This set provides an exploration of a specific bay's daily transformation. A location that came into existence around three million years ago, the bay has seen numerous changes in vegetation, fauna, and human interaction. Despite our perceptions, this place is in a state of constant flux. Each day, it presents a new tableau, with variations in wave patterns, cloud formations, light reflections, and the ebb and flow of terrestrial and marine life. From the water in the sky as clouds to the water on the earth as a sea, every element forms a dynamic and harmonious landscape. Each photograph in this set captures a unique moment, illustrating the bay's ever-changing character and highlighting our natural world's profound yet often overlooked daily transformations.

A group of us visited three specific sites in Pickens County, in the upstate of South Carolina over the weekend of March 19-20, 2021. Lots of wildflowers in full bloom. These are just a sampling of what we saw.

 

For the full trip report, please go to Jim's Blog.

I had to follow an online tutorial to learn how to make a librarian villager in minecraft.

 

Minecraft librarians are a specific type of villager who, surprisingly, deal with books and other book-related items. Librarians are one of the best places to find rare enchanted books, so having them around can be quite handy.

 

Minecraft is a 3D survival sandbox game developed and published by Mojang. The game has no specific goals to accomplish, allowing players a large amount of freedom in choosing how to play the game. Players must acquire resources to build the world. The game world is composed of voxels—cubes, commonly called "blocks"—representing various materials, such as dirt, stone, ores, tree trunks, water, and lava, which are arranged in a 3-dimensional grid. Gameplay revolves around picking up and placing these objects as the player pleases, while being able to move freely around the world.

 

Chrash course 'How to make a librarian'

Find sugar canes to make paper. Find ink. Learn how to make books.

Find trees to cut down for wood. Saw trees into logs, Cut logs into boards,.

Combine boards and books to make a bookshelf. Combine boards and bookshelf into a lectern.

Find an 'unemployed' villager. Place lectern next to unemployed villager. The unemployed villager will turn into a librarian.

 

We're here visiting Libraries and librarians

 

This '79 Mustang isn't based on a specific model or trim package because I wanted to include a full suite of iconic elements on my build: the black trim stripes, rear window louvers, hood scoop, sunroof, and spoiler. Dark Red is a really nasty color to work with, guys. Look at all the color variation on these pieces!

 

Instructions for this one are free because, to be up front with y'all, it's not very fun to build and I cannot bring myself to charge money for a bad time.

Nps.gov: Crater Lake inspires awe. Native Americans witnessed its formation 7,700 years ago, when a violent eruption triggered the collapse of a tall peak. Scientists marvel at its purity—fed by rain and snow, it’s the deepest lake in the USA and one of the most pristine on Earth. Artists, photographers, and sightseers gaze in wonder at its blue water and stunning setting atop the Cascade Mountain Range.

The 33-mile historic Rim Drive circumnavigates the lake and is open during summer and early fall (depending on weather and road conditions). Along the drive are 30 overlooks that were designed between 1931 and 1938 to highlight a specific view of the lake, a significant geologic formation in the caldera, or an environmental feature such as a subalpine meadow. Some of these stops have exhibits with information about the view. Other viewpoints leave room for visitor curiosity and discovery.

 

Where you choose to stop for a view of the lake or to capture the surrounding landscape of the park is a personal preference. Most of these pullouts do not have signs that offer a name or location. The park map indicates major stops that help with orientation. On average, visitors take two hours to complete the drive with eight or more stops.

 

2020a

Exhibiting is a broad term - in Lego, you make some stuff (MOCs), turn up to a show, and put your stuff on display.

 

In real life it can be pretty much the same.

 

Shown here is a Lego MOC rendition of the "Renaissance Roadster," a 1933 Ford, owned by Nancy and Buddy Jordan, of Portland, Oregon. Winner of the 2017 Ridler Award.

  

But there can only be one Ridler Award winner, and this year's was the Renaissance Roadster. Theoretically a 1933 Ford, it was built from scratch from the wheels up -- and the wheels were custom, too. The body was hand-formed from 0.063-inch 3003 aluminum by Steve's Auto Restorations; it sits on a custom steel plate and chrome moly tube frame. Power comes from an aluminum-block GM Performance Anniversary Edition 427 crate motor mated to a GM 4L60 transmission. Like the few other off-the-shelf parts on the car, the motor and transmission were modified (the oil pan, valve covers, air cleaner and more are all custom) and polished to show-car finish.

 

As we said, we're not sure how much Ford is actually present on this thing, but that's beside the point. Is it to everybody's taste? Of course not. It's a handmade custom car -- a rolling sculpture built to one specific vision. It seemed to resonate with the crowds on the floor, though, and it obviously clicked with the judges. And as a demonstration of what today's craftsmen are capable of, the Renaissance Roadster is up there with the best of them. Which is exactly why it took home the Ridler.

 

Read more: autoweek.com/article/car-life/2017-detroit-autorama-ridle...

 

This Lego miniland-scale model of the "Renaissance Rodaster" has been created for Flickr LUGNuts' 113th Build Challenge, - "For Your Exhibition", - a challenge for all type of vehicle created for Exhibition purposes.

Every part in specific color is available to buy so it can be built in real life. More renders soon.

 

A tribute to my all time favourite buildings - The Twin Towers - World Trade Center. I finished this project a few months ago but I still will be updating it with some details. I'm planning to build these in real life one day.

R.I.P. To all innocent people who lost their lives on Sep 11, 2001.

a7R II with Minolta MD Rokkor-X 50mm f1.4

EXIF is wrong about the lens. The a7RII does this unless you remove the FE lens in a specific way. :-(

Site-specific installation called "Glowing Core" by German artist Rebecca Horn (b.1944).

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Horn

The name of the building is Llotja de Palma, a historic building with Gothic design, built between 1426 and 1448. The building was originally the headquarters of the School of Merchants.

It's Freight Car Friday but instead of a specific car this week is just a simple view of the classic all American mixed freight train. It's heavy with boxcars including older Plate C cars and modern high cube Plate Fs along with a nice mix of gondolas, tank cars, covered hoppers, coiled steel cars, and center beam flat cars....a true modelers delight.

 

This is Norfolk Southern train 14Z, a Knoxville to Allentown manifest that came off the Pulaski District from Bristol and points south at Walton just a couple miles behind them.

They are approaching the Switchback Road grade crossing on Main 1 of modern day NS' Christianburg District at about MP N295.5 as they pass beneath the famous Vicker coal tower. This imposing structure was built in 1951 as a further example of the N&W's commitment to steam far longer than many other Class 1s. Alas it only served a short nine years before the last fire was dropped in May 1960. Prior to this being built there was a fascinating balloon loop trestle and loaded coal hoppers were spotted atop it to load coal directly from the railcar into the tender of a steam locomotive below.

 

Montgomery County, Virginia

Saturday March 30, 2024

Botryoidal specimen of cryptomelane on goethite from Ironwood, Gogebic County, Michigan, USA, on display at the AE Seaman Mineral Museum, Michigan Technological University, Houghton.

 

Cryptomelane is a near-surface manganese mineral formed during the weathering of manganese-bearing iron oxide-rich rocks. This grey beauty is actually two minerals. The bubbly grey stuff is cryptomelane which is composed of 1 potassium + 8 manganese + 16 oxygen molecules. Goethite is the rusty brown underlying plate of iron oxide.

 

"Supergene" or "alteration" or "secondary" minerals are the fun stuff, because they form unusual or colorful or beautiful specimens. The word "supergene" is used to describe conditions of low-pressure and low-temperature during "weathering". The Low-P (pressure) and low-T (temperature) supergene minerals form in near-surface conditions versus High-P and High-T minerals formed deeper in the Earth's crust. Alteration by element-rich near-surface water will form new hydrated (supergene) minerals. Such mineral-forming alteration is time-, place- and element-specific. And instead of being eroded, carried away and recycled, some altered rock formations may be subsequently buried and preserved if in a sedimentary environment.

 

= Primary Rock-Forming Minerals versus Secondary Minerals =

The rocks in the Earth's crust consist of 12+ primary minerals.

The remainder of ongoing identification of 6000+ minerals (MINDAT website) are all of the other elements in the periodic table kept busy throughout time combining and recombining with primary rock-forming minerals.

 

The 12+ primary rock-forming minerals form the floating granite-dominated continents comprising 30% of Earth's surface, whereas the basalt-dominated ocean bottom crust is the hidden 70%. Perhaps 500+ minerals have some abundance on Earth out of 6000+ known minerals. Which means most minerals are extremely rare, usually tiny in size and mostly seen by microscope or identified/characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM).

 

So a hand-sized supergene mineral specimen is very cool !!

What is Alpha Company?

Alpha Company is a highly-specific themed-based military MOC group, centered around a fictional part modern, part sci-fi Infantry Company in an alternative timeline of the contemporary world.

 

What are the Alpha Company Forums' goals?

- Develop and Promote the fan-created Prometheus Saga alternative universe canon, including background stories, official models, building instructions and other resources, made freely available for fans to create derivative works.

- Foster a spirit of friendship and international cooperation amongst Fans of Lego (FOLs) by providing the resources for staff-moderated community-driven projects.

- Encourage a higher level of building quality and graphical design by exposing members to the works of critically-acclaimed builders, minifigure customisers and decal designers, providing opportunities to learn from their work through detailed "Behind The Scenes" deconstruction.

- Promote the proliferation of baseline LEGO Military models for customisation and integration into collaborative displays at Lego Fan Conventions and other public events.

- Allow members to participate in role-play Infantry, Airborne and Armored Company units inspired by the structure and characteristics of real-life organised Armed Forces, or to create new units based on those officially accepted as canon.

 

Who founded Alpha Company, and when?

Alpha Company was founded in 2007 by Adam "kaboom" Dufrense, Chandler Parker and Robin "GreenLead" Chang, operating initially as a group within the BrickArms Forums. The group officially opened its own forums as an independent entity on July 4, 2009.

  

For more information, visit : www.alphacompanyforums.com/

Site-specific перформанс Ірини Плотнікової "IceDora" на фестивалі сучасного мистецтва Гогольфест 2016, Київ, Україна © repor.to/popenko

I attended AllFord at Alford this afternoon Sunday 19th August 2018, its a yearly event attended by Ford car lovers and owners displaying their cherished vehicles within the grounds of Grampian Transport Museum in Alford, Aberdeenshire .

 

I had my Nikon D750 with me, I walked the grounds capturing cars that caught my eye or have a specific interest for me, after the event had ended I stayed around to watch the cars leave etc, climbing over the barrier and up a small hill I noticed a row of Aston Martins all parked together, excitement overtook me and I snapped away capturing each car in detail, finally I whipped out my iphone to capture the scene on video, this file is the result.

 

Aston Martin DB5

 

The Aston Martin DB5 is a British luxury grand tourer that was made by Aston Martin and designed by the Italian coachbuilder Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera. Released in 1963, it was an evolution of the final series of DB4. The DB series was named honouring Sir David Brown (the owner of Aston Martin from 1947 to 1972).

 

Although not the first in the DB series, the DB5 is famous for being the most recognised cinematic James Bond car, first appearing in the James Bond film Goldfinger (1964).

 

Design

The principal differences between the DB4 Series V and the DB5 are the all-aluminium engine, enlarged from 3.7 L to 4.0 L; a new robust ZF five-speed transmission (except for some of the very first DB5s); and three SU carburettors.

 

This engine, producing 282 bhp (210 kW), which propelled the car to 145 mph (233 km/h), available on the Vantage (high powered) version of the DB4 since March 1962, became the standard Aston Martin power unit with the launch in September 1963 of the DB5.

 

Standard equipment on the DB5 included reclining seats, wool pile carpets, electric windows, twin fuel tanks, chrome wire wheels, oil cooler, magnesium-alloy body built to superleggera patent technique, full leather trim in the cabin and even a fire extinguisher. All models have two doors and are of a 2+2 configuration.

Like the DB4, the DB5 used a live rear axle.

 

At the beginning, the original four-speed manual (with optional overdrive) was standard fitment, but it was soon dropped in favour of the ZF five-speed.

 

A three-speed Borg-Warner DG automatic transmission was available as well.

The automatic option was then changed to the Borg-Warner Model 8 shortly before the DB6 replaced the DB5.

 

Standard coupé:

* Engine: 3,995 cc (243.8 cu in) Inline-6

* Power: 282 bhp (210 kW) at 5,500 rpm (210) Net HP

* Torque: 288 lb·ft (390 N·m) at 3,850 rpm

* Weight: 1,502 kg (3,311 lb)

* Top Speed: 143 mph (230 km/h)[8]

* 0–60 mph (97 km/h) Acceleration: 8 s

 

James Bond's DB5

 

Two Aston Martin DB5s were built for production, one of which had no gadgets.

The Aston Martin DB5 is one of the most famous cars in the world thanks to Oscar-winning special effects expert John Stears, who created the deadly silver-birch DB5 for use by James Bond in Goldfinger (1964). Although Ian Fleming had placed Bond in a DB Mark III in the novel, the DB5 was the company's latest model when the film was being made.

 

The car used in the film was the original DB5 prototype, with another standard car used for stunts. To promote the film, the two DB5s were showcased at the 1964 New York World's Fair, and it was dubbed "the most famous car in the world",and subsequently sales of the car rose.[12] In January 2006, one of these was auctioned in Arizona; the same car was originally bought in 1970 from the owner, Sir Anthony Bamford, by a Tennessee museum owner.[13] A car, mainly used for promoting the movie, is now located in the Louwman Museum, Netherlands.

 

The first DB5 prototype used in Goldfinger with the chassis number DP/216/1 was later stripped of its weaponry and gadgetry by Aston Martin and then resold. It was then retrofitted by subsequent owners with nonoriginal weaponry. The Chassis DP/216/1 DB5 was stolen in 1997 from its last owner in Florida and is currently still missing.

Within the universe of James Bond, the same car (registration BMT 216A) was used again in the following film, Thunderball, a year later.

 

A different Aston Martin DB5 (registration BMT 214A) was used in the 1995 Bond film, GoldenEye, in the which the car is Bond's personal vehicle. Three different DB5s were used for filming. A variation of the registration number (BMT2144) was used on the BMW 750IL in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) and was set to make a cameo appearance in the Scotland-set scenes in The World Is Not Enough (1999), but these were cut in the final edit. Yet another DB5 appeared in Casino Royale (2006), this one with Bahamian number plates and left-hand drive (where the previous British versions had been right-hand drive).

