Jarn’s Journal Year 4 Day 287

Year 4, Day 287

The baby is actually starting to look human. I almost said R’il’nian, but that is not true. The head is smaller, probably to fit through a smaller birth canal, and he still looks rather unfinished. But from what I’ve seen of R’il’nian babies (not much) and what I’ve been able to find from the computer files, he’s normal, just born at a little earlier stage of gestation than is usual with my people.

We had a little naming ceremony when the faint crescent of the new moon was just visible at sunset. Meerkat very officiously escorted Songbird and her new son from the birthing hut, which was then ceremoniously burned. While it was burning, and before the crescent set, Giraffe curled the baby’s hands around the tiny spear he had made and promised to teach him how to use it, and Songbird announced that his name was WildDog, after Patches. I stood by looking benign and feeling rather foolish.

Patches appears to approve the name, and (with a little tweaking of her mind) regards little WildDog as a pack puppy. Getting her to regard him as her own puppy might not be safe for Songbird—the packmate bond is strong, but not so strong that it will prevent a female from attacking a packmate she thinks is stealing her pups!

Giraffe and Songbird seem to have appointed themselves as my acolytes, and I helped Giraffe build a relatively permanent structure for the two three of them to live in. He started out with a somewhat more permanent version of the huts they build for shelter during the rainy season, a sort of brush structure roofed with grass and leaves. I suggested that if he pressed mud against the walls, it would hold it together and I could fuse the surface to stabilize it. Then he suggested that the inside walls might be daubed too, and I offered to fuse the floors. We left an open space between the walls and the roof, for light and air, but it can be filled with thorns to stop predators. In fact, Giraffe devised a very clever shutter system, so that thorny branches fastened to a frame of smooth ones can be lifted into place by hide ropes. More of the creativity these People posses.

Songbird is delighted with her new home. I need to get back to my mapping.

Jarn’s Journal is the fictional journal of an equally fictional human-like alien stranded in Africa 125,000 years ago. His story is part of the back story of my science fiction universe. The journal, as far as it has been written, is on my author site.

Quotes from Tolkien

The first six quotes today are again from The Hobbit, by J.R. R. Tolkien. This is from the original book – I have a feeling they’ll have to put in some additional material to make three films! (Not to mention that Frodo wasn’t even born yet in the original Hobbit.) These quotes have been tweeted from @sueannbowling over the period from December 13 through 19, and today I am putting them in context.

“It was a turning point in his career, but he did not know it.” Bilbo has just found the Ring.

“Go back? No good at all. Go sideways? Impossible. Go forward? Only thing to do!” Bilbo pressing on in the goblins’ tunnels.

”Any excuse would do for him to slide out of it.” Bilbo’s thoughts of how unlikely it was that Gollum would keep his promise to show him the way out.

“The wizard never minded explaining his cleverness more than once.” Bilbo was not with the dwarves when Gandalf first explained how he rescued them, but Gandalf has no objection to repeating the story.

“Escaping goblins to be caught by wolves.” Bilbo’s thoughts as he, the dwarves, and Gandalf are all in trees, surrounded by wolves.

“You ought not to be rude to an eagle.” Especially when you’re riding on his back!

“Let’s head for the food.” Sue Ann Bowling, Tourist Trap. Roi is starting to recover from an episode of severe low blood sugar – low enough he has passed out.

North Pole Weather 12/17/12

The sun will rise at 10:54 this morning, stay above the horizon (even if I can’t see it) for 3 hours, 43 minutes and 35 seconds, and set at 2:39 this afternoon. We’re losing only a little over a minute a day now, and in only four more days we’ll be at the shortest day and the days will start getting longer! The sun at its highest is only 2° (4 times its own diameter) above the horizon, so it doesn’t get very light even at midday. At least the days never disappear here, as they do a little farther north.

Looking right into the sun (it’s there, somewhere behind the trees) with a clear sky near noon yesterday.

We did get a storm with about a foot of snow all told, and the snow stake now reads 1’ 7”. Should help keep the ground from freezing quite so deeply, though I wish it had come earlier. Unfortunately my digital thermometer is back to LL (below -40°) and the warmest in the forecast for the week is below zero. Typical December weather.

The seed catalogs have started arriving! And with the solstice this week I can start thinking about spring. Hope the weather is a little more welcoming where you are, though I have to say we are certainly going to have a white Christmas. In fact, it’ll be white through most of April, at least.

11 am this morning, 12/17/12

I’ve started to dig out my Christmas DVD’s. So far I’ve watched A Christmas Carol, How the Grinch stole Christmas, and two Nutcrackers (two to go if you count the Nutcracker Suite from Fantasia.) Then I need to find Hogfather. I might get a new one this year if the weather lets up enough I can go shopping. In self-defense I watch these on the stationary bicycle or the rowing machine while exercising, not sitting on the couch (unless my blood sugar goes too low.)

