Jacques Cousteau Friday

Do you even know who Jacques Cousteau is? You should! He was the man of the deep sea and oceans to me. He was also a French naval officer, explorer, ecologist, filmmaker, inventor, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher of all ocean life. He was born in 1910 and died in 1997.

Starting on Friday the 11th, TMC (Turner Movie Classics) is having an all day marathon of his 1 hour specials he did back in the '70's. Way before my time but I have seen most of them that I got from the public library for school projects and just for myself, as he was very interesting to watch and learn about.


This is the schedule I got from the TMC website. All times are Eastern Time.

6:00 AM - The Cousteau Odyssey: The Nile - Part One
7:00 AM - The Cousteau Odyssey: The Nile - Part Two
8:00 AM - The Cousteau Odyssey: Calypso's Search For Atlantis - Part One
9:00 AM - The Cousteau Odyssey: Calypso's Search For Atlantis - Part Two
10:00 AM - The Cousteau Odyssey: Time Bomb at Fifty Thousand Fathoms
11:00 AM - The Cousteau Odyssey: Mediterranean - Cradle or Coffin?
12:00 PM - The Cousteau Odyssey: Calypso's Search for the Britannic
1:00 PM - The Cousteau Odyssey: Diving for Roman Plunder
2:00 PM - The Cousteau Odyssey: Blind Prophets of Easter Island
3:00 PM - The Cousteau Odyssey: Clipperton - The Island That Time Forgot
4:00 PM - The Cousteau Odyssey: Lost Relics of the Sea
5:00 PM - The Cousteau Odyssey: The Warm Blooded Sea - Mammals
6:00 PM - Jacques Cousteau: The First 75 Years (2 hr. special)
8:00 PM - Sharks
9:00 PM - Whales
10:00 PM - Sunken Treasure
11:00 PM - The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau: Mystery of the Hidden Reef
12:00 AM - The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau: The Sound of Dolphins
1:00 AM - The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau: The Flight of the Penguins

I plan on watching a few of them and will most likely record the rest of the them for a later time. Anyone else interested in this type of nature? I find it very interesting and always have.

Happy trails!

Missing At Sea

I'm so sad right now.

My friend and fellow blogger Abby Sunderland is missing at sea. She had been trying to circle the globe in her sailboat which left California in January. She is missing somewhere in the Indian Ocean 400 miles from the nearest ship and farther than that from the nearest landmass. Talk about being out in the middle of nowhere. Rescue efforts are in effect to locate her as she switched on two of her emergency beacons early this morning.





Please pray she is found and found safe too. I have cried deeply over this and I'm very concerned for her safety being she is so far from help. The nearest ship is over a day away.

You can follow updates of Abby on her blog, which is here. Her mom is doing the updates.

This is the lastest from CBS news. Click here to read.

Please God, help her. Keep her safe until help arrives.

Gulf Oil Spill - Wake Up!

I'm really concerned about this oil spill in my neck of the woods. I never thought I would see the day where our white sandy beaches would maybe turn black one day. Our neighbors to the north of me are experiencing this black crap that is washing up on their shores though. Why? Why has it even been allowed to progress that far? I thought they had booms out catching it. I guess not when I see it on the news and from my friends who live near Pensacola, as they both show tar balls and black crap washing in with nothing keeping it from doing just that.

I feel worse for the poor little animals and fish that can do nothing about it. They are dying! Does anyone even recognize that word? Dying! They are dying!! Wake up you money hungry thieves and politicians! What does it take to wake them up? If people were dying, which I'm sure some will, will that wake them up? I doubt it being money is all I hear about this crappy oil slick. I don't get paid to go out and help animals. I do it because I love and care about them. Do any of our politicians care? I don't see it. Put me in charge of this oil cleanup and I guarantee I will take action no matter what the cost is. Atleast I will do more than what has been done, which isn't much or not enough to please me or anyone else living near this crap.

All my whys:

Why is a British oil company drilling in our neck of the woods anyway?
Why doesn't our President kick BP out and we do the cleanup?
Why are there no booms stretching from the Keys to Louisiana?
Why are so many brown pelicans being shown drenched in oil?
Why are turtles being shown dead and dripping in oil?
Why are the marsh lands in Louisiana shown covered in oil when booms are out?
Why? Why? Why? I could go on forever.