 

Another silver-birch DB5 with the original registration BMT 216A is used in the 23rd James Bond film, Skyfall, during the 50th anniversary of the release of the first James Bond film Dr. No.

 

In the film "M" (Judi Dench) describes the car as "not very comfortable". The DB5 is destroyed in the film's climactic finale. It is seen again in Spectre, firstly in Q's underground workshop in various stages of rebuild, and at the film's ending, fully rebuilt, with Bond driving away with it.

 

On 1 June 2010, RM Auctions announced the upcoming auction of a DB5 used in both Goldfinger and Thunderball. The owner (Jerry Lee, president/owner of WBEB Radio in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) originally bought the car from the Aston Martin company in 1969. At the auction, the DB5 was sold for £2.6 million.

 

In popular culture

 

Although the DB5 is often credited as being the first car James Bond drives in the movies, it is in fact not. The first "Bond car" was a 1962 Sunbeam Alpine Series II used in the very first movie Dr. No. The DB5 is however unquestionably the most recognised cinematic James Bond car.

 

It was also used by actor Roger Moore, as he played a James Bond parody character in the film The Cannonball Run. Moore plays Seymour Goldfarb, Jr., a man who believes himself to be both Roger Moore and James Bond, who participates in a madcap, cross-country road race. The registration number BMT 216A, and the original bond car in its original dark red paintjob also appear in "The Noble Sportsman", a 1964 episode of "The Saint" TV series starring Roger Moore.

 

The 1983 reunion telefilm The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E.: The Fifteen Years Later Affair includes a brief cameo by George Lazenby as "JB", a white-tuxedoed British man shown driving an Aston Martin DB5, who assists Napoleon Soloduring a car chase. "It's just like On Her Majesty's Secret Service," enthuses a female character at the conclusion of the cameo. This special came out in 1983, the same year as Octopussy and Never Say Never Again.

 

It appears in several video games such as 007 Racing, Driver San Francisco (Deluxe Edition), James Bond 007: Agent Under Fire, From Russia with Love, and James Bond 007: Blood Stone. The From Russia with Love movie was released in 1963, one year before Goldfinger (in which the DB5 used the first time), but the video game used the car.

 

It appeared in animated form in James Bond Jr. in the very first episode "The Beginning". In the episode it was able to transform into a plane and could be driven by remote control. The car was destroyed in a plane crash and its remains recycled into a red sports car, which the PAL VHS cover identifies as the "Aston Martin Super".

A version of the car appeared in Grand Theft Auto: London 1969, being called a "James Bomb".

 

Leonardo DiCaprio was seen driving one in Catch Me If You Can, imitating Bond (even down to the suit) in Goldfinger.

In 2003, it appears in the action comedy film Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, driven by Bernie Mac's character, Jimmy Bosley. It is only seen once in which Bosley is driving a witness, Max Petroni (portrayed by Shia LaBeouf) to his mother's house, to be safe from the O'Grady Crime Syndicate.

 

The 2004 French spy comedy film, called Double Zéro (directed by Gérard Pirès) also showed a DB5. It can be seen once in the film, when the two main characters go to meet the parody of Q.

 

In 2011, an Aston Martin DB5 appeared in heavily stylized form as "Finn McMissile", a British secret agent voiced by Michael Caine in the 2011 Pixar film Cars 2. The car character was a homage to the Bond DB5 although has also been known to bear resemblance to the Volvo P1800, as used by the fictional British secret agent Simon Templar in The Saint.

 

In 2013, Grand Theft Auto V featured a car called the "JB 700" that heavily alluded to being a DB5, or was based on the DB5; specifically the one used by James Bond. Need for Speed: Most Wanted released a DLC named "Movie Legends" that featured the car.

 

The music video for the Usher song Burn, features a DB5. The exact same car with the same registration number appears a number of times in the short lived TV series Fastlane, it later turned out to be fake.

 

In the 2015 TV series Thunderbirds Are Go a DB5 can be seen as Lady Penelope gets into Fab 1 in the first episode Ring Of Fire.

There is no specific scenario behind this image. We are two years away from the centenary of China Motor Bus but the company no longer has any bus interests, having diversified into property development since its loss of the Hong Kong island bus franchise. We can only imagine what might have been. This fictional Alexander Dennis Enviro 400 XLB carries what was generally described as CMB coach livery, which was briefly carried by the company’s first generation of air-conditioned double-deck buses. Thanks to Keith McGillivray for the base image (16-Apr-21).

 

All rights reserved. For the avoidance of doubt, this means that it would be a criminal offence to post this image on Facebook or elsewhere (please post a link instead). Please follow the link below for further information about my Flickr collection:

www.flickr.com/photos/northernblue109/6046035749/in/set-7...

The actual proposal has evolved significantly beyond this. Is it had to.

Conjoined Triplets – Exquisite Monster Art Doll

 

Their names are (left to right): Tanek, Tymon and Tercio.

 

These Conjoined Triplets are part of a new series of “Exquisite Monsters” inspired by antique wax medical models and specimens representing genetic anomalies, disfigurements and diseases. However, these characters are wholly a product of my own imagination and do not depict specific real-life conditions or persons. They arise out of my fascination with biological abstraction/surrealism as it is expressed in nature and how it is framed by human culture.

 

Handmade Doll Sculpture. 10.75 inches tall. Mixed media.

Copyright © 2010, Shain Erin. All rights reserved.

 

The Biddulph Gate in Famagusta, Turkish Republic of North Cyprus, is a ruined structure named after General Sir Robert Biddulph. It is situated within the walled city of Famagusta but is not part of the defensive wall. The gate's current state is that of a ruin.

 

The history of the Biddulph Gate is closely tied to General Sir Robert Biddulph, a British military officer who served in Cyprus during the late 19th century. It is believed that the gate was named in his honor, possibly due to his contributions or association with the region.

 

The exact origins and architectural details of the Biddulph Gate are unclear due to its ruined state. It is possible that the gate had historical significance and functioned as an entry point or passage within the walled city of Famagusta. However, the lack of available information makes it challenging to provide an in-depth account of its original purpose or design.

 

Over time, the Biddulph Gate fell into disrepair and is now in a ruined state. The specific reasons for its deterioration or the events that led to its current condition remain unclear. The gate's ruinous state adds to its historical intrigue and provides a sense of mystery surrounding its past.

 

Despite its ruined state, the Biddulph Gate holds cultural and historical importance as a tangible reminder of Famagusta's past. It serves as a poignant symbol of the city's history and the passage of time.

 

Preservation and restoration efforts may be necessary to protect the Biddulph Gate and prevent further deterioration. These initiatives could focus on stabilizing the structure, conducting archaeological research, and potentially opening it up to visitors as a cultural and historical attraction.

 

In conclusion, the Biddulph Gate in Famagusta, Turkish Republic of North Cyprus, is a ruined structure named after General Sir Robert Biddulph. While its exact origins and original purpose are unclear due to its current state, the gate's association with General Biddulph and its location within the walled city of Famagusta contribute to its historical significance. Efforts to preserve and understand this cultural heritage site may be necessary to ensure its continued appreciation and exploration.

 

General Sir Robert Biddulph, (26 August 1835 – 18 November 1918) was a senior British Army officer. He served as Quartermaster-General to the Forces in 1893, and was then Governor of Gibraltar until 1900.

 

Military career

Educated at Twyford School and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, Biddulph was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1853. He served in the Crimean War and was present at the Siege of Sevastopol in 1854. He then served in the Indian Mutiny, and was Brigade Major during the Siege of Lucknow in 1857.

 

In 1871 he was selected to be Assistant Adjutant-General at the War Office and then in 1879 he succeeded Sir Garnet Wolseley as High Commissioner and Commander-in-Chief of Cyprus. In 1886, he returned to London to be Inspector-General of Recruiting and two years later became Director-General of Military Education. In 1893 he was briefly Quartermaster-General to the Forces. Later that year he became Governor of Gibraltar, serving as such until 1900. He was Colonel Commandant of Royal Artillery, and was placed on retired pay on 26 August 1902.

 

His final appointment, in 1904, was as Army Purchase Commissioner: in that capacity he abolished the purchase of commissions.

 

He was appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath in the 1899 Birthday Honours. Biddulph's Gate in Famagusta in Cyprus is named after him.

 

Famagusta is a city on the east coast of the de facto state Northern Cyprus. It is located east of Nicosia and possesses the deepest harbour of the island. During the Middle Ages (especially under the maritime republics of Genoa and Venice), Famagusta was the island's most important port city and a gateway to trade with the ports of the Levant, from where the Silk Road merchants carried their goods to Western Europe. The old walled city and parts of the modern city are de facto part of Northern Cyprus as the capital of the Gazimağusa District.

 

The city was known as Arsinoe or Arsinoë (Greek: Ἀρσινόη, Arsinóē) in antiquity, after Ptolemy II of Egypt's sister and wife Arsinoe II.

 

By the 3rd century, the city appears as Ammochostos (Greek: Ἀμμόχωστος or Αμμόχωστος, Ammókhōstos, "Hidden in Sand") in the Stadiasmus Maris Magni.[5] This name is still used in modern Greek with the pronunciation [aˈmːoxostos], while it developed into Latin Fama Augusta, French Famagouste, Italian Famagosta, and English Famagusta during the medieval period. Its informal modern Turkish name Mağusa (Turkish pronunciation: [maˈusa]) came from the same source. Since 1974, it has formally been known to Turkey and Northern Cyprus as Gazimağusa ([ɡaːzimaˈusa]), from the addition of the title gazi, meaning "veteran" or "one who has faught in a holy war".

 

In the early medieval period, the city was also known as New Justiniana (Greek: Νέα Ἰουστινιανία, Néa Ioustinianía) in appreciation for the patronage of the Byzantine emperor Justinian, whose wife Theodora was born there.

 

The old town of Famagusta has also been nicknamed "the City of 365 Churches" from the legend that, at its peak, it boasted a church for every day of the year.

 

The city was founded around 274 BC, after the serious damage to Salamis by an earthquake, by Ptolemy II Philadelphus and named "Arsinoe" after his sister.[6] Arsinoe was described as a "fishing town" by Strabo in his Geographica in the first century BC. In essence, Famagusta was the successor of the most famous and most important ancient city of Cyprus, Salamis. According to Greek mythology, Salamis was founded after the end of the Trojan War by Teucros, the son of Telamon and brother of Aedes, from the Greek island of Salamis.

 

The city experienced great prosperity much later, during the time of the Byzantine emperor Justinian. To honor the city, from which his wife Theodora came, Justinian enriched it with many buildings, while the inhabitants named it New Justiniania to express their gratitude. In AD 647, when the neighboring cities were destroyed by Arab raiding, the inhabitants of these cities moved to Famagusta, as a result of which the city's population increased significantly and the city experienced another boom.

 

Later, when Jerusalem was occupied by the Arabs, the Christian population fled to Famagusta, as a result of which the city became an important Christian center, but also one of the most important commercial centers in the eastern Mediterranean.

 

The turning point for Famagusta was 1192 with the onset of Lusignan rule. It was during this period that Famagusta developed as a fully-fledged town. It increased in importance to the Eastern Mediterranean due to its natural harbour and the walls that protected its inner town. Its population began to increase. This development accelerated in the 13th century as the town became a centre of commerce for both the East and West. An influx of Christian refugees fleeing the downfall of Acre (1291) in Palestine transformed it from a tiny village into one of the richest cities in Christendom.

 

In 1372 the port was seized by Genoa and in 1489 by Venice. This commercial activity turned Famagusta into a place where merchants and ship owners led lives of luxury. By the mid-14th century, Famagusta was said to have the richest citizens in the world. The belief that people's wealth could be measured by the churches they built inspired these merchants to have churches built in varying styles. These churches, which still exist, were the reason Famagusta came to be known as "the district of churches". The development of the town focused on the social lives of the wealthy people and was centred upon the Lusignan palace, the cathedral, the Square and the harbour.

 

In 1570–1571, Famagusta was the last stronghold in Venetian Cyprus to hold out against the Turks under Mustafa Pasha. It resisted a siege of thirteen months and a terrible bombardment, until at last the garrison surrendered. The Ottoman forces had lost 50,000 men, including Mustafa Pasha's son. Although the surrender terms had stipulated that the Venetian forces be allowed to return home, the Venetian commander, Marco Antonio Bragadin, was flayed alive, his lieutenant Tiepolo was hanged, and many other Christians were killed.

 

With the advent of the Ottoman rule, Latins lost their privileged status in Famagusta and were expelled from the city. Greek Cypriots natives were at first allowed to own and buy property in the city, but were banished from the walled city in 1573–74 and had to settle outside in the area that later developed into Varosha. Turkish families from Anatolia were resettled in the walled city but could not fill the buildings that previously hosted a population of 10,000. This caused a drastic decrease in the population of Famagusta. Merchants from Famagusta, who mostly consisted of Latins that had been expelled, resettled in Larnaca and as Larnaca flourished, Famagusta lost its importance as a trade centre. Over time, Varosha developed into a prosperous agricultural town thanks to its location away from the marshes, whilst the walled city remained dilapidated.

 

In the walled city, some buildings were repurposed to serve the interests of the Muslim population: the Cathedral of St. Nicholas was converted to a mosque (now known as Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque), a bazaar was developed, public baths, fountains and a theological school were built to accommodate the inhabitants' needs. Dead end streets, an Ottoman urban characteristic, was imported to the city and a communal spirit developed in which a small number of two-storey houses inhabited by the small upper class co-existed with the widespread one-storey houses.

 

With the British takeover, Famagusta regained its significance as a port and an economic centre and its development was specifically targeted in British plans. As soon as the British took over the island, a Famagusta Development Act was passed that aimed at the reconstruction and redevelopment of the city's streets and dilapidated buildings as well as better hygiene. The port was developed and expanded between 1903 and 1906 and Cyprus Government Railway, with its terminus in Famagusta, started construction in 1904. Whilst Larnaca continued to be used as the main port of the island for some time, after Famagusta's use as a military base in World War I trade significantly shifted to Famagusta. The city outside the walls grew at an accelerated rate, with development being centred around Varosha. Varosha became the administrative centre as the British moved their headquarters and residences there and tourism grew significantly in the last years of the British rule. Pottery and production of citrus and potatoes also significantly grew in the city outside the walls, whilst agriculture within the walled city declined to non-existence.

 

New residential areas were built to accommodate the increasing population towards the end of the British rule,[11] and by 1960, Famagusta was a modern port city extending far beyond Varosha and the walled city.

