Sick 2

I phoned the vet this morning and they said her tests hadn't come back yet. I finally got a call at 5:45pm to say her temperature was back to normal and she was a lot better. What a relief. They gave her 2 sorts of antibiotics, had her on a drip and some injections. They are still not really sure what was wrong so I have to keep an eye on her and I have lots of pills for her.

I am very pleased to say that she is now back home again.

I really thought I might lose her but she came through OK. Now I can stop worrying.

Sick

My dog got sick last night. We had been out for a walk and she was fine but by the evening something was obviously wrong. She was shivering and shaking, unsteady on her feet, lethargic and off her food. I kept her close overnight and took her to the vet this morning, as she had not improved. He was concerned that her temperature was very high and he told me to take her to their main surgery. They took her in to do tests and told me to come back in a few hours. Then they phoned to say they were keeping her in overnight. Then they phoned to say that they hadn't managed to bring her temperature down. I have to wait until tomorrow to hear any more...

Oh, and another thing

I have a friend

He is angry



But not always quite so angry





Artist: Rob Springate
Composer: Rob Springate

Paths

Take a walk with me.

between the fields.

I see a sign,

but it didn't warn me of this!

Now we pass by an overflowing pond. You are wearing wellies aren't you?

Over a style,

and another.

Looking back you can just see the crash barrier of a dual carriageway. It is not a nice road to cross. Two lanes each way with quite heavy traffic at speeds up to, and I suspect above, 70mph (112 km/h). Fortunately, the sight lines are good here so you just have to pick a safe time to cross and be very patient if necessary. My dog is very well behaved at roads and will wait without fuss.

Oh look, another style!

Is this a footpath? I can't read the sign!

Wow! A deer. In fact there were at least six, but this is the best I could get. It isn't easy getting close to deer when you are emptying the dog!

 Another style! Oh, and a bridge over a ditch, and fences too.

 ???! 

This sign is in code. It is yellow, so that means it is a footpath. If it were blue it would be a bridleway. If so, beware of horses!

Mountains?

No, mole hills

This style has seen better days! The style I mean, not the style! Er, that is, style as in 'thing you try and climb over without having a life changing accident' not 'current fad or fashion'

Ah, I see the way ahead.

Hmm, right across my path! I think the calf is only a couple of days old at most and the mother looks a bit fearsome. Is she eyeing me up for a charge to protect her calf? Mothers are fiercely protective of their young and it is a good idea to not disturb them at all. But in this case I know these cattle and they are the most docile I have ever come across, not that I would take any risks of course. They are actually more curious. They don't follow you but if you get to close they mostly move away. I think this one would have stood her ground, but she would eventually have ushered the calf away - I think! Don't take chances!

Oh! there was a bull in there too! Whoops!!!

I have seen a bull in there but they seem pretty docile too. Of course, if the hormones are running high anything can happen. I had my dog close on the lead through that field. I just chose a route that didn't take me close to any of them and they just watched me. There may have been a bull, or maybe more than one - I have no idea. There were maybe 20 cattle and two young calves. Some were laying down. They were widely scattered round the field so it wasn't too difficult to navigate through them.

In general though it not safe to assume that cattle are safe. Most will follow you in a herd. If you run, they will probably run and you may have a stampede. They can run very fast too! If you have to cross a field with cattle, walk slowly and with purpose, avoiding the cattle the best you can. If you feel they are getting too close, turn round and face them down. You can try walking towards them with your arms outstretched and they will probably back off and you can continue walking. If it worked but they are catching up again do it again. Be calm but if things do get out of hand, let the dog go - off the lead if possible - so the dog can run without getting tangled up, but don't waste any time. Then - - - - -well, good luck, I hope you make it to the style safely!

What was it I was saying about no bears. But hang on, is this a bear? or maybe a cow? or a pig in a mask, or...

And is this a path? Well, yes and no. It is not an official path and this is private land.

But it looks like a path. A lot of people have walked through here and I don't see any dead bodies or warning signs so I expect I am safe.

This definitely isn't a path. I was not on any path.

