Welcome to a potpourri of fun! On this page you’ll find the latest comics by Jari Thymian, a motivational quote, a crossword puzzle contest, and whatever else we decide to throw in here. Be sure to check back for the latest!

• Earth Corner – With Pat Walsh
• Star Stories – by Kelly Ricks
• Riding the Santa Fe Trail – by Laura Brewer
• Every Day Should be Earth Day – Editorial by Laura Brewer
• Find the Differences
• Frank Mahannah – Gallery
• Exploring Climax Canyon by Mauricio Meneses
• Madi’s Kitchen
• Quotes & Riddles

Quotes & Riddles

Riddle Answer

Earth Corner – With Pat Walsh

Turkey Vultures have an Image Problem

Posted April 5, 2025

The old Western movies had the formula down pat.

The cowboy’s horse has died. The canteen has run dry. The poor guy stumbles through the desert, desperately searching for water. To make sure we know the situation is grim, somewhere out of sight the filmmakers say, “Cue the vultures!”

In our area, of course, one sure marker of spring’s return is the arrival of turkey vultures soaring gracefully in circles above town. It reassures me that the Earth is continuing its orbit around the sun, with all the natural cycles that entails.

Turkey vultures have an image problem. Instead of feathers on their heads, they have red and wrinkled skin.

Let’s say I put two photos side by side, one of a turkey vulture and the other of a bald eagle. I ask you to choose which is more appealing. Odds are, you’ll prefer the bald eagle (ironic, since the eagle is not bald and has white feathers on its head!) Or perhaps one image is the vulture, the other a spotted fawn. Which one makes you feel warm and fuzzy?

And there you have it—the so-called “Beauty Bias,” as author Hal Herzog puts it in an online article for Psychology today. Why People Care More About Beautiful Animals Than Ugly Ones | Psychology Today

“Why do humans care more about cute animals than ugly ones?” Herzog asks. “One explanation is that cute animals remind us of human babies. Indeed, several studies have reported that animals with characteristics like big eyes and soft facial features trigger our parental care instincts.”

But turkey vultures have a big ecosystem job, serving as the “cleanup crew.” In Raton, stalwart city workers drive garbage trucks through town once a week to empty our dumpsters and keep our streets clean. Thank goodness!

Our town sits amid a beautiful natural landscape. Out there, when animals die, turkey vultures discover this quickly because they have a keen sense of smell, which is unusual in birds. When they arrive, they can chow down easily. Any gore left behind on their bald heads will be disinfected by sunlight. And the remains of the dead animal are safely cycled back into nature.

“By quickly cleaning up decaying remains, vultures help stop the spread of potentially harmful bacteria and viruses that could otherwise contaminate water sources or cause diseases in other animal populations,” says Peter Knight in an online piece. Why vultures are so important? – Birdful “Studies have shown significant increases in infectious diseases like rabies and anthrax in places where vulture populations have declined.”

Turkey vultures are also masters of flight, spiraling upward on warm air currents using little energy. Our turkey vultures migrate south to Central and South America in the winter, and back to us in the spring. Other local animals suffer from an image problem, including insects, snakes, and bats. But, like turkey vultures, each supports ongoing life on our amazing planet.

So next time you see one of our vultures overhead, consider joining me in smiling and saying, “Welcome back!”

Star Stories – by Kelly Ricks

Polaris Galacticus Borealis

Posted April 10, 2025.

Many of the stars and constellations that stick in our memory are those that line up with how we and our solar-system companions are oriented in space.

The constellations of the Zodiac are very well known, but anyone who has tried to decipher Ares, Aquarius, Cancer, Capricorn, Virgo, or Pisces knows that these patterns of stars are dim and don’t really resemble their intended characters. The reason these constellations are famous is because from our vantage point they happen to lie directly behind the flat plane of the solar system. From day to day, month to month, and year to year, we watch the Moon, Sun, and planets wander in front of them…and only them. Canes Venatici (The Hunting Dogs) will never catch Jupiter’s scent. You’ll never watch the moon fly with Cygnus (the Swan). And no matter how hard she might wish it, the vain queen Cassiopeia will never seize the sun for her throne. By knowing the zodiacal constellations, it’s relatively easy to orient ourselves within the solar system.

Polaris, the north star, is not particularly bright either, but like a spinning top, Earth’s northern axis happens to point straight toward it (at least within our lifetimes). As the one star that appears stationary while all others circle around it, it’s both a reliable tool for navigation, and a powerful cultural metaphor of steadfastness. High in the springtime night sky there’s another unassuming constellation that holds an anchor within: another pole star, another guidepost, and another—deeper—perspective on our orientation within the universe.

One of the few zodiacal constellations that does resemble its namesake is Leo. With a “backward question mark” as its mane, this majestic lion guards his stellar domain like a sphynx. Following close behind is a dim trio of stars: a “right angle” that almost looks like it could make a square with Leo’s tail and hind quarters. “Coma Berenices” (Berenice’s Hair) was named for Queen Berenice II of Egypt who lived in the mid 200s BC, and is the only modern constellation named for a real person. Berenice was renowned for her beautiful amber-colored hair, but when her husband King Ptolemy III went to war, she offered her tresses to Aphrodite in hopes that the goddess would bring him safely home. Ptolemy did indeed return, and Berenice’s loving sacrifice was memorialized in a constellation showcasing a long cascading cluster of stars.