 

The British period saw a significant demographic shift in the city. In 1881, Christians constituted 60% of the city's population while Muslims were at 40%. By 1960, the Turkish Cypriot population had dropped to 17.5% of the overall population, while the Greek Cypriot population had risen to 70%. The city was also the site for one of the British internment camps for nearly 50,000 Jewish survivors of the Holocaust trying to emigrate to Palestine.

 

From independence in 1960 to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus of 1974, Famagusta developed toward the south west of Varosha as a well-known entertainment and tourist centre. The contribution of Famagusta to the country's economic activity by 1974 far exceeded its proportional dimensions within the country. Whilst its population was only about 7% of the total of the country, Famagusta by 1974 accounted for over 10% of the total industrial employment and production of Cyprus, concentrating mainly on light industry compatible with its activity as a tourist resort and turning out high-quality products ranging from food, beverages and tobacco to clothing, footwear, plastics, light machinery and transport equipment. It contributed 19.3% of the business units and employed 21.3% of the total number of persons engaged in commerce on the island. It acted as the main tourist destination of Cyprus, hosting 31.5% of the hotels and 45% of Cyprus' total bed capacity. Varosha acted as the main touristic and business quarters.

 

In this period, the urbanisation of Famagusta slowed down and the development of the rural areas accelerated. Therefore, economic growth was shared between the city of Famagusta and the district, which had a balanced agricultural economy, with citrus, potatoes, tobacco and wheat as main products. Famagusta maintained good communications with this hinterland. The city's port remained the island's main seaport and in 1961, it was expanded to double its capacity in order to accommodate the growing volume of exports and imports. The port handled 42.7% of Cypriot exports, 48.6% of imports and 49% of passenger traffic.

 

There has not been an official census since 1960 but the population of the town in 1974 was estimated to be around 39,000 not counting about 12,000–15,000 persons commuting daily from the surrounding villages and suburbs to work in Famagusta. The number of people staying in the city would swell to about 90,000–100,000 during the peak summer tourist period, with the influx of tourists from numerous European countries, mainly Britain, France, Germany and the Scandinavian countries. The majority of the city population were Greek Cypriots (26,500), with 8,500 Turkish Cypriots and 4,000 people from other ethnic groups.

 

During the second phase of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus on 14 August 1974 the Mesaoria plain was overrun by Turkish tanks and Famagusta was bombed by Turkish aircraft. It took two days for the Turkish Army to occupy the city, prior to which Famagusta's entire Greek Cypriot population had fled into surrounding fields. As a result of Turkish airstrikes dozens of civilians died, including tourists.

 

Unlike other parts of the Turkish-controlled areas of Cyprus, the Varosha suburb of Famagusta was fenced off by the Turkish army immediately after being captured and remained fenced off until October 2020, when the TRNC reopened some streets to visitors. Some Greek Cypriots who had fled Varosha have been allowed to view the town and journalists have been allowed in.

 

UN Security Council resolution 550 (1984) considers any attempts to settle any part of Famagusta by people other than its inhabitants as inadmissible and calls for the transfer of this area to the administration of the UN. The UN's Security Council resolution 789 (1992) also urges that with a view to the implementation of resolution 550 (1984), the area at present under the control of the United Nations Peace-keeping Force in Cyprus be extended to include Varosha.

 

Famagusta's historic city centre is surrounded by the fortifications of Famagusta, which have a roughly rectangular shape, built mainly by the Venetians in the 15th and 16th centuries, though some sections of the walls have been dated earlier times, as far as 1211.

 

Some important landmarks and visitor attractions in the old city are:

The Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque

The Othello Castle

Palazzo del Provveditore - the Venetian palace of the governor, built on the site of the former Lusignan royal palace

St. Francis' Church

Sinan Pasha Mosque

Church of St. George of the Greeks

Church of St. George of the Latins

Twin Churches

Nestorian Church (of St George the Exiler)

Namık Kemal Dungeon

Agios Ioannis Church

Venetian House

Akkule Masjid

Mustafa Pasha Mosque

Ganchvor monastery

 

In an October 2010 report titled Saving Our Vanishing Heritage, Global Heritage Fund listed Famagusta, a "maritime ancient city of crusader kings", among the 12 sites most "On the Verge" of irreparable loss and destruction, citing insufficient management and development pressures.

 

Famagusta is an important commercial hub of Northern Cyprus. The main economic activities in the city are tourism, education, construction and industrial production. It has a 115-acre free port, which is the most important seaport of Northern Cyprus for travel and commerce. The port is an important source of income and employment for the city, though its volume of trade is restricted by the embargo against Northern Cyprus. Its historical sites, including the walled city, Salamis, the Othello Castle and the St Barnabas Church, as well as the sandy beaches surrounding it make it a tourist attraction; efforts are also underway to make the city more attractive for international congresses. The Eastern Mediterranean University is also an important employer and supplies significant income and activity, as well as opportunities for the construction sector. The university also raises a qualified workforce that stimulates the city's industry and makes communications industry viable. The city has two industrial zones: the Large Industrial Zone and the Little Industrial Zone. The city is also home to a fishing port, but inadequate infrastructure of the port restricts the growth of this sector. The industry in the city has traditionally been concentrated on processing agricultural products.

 

Historically, the port was the primary source of income and employment for the city, especially right after 1974. However, it gradually lost some of its importance to the economy as the share of its employees in the population of Famagusta diminished due to various reasons. However, it still is the primary port for commerce in Northern Cyprus, with more than half of ships that came to Northern Cyprus in 2013 coming to Famagusta. It is the second most popular seaport for passengers, after Kyrenia, with around 20,000 passengers using the port in 2013.

 

The mayor-in-exile of Famagusta is Simos Ioannou. Süleyman Uluçay heads the Turkish Cypriot municipal administration of Famagusta, which remains legal as a communal-based body under the constitutional system of the Republic of Cyprus.

 

Since 1974, Greek Cypriots submitted a number of proposals within the context of bicommunal discussions for the return of Varosha to UN administration, allowing the return of its previous inhabitants, requesting also the opening of Famagusta harbour for use by both communities. Varosha would have been returned to Greek Cypriot control as part of the 2004 Annan Plan but the plan had been rejected by a majority(3/4) of Greek Cypriot voters.

 

The walled city of Famagusta contains many unique buildings. Famagusta has a walled city popular with tourists.

 

Every year, the International Famagusta Art and Culture Festival is organized in Famagusta. Concerts, dance shows and theater plays take place during the festival.

 

A growth in tourism and the city's university have fueled the development of Famagusta's vibrant nightlife. Nightlife in the city is especially active on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights and in the hotter months of the year, starting from April. Larger hotels in the city have casinos that cater to their customers. Salamis Road is an area of Famagusta with a heavy concentration of bars frequented by students and locals.

 

Famagusta's Othello Castle is the setting for Shakespeare's play Othello. The city was also the setting for Victoria Hislop's 2015 novel The Sunrise, and Michael Paraskos's 2016 novel In Search of Sixpence. The city is the birthplace of the eponymous hero of the Renaissance proto-novel Fortunatus.

 

Famagusta was home to many Greek Cypriot sport teams that left the city because of the Turkish invasion and still bear their original names. Most notable football clubs originally from the city are Anorthosis Famagusta FC and Nea Salamis Famagusta FC, both of the Cypriot First Division, which are now based in Larnaca. Usually Anorthosis Famagusta fans are politically right wing where Nea Salamis fans are left wing.

 

Famagusta is represented by Mağusa Türk Gücü in the Turkish Cypriot First Division. Dr. Fazıl Küçük Stadium is the largest football stadium in Famagusta. Many Turkish Cypriot sport teams that left Southern Cyprus because of the Cypriot intercommunal violence are based in Famagusta.

 

Famagusta is represented by DAÜ Sports Club and Magem Sports Club in North Cyprus First Volleyball Division. Gazimağusa Türk Maarif Koleji represents Famagusta in the North Cyprus High School Volleyball League.

 

Famagusta has a modern volleyball stadium called the Mağusa Arena.

 

The Eastern Mediterranean University was founded in the city in 1979. The Istanbul Technical University founded a campus in the city in 2010.

 

The Cyprus College of Art was founded in Famagusta by the Cypriot artist Stass Paraskos in 1969, before moving to Paphos in 1972 after protests from local hoteliers that the presence of art students in the city was putting off holidaymakers.

 

Famagusta has three general hospitals. Gazimağusa Devlet Hastahanesi, a state hospital, is the biggest hospital in city. Gazimağusa Tıp Merkezi and Gazimağusa Yaşam Hastahanesi are private hospitals.

 

Personalities

Saint Barnabas, born and died in Salamis, Famagusta

Chris Achilleos, illustrator of the book versions on the BBC children's series Doctor Who

Beran Bertuğ, former Governor of Famagusta, first Cypriot woman to hold this position

Marios Constantinou, former international Cypriot football midfielder and current manager.

Eleftheria Eleftheriou, Cypriot singer.

Derviş Eroğlu, former President of Northern Cyprus

Alexis Galanos, 7th President of the House of Representatives and Famagusta mayor-in-exile (2006-2019) (Republic of Cyprus)

Xanthos Hadjisoteriou, Cypriot painter

Oz Karahan, political activist, President of the Union of Cypriots

Oktay Kayalp, former Turkish Cypriot Famagusta mayor (Northern Cyprus)

Harry Luke British diplomat

Angelos Misos, former international footballer

Costas Montis was an influential and prolific Greek Cypriot poet, novelist, and playwright born in Famagusta.

Hal Ozsan, actor (Dawson's Creek, Kyle XY)

Dimitris Papadakis, a Greek Cypriot politician, who served as a Member of the European Parliament.

Ṣubḥ-i-Azal, Persian religious leader, lived and died in exile in Famagusta

Touker Suleyman (born Türker Süleyman), British Turkish Cypriot fashion retail entrepreneur, investor and reality television personality.

Alexia Vassiliou, singer, left here as a refugee when the town was invaded.

George Vasiliou, former President of Cyprus

Vamik Volkan, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry

Derviş Zaim, film director

 

Famagusta is twinned with:

İzmir, Turkey (since 1974)

Corfu, Greece (since 1994)

Patras, Greece (since 1994)

Antalya, Turkey (since 1997)

Salamina (city), Greece (since 1998)

Struga, North Macedonia

Athens, Greece (since 2005)

Mersin, Turkey

 

Northern Cyprus, officially the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), is a de facto state that comprises the northeastern portion of the island of Cyprus. It is recognised only by Turkey, and its territory is considered by all other states to be part of the Republic of Cyprus.

 

Northern Cyprus extends from the tip of the Karpass Peninsula in the northeast to Morphou Bay, Cape Kormakitis and its westernmost point, the Kokkina exclave in the west. Its southernmost point is the village of Louroujina. A buffer zone under the control of the United Nations stretches between Northern Cyprus and the rest of the island and divides Nicosia, the island's largest city and capital of both sides.

 

A coup d'état in 1974, performed as part of an attempt to annex the island to Greece, prompted the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. This resulted in the eviction of much of the north's Greek Cypriot population, the flight of Turkish Cypriots from the south, and the partitioning of the island, leading to a unilateral declaration of independence by the north in 1983. Due to its lack of recognition, Northern Cyprus is heavily dependent on Turkey for economic, political and military support.

 

Attempts to reach a solution to the Cyprus dispute have been unsuccessful. The Turkish Army maintains a large force in Northern Cyprus with the support and approval of the TRNC government, while the Republic of Cyprus, the European Union as a whole, and the international community regard it as an occupation force. This military presence has been denounced in several United Nations Security Council resolutions.

 

Northern Cyprus is a semi-presidential, democratic republic with a cultural heritage incorporating various influences and an economy that is dominated by the services sector. The economy has seen growth through the 2000s and 2010s, with the GNP per capita more than tripling in the 2000s, but is held back by an international embargo due to the official closure of the ports in Northern Cyprus by the Republic of Cyprus. The official language is Turkish, with a distinct local dialect being spoken. The vast majority of the population consists of Sunni Muslims, while religious attitudes are mostly moderate and secular. Northern Cyprus is an observer state of ECO and OIC under the name "Turkish Cypriot State", PACE under the name "Turkish Cypriot Community", and Organization of Turkic States with its own name.

 

Several distinct periods of Cypriot intercommunal violence involving the two main ethnic communities, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, marked mid-20th century Cyprus. These included the Cyprus Emergency of 1955–59 during British rule, the post-independence Cyprus crisis of 1963–64, and the Cyprus crisis of 1967. Hostilities culminated in the 1974 de facto division of the island along the Green Line following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. The region has been relatively peaceful since then, but the Cyprus dispute has continued, with various attempts to solve it diplomatically having been generally unsuccessful.

 

Cyprus, an island lying in the eastern Mediterranean, hosted a population of Greeks and Turks (four-fifths and one-fifth, respectively), who lived under British rule in the late nineteenth-century and the first half of the twentieth-century. Christian Orthodox Church of Cyprus played a prominent political role among the Greek Cypriot community, a privilege that it acquired during the Ottoman Empire with the employment of the millet system, which gave the archbishop an unofficial ethnarch status.

 

The repeated rejections by the British of Greek Cypriot demands for enosis, union with Greece, led to armed resistance, organised by the National Organization of Cypriot Struggle, or EOKA. EOKA, led by the Greek-Cypriot commander George Grivas, systematically targeted British colonial authorities. One of the effects of EOKA's campaign was to alter the Turkish position from demanding full reincorporation into Turkey to a demand for taksim (partition). EOKA's mission and activities caused a "Cretan syndrome" (see Turkish Resistance Organisation) within the Turkish Cypriot community, as its members feared that they would be forced to leave the island in such a case as had been the case with Cretan Turks. As such, they preferred the continuation of British colonial rule and then taksim, the division of the island. Due to the Turkish Cypriots' support for the British, EOKA's leader, Georgios Grivas, declared them to be enemies. The fact that the Turks were a minority was, according to Nihat Erim, to be addressed by the transfer of thousands of Turks from mainland Turkey so that Greek Cypriots would cease to be the majority. When Erim visited Cyprus as the Turkish representative, he was advised by Field Marshal Sir John Harding, the then Governor of Cyprus, that Turkey should send educated Turks to settle in Cyprus.

 

Turkey actively promoted the idea that on the island of Cyprus two distinctive communities existed, and sidestepped its former claim that "the people of Cyprus were all Turkish subjects". In doing so, Turkey's aim to have self-determination of two to-be equal communities in effect led to de jure partition of the island.[citation needed] This could be justified to the international community against the will of the majority Greek population of the island. Dr. Fazil Küçük in 1954 had already proposed Cyprus be divided in two at the 35° parallel.

