More Ice Sculptures

Photos again today, with the third through 5th places in the realistic multi-block category at the World Ice Art Championships.

Unstoppable, 3rd place realistic muti-block. Keven Laughlin, Sam Vose, David Bourdeau, Carl Eady, USA

Extreme Ice, 4th place multi-block realistic: Qi Feng An (China) Di An (China) Julio Martinez (Mexica) and Aubrey Newton(USA)

Crevasse, 5th place realistic multi-block. Anita Tabor, Jacob Harding, Gina Eaton, Greg Bartholomew, USA

Although is has not been warm enough to cause significant melting, “Foreign Object,” shown last Thursday, unfortunately lost its head in the wind storm (by Fairbanks standards) Wednesday and Thursday.

North Pole Weather 3/18/13

The sun rose this morning at 7:57 am – past tense, again! It will set 12 hours 5 minutes later, at 8:02 this evening. With the sun 24° above the horizon at noon, and the ground well-covered with snow, it is getting quite bright during the day. No real warming yet; we’re getting into the teens in the daytime and 10 to 20 below at night.

What, 12 hours, and the equinox is not until 3:02 in the morning Wednesday? Well, sunrise and sunset are calculated when the upper rim, not the center, of the sun is on the horizon, and the refraction of the atmosphere must also be taken into account. Suffice it that today the day is slightly longer than the night.

Writing? I need to do some major revisions (still in the thinking-out stage) in Rescue Operation, and write the rest of my A to Z blogs. I’ve just finished L, and hope to get through P this week. (I’m introducing characters and background from my books.) My OLLI classes will increase to 6 a week in April, and I expect to be very busy. Thank goodness they don’t require homework, but it’s a half hour drive each way.

I’ve been getting out to the ice park, and I’ll have more photos Tuesday and Thursday. For today I’ll post a pair that aren’t really sculptures, but part of the festivities the evening they announced the winning artists, and lit a bonfire to celebrate. I saw the bonfire site earlier – branches surrounded by a column of ice walls, with vents to allow plenty of air to reach the blaze. The surprising part was how much of the ice walls were left a week after the fire. It’s definitely still winter here, however brightly the sun is shining.

Reminder: Horse Power is FREE on Amazon through midnight Pacific Time today.

Weekend Writing Warriors: Horse Power

I’m taking a week’s break from War’s End to give a snippet from Horse Power, which is free on Amazon this weekend. Horse Power fills an important gap in the history of Coralie’s planet, Horizon, and tells of how dogs like Bounce became a part of Horizon culture. The book is free March 16, 17 and 18, and I’d love reviews. Just click on the cover.

The sun, less than an hour now from setting, was reddening as it sank. Silkies, their backs no higher than Roi’s chest, cast blue shadows half a dozen armspans long, their recently shorn white coats reddish in the dust they stirred up. The sheared hair could be spun into a luxury fabric prized throughout the Confederation, the skins, with or without the fleece, tanned into an extraordinarily light, supple leather likewise classed as a luxury item, and while Roi himself tended to eat whatever was placed in front of him, he knew enough gourmets to recognize that certain cuts of silkie meat were sought after by the finest chefs of the occupied planets. “Profitable beasts,” he commented.

Timi snorted. “They should be,” he agreed. “Trouble is, the colonization agreement gives the Company the power to set whatever price they want for silkie products. And they set it low enough, and that of the imported fossil fuels high enough, that most of the colonists aren’t even breaking even.”

Horizon’s a terraformed planet, with no history of life to produce deposits of fossil fuels, and the Company has pretty well legislated out the use of other forms of portable energy.

Next week I’ll be back with Coralie and the other castaways.

Do check out the other snippets posted today, through either Weekend Writing Warriors or Snippet Sunday. We all like comments, but you can enjoy without commenting if you choose.

The Leopard Gene in Horses 4

This is an update with photos of an article originally posted April 17, 2011.

Not all horses with the leopard gene have blankets of any size, and not all have spots. The gene can also produce two specific types of roaning, called frost and snowflake.

Chestnut varnish roan. This horse has almost no white markings, and a full mane and tail.

These roan patterns are quite separate from that produced by the roan gene, which becomes less prominent with age and leaves head, legs, mane and tail dark. The leopard gene produces horses which are normally colored or at most have a few white hairs over the rump at birth, but develop roaning (frost) or scattered white spots (snowflake) as they age. In contrast to grey, the pattern eventually stabilizes rather than producing a pure white horse.

In frost, the roaning tends to be most prominent over the hips. So-called varnish marks are common — areas where the bones are close to the surface, such as the hipbones and nasal bones, retain pigment while the rest of the coat is roaned. An aged varnish roan may be almost white except for these varnish marks.

Another chestnut varnish roan, this one with a blaze and three white stockings. This one has the white organized into a near blanket over the hips, with spots on the blanket.

Snowflakes are small white spots scattered randomly over the body, but often most numerous and prominent on the front part of the horse. They tend to become larger and more numerous with age, until in extreme cases the horse appears white with colored specks. This gives what is often called a speckled pattern, not to be confused with flea-bitten grey. Note that not all of the photos shown at the link are true snowflakes — the term is used very loosely.