Six Sentence Sunday (War’s End)

We only have about a month of Six Sentence Sunday left. If I can find another Sunday sharing group, I may join, but for right now I’m planning to continue posting bits of my fiction on Sundays, though it may be a little more than six sentences. I’ll follow some of my favorite Sixers, and I hope some of those who like what I’ve posted will follow my blog.

For today’s six, Audi has just said that being in the unsettled tropics of Rakal is good and bad both. She is still speaking.

“Good in that we shouldn’t run into any Maung-possessed.  Bad in that we’re totally on our own.  Kelty, did you get out any call for help at all?  Enough that word would get to Roi that there’s a ship in distress in the Rakal system?  He could find us if he’s in the system.”

Kelty, now dressed, shrugged.

That’s it for today. This is far from the only writing sample available today. Check out the Six Sentence Sunday website for other authors who are sharing a bit of their work today—and we all love comments.

The Roan Gene in Horses

Roan, like grey, is a pattern gene which sprinkles white hair over an otherwise normally pigmented animal. However, the pattern of white hair, the progression with age and the response to scarring are quite different from grey.

It should be pointed out that horsemen use the word “roan” quite loosely. In Thoroughbreds, for instance, it is used as a synonym for grey, particularly rose grey. There are several forms of roan covered by this loose usage, but the one discussed here is classic roan, which is due to the dominant roan gene. Frosty roan, varnish roan, roaned, rabicano and the roaning caused by some white spotting patterns will be discussed separately.

In classic roan the head, legs, mane and tail remain fully pigmented but there is an admixture of white hairs on the body of the horse. Foals are born roan or shed their foal coat to roan, and beyond that point the roan pattern is not progressive with age. In fact, roans may darken with age. They may also change appearance with season, appearing lightest when the coat is shortest and darker in winter coat.

Corn marks (flecks of the base color) are common on roans, and scars often lack roaning. Photographs of wild horses often show this to an extreme, as dominance battles frequently leave extensive scars.

Roan is due to a dominant gene. At one time, the gene was thought to be a lethal when two roan alleles were present at the roan locus, but more recent work has shown this not to be true. The gene itself has not been found, but it is known to be near, if not part of, the KIT locus on equine chromosome 3. There is clear linkage with chestnut at the extension locus, and tobiano is also linked. As an example of this, if a bay roan is bred to a chestnut, most of the foals will be bay roans or chestnuts, with only a few being chestnut roan or bay. Linked genes do not follow the rules of totally independent inheritance. A linkage test for roan is available if you want to know if a roan is homozygous.

Roan is quite variable in its intensity. Now and then a roan foal comes from two parents thought not to be roans, but close examination of the parents generally shows one to be a roan with very little roaning.

Roan may occur on any base color with any combination of diluting genes and marking genes. Black roans are often referred to as blue roans, bay roans as red roans, and chestnut roans as strawberry roans, but there are also references to purple roans, lilac roans, and honey roans. Further, a “red roan” could have either bay or chestnut as the underlying color, while some dark bay roans were called blue roan or purple roan. The modern practice is to put the base color first, followed by “roan.”

Roi (in Homecoming) will someday get a palomino roan mare with leopard (Appaloosa) markings—a horse overlooked by others because of her color but in fact quite a good horse. She is also a good example of the way different color genes can combine.

(The 3 photos on the left were taken at my cousin’s horse farm in Alabama.)

Jarn’s Journal Year 4 Day 282

Year 4 Day 282

Back to mapping, and to tell the truth I’m getting a little bored. On my right is water. On my left is sand. Now and then the sand is broken by trees and even a bit of grass growing where ground water reaches the roots, or by rocks. There are mountains visible occasionally, which I presume are the source of the ground water, but it is not a very inviting place for hunters.

Giraffe is still planning how to teach his son to hunt, but we are both increasingly frustrated by Meerkat’s insistence that it would be very bad luck for Songbird to come out of the birthing hut, or for a male to enter, until the day of the new moon. How they manage if they are traveling when a child is born is beyond me, and I suspect Meerkat is taking advantage of the fact that neither Giraffe nor I have been near a birthing woman before. It should be only a few more days; the moon is a late waning crescent.

I shall have to make it very clear to Patches that the baby is to be guarded, not treated as prey. She is certainly capable of learning to regard the little one as her own cub, just as she accepts Giraffe and me as her packmates.

One thing bothers me about the mapping: I am fairly sure I am west of where I found the western ocean before, and the coastline has just turned north again. It is hazy, but when I levitate as far as I can go and breathe comfortably, I think I see mountains to the north. Am I mistaken in thinking this almost tideless sea connects to the ocean to the west I found earlier?

Jarn’s Journal is the fictional Journal of a human-like alien stranded in Africa 125,000 years ago. The journal to date is on my author site.