 

Lindley Dan, from Notre Dame University, spotted the roots of intercommunal violence to different visions among the two communities of Cyprus (enosis for Greek Cypriots, taksim for Turkish Cypriots). Also, Lindlay wrote that "the merging of church, schools/education, and politics in divisive and nationalistic ways" had played a crucial role in creation of havoc in Cyprus' history. Attalides Michael also pointed to the opposing nationalisms as the cause of the Cyprus problem.

 

By the mid-1950's, the "Cyprus is Turkish" party, movement, and slogan gained force in both Cyprus and Turkey. In a 1954 editorial, Turkish Cypriot leader Dr. Fazil Kuchuk expressed the sentiment that the Turkish youth had grown up with the idea that "as soon as Great Britain leaves the island, it will be taken over by the Turks", and that "Turkey cannot tolerate otherwise". This perspective contributed to the willingness of Turkish Cypriots to align themselves with the British, who started recruiting Turkish Cypriots into the police force that patrolled Cyprus to fight EOKA, a Greek Cypriot nationalist organisation that sought to rid the island of British rule.

 

EOKA targeted colonial authorities, including police, but Georgios Grivas, the leader of EOKA, did not initially wish to open up a new front by fighting Turkish Cypriots and reassured them that EOKA would not harm their people. In 1956, some Turkish Cypriot policemen were killed by EOKA members and this provoked some intercommunal violence in the spring and summer, but these attacks on policemen were not motivated by the fact that they were Turkish Cypriots.

 

However, in January 1957, Grivas changed his policy as his forces in the mountains became increasingly pressured by the British Crown forces. In order to divert the attention of the Crown forces, EOKA members started to target Turkish Cypriot policemen intentionally in the towns, so that Turkish Cypriots would riot against the Greek Cypriots and the security forces would have to be diverted to the towns to restore order. The killing of a Turkish Cypriot policeman on 19 January, when a power station was bombed, and the injury of three others, provoked three days of intercommunal violence in Nicosia. The two communities targeted each other in reprisals, at least one Greek Cypriot was killed and the British Army was deployed in the streets. Greek Cypriot stores were burned and their neighbourhoods attacked. Following the events, the Greek Cypriot leadership spread the propaganda that the riots had merely been an act of Turkish Cypriot aggression. Such events created chaos and drove the communities apart both in Cyprus and in Turkey.

 

On 22 October 1957 Sir Hugh Mackintosh Foot replaced Sir John Harding as the British Governor of Cyprus. Foot suggested five to seven years of self-government before any final decision. His plan rejected both enosis and taksim. The Turkish Cypriot response to this plan was a series of anti-British demonstrations in Nicosia on 27 and 28 January 1958 rejecting the proposed plan because the plan did not include partition. The British then withdrew the plan.

 

In 1957, Black Gang, a Turkish Cypriot pro-taksim paramilitary organisation, was formed to patrol a Turkish Cypriot enclave, the Tahtakale district of Nicosia, against activities of EOKA. The organisation later attempted to grow into a national scale, but failed to gain public support.

 

By 1958, signs of dissatisfaction with the British increased on both sides, with a group of Turkish Cypriots forming Volkan (later renamed to the Turkish Resistance Organisation) paramilitary group to promote partition and the annexation of Cyprus to Turkey as dictated by the Menderes plan. Volkan initially consisted of roughly 100 members, with the stated aim of raising awareness in Turkey of the Cyprus issue and courting military training and support for Turkish Cypriot fighters from the Turkish government.

 

In June 1958, the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, was expected to propose a plan to resolve the Cyprus issue. In light of the new development, the Turks rioted in Nicosia to promote the idea that Greek and Turkish Cypriots could not live together and therefore any plan that did not include partition would not be viable. This violence was soon followed by bombing, Greek Cypriot deaths and looting of Greek Cypriot-owned shops and houses. Greek and Turkish Cypriots started to flee mixed population villages where they were a minority in search of safety. This was effectively the beginning of the segregation of the two communities. On 7 June 1958, a bomb exploded at the entrance of the Turkish Embassy in Cyprus. Following the bombing, Turkish Cypriots looted Greek Cypriot properties. On 26 June 1984, the Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktaş, admitted on British channel ITV that the bomb was placed by the Turks themselves in order to create tension. On 9 January 1995, Rauf Denktaş repeated his claim to the famous Turkish newspaper Milliyet in Turkey.

 

The crisis reached a climax on 12 June 1958, when eight Greeks, out of an armed group of thirty five arrested by soldiers of the Royal Horse Guards on suspicion of preparing an attack on the Turkish quarter of Skylloura, were killed in a suspected attack by Turkish Cypriot locals, near the village of Geunyeli, having been ordered to walk back to their village of Kondemenos.

 

After the EOKA campaign had begun, the British government successfully began to turn the Cyprus issue from a British colonial problem into a Greek-Turkish issue. British diplomacy exerted backstage influence on the Adnan Menderes government, with the aim of making Turkey active in Cyprus. For the British, the attempt had a twofold objective. The EOKA campaign would be silenced as quickly as possible, and Turkish Cypriots would not side with Greek Cypriots against the British colonial claims over the island, which would thus remain under the British. The Turkish Cypriot leadership visited Menderes to discuss the Cyprus issue. When asked how the Turkish Cypriots should respond to the Greek Cypriot claim of enosis, Menderes replied: "You should go to the British foreign minister and request the status quo be prolonged, Cyprus to remain as a British colony". When the Turkish Cypriots visited the British Foreign Secretary and requested for Cyprus to remain a colony, he replied: "You should not be asking for colonialism at this day and age, you should be asking for Cyprus be returned to Turkey, its former owner".

 

As Turkish Cypriots began to look to Turkey for protection, Greek Cypriots soon understood that enosis was extremely unlikely. The Greek Cypriot leader, Archbishop Makarios III, now set independence for the island as his objective.

 

Britain resolved to solve the dispute by creating an independent Cyprus. In 1959, all involved parties signed the Zurich Agreements: Britain, Turkey, Greece, and the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders, Makarios and Dr. Fazil Kucuk, respectively. The new constitution drew heavily on the ethnic composition of the island. The President would be a Greek Cypriot, and the Vice-President a Turkish Cypriot with an equal veto. The contribution to the public service would be set at a ratio of 70:30, and the Supreme Court would consist of an equal number of judges from both communities as well as an independent judge who was not Greek, Turkish or British. The Zurich Agreements were supplemented by a number of treaties. The Treaty of Guarantee stated that secession or union with any state was forbidden, and that Greece, Turkey and Britain would be given guarantor status to intervene if that was violated. The Treaty of Alliance allowed for two small Greek and Turkish military contingents to be stationed on the island, and the Treaty of Establishment gave Britain sovereignty over two bases in Akrotiri and Dhekelia.

 

On 15 August 1960, the Colony of Cyprus became fully independent as the Republic of Cyprus. The new republic remained within the Commonwealth of Nations.

 

The new constitution brought dissatisfaction to Greek Cypriots, who felt it to be highly unjust for them for historical, demographic and contributional reasons. Although 80% of the island's population were Greek Cypriots and these indigenous people had lived on the island for thousands of years and paid 94% of taxes, the new constitution was giving the 17% of the population that was Turkish Cypriots, who paid 6% of taxes, around 30% of government jobs and 40% of national security jobs.

 

Within three years tensions between the two communities in administrative affairs began to show. In particular disputes over separate municipalities and taxation created a deadlock in government. A constitutional court ruled in 1963 Makarios had failed to uphold article 173 of the constitution which called for the establishment of separate municipalities for Turkish Cypriots. Makarios subsequently declared his intention to ignore the judgement, resulting in the West German judge resigning from his position. Makarios proposed thirteen amendments to the constitution, which would have had the effect of resolving most of the issues in the Greek Cypriot favour. Under the proposals, the President and Vice-President would lose their veto, the separate municipalities as sought after by the Turkish Cypriots would be abandoned, the need for separate majorities by both communities in passing legislation would be discarded and the civil service contribution would be set at actual population ratios (82:18) instead of the slightly higher figure for Turkish Cypriots.

 

The intention behind the amendments has long been called into question. The Akritas plan, written in the height of the constitutional dispute by the Greek Cypriot interior minister Polycarpos Georkadjis, called for the removal of undesirable elements of the constitution so as to allow power-sharing to work. The plan envisaged a swift retaliatory attack on Turkish Cypriot strongholds should Turkish Cypriots resort to violence to resist the measures, stating "In the event of a planned or staged Turkish attack, it is imperative to overcome it by force in the shortest possible time, because if we succeed in gaining command of the situation (in one or two days), no outside, intervention would be either justified or possible." Whether Makarios's proposals were part of the Akritas plan is unclear, however it remains that sentiment towards enosis had not completely disappeared with independence. Makarios described independence as "a step on the road to enosis".[31] Preparations for conflict were not entirely absent from Turkish Cypriots either, with right wing elements still believing taksim (partition) the best safeguard against enosis.

 

Greek Cypriots however believe the amendments were a necessity stemming from a perceived attempt by Turkish Cypriots to frustrate the working of government. Turkish Cypriots saw it as a means to reduce their status within the state from one of co-founder to that of minority, seeing it as a first step towards enosis. The security situation deteriorated rapidly.

 

Main articles: Bloody Christmas (1963) and Battle of Tillyria

An armed conflict was triggered after December 21, 1963, a period remembered by Turkish Cypriots as Bloody Christmas, when a Greek Cypriot policemen that had been called to help deal with a taxi driver refusing officers already on the scene access to check the identification documents of his customers, took out his gun upon arrival and shot and killed the taxi driver and his partner. Eric Solsten summarised the events as follows: "a Greek Cypriot police patrol, ostensibly checking identification documents, stopped a Turkish Cypriot couple on the edge of the Turkish quarter. A hostile crowd gathered, shots were fired, and two Turkish Cypriots were killed."

 

In the morning after the shooting, crowds gathered in protest in Northern Nicosia, likely encouraged by the TMT, without incident. On the evening of the 22nd, gunfire broke out, communication lines to the Turkish neighbourhoods were cut, and the Greek Cypriot police occupied the nearby airport. On the 23rd, a ceasefire was negotiated, but did not hold. Fighting, including automatic weapons fire, between Greek and Turkish Cypriots and militias increased in Nicosia and Larnaca. A force of Greek Cypriot irregulars led by Nikos Sampson entered the Nicosia suburb of Omorphita and engaged in heavy firing on armed, as well as by some accounts unarmed, Turkish Cypriots. The Omorphita clash has been described by Turkish Cypriots as a massacre, while this view has generally not been acknowledged by Greek Cypriots.

 

Further ceasefires were arranged between the two sides, but also failed. By Christmas Eve, the 24th, Britain, Greece, and Turkey had joined talks, with all sides calling for a truce. On Christmas day, Turkish fighter jets overflew Nicosia in a show of support. Finally it was agreed to allow a force of 2,700 British soldiers to help enforce a ceasefire. In the next days, a "buffer zone" was created in Nicosia, and a British officer marked a line on a map with green ink, separating the two sides of the city, which was the beginning of the "Green Line". Fighting continued across the island for the next several weeks.

 

In total 364 Turkish Cypriots and 174 Greek Cypriots were killed during the violence. 25,000 Turkish Cypriots from 103-109 villages fled and were displaced into enclaves and thousands of Turkish Cypriot houses were ransacked or completely destroyed.

 

Contemporary newspapers also reported on the forceful exodus of the Turkish Cypriots from their homes. According to The Times in 1964, threats, shootings and attempts of arson were committed against the Turkish Cypriots to force them out of their homes. The Daily Express wrote that "25,000 Turks have already been forced to leave their homes". The Guardian reported a massacre of Turks at Limassol on 16 February 1964.

 

Turkey had by now readied its fleet and its fighter jets appeared over Nicosia. Turkey was dissuaded from direct involvement by the creation of a United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) in 1964. Despite the negotiated ceasefire in Nicosia, attacks on the Turkish Cypriot persisted, particularly in Limassol. Concerned about the possibility of a Turkish invasion, Makarios undertook the creation of a Greek Cypriot conscript-based army called the "National Guard". A general from Greece took charge of the army, whilst a further 20,000 well-equipped officers and men were smuggled from Greece into Cyprus. Turkey threatened to intervene once more, but was prevented by a strongly worded letter from the American President Lyndon B. Johnson, anxious to avoid a conflict between NATO allies Greece and Turkey at the height of the Cold War.

 

Turkish Cypriots had by now established an important bridgehead at Kokkina, provided with arms, volunteers and materials from Turkey and abroad. Seeing this incursion of foreign weapons and troops as a major threat, the Cypriot government invited George Grivas to return from Greece as commander of the Greek troops on the island and launch a major attack on the bridgehead. Turkey retaliated by dispatching its fighter jets to bomb Greek positions, causing Makarios to threaten an attack on every Turkish Cypriot village on the island if the bombings did not cease. The conflict had now drawn in Greece and Turkey, with both countries amassing troops on their Thracian borders. Efforts at mediation by Dean Acheson, a former U.S. Secretary of State, and UN-appointed mediator Galo Plaza had failed, all the while the division of the two communities becoming more apparent. Greek Cypriot forces were estimated at some 30,000, including the National Guard and the large contingent from Greece. Defending the Turkish Cypriot enclaves was a force of approximately 5,000 irregulars, led by a Turkish colonel, but lacking the equipment and organisation of the Greek forces.

 

The Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1964, U Thant, reported the damage during the conflicts:

 

UNFICYP carried out a detailed survey of all damage to properties throughout the island during the disturbances; it shows that in 109 villages, most of them Turkish-Cypriot or mixed villages, 527 houses have been destroyed while 2,000 others have suffered damage from looting.

 

The situation worsened in 1967, when a military junta overthrew the democratically elected government of Greece, and began applying pressure on Makarios to achieve enosis. Makarios, not wishing to become part of a military dictatorship or trigger a Turkish invasion, began to distance himself from the goal of enosis. This caused tensions with the junta in Greece as well as George Grivas in Cyprus. Grivas's control over the National Guard and Greek contingent was seen as a threat to Makarios's position, who now feared a possible coup.[citation needed] The National Guard and Cyprus Police began patrolling the Turkish Cypriot enclaves of Ayios Theodoros and Kophinou, and on November 15 engaged in heavy fighting with the Turkish Cypriots.