Berenice’s starry “hair” is indeed beautiful, but to me its most awe-inspiring feature is that it visually anchors the Milky Way’s North Pole. That’s right. Just like Earth, our immense galaxy—with its billions of stars, planets, moons, and vast clouds of gas and dust—spins on an axis, and from our view on Earth’s northern hemisphere, that axis points to a faint star in Coma Berenices called “Polaris Galacticus Borealis,” the Galactic North Pole.

When Coma Berenices is straight overhead (around midnight in April, and 11:00pm in May) the Milky Way is not visible in the sky. This confuses—and sometimes frustrates—early-season dark-sky enthusiasts who visit our area in search of the Milky Way. But if you stand with your arms spread parallel to the ground and turn in a slow circle. The disc of our galaxy is surrounding you on all sides of the horizon! When you look up, you are looking straight out of our galaxy and toward many clusters of galaxies far beyond the Milky Way. If you continue to watch through the morning’s wee hours, you’ll see Coma Berenices and the Galactic North Pole set in the west as the brightest part of our galaxy surges above the eastern horizon before dawn.

Spring is “Galaxy Season.” The Virgo, Coma, and Leo galaxy clusters contain thousands of galaxies—dozens of which are visible with a modest-sized telescope (8-inches in diameter or more). There are so many to see in such a small area that amateur astronomers tear out their hair trying to figure out which one is which. But simply standing beneath Coma Berenices and “straight and tall in our galaxy,”* it is easy to feel part of something grand: to breathe deep within the vastness, and feel welcomed into eternity.

*From “Stars above, Earth Below” by renowned astronomer, author, and artist Tyler Nordgren

Help our Earth – Editorial by Laura Brewer

Every day should be Earth Day, but officially we celebrate in the U.S. on Monday, April 22, 2024. Below is a graphic of some of the things one can do to help our Earth.

Posted March 9, 2025 – Provided by Laura Brewer

Madi’s Kitchen

See additional recipes on Madi’s Kitchen page

Chocolate Nests – Pascha Basket

Posted April 13, 2025

This week’s recipe is a fun spring / summer treat that can be made with a few ingredients. This chocolate nest recipe is simple enough that you could probably make it with most people pretty easily, and even if not, at least you can still enjoy it together.

Pascha, also called Easter, is the feast of the Resurrection of Christ. The preparation of the Pascha basket is one of the most cherished customs associated with Easter. This basket, filled with a variety of specially prepared foods, is an essential part of the Paschal celebration

I made a Pascha Basket for some of our friends. One item we put in our basket, includes these chocolate nests – of course! A couple of other things include basic egg bread (the same recipe I put up last year), elderberry wine that my mom made, dried apple slices, two stickers (from my personal collection, I love stickers so much!), salt, apple butter, and balm of Gilead. Plus a few more things too, they just weren’t in the basket while I’m writing this.

Some of these items are traditional to put in a Pascha basket, like wine, bread, and butter. Often the butter is shaped like a cross or a lamb. We ended up just putting ours in a jar for the basket. A couple of other things that are usually included are eggs, sausage, ham, cheese, or some horseradish with beets. Some of these could be a bit hard to get, especially right now, like fresh horseradish and beets (and maybe eggs).

Each item in a Pascha basket does represent something. To learn more about those, this article is rather good and has a great diagram of the Pascha basket. https://www.asceticlifeofmotherhood.com/blog/traditionalpaschabasket

In making our egg bread and adding eggs to our basket we are lucky enough to have our own chickens, so eggs are not a problem for us. We actually sell our eggs sometimes, mostly to Skateland in Trinidad and to close friends in Raton and Trinidad. We also offer eggs, mostly in the summer when it’s farmers market season.

Right now, one of our chickens is sitting on a batch of 16-18 eggs! She is just so puffed up, which is so cute since she is literally a Bantam chicken. Our ducks are sitting for the first time in like seven years. The two Peking ducks are actually sitting on a nest with 26 eggs! Maude and Marie Curie, two of our first ducks who have now passed away, would be so proud of them.

We also have some turkey eggs in an incubator that we’re trying to hatch out with some more on the way of species we don’t currently have. Right now, we have three turkeys, all of which are blue slate turkeys. Their colors can range anywhere from black pitch to pure white, which means they usually end up looking really cool. We have two gray ones and one black one. Unlike what you might think they are actually very snuggly and sweet. They are pretty much just like big feathery dogs.

I hope you appreciate this simple recipe and all the delicious food in your own Pascha basket. Enjoy!

Chocolate Easter Nests (Baskets)

Ingredients:

• 1/4 – 1/2 cup chocolate chips
• Marshmallow peeps (I have a recipe for them from last year)
• Small chocolate eggs
• 1/8 cup coconut, shredded
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ginger powder or chili powder

Instructions:

• In a double boiler melt the chocolate over low heat, this could take anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes. Once the chocolate has melted, take a cupcake wrapper and pour a little bit of chocolate inside, spread it around, so it covers the sides. Repeat with the rest of the chocolate and let them rest in the freezer.
• While the chocolate is setting take the coconut and ginger or chili powder and mix them together in a small bowl.
• Once the chocolate is done setting, just take it out of the freezer, take a bit of the coconut mix and lay it down inside. Then just line with your chocolate eggs and marshmallow peep and they are all done!

Find the Differences – Search by the Sea

Find the five differences in the two images above.

Find the differences answer

Exploring Climax Canyon by Mauricio Meneses

Artist Mauricio Meneses (D’MAU) is creating videos highlighting sights in and around New Mexico. Visit his YouTube channel to see more. Click on the image below to go to the YouTube video.

Riddle Answer – A towel