Stamps of the Day: American Records

A few years ago the US Postal Service issued a series of 40 stamps highlighting the places, animals, and plants in the US that were the largest, loudest, tallest, deepest, fastest, oldest, etc., called Wonders of America.   They also made a puzzle featuring the stamps (in larger than natural size, of course), and it is one of our favorite puzzles here at home.  Tonight when I sat and looked through some of my stamp images to decide which one to pick to write about, I realized that it is actually amazing how many of these record places and organisms I have seen or been to after living in the US for nearly 20 years (yes, it has been that long, incredible).  

So, here it goes, the list of American records:

You can see these in Central Park these days, the peregrine falcons are back!  But one of the best observations I had was in Yellowstone National Park.
(FASTEST BIRD - Peregrine Falcon)

There is nothing like bumping along an old railroad track in the American west over vast sage brush areas (Colorado to be precise) after a vintage steam train and look out the window and see a couple of pronghorn staring at you.
(FASTEST LAND ANIMAL - Pronghorn)

Ancient ruins at the mesas in New Mexico, such as Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde, makes me wonder what kind of threats made people live like this - with the whole village only accessible by ladders.
(LARGEST CLIFF DWELLING - Cliff Palace)

Oh, Mississippi - I love the name of that river.  4 s's, and 4 i's and 2 p's.  And a single M, alone in the beginning.  The delta at its mouth might be as large as half of Sweden, or something like that. 
And New Orleans is of course set in the middle of it.
(LARGEST DELTA - Mississippi River delta)

Just a bit south of where we live, a few hours, is a giant bay along the Atlantic coast... the funny sounding Chesapeake Bay, once full of oysters, blue crabs and fish, but now overpolluted and overnutrified. It is still gorgeous, but it needs to get healthier again. 
(LARGEST ESTUARY - Chesapeake Bay)

Oh, the bullfrog's noises in the night wakes you up in the early mornings around here on the mountain... It is like a giant toad, fat and fleshy, and rather pompous in its behavior.

(LARGEST FROG - American Bullfrog)

Buffalo, bison, same thing.  I have only seen wild bison in Yellowstone, and there we saw them really close, actually too close for comfort when they suddenly changed direction and went straight in among the parked cars where we stood photographing them crossing the road.  I had to jump into the back of a minivan.  Nobody was hurt, but it gives you a lot of respect for these animals. 

(LARGEST LAND MAMMAL - American Bison)

Alligator meat is not bad.  It is lighter-colored than beef, a little fishy in texture, but not taste, more like chicken.  They can move fast too - I have seen 8-feet alligator lay still for 20 minutes and then be gone in 3 seconds with a giant splash down the bank to the water. Never trust a reptile :)

(LARGEST REPTILE - American Alligator)

I have only visited Rocky Mountains in bits and pieces, here and there.  New Mexico (oh Taos!), Colorado (wow, it was incredible), and up in Yellowstone, of course.  But this summer I think we will see the real thing when we visit Idaho and Boise.  This is something else than the Swedish mountains called 'fjällen'. A bit taller, steeper, fiercer, and younger. 

(LONGEST MOUNTAIN CHAIN - Rocky Mountains)

Speaking about mountains, the ones on the East Coast are the sister mountains to the Swedish mountains, same age, formed at the same geological time, and even if maybe taller in the US with the same feel of a bit worn-down, eroded landscapes, and with sequences of ridges and peaks blueing in the distance.  

(OLDEST MOUNTAINS - Appalachians)

In Hawaii, the mountains are so young they don't exist yet.  They are being formed, right now, tonight and tomorrow.  I have stood and looked at the spouting lava at the Kilauea crater in Hawaii, using binoculars since you weren't allowed very close.  Magic magma, lovely lava, and deadly.  

(MOST ACTIVE VOLCANO - Kilauea)

Here is a manmade record piece, which is something you see if you arrive in New York by boat from Europe - the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge connects Staten Island with Brooklyn over the narrow sound (The Narrows) that leads into New York City.  They are starting to grow oysters again under the bridge.  In the past there were lots of oysters here, more than people could eat, but then they disappeared because of pollution.  Soon we might have New York oysters again! 

(LONGEST SPAN - Verrazano-Narrows Bridge)

No records without the most amazing geysers of Yellowstone.  When I was a kid I used to look in books at my grandfather's house, and he had a book on Yellowstone.  I couldn't imagine the hot water spouts, sulfuric ponds, or bubbling mud pits, but they fascinated me, and I hoped that one day I would be able to see this crazy place.  Geology in action, of the most severe kind.  Well, volcanos might be a bit more severe, but Yellowstone is actually a giant volcano, and it is about to erupt at some point... About ten years ago I got the opportunity to visit Yellowstone during a workshop, and it was as crazy a place as I had imagined, or worse.  It is like a place out of a movie.  Moose grazing grass next to hot water springs that are deadly.  Geysers spouting giant fountains of water and steam on schedule.  Day and night. Incredibly.  I need to go back! (My grandfather's Yellowstone book is now in my house too.)

(TALLEST GEYSER - Steamboat)

When we drove up on Mount Washington in New Hampshire in June or July, they still had snow on the top.  It is the windiest place in America, this curved tip of an Appalachian mountain, and it felt like it.  It reminded me of the Swedish mountains, except our mountains in Scandinavia doesn't have giant weather stations on them.