 

By the time of his withdrawal 26 Turkish Cypriots had been killed. Turkey replied with an ultimatum demanding that Grivas be removed from the island, that the troops smuggled from Greece in excess of the limits of the Treaty of Alliance be removed, and that the economic blockades on the Turkish Cypriot enclaves be lifted. Grivas was recalled by the Athens Junta and the 12,000 Greek troops were withdrawn. Makarios now attempted to consolidate his position by reducing the number of National Guard troops, and by creating a paramilitary force loyal to Cypriot independence. In 1968, acknowledging that enosis was now all but impossible, Makarios stated, "A solution by necessity must be sought within the limits of what is feasible which does not always coincide with the limits of what is desirable."

 

After 1967 tensions between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots subsided. Instead, the main source of tension on the island came from factions within the Greek Cypriot community. Although Makarios had effectively abandoned enosis in favour of an 'attainable solution', many others continued to believe that the only legitimate political aspiration for Greek Cypriots was union with Greece.

 

On his arrival, Grivas began by establishing a nationalist paramilitary group known as the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston B or EOKA-B), drawing comparisons with the EOKA struggle for enosis under the British colonial administration of the 1950s.

 

The military junta in Athens saw Makarios as an obstacle. Makarios's failure to disband the National Guard, whose officer class was dominated by mainland Greeks, had meant the junta had practical control over the Cypriot military establishment, leaving Makarios isolated and a vulnerable target.

 

During the first Turkish invasion, Turkish troops invaded Cyprus territory on 20 July 1974, invoking its rights under the Treaty of Guarantee. This expansion of Turkish-occupied zone violated International Law as well as the Charter of the United Nations. Turkish troops managed to capture 3% of the island which was accompanied by the burning of the Turkish Cypriot quarter, as well as the raping and killing of women and children. A temporary cease-fire followed which was mitigated by the UN Security Council. Subsequently, the Greek military Junta collapsed on July 23, 1974, and peace talks commenced in which a democratic government was installed. The Resolution 353 was broken after Turkey attacked a second time and managed to get a hold of 37% of Cyprus territory. The Island of Cyprus was appointed a Buffer Zone by the United Nations, which divided the island into two zones through the 'Green Line' and put an end to the Turkish invasion. Although Turkey announced that the occupied areas of Cyprus to be called the Federated Turkish State in 1975, it is not legitimised on a worldwide political scale. The United Nations called for the international recognition of independence for the Republic of Cyprus in the Security Council Resolution 367.

 

In the years after the Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus one can observe a history of failed talks between the two parties. The 1983 declaration of the independent Turkish Republic of Cyprus resulted in a rise of inter-communal tensions and made it increasingly hard to find mutual understanding. With Cyprus' interest of a possible EU membership and a new UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 1997 new hopes arose for a fresh start. International involvement from sides of the US and UK, wanting a solution to the Cyprus dispute prior to the EU accession led to political pressures for new talks. The believe that an accession without a solution would threaten Greek-Turkish relations and acknowledge the partition of the island would direct the coming negotiations.

 

Over the course of two years a concrete plan, the Annan plan was formulated. In 2004 the fifth version agreed upon from both sides and with the endorsement of Turkey, US, UK and EU then was presented to the public and was given a referendum in both Cypriot communities to assure the legitimisation of the resolution. The Turkish Cypriots voted with 65% for the plan, however the Greek Cypriots voted with a 76% majority against. The Annan plan contained multiple important topics. Firstly it established a confederation of two separate states called the United Cyprus Republic. Both communities would have autonomous states combined under one unified government. The members of parliament would be chosen according to the percentage in population numbers to ensure a just involvement from both communities. The paper proposed a demilitarisation of the island over the next years. Furthermore it agreed upon a number of 45000 Turkish settlers that could remain on the island. These settlers became a very important issue concerning peace talks. Originally the Turkish government encouraged Turks to settle in Cyprus providing transfer and property, to establish a counterpart to the Greek Cypriot population due to their 1 to 5 minority. With the economic situation many Turkish-Cypriot decided to leave the island, however their departure is made up by incoming Turkish settlers leaving the population ratio between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots stable. However all these points where criticised and as seen in the vote rejected mainly by the Greek Cypriots. These name the dissolution of the „Republic of Cyprus", economic consequences of a reunion and the remaining Turkish settlers as reason. Many claim that the plan was indeed drawing more from Turkish-Cypriot demands then Greek-Cypriot interests. Taking in consideration that the US wanted to keep Turkey as a strategic partner in future Middle Eastern conflicts.

 

A week after the failed referendum the Republic of Cyprus joined the EU. In multiple instances the EU tried to promote trade with Northern Cyprus but without internationally recognised ports this spiked a grand debate. Both side endure their intention of negotiations, however without the prospect of any new compromises or agreements the UN is unwilling to start the process again. Since 2004 negotiations took place in numbers but without any results, both sides are strongly holding on to their position without an agreeable solution in sight that would suit both parties.

Massive upload incoming!

 

- - - little disclaimer - These images are shot for specific scenes that fit in the story on my blog - - -

 

It's done and published! I am so happy it's finally done, it was one helluva job! Please take a peak at it over at SkyrimTales, the story is really written in a nice detailed style. And drop some feedback, critique if you feel like it!

 

Tordis - The Lone Strider of Bruma - Part I

 

And with this I would also like to show off my new fancy blog design. SkyrimTales got a sleek new look, thanks to Blogger and my wife for assisting me with all those means and nasty codes! <3 Love you!

 

This is the Collab project I was working on all this time, and it's finally finished. We wanted to do something with Tordis and Uther for a long time. We will probably make a second part that you will hopefully see appear around next week.

 

We hope you really enjoyed it and I hope you guys all have a great weekend. :)

Vortex Science Fiction / Heft-Reihe

- Lelon Kohle / The Paper Knife

- Bruce Fearing / The Unlikeliest Thing

- Emmett Herlocker / Granch Male-Left

- Rice Arden / Food for Thought

- Marion Zimmer Bradley / Women Only

- James L. Harte / Shade of Blond

- Frank Bristow / Rejects

- Jack Lewis / The Miraculous Lens

- Sylvia Jacobs / The Sportsmen

- Garen Drussaï / Grim Fairy Tale

- Lelon Kohle / The Time-Killer

- Stephen Arr / The Ball

- T. D. Hamm / The Corner

- John Foster West / Weird Catch

- Joseph Slotkin / Release

- L. Major Reynolds / One Man War

- Gene Hunter / Aunt Liz

- Richard Terzian / The Farmer's Daughter & The Martian

- C. M. Webster / The Venus Gipsy

- Don L. Johnson / Dream Drink

- Marion Zimmer Bradley / Keyhole

- J. T. Oliver / Teacher's Pet

- Garen Drussaï / The Closet

- Joseph Slotkin / Mercer's Machine

- Lucius Daniel / The Question

cover: Martin (II)

Specific Fiction Corp. / USA 1953

Reprint: Comic-Club NK 2010

ex libris MTP

 

"Whereas the child is chiefly playful and experimental, the adult focuses on specific and conscious experiences. He practices selective inattention to the objects for which he has no immediate use and develops a kind of tunnel vision that helps him to move toward selected goals. This focusing on a limited range of experiences and goals is largely responsible for one's individual evolution and gives a deep and almost tragic significance to a statement made by Albert Camus in his novel La Chute: "Après un certain âge tout homme est responsable do son visage." An almost identical statement appears as the last entry in George Orwell's notebooks: "At 50, everyone has the face he deserves." There could not any more absolute affirmation of belief in personal responsibility for the quality of one's own life and character."

René Dubos (1901-1982), French microbiologist, environmentalist, humanist. "Individuality, Personality, and Collectivity," (1972).

There’s a very specific kind of holiday frustration that only Christmas lights can deliver—and this look captures it perfectly. Wrapped from head to toe in glowing strands, Ivanna stands frozen in that familiar moment: lights everywhere, patience nowhere. What started as festive cheer has turned into a battle of knots, twists, and wires that somehow multiplied while you weren’t looking.

 

The styling leans into that chaos beautifully. Strings of lights crown her head, coil around her arms, and cling to her outfit as if they have a mind of their own. Her expression says it all—equal parts disbelief and exhaustion—because no matter how carefully you store them, Christmas lights always come back tangled. It’s tradition at this point.

 

Set against a softly glowing tree and scattered ornaments, the look balances humor with realism. It’s messy, bright, and slightly unhinged—just like decorating for the holidays. And yet, there’s something charming about it. Because even in the frustration, there’s magic. Once the knots are (mostly) undone and the lights finally glow where they’re meant to, the stress fades, and the season feels warm again.

 

This look is a love letter to that shared holiday struggle—a reminder that sometimes the chaos is part of the charm, and the lights are worth it… even if they test your sanity every single year.

 

T-Shirt: The Bold Llama T-Shirt Co. EVERYTHING's FINE Tee

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Available for just $20L, this tee is an exclusive at Evil Bunny Productions’ “What The Elf” Sim Hunt, running Dec 13 – Dec 31. Grab it before it’s gone!

 

What the Elf Hunt

WS: www.evilbunnysl.com/gacha-life-gallery

LM: maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Grumble/176/30/21

 

The Bold Llama T-Shirt Company

◆ Mainstore: maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sandstorm/19/98/1622

◆ Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/165644473@N06/

◆ Marketplace: marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/202793

◆ PrimFeed: www.primfeed.com/the-bold-llama-t-shirt-co

◆ Bold Llama Bloggers Flickr: www.flickr.com/groups/theboldllama/

 

I actually was looking for a specific new belt and walked from store to store. In the front of one of those stores, i saw Louise arranging some clothes. And because i did not liked to step in to another one for nothing, i asked her, if they would sell some belts. I did not found the belt i was looking for, but i found a new stranger, i would like to take a portrait of. As i asked her, Louise was very friendly but asked me for a card before she agree. To my luck she had her lunch break just in10 minutes . As she came out of the store, she had her lunch and some books with her, so i did not want her, to spend to much of her time. So after a few shots i thanked Louise for her time, and we both walked our way.

 

Thanks for being a part of the project!

 

Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers at www.100strangers.com

This specific aircraft seen above is a McDonnel Douglas F-15A (Serial Number 76-063). It was manufactured in St. Louis, Missouri and was accepted by the Air Force in September 1977. It flew with 49th Tactical Fighter Wing in New Mexico and Nevada until 1978. It then went to the 1st Tactical Fighter Wing in Langley, Virginia. It shifted to the 405th Tactical Training Wing in Luke Air Force Base in Arizona in 1982. In 1988, it returned to the 49th Tactical Fighter Wing in New Mexico.

 

In 1992, the aircraft went to the 199th Tactical Fighter Squadron of the 154th Composite Group (Air National Guard) at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii. In 1987, Hawaii became one of the earliest units to get F-15A's. In 1992, the 119th got 26 newer F-15A's upgraded with MSIP improvements (Multi-stage Improvement Program [MSIP] to provide maximum air superiority in a dense hostile environment in the late 1990's and beyond). This aircraft is one of these newer versions. The “063” defended Hawaiian skies until it was demilitarized and transferred to Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum. It now sits in Hangar 79, although it is frequently brought outside for some fresh air.

 

-- Technical Specifications F-15A --

‧ Type: F-15 A/B/C/D: Single-seat air superiority fighter with secondary attack capability; F-15E: Two-seat fighter/bomber

‧ Length: 63.75 feet

‧ Wingspan: 42.8 feet

‧ Height: 18.45 feet

‧ Wing Area: 608 sq ft

‧ Empty Weight: 31,700 lbs

‧ Weight (interceptor takeoff): 40,900 lbs

‧ Combat weight (50% fuel): 34,500 lbs

‧ Maximum Takeoff Weight: 56,000 lbs (with third fuel tank, must go without two AIM-7 Sparrows)

- Engine -

‧ Type: Two Pratt and Whitney F100-PW-100 Low-Bypass Turbofan with Afterburner

‧ Static thrust: 14,670 lbs of thrust each at military power

‧ Thrust at full afterburner: 23,820 lbs each

‧ Thrust to weight air-to-air configuration: 1.4 : 1

‧ Speed: 1,678 mph at 47,000 feet

‧ Ceiling: 60,000 feet

‧ Gun: M61 20mm cannon with ammunition for about 10 seconds of firing time

‧ Radar-guided missiles: AIM-7 Sparrows or AIM-120 AMRAMs on C/D/E models (typically four)

‧ Heat-seeking missiles: AIM-9L Sidewinders (typically four)

 

- Additional Notes -

* The front of the engine intake dips between 4 degrees and 11 degrees for smoother airflow.

* There is a strake in front of rear radar missile to improve aerodynamics.

* The A model could carry three 600-gallon fuel tanks. However, if it did, it could only carry two radar missiles.

* The yellow strips at the front, back, and wingtips are dim yellow lights, like night lights, to aid in formation flying in darkness.

* McDonnell Douglas built 373 F-15As and 59 F-15Bs up to 1978.

* McDonnell Douglas produced 684 F-15Cs and 114 F-15Ds between 1978 and 1992.

* Today, it has built over 330, and it will build about 40 more for the Republic of Korea.

 

Technical Information (or Nerdy Stuff):

Camera - Nikon D7200 (handheld)

Lens – Nikkor 18-300mm Zoom

ISO – 1000

Aperture – f/3.8

Exposure – 1/320 second

Focal Length – 21mm

 

www.pearlharboraviationmuseum.org/blog/mcdonnell-douglas-...

 

The original RAW file was processed with Adobe Camera Raw and final adjustments were made with Photoshop CS6.

 

"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." ~Jeremiah 29:11

 

The best way to view my photostream is through Flickriver with the following link: www.flickriver.com/photos/photojourney57/

Definitely my favorite photo series. They are all related to specific events. I thought I had the complete "Am" series, but Brett had found this one. After long searches I was able to find my copy which had been on sale for more than 10 years well hidden on the internet. I also got my hands on a new copy that I had never seen.

 

It seems that there was no raid during the month of April. Here is the balance sheet of that of 28.5.1918. With as always the summary of the attack experienced by the French side.

Some peculiarities:

- soldiers from the 4 Bavarian Landwehr Infantry Regiment

- the use of gas before the attack (a soldier equipped with an additional filter)

- the French had taken action and inflicted losses against the Stosstrupp

 

Another element that goes in the direction of the Sturm Abteilung of the first landwehr division.