It's sad. It's sad that we are so advanced in technology that we can't even stop a leak. Didn't anyone think of this before they drilled the hole? Again...No! Money was on their mind only. Our government spends billions and billions of money on an army that tramples around the world looking for a man that can't be found, but they can't do the same for poor animals that can't defend for themselves. It's just sad!

I have called the wildlife dept in north Florida to see if they need help in cleaning the birds and all the other animals being affected by this disaster and they said come on up at anytime. I will be doing just that real soon. If anyone reading this cares about animals as I do, you will do the same and volunteer your time to help these helpless animals that the money hungry oil people have hurt. It's not the cost. It's care. Do you care? The animals need our help. Please help them! Please!

Happy trails!

I'm Free!

Hi everyone! (I'm waving)

Well, I graduated from high school last week (woohoo) and we had our graduation exercises last Friday (May 28th). WooHoo! I passed all my exams with none less than a 92 grade, so now I'm free. I was so happy that I think I cried for a couple days. I will miss all my classmates as most of us have spent our entire school years together ever since first grade. That is the one thing I loved about going to a private school, was the close friendships and the small classes too. Most are headed off in opposite directions going to colleges all over the US and some overseas. I'm staying local to go to school for a couple years, then will be heading off to a bigger college. My best friend Megan is staying local too, so that is great news. We will be going to the same college this fall, just different classes.  

What have I been doing since I last posted here 3 weeks ago? Plenty! After the graduation party last week, a bunch of my friends and I went on a small getaway for a couple days. We went down to Naples, Florida to relax, lay on the beach alot, and party a little too. We came back last Sunday, the day before Memorial Day, so we could all spend time with our families, then I flew up to see my grandma on Tuesday morning for a short trip and came back today. She doesn't have a computer and I didn't take my laptop or I would have written something here by now.

My friend Megan and I leave for Ireland in 3 weeks for our 1 month summer getaway and that is something we have been looking forward too since January of this year. We were thinking of cancelling it because of all the ash clouds and it's still not a sure thing right now. I watch the news everyday to see what that volcano is doing so we can go see the world. If we can't go, well, we have planned another place just in case, but we really want to go to Ireland. Not much else can take its place.

Other than that, it's back to full time duty with the bunnies. I have missed being around them and I have planned all of next week to do some reorganizing, painting, and some other things to make life better for them all. I'm still working the part time job at night, which I start back at this Monday night.

That's about it from me right now as I'm more busier now than before I graduated. That's life, right?

Happy trails!

One down, five to go

Wow, what an exam that was this morning. My brain feels like it has been robbed of all of its memory. More like a brain-freeze! How do I think I did? Deep down, I think I passed with flying colors to be as truthful as I can be. It was hard, but not as hard as I thought it might be and that's good, because Physics is one of my hardest classes. It's not a required subject, I selected it at the beginning of the school year as just something I might want to know more of, as I had 2 choices to fill in my 6 subject school day. Tomorrow is another tough day with two exams, advanced calculus and english 12. Having both on the same day will most likely numb my brain for the entire day afterwards, I'm quite sure of that.

It is nice being out of school this early, but that only means to hit the books and study some more. I may get to it after lunch..no..more like after dinner. I need a break anyways. A smoothie break! Yeah!! Anyone want one? lol

Happy trails everone!

Exam Week

Hello everyone!

The past week has been a rough one for me and it's only going to get rougher this coming week, as it's exam week. I have 6 exams to take this week, 1 today (Monday), 2 on Tuesday, 1 on Wednesday, and 2 on Thursday. There is no school on Friday or next Monday. Yea! I will be drained by then anyway. This is the one thing I like about private school, they give you many days off before you find out your grades, which will be next Tuesday. That is the day that is circled on my calendar. Graduate or not day, is what I call it. I plan on graduating! No summer school for me! Graduation exercises are next Friday, another important day circled on my calendar. Freedom!!

I need to go feed the bunnies and get some chores done before my first exam class at 8am. Physics is my first exam, so wish me luck!

Happy trails!

Great Canadian Beaver Dam

Has anyone read or heard about this monster of a dam some beavers have been building since the 1970's? I heard something about it earlier this week and didn't pay too much attention to it right away, that is until I heard it was over 3 football fields long! I decided to do some research on it when I heard that, as it seemed far fetched when I first heard it.

