Things I saw outside today

"Got that WMD!"

My intro environmental science class does a couple of "citizen science" water quality monitoring labs so I was out looking for places to take them. These "stream restorations" usually involve making the streams deeper, colder, faster flowing, and more oxygenated. Most are located in agriculture-heavy areas so over time they get loaded with silt which makes them shallower and slower-moving which makes temperatures go up and oxygen in the water go down. So, they get dug out, small "interruptions" are added to create disturbances that make the water roil which adds oxygen (something like a large log put perpendicular across the stream is enough to make a small dam that creates a waterfall, or even a big boulder will create some movement at the surface), streams that have become "straightened" over time are made to meander, and some banks are "undercut" so the bank hangs over the stream to make a shady spot.

The "openness" is something that's a) a relic of needing to get excavation machinery in to do the digging, and b) to accommodate fly fishers who want to be able to do all their wacky flailing around when they're doing their casting. 

My student will measure things like temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, conductivity (to help tell us something about if salt is making its way in from the roads), and do some insect sampling to look at "bottom of the food chain health."

Since it's a recent (in the last year or so) project, it's stocking class hasn't been set yet. There's a "Class" system that streams are put into as to whether they're "self sustaining" (class 1) "need some stocking" (class 2) or "need a lot of help" (class 3). The restoration streams usually get left alone for a few years after work is done to see what happens naturally before they're classified.

Seen written inside a toilet stall: “Fake Loos”

A sign for a funeral home called "Mourning Glory".

So puns (outside of and AVC or TI thread of course) are questionable at the best of times. But a funeral home? Is that inspiring people to take their loved ones' remains there?

Holy shit that is profoundly a bad idea for just about any business*, but somehow even worse for a wedding dress place!




*I'm struggling to come up with a good one, actually.

I kinda love the idea that after we are all wiped out by a pandemic or something that somewhere (likely various somewheres) there will be shoes hanging on a line. 

"the species that once inhabited this planet memorialized the important beings of their society by placing the hu-mans shoes on what they called "power lines" for all to see, so that this hu-man could be remembered and thought of everyday as the other hu-mans proceeded with their daily routines. "

A thunderstorm rolling in just as I get the energy to leave the house.

A bunch of buzzards eating a dead snake.

A street musician playing "Can't Buy Me Love." Seemed a little counterproductive to me.

Snow.

And it's late APRIL GODDAMMIT.

There have been a few days of heavy rain where I live also and I became so depressed I couldn't sleep at night. Finally the sun is up again and I can breathe. I don't know how people from places with prolonged periods of rain or cloudy skies cope. I would die.

I saw a small black vulture-type bird snatch something off the road very quickly before the car in front of me.