Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in wynnsfolly's LiveJournal:

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Sunday, May 20th, 2012
10:22 pm	horse stuff when we went to feed this morning we found Oberon standing off to one side. we couldn't see anything wrong til I walked around him. his right eye & muzzle were swollen up. he couldn't open his eye or even try to eat but there was no swelling under his jaw. we think he actually got stung. brought him up the hill to the pen by the house and gave him some antihistamine.  he started to perk up right away so we headed to town for a couple of hours. when we got back all the swelling was gone and he was returned to his beautiful self. I think we'll keep him up here a while even though he is already feeling well enough to complain about being stuck with the two goats. Posted via LiveJournal app for Android. (Comment on this)
Sunday, May 13th, 2012
11:49 am	books Fair Game - Patricia Briggs Third Alpha & Omega novel. More police procedural mystery than urban fantasy romance this time. I have always mingled the Kitty Norville stories with the Mercy Thompson universe, so kept getting  the background story confused.   Posted via LiveJournal app for Android. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, May 11th, 2012
8:53 am	books Dragon's Kin & Dragon's Fire by Anne McCaffrey & Todd McCaffrey   I was in the mood for some dragons in the bookstore the other day. I knew we'd missed some of the more recent Pern books. so we picked up the second book listed. I read it and had to read the prequel novel. I've always felt comfortable with McCaffrey's writing style and found both enjoyable. Kin is the smaller book centered around one character (while really telling the story of another). Fire draws back for a bigger picture and tells about both good & evil characters and some who must find their own way as they grow. now I gotta remember to get the other book in the set. Posted via LiveJournal app for Android. (Comment on this)
Monday, May 7th, 2012
8:50 am	books The Hidden Family - Charles Stross book 2 picked right up and moved forward. better conclusion and third leg of world building. still didn't complete story cycle but did actually complete arc. I like the story but I think I'd rather have it all at once. guess I'm turning into the kind of person who waits to buy a whole season on DVDs rather than wait for each episode. do have a couple quibbles about language choices. in the past I've seen complaints about word choices American authors use for British characters.  in this case, the British author has his modern day Americans use an occasional term that grates on the American ear. as for the alternate worlds, they tend to speak either Steampunk English or SCAdian English. both are evolving dialects I am fine with reading. Posted via LiveJournal app for Android. (Comment on this)
Friday, April 27th, 2012
9:43 pm	books The Family Trade - Charles Arrows   Stross's initial book in his Merchant Princes series. Ran across the first two books this week. nice premise & I like the main character so far. goes smoothly. but a little too quickly. I'm always up for a little Medici robber baron intrigue. I kind of want to rant about the concept in SF/F of chopping complete stories into small parts. I felt the story was just about picking up steam when we ran out of book. since I've only got two books I'll have to see how I feel after the second one. Posted via LiveJournal app for Android. (Comment on this)
8:05 pm	sunset Posted via LiveJournal app for Android. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 24th, 2012
11:20 am	books Crucible of Gold - Naomi Novick   Temeraire to S America. wish it were longer. good solid character & world building. Lead to several discussions on the alternative to the outright conquest of the Americas. this brings out the question of whether the plague that hit the dragons in the earlier books was merely the mirror of what happened to the Incas. certainly reminds us that inbreeding populations results in dangerous susceptibility to disease. also a good lesson on how one of the biggest changes to civilization is the availability of vaccines. Posted via LiveJournal app for Android. (Comment on this)
Sunday, April 22nd, 2012
9:27 pm	sunset Posted via LiveJournal app for Android. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
8:31 pm	stormy Posted via LiveJournal app for Android. (Comment on this)
Friday, April 20th, 2012
7:21 pm	one tank of gas Posted via LiveJournal app for Android. (Comment on this)
Friday, April 13th, 2012
9:19 am	books read Timeless -Gail Carriger the last of the Parasol Protectorate series.  I enjoyed this quite as much as the others. not quite the head long rush we've seen before but a good wrap-up of all the main points. I've seen some complaints about the unevenness of the English dialects used, but that didn't bother me. It is written for American steam punk enthusiasts after all. Posted via LiveJournal app for Android. (Comment on this)
Sunday, April 1st, 2012
9:58 pm	books read The White Queen by Phillipa Gregory. Historical novel about the War of the Roses from the pov of Elizabeth Woodville, mother of the princes lost in the Tower. An interesting take on motherhood and dynasty. As a result I picked up a couple more of her books. (Comment on this)
Sunday, March 25th, 2012
11:36 am	goat brushing day 2012 the two cashmere girls didn't start to blow their coats until they had at least one minute more daylight than dark. I typically get one good brushing each of the bulk of their coat for the year, then they manage to rub the rest off on any spot that makes a good scratching post. Posted via LiveJournal app for Android. (Comment on this)