(WINDIEST PLACE - Mount Washington)

And finally, another manmade thing, and this one is of utter impracticality and uselessness.  It just exist because someone had an idea, made it happen, and now everybody comes to see it. (Brilliant tourist marketing!)  I have never been up in the Gateway Arch in St. Louis by the Mississippi, but I have seen it from a distance.  You can take a little elevator inside to go up to the top, but if you are claustrophobic and or afraid of heights it is better to stay on the ground and look up.  

(TALLEST MAN-MADE MONUMENT - Gateway Arch)

As new leader has been chosen...

For a long time, the blog post on this blog about the BIONICLE Mask of Life was the most popular post. 

But, a new top choice has been selected by the people that read this blog.  THIS is now the most visited post.  Who knew that fish evolution could be so interesting!? 

The Bionicle post is now second place, and in third place is Chinese Zodiak Animals.

I really don't get why these are so popular... maybe they have very popular words in them.  The internet and the Google is unpredictable sometimes :)

The December that didn't become winter, and a historic weather year

Last year, 2011, was weather-wise a not very wise year in New Jersey.

We had snow storms, ice storms, rain storms, hurricanes,

Result: The third warmest year on record, and the wettest year ever (since 1895).  In our township we had 71.92 inches of precipitation, that is 1826.768 mm (for you used to the more smart SI system, and I never really got into the inch-thing anyway). That explains all the horribly flooding, including the water in our basement.

Those of you that don't believe in global warming and that it might be influenced by your cars and living style - how about you spend some time in a flooded or icestuck place for a while?  It is real, it is here, it is happening right now! 

Here are some weather related photos from 2011... lets hope for a more 'lagom' year this year:













Update: here is a good link to the warmest winter so far ever in the northern hemisphere.

Stamp of the day: the power of wind and lines

We are continuing our little series (2 so far) of energy related stamps, here with a Swedish stamp featuring wind power (vindenergi).  I love the clean lines... Sweden stuck to real engraved stamps for along time, and some are still done this way, but I think most American stamps by now are made with less time-consuming graphical techniques. The engraver of this one, Czeslaw Slania, was the master of Swedish engraving, and in fact, the world master of stamp engraving and world famous for his work for 28 countries.  He was hired by the Swedish postal office in 1959. Here is the 1000th stamp he engraved: link.

Media in Manhattan should think before they talk

I find it very disturbing that those people that think this storm was 'not so bad' and that the government 'cried wolf' and 'over-warned' people, seems to be the ones that are sitting in a high-ground area and never lost power (such as Manhattan).  Guys, look around you, outside of your immediate comfort zone. In the media, both Swedish and American, there has been several articles saying this or quoting people saying just that.

I bet these are not the people that are volunteer firefighters trying to get a sick 7-month old to a hospital in the middle of the storm, or a friendly neighbor that comes over at 4 AM to get a second sump pump going in someone's basement.  No, these are people complaining that they bought too much bread and water because of the warnings.  Guys, grow up. Be real.

Millstone River, had record flooding at Blackwells Mills, the highest EVER recorded, at 21.24 feet (about 7 m) over normal. This is the river I have to cross to get to work... might take some days before the bridges are open. Manville downriver is evacuated and flooded. Bound Brook is horribly flooded. Things are bad and crazy out there, and New Yorkers complain that they bought too many batteries?

Note that of the last six major floods, three has been in the last five years.  We are getting more rain than ever. This is the effects of climate change.  Less than a week ago, we had record rainfall... the list will not stop, it will get worse.

(1) 21.01 ft on 09/17/1999
(2) 19.24 ft on 04/16/2007
(3) 18.68 ft on 08/28/1971
(4) 16.84 ft on 07/15/1975
(5) 16.15 ft on 03/14/2010

300 000 households in New Jersey have no power back yet. We were just lucky to get it back so soon. (Actually, it is even more people without power.  And part of a highway is now in a River. And so on, read more here. )

Brattleboro and many other towns in Vermont are under water. That is a street down there, under the brown guck. Our favorite stores in Brattleboro are under water, as is historic Hotel Latchis, you can see their brick building in the distance.

So, if you managed through the storm OK, that is great, but do not complain that you were warned too much. Next time your house might be hit by a tree, your stuff might be under muddy waters, or you might be out of power for days.  You never know. You might just have been lucky this time.  Nature is more powerful than you.

Here is a summary of the media coverage and destruction caused by hurricane Irene, showing that in fact it was really bad, whatever media and unaffected people say.  Maybe not bad not for some pampered and grumpy city people in New York, but for the rest of us. Here is a quote from the same article:

"On average, hurricanes that make landfall in the United States as Category 1 storms have produced about $600 million in economic damage. The losses from Irene look as though they’ll be something like 25 times that. In terms of the amount of economic damage it caused, in fact, Irene is much more like a typical Category 3 hurricane than a weak Category 1."

More from the Science-Gossip, 1886 - on Danish Mountains

 
 The Danes never had it easy, height-wise.

World record: Smallest orchid flower...

This orchid flower is so small that you can barely see it (2.1 mm across), and the petals are just one cell layer thick (just like moss leaves). Read more here.  Discovery and photo by Lou Jost, in Ecuador.

Oh, and in case you wondered, the world record for the tallest dandelion is from Norway, with 108 centimeters.