From what I have found out, this beaver dam is located in Wood Buffalo National Park which is in Alberta Canada. It's being called the worlds largest beaver dam as it's 2,788 feet long (850 meters). That is HUGE in my department! The only way to see the dam is by air, as there is nowhere to land by plane near it, and it's so far out in the middle of nowhere, that no one can get to it that easily, as most of the land is wetlands.

The dam had been constructed from thousands of trees, and if you know anything about dams that us humans have built, it's twice the length of the Hoover Dam, which is on the Nevada/Arizona border. The beaver dam can also be seen from space.

Finding pictures of this dam has been difficult and that proves it's hard to get to it. I have found a few small pictures of it using Google search and that's the best I have found so far.

These pictures might not look like much, but you have to remember that this is a wetlands dam. They are a little different than river dams, but still, look at all the trees the beavers have taken down to make this dam of theirs.

I think it's awesome looking, but it's bad news for anything downstream of it though.

Spiders: Brown Recluse

The most common spider around here is the Brown Recluse, also known as a Violin Spider. These spiders love to hide in loose piles of debris, like wood piles, corners of a garage, under your lawn mower or if indoors - in furniture, closet corners and folded clothing. I found one last night just outside of the Bunny Barn in our pile of sticks we give to the bunnies to chew on. I'm not usually that jumpy around insects, but this spider in an exception as they are poisonous to humans and these pesky insects tend to strike when disturbed or threatened by humans. I wasn't bitten, it just put me on the defensive to find it and kill it, which I did.

If you are bitten by one of these spiders, seek medical attention immediately. This is not to be taken lightly, as the wound can take months to heal and it leaves a deep crater like shape on you, if not treated properly. This picture of a bite on this man is horrible looking, but you will look the same if not treated. You have been warned.

Use common sense when moving anything outdoors, as they are usually close by even when you might think they are not.

This image is not a fake to scare you any!

Rabbit in La-La Land

This was written by a friend over on the House Rabbit Society's website and I wanted to share it here with everyone, mainly with Caryn, as this story reminded me of what your bunny was doing while you were away. lol Not that it's funny when a bunny rips up your carpet and puts you further in debt, but this story from the rabbits point of view is very funny.

Rabbit in La-La Land
Written by Helen Weiss

Hello, I'm Wabbit, and I own two lovely humans--Sotos and Helen. We all live in a comfortable apartment with a balcony which I also own. When Helen brought me home four years ago I was just a dainty little dame. I let my humans know right away that I was feisty and curious, and with a few exceptions I have always been given free reign of our living room.

When I was young, I gave Helen and Sotos plenty of work around the house. I kept Sotos busy patching carpets and repairing phone cords. For some reason they were constantly devising techniques to prevent me from doing my work. I took great joy in outsmarting them. Oh, I liked chewing on the little pieces of wood bought for me, but nothing was more fun than digging up the carpet or jumping on desks and bureaus to chew up papers and clothes.

I'll never forget the time they tried to prevent me from hopping on the bed. You see, the bed was rabbit heaven: soft blankets and pillows good for hours of cuddling. The only problem was that the blanket and sheets were without holes and required some work on my part. Strangely, Helen and Sotos couldn't see the value in sheets with hundreds of holes. They seemed embarrassed to hang such sheets on the line.

The humans tried draping a barrier of fabric from the ceiling and tucking it under the mattress. To them it looked formidable, but when they were asleep or away, I just untucked the drapery with my wonderful teeth and went about my shredding business. They got irritated and took turns shooing me off the bed, but as far as I was concerned they slept too much--and there was work to be done. Five- foot board barriers were next. That was easy. Using the nightstand as a springboard, I jumped over the boards and landed plop in the middle of the bed.

In my mature years I give Sotos and Helen less work. I still teach slow people the right way to play Scrabble, but whereas I used to flip their racks into the air, sending their tiles flying into a real scrabble, today I am content with gently lifting the corner of the board. I have even stopped chewing on the phone and electric cords. Mellowness, though, has not diminished the amount of love, licking and laughter that I give.

All in all I am happy and healthy, and gets lots of attention. I do wonder what life would be like if I shared it with a long-eared short-tailed darling. I daydream about bunny love in my spare time--on breaks from my busy schedule.