Both types of roan may be combined with any of the blanket or spotting patterns, or may occur alone or together. Figure 8.140 in Sponenberg is a beautiful example of a combination of snowflake, varnish roan, blanket and leopard spotting all on the same horse. (Put Figure 8.140 on the search inside field.) Since the leopard gene can produce any of these effects, alone or in combination, breeding leopard-pattern horses can lead to some interesting results.

The remaining named horse in Tourist Trap, Amber’s mount Splash, is a bay varnish roan with a small spotted blanket, in color rather like the horse on the left side, but with black points and no blaze. He’s a gelding, about 14.2 hands – just enough smaller than the other four to have problems with fords. Roi has seen only solid colored horses on Central, and his first look at Splash gives this impression:

“Amber’s [horse], a little bay roan with curious dark lines on its nose, looked less exotic until it turned as she halted it.  Then it became apparent that it had a large white area, punctuated by dark bay spots, over its hips.”

I will summarize the equine color loci and alleles next week with links back to where they are mentioned, but I have covered most of the known color genes in horses. That doesn’t mean more won’t be found!

A last comment: Horse Power, with the Leopard horse on the cover, is FREE today on Amazon.com.

Jarn’s Journal Year 5 Day 133

Year 5 Day 133

I haven’t gone mapping every day, but today I found what I think is a huge river delta, as large as the one I found when I found the tideless sea. It’s not at all the same, though. The earlier delta was in a desert climate, the only water being the river itself. Vegetation was mostly plants that grew well with flooded roots, and generally not very tall within the delta itself, and limited to palms and other desert vegetation back from the delta islands.

This delta is rain forest, and from the air looks very much like any other rain forest: green, green, green. Different tree heights, different shades of green, but all green. The narrower watercourses are barely visible from the air, but they are there.

Even more exciting, I followed the outer coast for quite a distance to see how large the delta was, and I think the coast finally swings south beyond it. The delta seems to form a bump—quite a large bump—in a corner where the coast goes from trending east to trending south. I teleported to where I found the ocean off a desert coast far to the south, and this is indeed close to the same longitude. My map is beginning to show the shape of this continent.

WildDog is fascinating to watch, but I am reminded of my first impressions of Patches: destructive, messy, sharp teeth, good at getting over, around, or through barriers, and adorable. Except that Patches got over her messy stage much faster than WildDog (assuming he gets over it) and he is getting steadily more destructive. I have to admit his teeth aren’t quite as sharp as Patches’s were. Meerlat says he is a normal baby; Songbird and Giraffe are quite besotted with him. I am still wondering how he will interact with others of his species.

Jarn’s Journal is the fictional Journal of a fictional human-like alien stranded in Africa 125,000 years ago. His story is part of the back story of the Jarnian Confederation where Homecoming, Tourist Trap and Horse Power are set. You can read the whole Journal to date on my author site. Speaking of which, Horse Power will be free for three days on Amazon, starting midnight Pacific time March 16 (Saturday.)

Ice Sculpture Multi-Block

Here are the top two winners in each category (realistic and abstract) of the multi-block competition of the World Ice Art Championships. I have to say some could fit either category. I am surprised (and pleased) at how well the USA did this year.

Hunting Dragons, 1st place realistic. Steve and Heather Brice and Steve and Justin Cox, USA.

Winter Breeze, 1st place abstract. Stan Kolonko,
Chris Uyehara, Jerry
Perun, and Wei Sen Liang, USA

Foreign Object, 2nd place realistic. Chris Foltz, Woojay Poynter, Jillian Howell, Amelia Rombach, USA

Hope, 2nd place abstract. Ivan Zuev,
Aleksandr Parfenov,
Mikhail Vasilenko, Eduard Ponomarenko, Russia

Quotes from Andra Norton

These are the contexts of the quotes tweeted from March 7 through March 13. All but the last are from Lore of the Witch World, by Andre Norton, but they are from two different stories in that book.

“To say that one could not do a thing before one ever tried was folly.” Dairene, blind and faced with the order to gather thread. “Spider Silk.”

“Was it not true that all had each his or her own gift?” Belief of those of Tormarsh, recalled by Tursla as she is aware of her own differences. “Sand Sister.”

“From every action there issue at least two ways.” The Clan mother, speaking to Tursla. “Sand Sister”

“Seek not any gate until the time.”  Part of the sand-sister’s advice to Tursla. “Sand Sister.”

“Knowledge was of no help unless one could tap it.” Tursla, knowing that she must do something, but not knowing what. “Sand Sister.”

“Can my spirit break a bond laid upon the body?” Tursla, wondering if she will be able to leave Tormarsh, as she knows there is a boundary set by magic. “Sand Sister.”

“It should be easy enough to crack water if you have the energy.” Roi is wondering why the fossil-fuel-poor but energy-rich planet of Horizon is not developing a hydrogen fuel economy. Bowling, “Horse Power.”

