Category Archives: Nature

Two months after Los Angeles fires, guess how many permits have been issued in Palisades

Posted on March 26, 2025 by | 1 comment

America’s Worst Governor: Gavin Newsom

The criminal mismanagement by democrat politicians resulted in nearly 12,000 structures being burned earlier this year in wildfires. Over 5,300 structures were destroyed in the Palisades Fire.

After the fires, Governor Newsom vowed to clear red tape for rebuilding. The governor signed an executive order to suspend portions of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and the California Coastal Act for fire victims planning to start over with their homes or businesses. He told NBC:

“I’m worried about time to getting these projects done. And so we want to fast-track by eliminating any CEQA requirements. Any Coastal Act changes that we’re making. I want to make sure when someone rebuilds that they have their old property tax assessments and that they’re not increased.”

After returning from a trip to Ghana while her city burned, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass issued an executive order to “to clear the way for Los Angeles residents to rapidly rebuild the homes they lost in the ongoing firestorm and lays the foundation for businesses to plan their rebuild.”

How do you think things are going in that area with regards to rebuilding? About as well as one could have predicted. From KABC:

“More than two months after the Palisades Fire, only four permits had been issued as of Monday for homeowners to rebuild their properties — a low figure that one Los Angeles city councilmenber said was “concerning.”

Residents in the Palisades Fire zone are trying to figure out how to move forward, but there are several obstacles in the way — including the city’s permitting process and L.A.’s looming budget deficit.

Mayor Karen Bass hired a private consulting firm to oversee the recovery effort. The contract with Hagerty Consulting is worth $10 million. Some councilmembers say that raises questions.

“We have city departments who know how to do this recovery, who have been involved in recovery efforts in the past,” Councilmember Monica Rodriguez told ABC7. “And yet they can’t be afforded the opportunity to hire the personnel that they need, but we can give a $10 million contract to an outside agency to help write a report for us.”

Read the whole story here.

At this rate, it will take over fifty years to rebuild that area.

DCG

1 Comment

Posted in Democrats, failed city, failed state, Los Angeles wildfire, Nature, The Left

Tagged , , , ,

Mark your calendar: First lunar eclipse of 2025 will be next week

Posted on March 7, 2025 by | Comments Off on Mark your calendar: First lunar eclipse of 2025 will be next week

The first lunar eclipse of 2025 will happen next week, March 13/14 in the late evening/early morning. According to NASA, the eclipse will be visible from Earth’s Western Hemisphere. More about the lunar eclipse (blood moon) from their website:

“A lunar eclipse occurs when the Sun, Earth, and Moon align so that the Moon passes into Earth’s shadow. In a total lunar eclipse, the entire Moon falls within the darkest part of Earth’s shadow, called the umbra. When the Moon is within the umbra, it appears red-orange. Lunar eclipses are sometimes called “Blood Moons” because of this phenomenon.

The same phenomenon that makes our sky blue and our sunsets red causes the Moon to turn reddish-orange during a lunar eclipse. Sunlight appears white, but it actually contains a rainbow of components—and different colors of light have different physical properties. Blue light scatters relatively easily as it passes through Earth’s atmosphere. Reddish light, on the other hand, travels more directly through the air.

When the Sun is high on a clear day, we see blue light scattered throughout the sky overhead. At sunrise and sunset, when the Sun is near the horizon, incoming sunlight travels a longer, low-angle path through Earth’s atmosphere to observers on the ground. The bluer part of the sunlight scatters away in the distance (where it’s still daytime), and only the yellow-to-red part of the spectrum reaches our eyes.

During a lunar eclipse, the Moon appears red or orange because any sunlight that’s not blocked by our planet is filtered through a thick slice of Earth’s atmosphere on its way to the lunar surface. It’s as if all the world’s sunrises and sunsets are projected onto the Moon.”

Read all the details (included estimated times for viewing) here.

Catch it if you can!

DCG

Comments Off on Mark your calendar: First lunar eclipse of 2025 will be next week

Posted in Nature

Tagged , , ,

Amazing: Tiny octopus befriends diver

Posted on January 4, 2025 by | 5 comments

I would never have thought this possible: A tiny octopus appears to be quite friendly with a diver. The octopus appears to give “Elora Explora” “hi-fives” when she visits and even requests help to move a small log.

