Blog » January 2008

Hi everyone.  Meet Boot:

 

Her head is not always upside-down like that.  It's just that she likes to keep very clean, and she was preening during the whole photoshoot.  That first picture, of course, is from when she was a wee beepy thing, in a season we like to call "Spring".  Look how green it was!

Here are some important things for you to know about Boot:

1. She is an Indian Runner.  Sometimes these ducks are called "bottle ducks" or "bowling pin ducks" because they stand up so straight and tall (like in that baby picture).  They don't really waddle; instead they jog along quite smoothly.  She does not stand up as straight as some runners, because A) she was raised with normal ducks instead of straight-up ducks (peer pressure, dontcha know), and B) she is pretty chill.  She'll stand up right straight when she's scared, but usually she's pretty happy and stands only part-straight-up.  
2. She is missing the webbing on one foot.  She was actually named Boot before this happened, but at some point in her teen months, she managed to get the webbing sliced through on her left foot.  She never limped, and so we didn't even notice until it had already completely healed.  She doesn't seem to care, and as far we know the other ducks don't give her grief about it.
3. When Indian Runners are excited (like lettuce is being handed out!  Or we're filling up a fresh wading pool!), they stand in place and hop back-and-forth on their two feet.  It's awesome.
   
   
4. Boot is the most adventurous of all our ducks.  She only weighs 1.5 lbs (2 lbs in the middle of laying season), but she is always the first to venture through the snow, or up onto the porch, or through the woods to the stream.
5. Even though she is so small, she lays 3oz eggs (that's 150% the size of your average chicken eggs) just like the bigger ducks.
6. She thinks you are a sucker.  She will take none of your guff.

Check it, ya'll.  A big pretty flower.   I grew it myself!

The stalk is about 2 feet long, and I am concerned that at some point soon it will realize that it is absurdly top-heavy, and the whole thing will topple over in the night.

The sky really was that color this morning, and the snow really was that blinding.  "Hey," you might say, "isn't that what white balance is for?"  Hmmph, I say.  Go tell it to Ansel Adams.   

The Coppermine Trail leads to Bridalveil Falls, and the path was so well tramped that we left our snowshoes at the trailhead and did the whole thing bare-footed.  Not THAT kind of bare-footed; are you crazy?  It's January!  Bare-footed as in "just shoes", no snowshoes or crampons.  We had to cross bits of ice along the way to the top.

Please note that this picture does not depict some sort of "Leaning Tower of Aaron", but rather a "Holy Crap it's cold and hard to hold the camera straight with mittens" incident.

The Falls at the top are great, and actually easier to get to in the winter than in the summer (when the weather is warm, you have sheer slick granite to walk on instead of sticky snow).

 "Hey," you might say, "that ice looks like pee."  Well, yes, it does.  Even more so in person, in contrast to the deep-blue ice of the rest of the falls.  I assume it has to do with minerals or dirt or something in the water.  A quick Google search gives me no answers, though it does point me to a product page for "Yellow Ice Shuffleboard Wax".  I am going to go out on a limb here and make the bold assumption that these falls are made of neither shuffleboard wax, nor pee. 

The whole area is pretty wet in the summer, which results in lots and lots of icefalls in the winter.  This is apparently a destination for ice climbers.  In my world, ice is not for climbing.  For me, this area is a destination for trail mix*.

* I accidentally typed that as "trail mixz", which is maybe even better.  MIXZ in da hiz-ouse (or, more appropriately:  biz-ackpack)!  Give a shout-out to the raisins and my main man Chocolate Chipz!

Over at TreeHugger, there's a post about SC Johnson's new "GreenList" label.   TreeHugger contends that this is a classic case of greenwashing -- the Greenlist Certification was developed by SC Johnson, so of course they pass with flying colors.  The products are not what most people would label "green", however.

If you read through the Greenlist website,  it's a decent program.  Basically, all raw materials get a 0-3 rating (3 is "best", 0 is "will kill you and your dog"), and they try to make sure that all their products are using 2- and 3-rated products.  So, for example, Windex has been reformulated so that it no longer uses a 0-rated solvent, so it spews fewer VOCs into the air.  And the company made the radical move of using brown instead of bleached-white paperboard for packaging.  (And who rates the ingredients?  Why, they do!)

However, a pretty leaf label does not magically turn "Toilet Duck" into an earth-friendly cleanser.   Glade Plugins will never be anything less than completely foul.  It should be a crime to call that smell "vanilla".  

I started out writing this post thinking, "I dunno, TreeHugger was a little harsh.  At least they're doing something".  And then I got to the "Get the Facts" page on SC Johnson's site, where, in response to a question about whether Glade Plugins have ever started house fires, I read: 

No. It's an example of the kind of irresponsible urban legend that gets forwarded around the Internet and disparages brands.

Oh, CRY ME A RIVER, SC Johnson.  Poor you and your poor disparaged brands.  Those kooky internet forwards sure are hurting your business.  (It did not help that the next page I read was how they're so green they've received awards... from the President!) 

That is, frankly, not a great reason for me to conclude that they are only greenwashing with this silly label, as opposed to actually committing to real change.  GreenList may be a fine program, but it's not fine enough to convince me.  

Over at Pentagram, DJ Stout has redesigned Dairy Today (an industry magazine).  The old magazine looked like... well, it looked like every other trade magazine.  The new one does not.  It's enough to make you want to subscribe.

Along with the great new typography and candy-colored backgrounds, every cover has a cow glamour-shot.   It's so great.  Click through to the original post -- there's a hilarious video of the crew trying to art-direct the cows for the photoshoot.