 

Mike's postcard says: 1 Officers, 40 Men and 4 MGs

 

Text from the French JMO of the 106 RI:

"Toxic shells are reported

from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. bombardment, less intense on the 1st lines, continued on the regions of the Patte d'Oie Bathelémont and Bauzemont batteries

at 4 p.m. Lt Colonel Cdt of the Sub Sector reports on the situation:

"CR Gypse reports 2 wounded by toxic shells (Artois)

"Bauzemont reports 5 wounded by toxic shells

"Cap. Bebert, Cap Famelart, seriously wounded at Bauzemont as well as a few men

He asks Colonel Cdt for the I.D.

1°/that the units of the 49th BCP made available to the sub-sector for the improvement of GCs do not go to work until further notice.

2°/ in order to counter any eventuality that the security measures prescribed by note 1659 of the 56th D.I. of May 3, 1918, are applied this night with regard to the units in line

 

from 6 p.m. to 6.20 p.m. 15 105 shells fell on Walhey and its surroundings, some wounded. The village is evacuated according to the set alert order.

6:30 p.m. an enemy plane flies over the Marne and Yser region at low altitude.

7 p.m. The Colonel Commandant of the I.D. prescribes the application of the note concerning the withdrawal of units in line

7:30 p.m. order transmitted to the Commander of the CR Gypse

10 p.m. the bombardment resumes with violence on the whole of the sub-sector. The enemy attacks the G.C. Arras & Yser

10:15 p.m. Our roadblock is triggered.

10:30 p.m. Concentration of fire in front of Arras and Yser.

from 10:30 p.m. to 3 a.m. less enemy artillery activity

 

from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. The bombardment redoubles in intensity on the 1st position Patte d'Oie Bathelemont region - hill 273

5:30 a.m. The Commander of the C.R Gypse reports that the occupation troops of the G.C. came into contact with enemy fractions in Arras-Yser at the time of the reoccupation, some corpses of the 4th Bavarian Landwehr are found on the ground.

5:55 am Order is given to the Commander of CR Gypse

1°/ to restore order in its units

2°/ to determine in a precise way the locations occupied by the enemy

3°/ to carry out the cleaning of the ground by teams of grenadiers.

6:05 A Cie du Btn in reserve of D.I (II/106) is alerted

8:00 a.m. The Commander of CR Gypse reports that GC Arras and Yser are reoccupied.

The bombardment of the 1st position and the battery areas continued intermittently throughout the day, especially on P.A. Marne & Yser.

The 3rd & 1st Companies (the latter reinforced by a section of the 2nd) finish clearing the ground during the day and reoccupy their old locations where these documents are found:

"1 staking panel. 1 sign with fraction of illustrated newspaper and 1 playing card (10 of hearts)

"1 packet of bandages - 1 handkerchief - 1 rosary - 1 notebook - 1 postcard giving the address of the family of the person concerned

"1 list of the men composing column n°3, commanded by this NCO."

A quick study of these documents shows that the coup de main carried out was led by an important Stosstrupp and that the material means employed (staking panels) were to be used for a prolonged occupation of the land.

On the other hand, the interrogation of the men of the 1st & 3rd Companies of the Reiment who participated in the defense shows that the fight was very hard, degenerating at certain points into violent hand-to-hand combat (blood-stained gratings, traces of blood in shelters and on weapons etc.)

 

Not having been reach early enough by the withdrawal order, the GC garrison in accordance with the instructions in the event of an attack, defended itself heroically until the last extremity inflicting serious losses on the enemy, not not allowing it to fulfill its mission of occupation.

The measures of individual and collective protection against gases observed thanks to a strong discipline, avoided serious losses and made it possible to firmly hold the ground.

The 1st, 3rd 10th Companies and the CM1 behaved particularly well.

Casualties: Killed: Lieut Javouhey 7 soldiers

Wounded: Cap Bebert, Famelou (died of his wounds, Lieut Grosfils. Troop 45 + 7 of the C. I.D.

Missing: 1 Officer S.Lieut Fourmestraux

39 troops

"

 

Maurice Julien Louis Adam, 2e Classe, né le 20 Février 1895 à Saint-Symphorien-le-Valois dans la Manche

Georges Théodore François Boulay, 2e Classe, né le 20 Août 1896 à Champfleur dans la Sarthe

André Emmanuel Léon Javouhey, Lieutenant, né le 9 Mai 1888à Pagny-le-Ville en Côte d'Or

Roger Adrien Lauby, 2e Classe, né le 5 Mars 1897 à Moustier-Ventadour en Corrèze

Valentin Julien Marie Le Nicardour, 1re Classe, né le 13 Janvier 1890 à Vannes dans le Morbihan

François Jacques René Remoue, 2e Classe, né le 18 Septembre 1898 à La Chappelle-sur-Oudon dans le Maine-et-Loire

 

All postcards about this unit are gathered here: flic.kr/y/3Kb4Qyd

 

REF: 15-75-9

Same marble as below but shot from a different side.

 

.

  

More in my set, "Marbles II:"

 

www.flickr.com/photos/motorpsiclist/sets/72157633077363662/

 

and check out my original set, "Marbles:"

 

www.flickr.com/photos/motorpsiclist/sets/72157632432129257/

 

.

 

My photographs and videos and any derivative works are my private property and are copyright © by me, John Russell (aka "Zoom Lens") and ALL my rights, including my exclusive rights, are reserved and protected by United States Copyright Laws and International Copyright Laws.

 

This photo is NOT authorized for use on blogs; pin boards such as Pinterest; Tumblr; Facebook; or any other use without my specific written permission.

 

ANY use without my permission in writing is forbidden by law.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beamish_Museum

 

Beamish Museum is the first regional open-air museum, in England, located at Beamish, near the town of Stanley, in County Durham, England. Beamish pioneered the concept of a living museum. By displaying duplicates or replaceable items, it was also an early example of the now commonplace practice of museums allowing visitors to touch objects.

 

The museum's guiding principle is to preserve an example of everyday life in urban and rural North East England at the climax of industrialisation in the early 20th century. Much of the restoration and interpretation is specific to the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, together with portions of countryside under the influence of industrial revolution from 1825. On its 350 acres (140 ha) estate it uses a mixture of translocated, original and replica buildings, a large collection of artefacts, working vehicles and equipment, as well as livestock and costumed interpreters.

 

The museum has received a number of awards since it opened to visitors in 1972 and has influenced other living museums. It is an educational resource, and also helps to preserve some traditional and rare north-country livestock breeds.

 

History

Genesis

In 1958, days after starting as director of the Bowes Museum, inspired by Scandinavian folk museums, and realising the North East's traditional industries and communities were disappearing, Frank Atkinson presented a report to Durham County Council urging that a collection of items of everyday history on a large scale should begin as soon as possible, so that eventually an open air museum could be established. As well as objects, Atkinson was also aiming to preserve the region's customs and dialect. He stated the new museum should "attempt to make the history of the region live" and illustrate the way of life of ordinary people. He hoped the museum would be run by, be about and exist for the local populace, desiring them to see the museum as theirs, featuring items collected from them.

 

Fearing it was now almost too late, Atkinson adopted a policy of "unselective collecting" — "you offer it to us and we will collect it." Donations ranged in size from small items to locomotives and shops, and Atkinson initially took advantage of a surplus of space available in the 19th-century French chateau-style building housing the Bowes Museum to store items donated for the open air museum. With this space soon filled, a former British Army tank depot at Brancepeth was taken over, although in just a short time its entire complement of 22 huts and hangars had been filled, too.

 

In 1966, a working party was established to set up a museum "for the purpose of studying, collecting, preserving and exhibiting buildings, machinery, objects and information illustrating the development of industry and the way of life of the north of England", and it selected Beamish Hall, having been vacated by the National Coal Board, as a suitable location.

 

Establishment and expansion

In August 1970, with Atkinson appointed as its first full-time director together with three staff members, the museum was first established by moving some of the collections into the hall. In 1971, an introductory exhibition, "Museum in the Making" opened at the hall.

 

The museum was opened to visitors on its current site for the first time in 1972, with the first translocated buildings (the railway station and colliery winding engine) being erected the following year. The first trams began operating on a short demonstration line in 1973. The Town station was formally opened in 1976, the same year the reconstruction of the colliery winding engine house was completed, and the miners' cottages were relocated. Opening of the drift mine as an exhibit followed in 1979.

 

In 1975 the museum was visited by the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and by Anne, Princess Royal, in 2002. In 2006, as the Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England, The Duke of Kent visited, to open the town masonic lodge.

 

With the Co-op having opened in 1984, the town area was officially opened in 1985. The pub had opened in the same year, with Ravensworth Terrace having been reconstructed from 1980 to 1985. The newspaper branch office had also been built in the mid-1980s. Elsewhere, the farm on the west side of the site (which became Home Farm) opened in 1983. The present arrangement of visitors entering from the south was introduced in 1986.

 

At the beginning of the 1990s, further developments in the Pit Village were opened, the chapel in 1990, and the board school in 1992. The whole tram circle was in operation by 1993.[8] Further additions to the Town came in 1994 with the opening of the sweet shop and motor garage, followed by the bank in 1999. The first Georgian component of the museum arrived when Pockerley Old Hall opened in 1995, followed by the Pockerley Waggonway in 2001.

 

In the early 2000s two large modern buildings were added, to augment the museum's operations and storage capacity - the Regional Resource Centre on the west side opened in 2001, followed by the Regional Museums Store next to the railway station in 2002. Due to its proximity, the latter has been cosmetically presented as Beamish Waggon and Iron Works. Additions to display areas came in the form of the Masonic lodge (2006) and the Lamp Cabin in the Colliery (2009). In 2010, the entrance building and tea rooms were refurbished.

 

Into the 2010s, further buildings were added - the fish and chip shop (opened 2011)[28] band hall (opened 2013) and pit pony stables (built 2013/14) in the Pit Village, plus a bakery (opened 2013) and chemist and photographers (opened 2016) being added to the town. St Helen's Church, in the Georgian landscape, opened in November 2015.

 

Remaking Beamish

A major development, named 'Remaking Beamish', was approved by Durham County Council in April 2016, with £10.7m having been raised from the Heritage Lottery Fund and £3.3m from other sources.

 

As of September 2022, new exhibits as part of this project have included a quilter's cottage, a welfare hall, 1950s terrace, recreation park, bus depot, and 1950s farm (all discussed in the relevant sections of this article). The coming years will see replicas of aged miners' homes from South Shields, a cinema from Ryhope, and social housing will feature a block of four relocated Airey houses, prefabricated concrete homes originally designed by Sir Edwin Airey, which previously stood in Kibblesworth. Then-recently vacated and due for demolition, they were instead offered to the museum by The Gateshead Housing Company and accepted in 2012.

 

Museum site

The approximately 350-acre (1.4 km2) current site, once belonging to the Eden and Shafto families, is a basin-shaped steep-sided valley with woodland areas, a river, some level ground and a south-facing aspect.

 

Visitors enter the site through an entrance arch formed by a steam hammer, across a former opencast mining site and through a converted stable block (from Greencroft, near Lanchester, County Durham).

 

Visitors can navigate the site via assorted marked footpaths, including adjacent (or near to) the entire tramway oval. According to the museum, it takes 20 minutes to walk at a relaxed pace from the entrance to the town. The tramway oval serves as both an exhibit and as a free means of transport around the site for visitors, with stops at the entrance (south), Home Farm (west), Pockerley (east) and the Town (north). Visitors can also use the museum's buses as a free form of transport between various parts of the museum. Although visitors can also ride on the Town railway and Pockerley Waggonway, these do not form part of the site's transport system (as they start and finish from the same platforms).

 

Governance

Beamish was the first English museum to be financed and administered by a consortium of county councils (Cleveland, Durham, Northumberland and Tyne and Wear) The museum is now operated as a registered charity, but continues to receive support from local authorities - Durham County Council, Sunderland City Council, Gateshead Council, South Tyneside Council and North Tyneside Council. The supporting Friends of Beamish organisation was established in 1968. Frank Atkinson retired as director in 1987. The museum has been 96% self-funding for some years (mainly from admission charges).

 

Sections of the museum

1913

The town area, officially opened in 1985, depicts chiefly Victorian buildings in an evolved urban setting of 1913.

 

Tramway

The Beamish Tramway is 1.5 miles (2.4 km) long, with four passing loops. The line makes a circuit of the museum site forming an important element of the visitor transportation system.

 

The first trams began operating on a short demonstration line in 1973, with the whole circle in operation by 1993.[8] It represents the era of electric powered trams, which were being introduced to meet the needs of growing towns and cities across the North East from the late 1890s, replacing earlier horse drawn systems.

 

Bakery

Presented as Joseph Herron, Baker & Confectioner, the bakery was opened in 2013 and features working ovens which produce food for sale to visitors. A two-storey curved building, only the ground floor is used as the exhibit. A bakery has been included to represent the new businesses which sprang up to cater for the growing middle classes - the ovens being of the modern electric type which were growing in use. The building was sourced from Anfield Plain (which had a bakery trading as Joseph Herron), and was moved to Beamish in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The frontage features a stained glass from a baker's shop in South Shields. It also uses fittings from Stockton-on-Tees.

 

Motor garage

Presented as Beamish Motor & Cycle Works, the motor garage opened in 1994. Reflecting the custom nature of the early motor trade, where only one in 232 people owned a car in 1913, the shop features a showroom to the front (not accessible to visitors), with a garage area to the rear, accessed via the adjacent archway. The works is a replica of a typical garage of the era. Much of the museum's car, motorcycle and bicycle collection, both working and static, is stored in the garage. The frontage has two storeys, but the upper floor is only a small mezzanine and is not used as part of the display.

 

Department Store

Presented as the Annfield Plain Industrial Co-operative Society Ltd, (but more commonly referred to as the Anfield Plain Co-op Store) this department store opened in 1984, and was relocated to Beamish from Annfield Plain in County Durham. The Annfield Plain co-operative society was originally established in 1870, with the museum store stocking various products from the Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS), established 1863. A two-storey building, the ground floor comprises the three departments - grocery, drapery and hardware; the upper floor is taken up by the tea rooms (accessed from Redman Park via a ramp to the rear). Most of the items are for display only, but a small amount of goods are sold to visitors. The store features an operational cash carrier system, of the Lamson Cash Ball design - common in many large stores of the era, but especially essential to Co-ops, where customer's dividends had to be logged.

