.
“Katmai National Park is home to one the world’s highest concentration of brown bears, according to the National Park Service.
“The park’s bear cam is a popular feature that, during the height of the summer season, is viewed by tens of thousands of people on a given day, the park said in a release.
“The live stream camera is aimed at the Brooks River, where many iconic photographs have been taken of salmon jumping straight into the mouths of waiting bears.
“This year, many sub-adult bears – usually 2.5 and 5 years old – are expected to be seen this summer. These bears “tend to move about erratically and may be of great interest to many viewers,” the release says.
“This is going to be a great summer for people to watch the cameras,” Anela Ramos, district interpreter with the National Park Service, said in a release. “Especially with so many young bears running around this season, the cams provide a remarkable opportunity to increase our understanding of the behavior of brown bears.”
“Katmai National Park, established in 1918, is celebrating its centennial year. The park’s headquarters in the community of King Salmon is about a 290-mile flight from Anchorage, according to the park.”
Article by Laurel Andrews, writing for Anchorage Daily News
(If the link doesn’t open for you, copy it to your browser.)
Leaf cutter bees more efficiently pollinate Alfalfa than do honey bees. And, as a 200 acre seed Alfalfa field joins my back flower bed. And, as Leaf Cutters use little disks cut from my flower petals and tender leaves to line their nests, each summer here they come.
In fact, on hot afternoons, the little ladies abound — right at the time of day when I DON’T abound willingly. Maybe they also abound earlier in the day before the 90 plus degrees drive me indoors. Just glad I got this shot this afternoon. Will watch for them and try for earlier shoots.
I’d like to add to this post bit-by-bit, but right now I’m in melt-down. There will bee more photos, bee taxonomy (if that’s the correct term), etc. So watch out…
My day job used to be as a Registered Nurse… bedside nursing in ICU, Medical Floor, and Behavioral Recovery at Walla Walla General Hospital. Then I did Phone Triage Nursing, which I especially enjoyed because of the fast action and mix of health and social problems. We never knew if the next call would be a child’s rash, suicide threat, mosquito bite, drug overdose, or maybe “pos-preg test and don’t know which guy it was”. Everything. Most hospital nurses wouldn’t go near those phones. I loved it.
While doing telephone triage, I started writing a newspaper column called “Ask A Nurse’. Soon after that, I started a gardening column, “A View of the Garden”, and kept at them until my late husband’s health deteriorated. I’ve kept the columns and plan to share them here some time.
My mom, Gretta A. Petersen Gossett Hoyt, was a gardener, student of nature and history, and a prolific writer. Dad, Norman J Gossett, was an outdoorsman to the core. Much more about them here later.
I grew up an only-child tomboy. We lived in a cabin on a small farm along a small creek (except during spring run-off). Rock Creek is a tributary of the Naches River, on the east slope of the Cascade Mountain Range. While still quite young, I was allowed to ride almost any range horse I could catch. I ran/walked the old Forest Service trail (to avoid the logging road and its trucks) one and an eighth miles to Highway 410 and the school bus. I am eager to tell you my Rock Creek Stories.
Lest I bore you, just know that from receiving my first little film camera, my life ambition was to become a wildlife photographer. To support that hobby, I took Nursing training. While in training, I met the late Roger “Dean” Gregg, a Seventh-day Adventist Christian, who became the love of my life. I’m the blessed mother of three wonderful children, five wonderful grands and one wonderful great.
Most of my wildlife photography has become quite tame of late, but my Dropbox holds thousands of beautiful shots. My best will be offered in my soon-to-become-a-reality Etsy store. Enjoy and feel free to copy, download and share any of my photos. As of now, the plan is that none will be copyrighted. Pay only for my prints on Etsy.
Here is this morning’s wild thing, rose bud ‘Sunsprite’ in the sprinkler. I shoot multiple images almost every day, and I plan to go out later this evening for bank swallows feeding. So who knows what comes next?
“The Beauty Around Me” is this week’s theme for my flower photography group. I think the admins are all Seventh-day Adventists, but preaching on the site is minimal. We just do flowers. The group name is FLOWERS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD. Google it and sign up if you wish, and oggle a VAST array of beauty. “The Beauty Around Me” astounds me!
Have you noticed? God’s artistry moves! It never stops moving, completely still.