North Pole Weather Update

That winter storm warning (still in effect) was serious. We’ve had over a foot of snow since last Saturday — I’m probably going to have to get the driveway plowed. If the photo looks dim, I can only say it was taken after sunrise this morning (11 am) but the clouds were still pretty heavy. At least it’s warmed up; it was in the twenties yesterday. Forecast is 40 below for the weekend, though.

Yes, it’s dim, but that’s how much light we had. The bottom of the stake is below the lower edge of the picture; that’s 1 foot 7″ on the ground.

Quotes from Tolkien

The Hobbit is coming this month! I don’t usually go to movie theaters any more, but this is one movie I want so see as soon as it comes out. (Come to think of it, the last one I saw in a theater was The Return of the King.)

I first read the book sometime in the 1950’s, when my uncle brought copies of all four Tolkien books from England before they were even on sale in the United States. Most of my original copies were lost in the fire, though I still have The Return of the King. In honor of the movie, and because I dearly love Tolkien, most of the rest of the twitter quotes this month are from The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien. But could you tell from where in the original book each quote came?

“We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing  uncomfortable things!” Bilbo’s initial response to Gandalf’s idea of sending him on an adventure .

“Profitable too, very likely, if you ever get over it.” Gandalf is still trying to argue Bilbo into helping the dwarves.

“Of course there is a mark. I put it there myself.” Gandalf, when the dwarves and Bilbo are arguing over whether there is a mark on Bilbo’s door meaning “burglar looking for work.”

“What am I going to get out of it? And am I going to come back alive?” What Bilbo means by asking about risks, out-of-pocket expenses, time required and remuneration, and so forth.

“He found that he had come without a pocket-handkerchief.” Bilbo’s discovery when he joins the dwarves.

“Adventures are not all pony-rides in May sunshine.” Bilbo and the dwarves are hitting their first rainy spell with no houses in sight.

“He wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or terrified.” Sue Ann Bowling, Homecoming. Roi, his esper training barely started, has just been told to help Derik contact his father.

North Pole Weather 10/12/12

Well, our day length dropped below 4 hours today. The sun will rise at 10:44 this morning and set at 2:44 pm, but we’re a few seconds short of a four-hour “day.” The sun is only 2.4° above the horizon at midday, so we effectively have sunrise blending into sunset. The amount we’re losing per day is rapidly decreasing though, and the solstice is only 11 days away. I am looking forward to the days getting longer again.

The Riverboat Nenana, decked out for the Holidays. I once taught dog training classes on the lower deck.

At least it’s warmed up a little. Yesterday was the first day in quite a while with a temperature above 0°F, and we had about an inch of snow. The last look I got at the snow stake the depth on the ground was up to 7”, but we may have received more last night. (We did. Make that 8″ as of 10 am, though it’s still far to dark for a picture.) Maybe if it stays warm they’ll get the downtown Christmas decorations up. So far, the main municipal lights I’ve seen are the ones out at Alaskaland Pioneer Park.

One of the things about living in Alaska is that you get really tuned in to the seasonal variation in day length, sunrise and sunset times, and temperatures. Here in the Interior we have an extreme continental climate, which means major temperature changes (the Fairbanks record temperatures are 99°F and -66°F) while staying relatively dry (we’re technically a desert based on mean annual precipitation, though it’s downright boggy in places.) We tend to get really excited about the winter solstice, when the days start getting longer again, though it arrives before the coldest month of the year. Not being able to drive in the dark, I’m really looking forward to the longer days.

P.S. at 7 pm: the weather report tonight has a winter storm watch in effect from early Wednesday morning to Thursday afternoon, with 4″ to 10″ of snow expected. Maybe we’ll get some ground insulation, but I may have to have the driveway plowed.

P.P.S. sunset (2:43 pm) Tuesday: It’s snowing and the snow stake was already up to 10″ when it got too dark to see. The winter storm warning (no longer just a watch) doesn’t even start until tomorrow morning.

Six Sentence Sunday

Here’s another fragment from War’s End, immediately following last week’s. The index, above, has links to all of my Six Sentence Sunday Posts if you want to have a look at what’s already happened.

Audi has just  joined the group, and wants to check what is in Ginger’s reader about the planet they are stranded on.

“Let me check what’s there on Rakal,” Audi said, and Ginger handed her the reader.  Coralie and Madame Irela moved close beside Audi, anxious to know as much as possible about their plight.  Audi checked a number of entries and maps, then sighed and said, “Thought so.”

“Thought what?” Coralie demanded.

“The tropics were never settled–just collecting stations for the botanicals that were Rakal’s main exports.  That’s good and bad both.”

Good and bad how?

Six Sentence Sunday is a blog hop in which authors share six sentences of their work – from rough draft to published. There are well over a hundred participants, and you are urged to visit them. And we all like comments. Just click on the logo below.