 

Ravensworth Terrace

Ravensworth Terrace is a row of terraced houses, presented as the premises and living areas of various professionals. Representing the expanding housing stock of the era, it was relocated from its original site on Bensham Bank, having been built for professionals and tradesmen between 1830 and 1845. Original former residents included painter John Wilson Carmichael and Gateshead mayor Alexander Gillies. Originally featuring 25 homes, the terrace was to be demolished when the museum saved it in the 1970s, reconstructing six of them on the Town site between 1980 and 1985. They are two storey buildings, with most featuring display rooms on both floors - originally the houses would have also housed a servant in the attic. The front gardens are presented in a mix of the formal style, and the natural style that was becoming increasingly popular.

 

No. 2 is presented as the home of Miss Florence Smith, a music teacher, with old fashioned mid-Victorian furnishings as if inherited from her parents. No. 3 & 4 is presented as the practice and home respectively (with a knocked through door) of dentist J. Jones - the exterior nameplate having come from the surgery of Mr. J. Jones in Hartlepool. Representing the state of dental health at the time, it features both a check-up room and surgery for extraction, and a technicians room for creating dentures - a common practice at the time being the giving to daughters a set on their 21st birthday, to save any future husband the cost at a later date. His home is presented as more modern than No.2, furnished in the Edwardian style the modern day utilities of an enamelled bathroom with flushing toilet, a controllable heat kitchen range and gas cooker. No. 5 is presented as a solicitor's office, based on that of Robert Spence Watson, a Quaker from Newcastle. Reflecting the trade of the era, downstairs is laid out as the partner's or principal office, and the general or clerk's office in the rear. Included is a set of books sourced from ER Hanby Holmes, who practised in Barnard Castle.

 

Pub

Presented as The Sun Inn, the pub opened in the town in 1985. It had originally stood in Bondgate in Bishop Auckland, and was donated to the museum by its final owners, the Scottish and Newcastle Breweries. Originally a "one-up one down" cottage, the earliest ownership has been traced to James Thompson, on 21 January 1806. Known as The Tiger Inn until the 1850s, from 1857 to 1899 under the ownership of the Leng family, it flourished under the patronage of miners from Newton Cap and other collieries. Latterly run by Elsie Edes, it came under brewery ownership in the 20th Century when bought by S&N antecedent, James Deuchar Ltd. The pub is fully operational, and features both a front and back bar, the two stories above not being part of the exhibit. The interior decoration features the stuffed racing greyhound Jake's Bonny Mary, which won nine trophies before being put on display in The Gerry in White le Head near Tantobie.

 

Town stables

Reflecting the reliance on horses for a variety of transport needs in the era, the town features a centrally located stables, situated behind the sweet shop, with its courtyard being accessed from the archway next to the pub. It is presented as a typical jobmaster's yard, with stables and a tack room in the building on its north side. A small, brick built open air, carriage shed is sited on the back of the printworks building. On the east side of the courtyard is a much larger metal shed (utilising iron roof trusses from Fleetwood), arranged mainly as carriage storage, but with a blacksmith's shop in the corner. The building on the west side of the yard is not part of any display. The interior fittings for the harness room came from Callaly Caste. Many of the horses and horse-drawn vehicles used by the museum are housed in the stables and sheds.

 

Printer, stationer and newspaper branch office

Presented as the Beamish Branch Office of the Northern Daily Mail and the Sunderland Daily Echo, the two storey replica building was built in the mid-1980s and represents the trade practices of the era. Downstairs, on the right, is the branch office, where newspapers would be sold directly and distributed to local newsagents and street vendors, and where orders for advertising copy would be taken. Supplementing it is a stationer's shop on the left hand side, with both display items and a small number of gift items on public sale. Upstairs is a jobbing printers workshop, which would not produce the newspapers, but would instead print leaflets, posters and office stationery. Split into a composing area and a print shop, the shop itself has a number of presses - a Columbian built in 1837 by Clymer and Dixon, an Albion dating back to 1863, an Arab Platen of c. 1900, and a Wharfedale flat bed press, built by Dawson & Son in around 1870. Much of the machinery was sourced from the print works of Jack Ascough's of Barnard Castle. Many of the posters seen around the museum are printed in the works, with the operation of the machinery being part of the display.

 

Sweet shop

Presented as Jubilee Confectioners, the two storey sweet shop opened in 1994 and is meant to represent the typical family run shops of the era, with living quarters above the shop (the second storey not being part of the display). To the front of the ground floor is a shop, where traditional sweets and chocolate (which was still relatively expensive at the time) are sold to visitors, while in the rear of the ground floor is a manufacturing area where visitors can view the techniques of the time (accessed via the arched walkway on the side of the building). The sweet rollers were sourced from a variety of shops and factories.

 

Bank

Presented as a branch of Barclays Bank (Barclay & Company Ltd) using period currency, the bank opened in 1999. It represents the trend of the era when regional banks were being acquired and merged into national banks such as Barclays, formed in 1896. Built to a three-storey design typical of the era, and featuring bricks in the upper storeys sourced from Park House, Gateshead, the Swedish imperial red shade used on the ground floor frontage is intended to represent stability and security. On the ground floor are windows for bank tellers, plus the bank manager's office. Included in a basement level are two vaults. The upper two storeys are not part of the display. It features components sourced from Southport and Gateshead

 

Masonic Hall

The Masonic Hall opened in 2006, and features the frontage from a former masonic hall sited in Park Terrace, Sunderland. Reflecting the popularity of the masons in North East England, as well as the main hall, which takes up the full height of the structure, in a small two story arrangement to the front of the hall is also a Robing Room and the Tyler's Room on the ground floor, and a Museum Room upstairs, featuring display cabinets of masonic regalia donated from various lodges. Upstairs is also a class room, with large stained glass window.

 

Chemist and photographer

Presented as W Smith's Chemist and JR & D Edis Photographers, a two-storey building housing both a chemist and photographers shops under one roof opened on 7 May 2016 and represents the growing popularity of photography in the era, with shops often growing out of or alongside chemists, who had the necessary supplies for developing photographs. The chemist features a dispensary, and equipment from various shops including John Walker, inventor of the friction match. The photographers features a studio, where visitors can dress in period costume and have a photograph taken. The corner building is based on a real building on Elvet Bridge in Durham City, opposite the Durham Marriot Hotel (the Royal County), although the second storey is not part of the display. The chemist also sells aerated water (an early form of carbonated soft drinks) to visitors, sold in marble-stopper sealed Codd bottles (although made to a modern design to prevent the safety issue that saw the original bottles banned). Aerated waters grew in popularity in the era, due to the need for a safe alternative to water, and the temperance movement - being sold in chemists due to the perception they were healthy in the same way mineral waters were.

 

Costing around £600,000 and begun on 18 August 2014, the building's brickwork and timber was built by the museum's own staff and apprentices, using Georgian bricks salvaged from demolition works to widen the A1. Unlike previous buildings built on the site, the museum had to replicate rather than relocate this one due to the fact that fewer buildings are being demolished compared to the 1970s, and in any case it was deemed unlikely one could be found to fit the curved shape of the plot. The studio is named after a real business run by John Reed Edis and his daughter Daisy. Mr Edis, originally at 27 Sherburn Road, Durham, in 1895, then 52 Saddler Street from 1897. The museum collection features several photographs, signs and equipment from the Edis studio. The name for the chemist is a reference to the business run by William Smith, who relocated to Silver Street, near the original building, in 1902. According to records, the original Edis company had been supplied by chemicals from the original (and still extant) Smith business.

 

Redman Park

Redman Park is a small lawned space with flower borders, opposite Ravensworth Terrace. Its centrepiece is a Victorian bandstand sourced from Saltwell Park, where it stood on an island in the middle of a lake. It represents the recognised need of the time for areas where people could relax away from the growing industrial landscape.

 

Other

Included in the Town are drinking fountains and other period examples of street furniture. In between the bank and the sweet shop is a combined tram and bus waiting room and public convenience.

 

Unbuilt

When construction of the Town began, the projected town plan incorporated a market square and buildings including a gas works, fire station, ice cream parlour (originally the Central Cafe at Consett), a cast iron bus station from Durham City, school, public baths and a fish and chip shop.

 

Railway station

East of the Town is the Railway Station, depicting a typical small passenger and goods facility operated by the main railway company in the region at the time, the North Eastern Railway (NER). A short running line extends west in a cutting around the north side of the Town itself, with trains visible from the windows of the stables. It runs for a distance of 1⁄4 mile - the line used to connect to the colliery sidings until 1993 when it was lifted between the town and the colliery so that the tram line could be extended. During 2009 the running line was relaid so that passenger rides could recommence from the station during 2010.

 

Rowley station

Representing passenger services is Rowley Station, a station building on a single platform, opened in 1976, having been relocated to the museum from the village of Rowley near Consett, just a few miles from Beamish.

 

The original Rowley railway station was opened in 1845 (as Cold Rowley, renamed Rowley in 1868) by the NER antecedent, the Stockton and Darlington Railway, consisting of just a platform. Under NER ownership, as a result of increasing use, in 1873 the station building was added. As demand declined, passenger service was withdrawn in 1939, followed by the goods service in 1966. Trains continued to use the line for another three years before it closed, the track being lifted in 1970. Although in a state of disrepair, the museum acquired the building, dismantling it in 1972, being officially unveiled in its new location by railway campaigner and poet, Sir John Betjeman.

 

The station building is presented as an Edwardian station, lit by oil lamp, having never been connected to gas or electricity supplies in its lifetime. It features both an open waiting area and a visitor accessible waiting room (western half), and a booking and ticket office (eastern half), with the latter only visible from a small viewing entrance. Adorning the waiting room is a large tiled NER route map.

 

Signal box

The signal box dates from 1896, and was relocated from Carr House East near Consett. It features assorted signalling equipment, basic furnishings for the signaller, and a lever frame, controlling the stations numerous points, interlocks and semaphore signals. The frame is not an operational part of the railway, the points being hand operated using track side levers. Visitors can only view the interior from a small area inside the door.

 

Goods shed

The goods shed is originally from Alnwick. The goods area represents how general cargo would have been moved on the railway, and for onward transport. The goods shed features a covered platform where road vehicles (wagons and carriages) can be loaded with the items unloaded from railway vans. The shed sits on a triangular platform serving two sidings, with a platform mounted hand-crane, which would have been used for transhipment activity (transfer of goods from one wagon to another, only being stored for a short time on the platform, if at all).

 

Coal yard

The coal yard represents how coal would have been distributed from incoming trains to local merchants - it features a coal drop which unloads railway wagons into road going wagons below. At the road entrance to the yard is a weighbridge (with office) and coal merchant's office - both being appropriately furnished with display items, but only viewable from outside.

 

The coal drop was sourced from West Boldon, and would have been a common sight on smaller stations. The weighbridge came from Glanton, while the coal office is from Hexham.

 

Bridges and level crossing

The station is equipped with two footbridges, a wrought iron example to the east having come from Howden-le-Wear, and a cast iron example to the west sourced from Dunston. Next to the western bridge, a roadway from the coal yard is presented as crossing the tracks via a gated level crossing (although in reality the road goes nowhere on the north side).

 

Waggon and Iron Works

Dominating the station is the large building externally presented as Beamish Waggon and Iron Works, estd 1857. In reality this is the Regional Museums Store (see below), although attached to the north side of the store are two covered sidings (not accessible to visitors), used to service and store the locomotives and stock used on the railway.

 

Other

A corrugated iron hut adjacent to the 'iron works' is presented as belonging to the local council, and houses associated road vehicles, wagons and other items.

 

Fairground

Adjacent to the station is an events field and fairground with a set of Frederick Savage built steam powered Gallopers dating from 1893.

 

Colliery

Presented as Beamish Colliery (owned by James Joicey & Co., and managed by William Severs), the colliery represents the coal mining industry which dominated the North East for generations - the museum site is in the former Durham coalfield, where 165,246 men and boys worked in 304 mines in 1913. By the time period represented by Beamish's 1900s era, the industry was booming - production in the Great Northern Coalfield had peaked in 1913, and miners were relatively well paid (double that of agriculture, the next largest employer), but the work was dangerous. Children could be employed from age 12 (the school leaving age), but could not go underground until 14.

 

Deep mine

Reconstructed pitworks buildings showing winding gear

Dominating the colliery site are the above ground structures of a deep (i.e. vertical shaft) mine - the brick built Winding Engine House, and the red painted wooden Heapstead. These were relocated to the museum (which never had its own vertical shaft), the winding house coming from Beamish Chophill Colliery, and the Heapstead from Ravensworth Park Mine in Gateshead. The winding engine and its enclosing house are both listed.

 

The winding engine was the source of power for hauling miners, equipment and coal up and down the shaft in a cage, the top of the shaft being in the adjacent heapstead, which encloses the frame holding the wheel around which the hoist cable travels. Inside the Heapstead, tubs of coal from the shaft were weighed on a weighbridge, then tipped onto jigging screens, which sifted the solid lumps from small particles and dust - these were then sent along the picking belt, where pickers, often women, elderly or disabled people or young boys (i.e. workers incapable of mining), would separate out unwanted stone, wood and rubbish. Finally, the coal was tipped onto waiting railway wagons below, while the unwanted waste sent to the adjacent heap by an external conveyor.

 

Chophill Colliery was closed by the National Coal Board in 1962, but the winding engine and tower were left in place. When the site was later leased, Beamish founder Frank Atkinson intervened to have both spot listed to prevent their demolition. After a protracted and difficult process to gain the necessary permissions to move a listed structure, the tower and engine were eventually relocated to the museum, work being completed in 1976. The winding engine itself is the only surviving example of the type which was once common, and was still in use at Chophill upon its closure. It was built in 1855 by J&G Joicey of Newcastle, to an 1800 design by Phineas Crowther.

 

Inside the winding engine house, supplementing the winding engine is a smaller jack engine, housed in the rear. These were used to lift heavy equipment, and in deep mines, act as a relief winding engine.

 

Outdoors, next to the Heapstead, is a sinking engine, mounted on red bricks. Brought to the museum from Silksworth Colliery in 1971, it was built by Burlington's of Sunderland in 1868 and is the sole surviving example of its kind. Sinking engines were used for the construction of shafts, after which the winding engine would become the source of hoist power. It is believed the Silksworth engine was retained because it was powerful enough to serve as a backup winding engine, and could be used to lift heavy equipment (i.e. the same role as the jack engine inside the winding house).