This huge red Hibiscus opened early this morning. The flower’s various parts unfurled from its tight, green bud, grew and shifted into place. It opened slowly, moving in response to the sunlight and soft breeze. Finally it developed from this bowl shape into a wide open platter.
I sometimes have to shout praises to our Creator at such a sight! Well, I try to keep my shouts quiet for the sake of the neighbors, but His praises SHOUT in my heart.
Morning temps in the teens and low twenties here these days.
Mustard tumble weed frozen in sprinkler ice
Until a couple of days ago, the mums were still holding up, so I brought in a large armload, hoping some could be used in the pulpit flower arrangement. The indoor air gets so dry during this weather that they continue to struggle. But I think enough will hold up for church in the morning.
Cold and wet mums
This cold snap started with freezing rain, then ice pellets
The hungry birds GOBBLE the seed at my feeders. Sunflower chips, high in calories which birds need during cold snaps, are also favored by many species year around.
Feeder birds, male House Finches in this case, fighting over a perch. Next minute, the Gold Finches (here in winter plumage) may start a scrap.
Juncos and many others scratch for seeds on the ground,
so I scatter more sunflower seed and chicken scratch under the shrubs…
Two Pine Siskins, a Gold Finch and a female House Sparrow
under the shrubs to give them cover and quick get-away shelter from the Merlin falcon and the neighbors’ cat.
Merlin Falcon waiting and watching.
Birds need water during freezing weather, too, and get it where they can. My water dish doesn’t have a heater, so they eat snow and ice.
A male House Finch nibbling ice-storm ice from a twig.
If you can’t get out and walk during icy, nippy weather, then enjoy nature through your windows or photos. Our heavenly Father created all these things, and provided the Sabbath day as a time for us to remember what He has done. (Exodus 20:11) A great reason to worship Him, don’t you think?
Rather than clicking this into Google (you’d get gay stuff), please copy and paste the following link. It will get Chinese children singing “He lifts me up”. Lovely!
When I am down, and, oh, my soul, so weary
When troubles come, and my heart burdened be
Then, I am still and wait here in the silence
Until you come and sit awhile with me
You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains
You raise me up to walk on stormy seas
I am strong when I am on your shoulders
You raise me up to more than I can be
Tatoosh Range from Rainier Paradise webcam
There is no life, no life without it’s hunger
Each restless heart beats so imperfectly
But then you come, and I am filled with wonder
Sometimes I think I glimpse eternity
You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains
You raise me up to walk on stormy seas
I am strong when I am on your shoulders
You raise me up to more than I can be
You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains
You raise me up to walk on stormy seas
I am strong when I am on your shoulders
You raise me up to more than I can be
You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains
You raise me up to walk on stormy seas
I am strong when I am on your shoulders
You raise me up to more than I can be
I don’t often write about politics. And the following article is old news, as “news” goes. But it tells much about my church (and favorite presidential candidate) which may be news to some of you.
WW University Church — Several SDA churches serve the Walla Walla Valley, and I attend one of them.
Column: Ben Carson’s faith — and mine — has already touched your life
Mark A. Kellner 10:20 a.m. EDT October 27, 2015
America’s one million Seventh-day Adventists would be happy to end Donald Trump’s ignorance.
In what might well be a “dog whistle” statement aimed at alienating evangelical Christian voters in Iowa who like Dr. Ben Carson, real estate magnate Donald Trump last Saturday delivered a oblique judgment of the neurosurgeon’s faith:
“I’m Presbyterian, boy, that’s down the middle of the road, folks, in all fairness. I mean, Seventh-day Adventist, I don’t know about. I just don’t know about.”
In painting a religion as unknown, Trump seemed to suggest there must be something amiss about Carson’s faith. Carson has credited his Christian faith, and Adventism in particular, for shaping his worldview and contributing to his success in life.
Trump probably isn’t alone in not knowing much, or anything, about the Seventh-day Adventist Church, a Christian movement organized 152 years ago in Battle Creek, Michigan, and which claims 19 million members around the world, of which a little more than one million live in the U.S.
But the church of Carson’s choice — and, since 1959, mine — has already touched the lives of multiple millions, even if they don’t realize it.
