Hello friends!
Can you believe there’s just one more day of the year? I’m not sure how we got here so quickly, but there you go. I’m going to guess that by now you’re sick of seeing end-of-the-year lists, so we’ll not be doing any of that today.
Instead, we’re going to talk about bears - not just any bears, but FAT bears. This morning I learned from Numlock News that every year Katmai National Park holds an event called Fat Bear Week.
The annual march madness-style competition, now in its fourth year, pits commonly seen bears on the Bear Cam against one another to decide which bear indeed, looks the fattest.
I’m a big fan of the Bear Cam - it can be quite entertaining watching the bears catch fish and sometimes tussle about with each other. The cams are offline now while the bears hibernate, but you can visit the site and see highlights from earlier this year.
The brown bears gorge themselves on salmon to gain as much weight at possible before settling in for the winter. Brown bears are not quite the same as grizzly bears, though they are actually the same species. Learn more (a lot) about the brown bears of Katmai here. For example:
How big is a brown bear?
Katmai’s brown bears are some of the largest bears in the world. They can stand 3-5 feet (.9-1.5 m) at the shoulder and measure 7-10 (2.1-3 m) feet in length. Most adult males typically weigh 600-900 pounds (272-408 kg) in mid-summer. By October and November, large adult males can weigh well over 1000 pounds (454 kg). Adult females average about 1/3 less in weight than adult males.
Don’t get between a bear and its fish!
For several years the park has produced free ebooks about the bears, including information about individually identified bears. You too can get to know the competitors in Fat Bear Week and choose a favorite! You can also learn about the biology and habitat of the Katmai bears.
And who was this year’s winner? Bear 409 Beadnose was crowned the biggest of the big. What a lump!
The amount of weight gain over a short period of time is pretty amazing.
I’m looking forward to next year’s competition!
Now - time for some excellent Katmai brown bear photos by Ronald Woan on Flickr. Scroll down for seven days worth of bear action (and quite a lot of other interesting looking albums). Here’s a few highlights.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the bears as much as I have today.
Happy New Year!
Tidbits
Speaking of animals, how about that wildlife overpass on I-90 in eastern Washington? Be sure to watch the video of the coyote crossing the bridge.
Amazing intricate newspaper collages by Myriam Dion. See more of her work on her website (thanks zbkat!).
What happens when you let an AI bot name things? One thing that happens is you get sucked down the rabbit hole to see what it does with fireworks, cookies, and my favorite - cocktails, complete with recipes!
Making: winding down the last few days of my Year of Making. Barring any major disasters in the next 36 hours, I will have met my goal of doing something creative every day this year. There were many a day when my only creative bit was a diminutive drawing (more here), but I did a lot of other things too. Finishing up with a month of hand carved stamps has been great fun. You’re no doubt wondering if I will do it again in 2019… NO. Time for a break, and with the impending move I’m not going to commit myself to anything. I especially don’t want the daily task of making something (anything) hanging over my head when things get crazy. I’m sure I will continue doing creative things, just not every bloody day. I might feel like reading instead…
Reading: I finished The Man in the High Castle audiobook. It was strange, and I think I might have enjoyed it better if I had read it. For a quick read, I suggest The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter. Perfect motivation for the big job of cleaning/packing for the move! Finally, I started Matter by Iain M. Banks. So far so good, but then again I’m only on page 7!
Recently eaten: we had a scrumptious brisket dinner on Christmas, complete with roast potatoes and vegetables (parsnips, carrots, onion), brussel sprouts & bacon, and Yorkshire pudding. Leftovers for dinner tonight. Yum!
Videos of the Week
What I’d really like you to see is the performance that starts at 50:17, but I can only get the entire video to post here. The show is called Goluboy Ogonyok (Little Blue Light) and was a popular Soviet musical variety show, televised on various holidays.
There’s all sorts of strange things in this New Year’s show from 1983/84, but if you jump ahead you’ll see a lovely Ukranian folk song performed by a group with a surprisingly young (and very serious) boy on the drum set.
The number that starts at 1:07:12 is amusing, and in a strange way leads into this second video, which I found through @tintypewriter.
Question of the Week
Just hit reply to send your answer, and I’ll share it next week. Always anonymous!
What are your thoughts on New Year’s resolutions?
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Last week I asked what you’d like to try in 2019.
I want to try all the restaurants in my new town! I recently made the shift from vegetarian to pescatarian after 15 years. There are so many fresh seafood joints in my new town and in the surrounding towns - fish and crab coming right off the boat! - that I felt it was time to add seafood deliciousness to my diet. Bring on the malt vinegar & tartar sauce!
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