XC Skiers in the News. And boiled moose antler.
If you are a follower of climate change news (or even if you aren't), I would highly recommend reading this article from the NY Times Magazine a few weeks ago. Be forewarned - it's something of a downer. But it is very thought provoking.
Wait. Aren't all climate change articles depressing? Pretty much. The problems are so pervasive and overwhelming that reading about it sometimes seems like just a way to self-inflict mental pain. (I totally get where Paul Kingsnorth is coming from there.) I'm only being a little hyperbolic. I really do struggle to keep motivated to stay on-top of the science and well-informed, when doing exactly that makes me sad.
That's why I was glad to see this article after reading the afore-mentioned one. It's great to read about my former Craftsbury teammates, along with other elite skiers, using their post-Olympic media attention to talk about climate change and what can be done about it. In particular, I appreciated that their message included the need to focus on high-level regulatory changes and to try to separate politics from the science. Thanks for boosting my spirits!
Okay ... on to less dramatic, more fun topics.
Last weekend 12 folks convened at the Nordic Heritage Center in Presque Isle for a weekend Wilderness First Aid course. This was a Wilderness First Responder re-cert for myself and a couple others. I've taken WFA 4 or 5 times, but this was the first one I had ever been to that had a human model of the cardiovascular system. The model was in the form of a shower - note the water pump (Seth), the pipes (webbing), the shower head (Nalgene bottle) and the shower-ee (Josh).
Remember that moose shed Sadie and I found? Well, I hacked off a piece and boiled it a bit ... yum! Boiled antler!
Then it was ready to be the best-ever chew toy for Sadie. She was so ecstatic that she didn't know what to do with herself. She kept carrying it around the house and whining, searching for a place to bury it. The moose antler was SO good that she couldn't just enjoy it, she had to hide it so no one else would get it. After a few hours (no joke) she was able to calm down and just chew.
Yesterday Daniel, Sadie, and I enjoyed a break from the rain to explore a new spot, the Great Pond Mountain Wildlands in Orland. It's not actually new - just new to us. I also snuck in my first "swim" (or dunk) of the year. I'll be keeping a list of swim and boating spots that I hit throughout the season on the home-page of my blog. It'll be interesting to see how many I get! Hmmm... I think 100 sounds like a good goal.
Wait. Aren't all climate change articles depressing? Pretty much. The problems are so pervasive and overwhelming that reading about it sometimes seems like just a way to self-inflict mental pain. (I totally get where Paul Kingsnorth is coming from there.) I'm only being a little hyperbolic. I really do struggle to keep motivated to stay on-top of the science and well-informed, when doing exactly that makes me sad.
That's why I was glad to see this article after reading the afore-mentioned one. It's great to read about my former Craftsbury teammates, along with other elite skiers, using their post-Olympic media attention to talk about climate change and what can be done about it. In particular, I appreciated that their message included the need to focus on high-level regulatory changes and to try to separate politics from the science. Thanks for boosting my spirits!
Okay ... on to less dramatic, more fun topics.
Last weekend 12 folks convened at the Nordic Heritage Center in Presque Isle for a weekend Wilderness First Aid course. This was a Wilderness First Responder re-cert for myself and a couple others. I've taken WFA 4 or 5 times, but this was the first one I had ever been to that had a human model of the cardiovascular system. The model was in the form of a shower - note the water pump (Seth), the pipes (webbing), the shower head (Nalgene bottle) and the shower-ee (Josh).
Remember that moose shed Sadie and I found? Well, I hacked off a piece and boiled it a bit ... yum! Boiled antler!
Then it was ready to be the best-ever chew toy for Sadie. She was so ecstatic that she didn't know what to do with herself. She kept carrying it around the house and whining, searching for a place to bury it. The moose antler was SO good that she couldn't just enjoy it, she had to hide it so no one else would get it. After a few hours (no joke) she was able to calm down and just chew.
Yesterday Daniel, Sadie, and I enjoyed a break from the rain to explore a new spot, the Great Pond Mountain Wildlands in Orland. It's not actually new - just new to us. I also snuck in my first "swim" (or dunk) of the year. I'll be keeping a list of swim and boating spots that I hit throughout the season on the home-page of my blog. It'll be interesting to see how many I get! Hmmm... I think 100 sounds like a good goal.
Comments
Post a Comment