According to OctopusLover, octopuses can be friendly towards humans and have been known to show signs of affection and even recognize individual people. Studies have shown that octopuses can form strong bonds with humans, and even show signs of joy when interacting with them.

Watch below:

See more of “Elora Explora’s” underwater adventures here.

DCG

5 Comments

Posted in God's creation, Nature

Tagged , ,

Engineering The World’s Longest Suspension Bridge

Posted on October 24, 2024 by | 5 comments

I use to work in the engineering field (marketing specialist) and have always had an interest in infrastructure/engineering. The Strait of Messina Bridge scheduled to begin construction next year, will be the world’s longest suspension bridge if they can get through several hurdles.

Located in Italy, the bridge will connect Torre Faro in Sicily with Villa San Giovanni in the Italian Peninsula. Many challenges need to be addressed including the impact of earthquakes, strong currents in the strait, concerns of disruption of bird migration routes, and even the infiltration of mafia groups!

From the YouTube video description:

“The Strait of Messina Bridge, once complete, will become the longest single-span suspension bridge. This ambitious project will take 6 years to complete and aims to connect Sicily to mainland Italy and Europe. However, this project has its own unique challenges; the bridge will be subject to high winds and earthquakes that have never been witnessed at a bridge site before. From the design to the construction process, we will uncover the fascinating details behind this ambitious project. Whether you’re a bridge enthusiast, an engineering student, or simply curious about large-scale infrastructure, this video will provide you with a captivating insight into the world of civil engineering.”

Read more about the bridge here.

This will be quite the engineering feat if they are succesful in their design and construction. Course I don’t think I’d want to drive over this bridge on a windy day!

DCG

5 Comments

Posted in Nature

Tagged , , ,

Dear Kansas, We borrowed your tornadoes, but promise to return them ASAP

Posted on October 12, 2024 by | 4 comments

Wedge tornado hits Fort Pierce, FL

First, thank you for your prayers.

Second, now that we are back from North Carolina,  we had another hurricane to face in Florida.

In the days leading up to the arrival of “Milton,” we were in heavy downpours. Someone wanted to know what it was like, so I answered, “Think of Vietnam in rainy season.” This made it much harder to put the armor onto the house.

We finished putting shutters up, and within an hour the tornado warnings began. They went on for hours, one after another, and when I checked the links it was alarming to see how many came close to our house. Then I saw some videos and was surprised to see these were not the usual Florida tornadoes, aka glorified waterspouts. No, these were long track tornadoes, some of them wedge shaped.

There were surprisingly few casualties, thank God. But some people lost their lives. Some we need prayers for those who lost someone.

TD

4 Comments

Posted in Nature

Step outside to witness new life and relief

Posted on June 18, 2024 by | 7 comments

The world today can just be too crazy. With the US economy and politics, “wokeness” shoved down your throat in every issue, tensions in the Middle East and with Russia, and reading the news — it can just about drive you crazy.

How do I escape from it all? I enjoy reading and cooking. I also step outside to my backyard and enjoy nature.

For the second year in a row, we had two Goldfinch (I believe that is the species) nest in a backyard tree and have witnessed the birth of their babies. This could be the same pair from last year as they tend to be monogamous.

On Saturday the mama was sitting on our fence and we approached it as I thought it had a claw stuck in the wire around one of the posts. It managed to flutter a bit as we got closer and moved just a bit down the fence line. But I knew it was not okay. Then the Goldfinch ended up on the ground. We figured it must have flown into something and was “stunned” for a bit. We left a plate of water nearby, retreated, and prayed that the bird would recover.

And recover she did!

On Monday I saw two babies pop their heads up from the nest and in the afternoon they had managed to leave the nest for a nearby branch. From a good distance I was able to capture some photos:

Mama Goldfinch on the right, two babies to the left.

Closeup of the babies.

Both parents have been very protective of the babies, chirping whenever we (or our cats) get too close to the nest. The parents have even been “dive bombing” our cats on the back patio. Once I noticed this I’d go outside with the cats to deter the birds from coming too close to a cat and avoid being caught by one of them.

Baby Goldfinch, day two out of the nest.

As of today, the babies are still staying close to the nest. From what I’ve read, they’ll be around for another week or so before the family moves on.

It’s been a great distraction from the craziness in our world to be able to step out into the backyard and watch the new bird life. A much-needed and stress-relieving break!