Did you have cereal for breakfast? Thank W.K. Kellogg, who along with his brother, physician John Harvey Kellogg, adopted health principles promoted by Ellen G. White, a pioneering co-founder of the Adventist movement. White advocated for a vegetarian diet, and it was the Kelloggs who pressed corn into flakes that could be served with (preferably soy) milk for breakfast. (Until he entered the presidential race, Carson was a director of the Kellogg company.)
Do you know an infant who received a heart transplant? You can credit Dr. Leonard Bailey, a surgeon at Loma Linda University Medical Center in California for research that made such procedures better. Loma Linda is a Seventh-day Adventist Church-owned hospital and medical school, and Bailey’s controversial 1984 implantation of a baboon heart in Stephanie Fae Beauclair, an infant whose congenital heart defect was a death sentence, advanced the procedure.
Loma Linda University Medical Center also led out in proton therapy for prostate cancer, saving an untold number of lives. Its graduates include Gillian Seton, a physician who served on the front lines of the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Liberia. Another alum was the late Frank Jobe, the orthopedist who invented the “Tommy John surgery” to repair baseball pitcher’s damaged arms.
The Adventist lifestyle, which encourages abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, caffeine and meat, is credited with extending lifespan. On average, studies including the famous “Blue Zone” project reveal, Seventh-day Adventists who follow the guidelines live seven years longer than the general population.
Beyond medicine, Adventists maintain a large education system, from kindergarten through postgraduate training with 1.8 million students enrolled around the world. In developing nations especially, low-cost, high-quality Adventist education is often a way up to escape poverty.
Adventism is a Protestant Christian faith, albeit slightly different from the “down-the-middle” Presbyterian religion Trump claims. Its principal difference is found in the church’s name: Seventh-day Adventists worship on what we believe is the Bible Sabbath, the seventh day of the week called “Saturday” in English, but referred to as “Sabbath” in over 100 other languages, including Spanish, “Sabado.” The Adventist part? We believe Jesus is returning soon, although we have never set a specific date.The church and its members also respect and take counsel from the writings of Ellen White, who we believe exercised the biblical gift of prophecy during her decades of public ministry. But we don’t worship White or her writings, nor do they substitute for the Bible. “Brethren and sisters, I commend unto you this Book,” were White’s final public words, referring to the Bible she held in her hands, at a 1909 meeting of Adventist leaders. (She died six years later.)
Not only do Adventists rely on the Bible as the final word on issues of doctrine, but we also work diligently to protect religious liberty. We’ve been to court on behalf of Sabbath-keepers, and filed a brief supporting Samantha Elauf, the Muslim woman refused a sales job by retailer Aberchrombie & Fitch because she wore a hijab. Adventists believe religious liberty belongs to all people, everywhere.
What Donald Trump doesn’t know about Seventh-day Adventism could perhaps fill a book or two. But the one million Adventists in the U.S. would be happy to tell him — or anyone else — the full story.
Mark A. Kellner, a writer in Salt Lake City, worked at the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s world headquarters from 2003 to 2014, including seven years as news editor for Adventist Review and Adventist World magazines.
:} Get to know your candidates and get out and vote! Smiles
Isn’t it fun, these dewy mornings, to go out early into the garden and see where the bugs spent the night ? Here are a few of this morning’s camera captures.
The recent winds have been hard on the roses. (After all, it’s November!) But this Chicago Peace is still beautiful, don’t you think? No bugs in sight, but couldn’t resist it.Here’s a honey bee hunkered down on a bright daisy mum.In the image below, the tiny suspended spheres are dew on a web-draped juniper twig. I think baby spiders strung the webs. Jillions of the little critters have been festooning all outdoors for weeks. Maybe you can also see the webs. With my new cataract lenses I can see everything wonderfully beyond my outstretched finger tips. However, close-up is iffy even with the reading section of my old trifocals. Hopefully the new glasses will fix that, too. (I cropped out the large blurred blobs throughout the image which occur when I don’t check the camera lens after letting it touch wet flowers!)
And here’s the flat head of Achillea (Yarrow) splattered with dewy baubles. Oh, and look! A Pink Edged Sulfur butterfly, soon to awaken on a beautiful mum.
Thanks for joining me on this dewy bug safari. Come again.
Smiles in the middle of things 