Don’t forget “Horse Power” is FREE this coming weekend at Amazon!

The Real Jane Austen (Book Review)

I’m not much of a biography reader. But driving home one afternoon last month, with my local NPR station on, I heard Paula Byrne talking about her latest book, a biography of Jane Austin focused on how the stuff of her life made its way into her fiction. That sounds interesting, I thought, and managed to retain enough of the title and author that I was able to look it up when I got home, and soon had a copy on my iPad.

I had not read a biography of Jane Austen before, just her books. I cannot, then, compare this with other biographies. But it struck me that Jane Austin was very much like Elizabeth Bennett. Not so much in the incidents of her life, as in the way she approached life.

She paid attention to people and the minutiae of places, and they were very likely to reappear in her fiction. As part of the NPR interview Ms. Byrne mentioned the crimson cushions Fanny Price noticed on entering the family chapel at Southerton. Jane Austen herself had seen such cushions in the chapel at Stoneleigh Abby in Warwickshire. There is a photograph in the book, but one has to imagine the cushions a couple of centuries younger than those in the photo!

Her interest in the clergy and the Navy probably came from her family. Her father was a clergyman (though much more like Edmund in Mansfield Park or Edward in Sense and Sensibility than Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice!) So was the brother who became the source of much of the information about her. But she had two brothers in the Navy as well, one of whom bought her and her sister Cassandra two topaz crosses which may have inspired the amber cross Fanny Price was given by her sailor brother. There are a variety of naval characters in her books, both heroic and comedic.

While I cannot judge how the book compares with other biographies of Jane Austen, I felt I knew her far better for reading this book.

North Pole Weather 3/11/13

The sun will rise at 8:23 this morning – note that it’s back to future tense, thanks to daylight savings. On the other hand, with an 11 hour 18 minute day, it won’t set until 7:40 this afternoon, with solar noon at 2:01 pm. Alaska’s certainly not on sun time, and it’s even worse at Nome, where the sun sometimes doesn’t rise until afternoon.

The temperatures have been balmy to the point of being ridiculous . The highs were above freezing from Thursday through Saturday, which caused problems for the World Ice Art Championships. The single block competition was over, but the multiple block carvers were supposed to finish at 9 pm Friday. They use water to glue the pieces together, and at 42° Friday that just wasn’t possible. So Friday most of the sculptures were wrapped in Tyvek to keep the sun from melting them, and the sculptors were allowed to keep working until 11 pm.

The roads are great where the sun has melted the ice and then evaporated the water, but there is still a lot of gray ice present. When the sun shines on that, with temperatures this warm, it gets very slippery. Remember the ground is thoroughly cold-soaked, so it takes quite a lot of heating to get rid of the ice cover. I hope it stays below freezing for a while now, but I’m not hoping for extreme cold, such as sometimes follows unusual warmth.  We can reach 40 below until the end of March.

I’ll put a couple of pairs of photos side by side below. Click to get larger images. The first is Friday and Saturday views of “Winter Breeze,” an abstract  by Stan Kolenko, Chris Uyehara, Jerry Perun and Wei Sen Liang,  all of the USA. Guess I did a good job choosing; this one took first place in the abstract category.

………………….

The second is Friday and Saturday views of “Extreme Ice,” a realistic sculpture by Qi Feng An, (China) Di An, (China) Julio Martinez (Mexico) and Aubrey Newton (USA.) This one took 4th place realistic and the Governer’s Award. I’ll post photos of the winners Thursday.

Weekend Writing Warriors

I’m still posting from War’s End. Coralie has just suggested that they delay conversing with the Maung until they rig a shelter – she is sure rain is coming.

A rumble of thunder punctuated [Coralie’s] words.

“Under the branches, but stay away from the biggest trunks,” Kelty agreed. “Audi, tell it we need shelter from the rain and possible lightning. Give me a hand with the medical kit—you can pile the other stuff on it.” He managed to lift Ginger’s levitation-equipped medical kit clear of the ground, and he and Audi began pushing it toward the edge of the clearing. The others gathered their own belongings and followed him, the Maung seeming as eager as the Humans to find shelter.

They had weather sheets, Coralie saw when Kelty turned out the contents of the emergency kit, but nothing to prop them up with. “String some of that light rope between two trees and drape the sheets over it,” she suggested, but Michelle was demanding to be fed again, so she could only watch as they fumbled the job.

Ah, the frustration of knowing how something should be done and being forced to stand by and watch others make a mess of it.

Next week will be a free day for Horse Power, a short story that bridges the gap between Homecoming and Tourist Trap and the trilogy that will finish with War’s End, so I’ll be posting a snippet from that. We’ll get back to War’s End, though. If you download Horse Power, I ‘d really appreciate a review.

This post is part of a blog ring, Weekend Writing Warriors, where authors can post up to 8 sentences from a work at any stage of completion. Do visit and comment on other authors; you can find the list and links by clicking on the logo at the top of the page. There is also a facebook list for excerpts, which can be found by clicking the logo below.