DCG

7 Comments

Posted in God's creation, Nature

Tagged ,

Embrace the groundhogs!

Posted on April 24, 2024 by | 4 comments

Chunk and his family are so cute!

DCG

4 Comments

Posted in God's creation, Nature

Tagged ,

NYC “rat czar” doing a bang up job…not!

Posted on January 6, 2024 by | 2 comments

NYC Rat Czar Kathleen Corradi

New York City has many problems, one of them being an out-of-control rat population. Mayor Adams appointed Kathleen Corradi as the “rat czar” in April 2023, with an annual salary of $155,000.

It’s been almost a year, so how are things going for Corradi in her new position? Just about how you’d expect:

Eric Adams’ war on rats ‘smoke and mirrors’ as NYC rodent complaints spike nearly 8%

From NY Post:

“Rodent complaints have spiked nearly 8% across New York City since Mayor Eric Adams took office — despite his ballyhooed multi-million dollar war on rats and vow from Day One to make headway against the vermin, troubling 311 data shows.

There were 41,748 rat sightings and other vermin-related complaints made through the city’s 311 hotline in 2023, up 1.5% from 41,120 a year before; up 7.6% percent from the 38,809 complaints fielded in 2021 during Bill de Blasio’s final year as mayor; and 32% more than the 31,644 complaints in 2019, a Post analysis of city records found.

For at least the fifth straight year, Brooklyn — where Adams previously served as borough president — was home to more rat complaints than any other NYC borough with 15,769, up 5% from 15,032 in 2022.”

Read the whole story here.

I’m fresh out of sympathy for these democrat-run cities. Y’all voted for this. They got one choice at this point since they never change their voting habits:

DCG

2 Comments

Posted in Democrats, failed city, failed state, Health, Nature

Tagged , ,

NASA captures amazing “Christmas Tree Cluster” of stars

Posted on December 21, 2023 by | 3 comments

From NASA:

“This new image of NGC 2264, also known as the “Christmas Tree Cluster,” shows the shape of a cosmic tree with the glow of stellar lights. NGC 2264 is, in fact, a cluster of young stars — with ages between about one and five million years old — in our Milky Way about 2,500 light-years away from Earth. The stars in NGC 2264 are both smaller and larger than the Sun, ranging from some with less than a tenth the mass of the Sun to others containing about seven solar masses.

This new composite image enhances the resemblance to a Christmas tree through choices of color and rotation. The blue and white lights (which blink in the animated version of this image) are young stars that give off X-rays detected by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Optical data from the National Science Foundation’s WIYN 0.9-meter telescope on Kitt Peak shows gas in the nebula in green, corresponding to the “pine needles” of the tree, and infrared data from the Two Micron All Sky Survey shows foreground and background stars in white. This image has been rotated clockwise by about 160 degrees from the astronomer’s standard of North pointing upward, so that it appears like the top of the tree is toward the top of the image.”

Read more about the cluster here.

Truly amazing!

DCG

3 Comments

Posted in God's creation, Nature

Tagged ,

Baby swept away in Tennessee tornado found alive!

Posted on December 15, 2023 by | 3 comments

Last Sunday Tennessee had a EF-3 tornado which killed six people. A four-month-old baby was swept away and miracously survived!

More from NY Post:

“A Tennessee couple and their two children are seeking a new home after a large tornado ripped through their community and swept up their 4-month-old child, who was found alive in a nearby tree following the tragedy.

Sydney Moore, her boyfriend and their children were inside their home last Saturday in Clarksville when the EF-3 tornado, which left six people dead and more than two dozen injured, touched down in Montgomery County.

Moore said the tornado, which destroyed the couple’s mobile home and other belongings, picked up her 4-month-old child, who managed to survive the horrific event.

Recalling what exactly happened that evening, Moore told the outlet that her boyfriend could see the tornado envelop their home before it was ripped to shreds and the baby’s bassinet was picked up. “The roof came off first, the tip of the tornado came down and picked up the bassinet with our baby,” she said. “He was the first thing to go up.”

“I thought he was dead,” she said. “I was pretty sure he was dead and we weren’t going to find him. But he’s here, and that’s by the grace of God.”

Read the whole story here.

So glad that this baby was found alive!

DCG

3 Comments

Posted in God's creation, Nature

Tagged , ,