Monday, March 5th, 2012
11:18 am	camellia bush yes I am a little obsessed, but this may be the best it ever blooms Posted via LiveJournal app for Android. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, March 3rd, 2012
2:38 pm	an early spring just as a record of how strange the weather has been, we had daffodils blooming in January. February saw the camellia first.ally break bud at the same time as the spirea and hawthorn. well before the month was over blooming things in my neighborhood included forsythias, grape hyacinths, snow drops, & phlox. the Bradford pears bloomed everywhere this week, as did our peach tree. I didn't notice the blooms on the vinca til after the first of March along with the first azalea buds breaking.   Posted via LiveJournal app for Android. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, February 19th, 2012
12:33 pm	books Secretariat by William Nack a reprint issued to go with the recent movie, this is a look at the horse and the industry that produced him. I really enjoyed the "play by play" recounting of the training for and running of his significant races. I learned quite a bit about the primary blood lines behind the breeding of the horse. though I don't follow racing, I do have a picture of Big Red hanging in my living room. one thing that struck me was the repeated concern that the 3 year old racehorse was unpredictable compared to his two year old performance. at no time did anyone suggest that one cause might be over working two year old adolescent athletes. I also learned that he was not raced as a mature adult in part due to onerous tax rates on inheritances. worth more reading was the explanation of the genetics of the X factor. this is why he was considered a fairly mediocre sire of racing colts, but has acquired  a terrific record as a broodmare sire. Posted via LiveJournal app for Android. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 1st, 2012
6:53 pm	the snake that ate Florida http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/01/23/1115226109.full.pdf+html I know this is all over the news, but I thought it might be good to go to the source of the information. Severe mammal declines coincide with proliferation of invasive Burmese pythons in Everglades National Park Michael E. Dorcasa,1, John D. Willsonb, Robert N. Reedc, Ray W. Snowd, Michael R. Rochforde, Melissa A. Millerf, Walter E. Meshaka, Jr.g, Paul T. Andreadish, Frank J. Mazzottie, Christina M. Romagosai, and Kristen M. Hartj + Author Affiliations aDepartment of Biology, Davidson College, Davidson, NC 28035; bDepartment of Fish and Wildlife Conservation, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061; cFort Collins Science Center, US Geological Survey, Fort Collins, CO 80526; dEverglades National Park, National Park Service, Homestead, FL 33034; eFort Lauderdale Research and Education Center, University of Florida, Davie, FL 33314; fDepartment of Biological Sciences, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849; gState Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, PA 17120; hDepartment of Biology, Denison University, Granville, OH 43023; iCenter for Forest Sustainability, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849; and jSoutheast Ecological Science Center, US Geological Survey, Davie, FL 33314 Edited by Peter M. Vitousek, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, and approved December 21, 2011 (received for review September 26, 2011) Abstract Invasive species represent a significant threat to global biodiversity and a substantial economic burden. Burmese pythons, giant constricting snakes native to Asia, now are found throughout much of southern Florida, including all of Everglades National Park (ENP). Pythons have increased dramatically in both abundance and geographic range since 2000 and consume a wide variety of mammals and birds. Here we report severe apparent declines in mammal populations that coincide temporally and spatially with the proliferation of pythons in ENP. Before 2000, mammals were encountered frequently during nocturnal road surveys within ENP. In contrast, road surveys totaling 56,971 km from 2003–2011 documented a 99.3% decrease in the frequency of raccoon observations, decreases of 98.9% and 87.5% for opossum and bobcat observations, respectively, and failed to detect rabbits. Road surveys also revealed that these species are more common in areas where pythons have been discovered only recently and are most abundant outside the python's current introduced range. These findings suggest that predation by pythons has resulted in dramatic declines in mammals within ENP and that introduced apex predators, such as giant constrictors, can exert significant top-down pressure on prey populations. Severe declines in easily observed and/or common mammals, such as raccoons and bobcats, bode poorly for species of conservation concern, which often are more difficult to sample and occur at lower densities. (Comment on this)
Friday, January 27th, 2012
9:11 pm	books I've been reading "the tomorrow log" by Lee & Miller in electronic version for a while. finished it a little while ago. I'm still learning the reader,which is why it took me so long. would like to read the rest of the story. "raven cursed" by Faith Hunter is the latest Jane Yellowrock novel. even with a slow start, once I got going I couldn't set it by. I think I should maybe reread them soon. Posted via LiveJournal app for Android. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 17th, 2012
8:09 am	daffodil time already Posted via LiveJournal app for Android. (Comment on this)
Sunday, January 15th, 2012
7:35 am	My tweets Sun, 01:55: Pizza http://t.co/1V213ccv (Comment on this)