One thing to bear (a bear! Oh no! - - - oh, I see, not A bear. OK, carry on, sorry for interrupting) in mind when walking through private woods is there are people who maybe be using the woods for legitimate things, like tree felling, or shooting. They will not be expecting you to be there because you are not supposed to be there, so you go there at your own risk.

There was shooting today, but not close enough to where I was was walking to worry about. But keep your wits about you, they may have just not started yet. If you hear a whistle - er, duck maybe? Shouting out would probably be the best thing to do. I am glad to say that I have never been in this situation.

I hope you enjoyed sharing my walk.


[disclaimer - any advice offered here is from what I have experienced and observed personally and should not be taken as official wisdom. Your experience may be different. Take care, be safe.]

Ice

It was a cold night so there was plenty of frost and ice. The walk was mostly sunny and cold but there was no wind. I really enjoyed the walk today, and so did my dog.

Nice shapes where the water has drained from underneath the ice.

 A frozen footprint

 The frost is beginning to thaw. There is a mixture of water and ice crystals

If you go down to the woods today

 You won't see any bears - not in the South of England anyway

 

But you will see quite a few trees

Atmosphere

It seems like only yesterday I saw a sun dog. Well, today left me puzzled. I briefly saw an arc in the sky. It was high above the sun, and the wrong way up! I had never seen this before or heard of it so I had to resort to a web search. It turns out it has the wonderful name "circumzenithal arc". As with the sun dog, it is caused by refraction from ice crystals. You can see what sort of ice crystal forms this effect here. It appeared in the sky for about 5 minutes. Fortunately I managed to get a picture. I couldn't quite get the horizon in as well. I estimate that the arc was 40° to 45° above the sun. It had been sunny but there was cloud rapidly moving in from the West. About 10 minutes later I was got drenched as the heavens opened from a grey sky.

Sun Dog

Well, you may have thought that you would finally get to see my dog, but no - I do not have a sun dog.

It was a bright cold day with a few wispy clouds as I walked my dog. I knew that this would be a good day to possibly see a sun dog. I was out with my non-sun dog for over 2 hours and I only saw one sun dog and it was gone almost before I got a picture.

The sun is very overexposed to the left, the sun dog is the flash of colour to the right. Sun dogs are caused by refraction of sunlight by ice crystals, usually very high up, in the atmosphere. There may be two sundogs, one each side of the sun and occasionally may be a brightening in a full halo round the sun but this is rare.

Gloves and Socks

Well, happy New Year everybody.

The wind is cold and the ground is muddy so my mind turns to gloves and socks, and .
.
.
quantum mechanics^[1]. Socks, gloves and quantum mechanics I hear you mutter. Let me explain. In quantum mechanics there is a possibility that 2 particles can be entangled. This is a weird state where the 2 particles share some property no matter how far they are separated from each other^[2]. Now the question is, are they like gloves or socks. Intuitively we would say that they must be like gloves. Even if we can't see either of the gloves, when we look at one we immediately know the handedness of the other. If it is a right hand glove then the other must be a left hand glove and vice versa. So, the particles (gloves) already  have a state (handedness) but we just don't know what it is yet. But quantum mechanics isn't intuitive^[3]. It seems that in the quantum world the particles behave more like socks. The 2 socks in a pair are identical - they are neither left footed or right footed. However, if we put one of the socks on our left foot they other one becomes a right sock. The putting on of one sock corresponds to the measurement of one of the particles. Up until you put one of the socks on they are both in a superposition^[4] of states, both left and right footed. But the state can be forced one way are the other by putting one sock on.

[1] I am not a physicist
[2] Well, experiment suggests this is true, but it is hard to check if the other particle is on the other side of the universe.
[3] And why would it be. We have day to day experience of objects from about 1mm upwards. If stuff smaller (much, much smaller in the quantum world) than this behaves diferently then we cannot rely on intuition because intuition is the product of a lifetimes practical experience. Now if we were to take a child at birth and only show them the quantum world... OK, maybe not very ethical, but the point is that they would find the quantum world intuitive and the large scale world very weird indeed.
[4] Superposition is a fancy physicists word meaning in more than one of two opposing states; both red and green, or upside down and right side up, or left and right handed/footed, etc.