February 20, 2023

RELEASED CONDOR, POY-WE-SON, RETURNS HOME

Been watching for the condors as live about 15 miles from release site.

Cool video and pictures at link.

RELEASED CONDOR, POY-WE-SON, RETURNS HOME

Lisa Music, 2/20/23 RedHeadedBlackBelt

Local wildlife photographer, Ann Constantino, filmed a soothing video of a 2-year-old condor released back into the wild two weeks ago.

Ann wrote on her Facebook page, “This bird, Poy-we-son (‘the one who goes ahead’ in Yurok language) was the one who explored for two weeks on his own …after release.”

The young condor returned home to his release site where Ann was able to capture him on film and video. (The following photos are slightly blurry due to the vast distance from which the shots were taken and haze.)

https://kymkemp.com/2023/02/20/released-condor-poy-we-son-returns-home/

February 5, 2023

In WWII, my mother watched for Japanese balloon bombs on Onion Mountain

above the Klamath River (and is the Onion Mountain mentioned in regard to the Patterson alleged bigfoot film in Bluff Creek). My father was in Europe.

When Six Americans Were Killed By a ‘Balloon Bomb’

A balloon used for warfare by the Japanese resulted in the only Americans to die on U.S. soil from enemy action in during World War II.

May 5, 2022, marks the 77th anniversary of the deaths of six Americans, the only Americans to die on U.S. soil from enemy action in World War II. They were killed by a Japanese Fu-Go, also known as a balloon bomb.

Fear, Panic and Forest Fires

In 1944, the Japanese military tried to instill panic in the U.S. by launching thousands of bombs carried across the Pacific by means of hydrogen-filled balloons. The bombs were designed primarily as incendiary devices. The target was the forests of the Pacific Northwest. Because they were made of paper, it was believed the balloon bombs would explode and burn, leaving no trace. According to Japanese documentation, it was thought the fires would pull resources away from the military and the stealthy nature of the balloon bombs would unnerve and terrify the populace.

https://www.flyingmag.com/when-six-americans-were-killed-by-a-balloon-bomb/

Nobuo Fujita

Nobuo Fujita (藤田 信雄, Fujita Nobuo) (1911 – 30 September 1997) was a Japanese naval aviator and warrant flying officer of the Imperial Japanese Navy who flew a floatplane from the long-range submarine aircraft carrier I-25 and conducted the Lookout Air Raids in southern Oregon on September 9, 1942, making him the only Axis pilot during World War II to aerial bomb the contiguous United States.[1][2][3] Using incendiary bombs, his mission was to start massive forest fires in the Pacific Northwest near the city of Brookings, Oregon with the objective of drawing the U.S. military's resources away from the Pacific Theater. The strategy was also later used in the Japanese fire balloon campaign.

cut

Later life
Fujita continued as an Imperial Japanese Navy pilot, mainly in reconnaissance duties, until 1944, when he was transferred to the training of kamikaze pilots. After the war he opened a hardware store in Ibaraki Prefecture, and later worked at a company making wire.[4]

Fujita was invited to Brookings in 1962, after the Japanese government was assured he would not be tried as a war criminal. He gave the City of Brookings his family's 400-year-old katana in friendship. Ashamed of his actions during the war, Fujita had intended to use the sword to commit seppuku if he were given a hostile reception.[4] However, the town treated him with respect and affection, although his visit still raised some controversy.[8]

Impressed by his welcome in the United States, during his visit, he promised to invite Brookings students to Japan. Despite the bankruptcy of his company, Fujita made good on his promise by co-sponsoring the visit of three female students from Brookings-Harbor High School to Japan in 1985.[9][10] During the visit, Fujita received a dedicatory letter from an aide of President Ronald Reagan "with admiration for your kindness and generosity."

Fujita returned to Brookings in 1990, 1992, and 1995. In 1992, he planted a tree at the bomb site as a gesture of peace.[11] In 1995, he moved the samurai sword from the Brookings City Hall into the new library's display case. Fujita helped to gather money to build the library.[12]

He was made an honorary citizen of Brookings several days before his death at a hospital in Tsuchiura, Ibaraki Prefecture, on September 30, 1997, at the age of 85.[13] In October 1998, his daughter, Yoriko Asakura, buried some of Fujita's ashes at the bomb site.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobuo_Fujita

Excuse me for going over the 4 paragraph limit but this is such a good tale, but it is wiki and made this dying old man cry.

February 1, 2023

California's snowpack jumps to twice the average. But will it fill drought-depleted reservoirs?

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

The snowpack in California’s mountains weighed in Wednesday as the biggest it’s been at the start of February anytime this century, a product of the recent storms that have flipped the script on drought and begun easing water shortages across the state.

State water officials conducting their monthly snow survey logged snowpack in the Sierra Nevada and southern Cascades at 205% of the average for the date. At Phillips Station, one of the state’s oldest and most central monitoring sites where surveyors convened in front of TV cameras for measurements Wednesday morning, the snowpack was 193% of average.

The numbers are welcome relief for California after its driest three-year period on record. Melted snow supplies nearly a third of the state’s drinking and irrigation water, and it usually comes at a critical time — when the rains are over and summer water demand kicks in.

But the amount of the newfound snow that makes it to California’s taps, as it begins to thaw and wash down mountainsides into reservoirs, hinges on several yet-to-be-determined variables, including how much more snow falls, how early it melts and how much soaks into the ground. Any of these things could undo the state’s fickle recovery from drought.



Read more: https://www.sfchronicle.com/climate/article/california-s-snowpack-jumps-to-twice-the-17757389.php

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The recent drought followed by precipitation this Winter are a respite and not a solution to California's water problems.