 

Drift mine

The Mahogany Drift Mine is original to Beamish, having opened in 1855 and after closing, was brought back into use in 1921 to transport coal from Beamish Park Drift to Beamish Cophill Colliery. It opened as a museum display in 1979. Included in the display is the winding engine and a short section of trackway used to transport tubs of coal to the surface, and a mine office. Visitor access into the mine shaft is by guided tour.

 

Lamp cabin

The Lamp Cabin opened in 2009, and is a recreation of a typical design used in collieries to house safety lamps, a necessary piece of equipment for miners although were not required in the Mahogany Drift Mine, due to it being gas-free. The building is split into two main rooms; in one half, the lamp cabin interior is recreated, with a collection of lamps on shelves, and the system of safety tokens used to track which miners were underground. Included in the display is a 1927 Hailwood and Ackroyd lamp-cleaning machine sourced from Morrison Busty Colliery in Annfield Plain. In the second room is an educational display, i.e., not a period interior.

 

Colliery railways

The colliery features both a standard gauge railway, representing how coal was transported to its onward destination, and narrow-gauge typically used by Edwardian collieries for internal purposes. The standard gauge railway is laid out to serve the deep mine - wagons being loaded by dropping coal from the heapstead - and runs out of the yard to sidings laid out along the northern-edge of the Pit Village.

 

The standard gauge railway has two engine sheds in the colliery yard, the smaller brick, wood and metal structure being an operational building; the larger brick-built structure is presented as Beamish Engine Works, a reconstruction of an engine shed formerly at Beamish 2nd Pit. Used for locomotive and stock storage, it is a long, single track shed featuring a servicing pit for part of its length. Visitors can walk along the full length in a segregated corridor. A third engine shed in brick (lower half) and corrugated iron has been constructed at the southern end of the yard, on the other side of the heapstead to the other two sheds, and is used for both narrow and standard gauge vehicles (on one road), although it is not connected to either system - instead being fed by low-loaders and used for long-term storage only.

 

The narrow gauge railway is serviced by a corrugate iron engine shed, and is being expanded to eventually encompass several sidings.

 

There are a number of industrial steam locomotives (including rare examples by Stephen Lewin from Seaham and Black, Hawthorn & Co) and many chaldron wagons, the region's traditional type of colliery railway rolling stock, which became a symbol of Beamish Museum. The locomotive Coffee Pot No 1 is often in steam during the summer.

 

Other

On the south eastern corner of the colliery site is the Power House, brought to the museum from Houghton Colliery. These were used to store explosives.

 

Pit Village

Alongside the colliery is the pit village, representing life in the mining communities that grew alongside coal production sites in the North East, many having come into existence solely because of the industry, such as Seaham Harbour, West Hartlepool, Esh Winning and Bedlington.

 

Miner's Cottages

The row of six miner's cottages in Francis Street represent the tied-housing provided by colliery owners to mine workers. Relocated to the museum in 1976, they were originally built in the 1860s in Hetton-le-Hole by Hetton Coal Company. They feature the common layout of a single-storey with a kitchen to the rear, the main room of the house, and parlour to the front, rarely used (although it was common for both rooms to be used for sleeping, with disguised folding "dess" beds common), and with children sleeping in attic spaces upstairs. In front are long gardens, used for food production, with associated sheds. An outdoor toilet and coal bunker were in the rear yards, and beyond the cobbled back lane to their rear are assorted sheds used for cultivation, repairs and hobbies. Chalkboard slates attached to the rear wall were used by the occupier to tell the mine's "knocker up" when they wished to be woken for their next shift.

 

No.2 is presented as a Methodist family's home, featuring good quality "Pitman's mahogany" furniture; No.3 is presented as occupied by a second generation well off Irish Catholic immigrant family featuring many items of value (so they could be readily sold off in times of need) and an early 1890s range; No.3 is presented as more impoverished than the others with just a simple convector style Newcastle oven, being inhabited by a miner's widow allowed to remain as her son is also a miner, and supplementing her income doing laundry and making/mending for other families. All the cottages feature examples of the folk art objects typical of mining communities. Also included in the row is an office for the miner's paymaster.[11] In the rear alleyway of the cottages is a communal bread oven, which were commonplace until miner's cottages gradually obtained their own kitchen ranges. They were used to bake traditional breads such as the Stottie, as well as sweet items, such as tea cakes. With no extant examples, the museum's oven had to be created from photographs and oral history.

 

School

The school opened in 1992, and represents the typical board school in the educational system of the era (the stone built single storey structure being inscribed with the foundation date of 1891, Beamish School Board), by which time attendance at a state approved school was compulsory, but the leaving age was 12, and lessons featured learning by rote and corporal punishment. The building originally stood in East Stanley, having been set up by the local school board, and would have numbered around 150 pupils. Having been donated by Durham County Council, the museum now has a special relationship with the primary school that replaced it. With separate entrances and cloakrooms for boys and girls at either end, the main building is split into three class rooms (all accessible to visitors), connected by a corridor along the rear. To the rear is a red brick bike shed, and in the playground visitors can play traditional games of the era.

 

Chapel

Pit Hill Chapel opened in 1990, and represents the Wesleyan Methodist tradition which was growing in North East England, with the chapels used for both religious worship and as community venues, which continue in its role in the museum display. Opened in the 1850s, it originally stood not far from its present site, having been built in what would eventually become Beamish village, near the museum entrance. A stained glass window of The Light of The World by William Holman Hunt came from a chapel in Bedlington. A two handled Love Feast Mug dates from 1868, and came from a chapel in Shildon Colliery. On the eastern wall, above the elevated altar area, is an angled plain white surface used for magic lantern shows, generated using a replica of the double-lensed acetylene gas powered lanterns of the period, mounted in the aisle of the main seating area. Off the western end of the hall is the vestry, featuring a small library and communion sets from Trimdon Colliery and Catchgate.

 

Fish bar

Presented as Davey's Fried Fish & Chip Potato Restaurant, the fish and chip shop opened in 2011, and represents the typical style of shop found in the era as they were becoming rapidly popular in the region - the brick built Victorian style fryery would most often have previously been used for another trade, and the attached corrugated iron hut serves as a saloon with tables and benches, where customers would eat and socialise. Featuring coal fired ranges using beef-dripping, the shop is named in honour of the last coal fired shop in Tyneside, in Winlaton Mill, and which closed in 2007. Latterly run by brothers Brian and Ramsay Davy, it had been established by their grandfather in 1937. The serving counter and one of the shop's three fryers, a 1934 Nuttal, came from the original Davy shop. The other two fryers are a 1920s Mabbott used near Chester until the 1960s, and a GW Atkinson New Castle Range, donated from a shop in Prudhoe in 1973. The latter is one of only two known late Victorian examples to survive. The decorative wall tiles in the fryery came to the museum in 1979 from Cowes Fish and Game Shop in Berwick upon Tweed. The shop also features both an early electric and hand-powered potato rumblers (cleaners), and a gas powered chip chopper built around 1900. Built behind the chapel, the fryery is arranged so the counter faces the rear, stretching the full length of the building. Outside is a brick built row of outdoor toilets. Supplementing the fish bar is the restored Berriman's mobile chip van, used in Spennymoor until the early 1970s.

 

Band hall

The Hetton Silver Band Hall opened in 2013, and features displays reflecting the role colliery bands played in mining life. Built in 1912, it was relocated from its original location in South Market Street, Hetton-le-Hole, where it was used by the Hetton Silver Band, founded in 1887. They built the hall using prize money from a music competition, and the band decided to donate the hall to the museum after they merged with Broughtons Brass Band of South Hetton (to form the Durham Miners' Association Brass Band). It is believed to be the only purpose built band hall in the region. The structure consists of the main hall, plus a small kitchen to the rear; as part of the museum it is still used for performances.

 

Pit pony stables

The Pit Pony Stables were built in 2013/14, and house the museum's pit ponies. They replace a wooden stable a few metres away in the field opposite the school (the wooden structure remaining). It represents the sort of stables that were used in drift mines (ponies in deep mines living their whole lives underground), pit ponies having been in use in the north east as late as 1994, in Ellington Colliery. The structure is a recreation of an original building that stood at Rickless Drift Mine, between High Spen and Greenside; it was built using a yellow brick that was common across the Durham coalfield.

 

Other

Doubling as one of the museum's refreshment buildings, Sinker's Bait Cabin represents the temporary structures that would have served as living quarters, canteens and drying areas for sinkers, the itinerant workforce that would dig new vertical mine shafts.

 

Representing other traditional past-times, the village fields include a quoits pitch, with another refreshment hut alongside it, resembling a wooden clubhouse.

 

In one of the fields in the village stands the Cupola, a small round flat topped brick built tower; such structures were commonly placed on top of disused or ventilation shafts, also used as an emergency exit from the upper seams.

 

The Georgian North (1825)

A late Georgian landscape based around the original Pockerley farm represents the period of change in the region as transport links were improved and as agriculture changed as machinery and field management developed, and breeding stock was improved. It became part of the museum in 1990, having latterly been occupied by a tenant farmer, and was opened as an exhibit in 1995. The hill top position suggests the site was the location of an Iron Age fort - the first recorded mention of a dwelling is in the 1183 Buke of Boldon (the region's equivalent of the Domesday Book). The name Pockerley has Saxon origins - "Pock" or "Pokor" meaning "pimple of bag-like" hill, and "Ley" meaning woodland clearing.

 

The surrounding farmlands have been returned to a post-enclosure landscape with ridge and furrow topography, divided into smaller fields by traditional riven oak fencing. The land is worked and grazed by traditional methods and breeds.

 

Pockerley Old Hall

The estate of Pockerley Old Hall is presented as that of a well off tenant farmer, in a position to take advantage of the agricultural advances of the era. The hall itself consists of the Old House, which is adjoined (but not connected to) the New House, both south facing two storey sandstone built buildings, the Old House also having a small north–south aligned extension. Roof timbers in the sandstone built Old House have been dated to the 1440s, but the lower storey (the undercroft) may be from even earlier. The New House dates to the late 1700s, and replaced a medieval manor house to the east of the Old House as the main farm house - once replaced itself, the Old House is believed to have been let to the farm manager. Visitors can access all rooms in the New and Old House, except the north–south extension which is now a toilet block. Displays include traditional cooking, such as the drying of oatcakes over a wooden rack (flake) over the fireplace in the Old House.

 

Inside the New House the downstairs consists of a main kitchen and a secondary kitchen (scullery) with pantry. It also includes a living room, although as the main room of the house, most meals would have been eaten in the main kitchen, equipped with an early range, boiler and hot air oven. Upstairs is a main bedroom and a second bedroom for children; to the rear (i.e. the colder, north side), are bedrooms for a servant and the servant lad respectively. Above the kitchen (for transferred warmth) is a grain and fleece store, with attached bacon loft, a narrow space behind the wall where bacon or hams, usually salted first, would be hung to be smoked by the kitchen fire (entering through a small door in the chimney).

 

Presented as having sparse and more old fashioned furnishings, the Old House is presented as being occupied in the upper story only, consisting of a main room used as the kitchen, bedroom and for washing, with the only other rooms being an adjoining second bedroom and an overhanging toilet. The main bed is an oak box bed dating to 1712, obtained from Star House in Baldersdale in 1962. Originally a defensive house in its own right, the lower level of the Old House is an undercroft, or vaulted basement chamber, with 1.5 metre thick walls - in times of attack the original tenant family would have retreated here with their valuables, although in its later use as the farm managers house, it is now presented as a storage and work room, housing a large wooden cheese press.[68] More children would have slept in the attic of the Old House (not accessible as a display).

 

To the front of the hall is a terraced garden featuring an ornamental garden with herbs and flowers, a vegetable garden, and an orchard, all laid out and planted according to the designs of William Falla of Gateshead, who had the largest nursery in Britain from 1804 to 1830.

 

The buildings to the east of the hall, across a north–south track, are the original farmstead buildings dating from around 1800. These include stables and a cart shed arranged around a fold yard. The horses and carts on display are typical of North Eastern farms of the era, Fells or Dales ponies and Cleveland Bay horses, and two wheeled long carts for hilly terrain (as opposed to four wheel carts).

 

Pockerley Waggonway

The Pockerley Waggonway opened in 2001, and represents the year 1825, as the year the Stockton and Darlington Railway opened. Waggonways had appeared around 1600, and by the 1800s were common in mining areas - prior to 1800 they had been either horse or gravity powered, before the invention of steam engines (initially used as static winding engines), and later mobile steam locomotives.

 

Housing the locomotives and rolling stock is the Great Shed, which opened in 2001 and is based on Timothy Hackworth's erecting shop, Shildon railway works, and incorporating some material from Robert Stephenson and Company's Newcastle works. Visitors can walk around the locomotives in the shed, and when in steam, can take rides to the end of the track and back in the line's assorted rolling stock - situated next to the Great Shed is a single platform for passenger use. In the corner of the main shed is a corner office, presented as a locomotive designer's office (only visible to visitors through windows). Off the pedestrian entrance in the southern side is a room presented as the engine crew's break room. Atop the Great Shed is a weather vane depicting a waggonway train approaching a cow, a reference to a famous quote by George Stephenson when asked by parliament in 1825 what would happen in such an eventuality - "very awkward indeed - for the coo!".

 

At the far end of the waggonway is the (fictional) coal mine Pockerley Gin Pit, which the waggonway notionally exists to serve. The pit head features a horse powered wooden whim gin, which was the method used before steam engines for hauling men and material up and down mineshafts - coal was carried in corves (wicker baskets), while miners held onto the rope with their foot in an attached loop.

 

Wooden waggonway

Following creation of the Pockerley Waggonway, the museum went back a chapter in railway history to create a horse-worked wooden waggonway.

 

St Helen's Church

St Helen's Church represents a typical type of country church found in North Yorkshire, and was relocated from its original site in Eston, North Yorkshire. It is the oldest and most complex building moved to the museum. It opened in November 2015, but will not be consecrated as this would place restrictions on what could be done with the building under church law.

 

The church had existed on its original site since around 1100. As the congregation grew, it was replaced by two nearby churches, and latterly became a cemetery chapel. After closing in 1985, it fell into disrepair and by 1996 was burnt out and vandalised leading to the decision by the local authority in 1998 to demolish it. Working to a deadline of a threatened demolition within six months, the building was deconstructed and moved to Beamish, reconstruction being authorised in 2011, with the exterior build completed by 2012.

 

While the structure was found to contain some stones from the 1100 era, the building itself however dates from three distinct building phases - the chancel on the east end dates from around 1450, while the nave, which was built at the same time, was modernised in 1822 in the Churchwarden style, adding a vestry. The bell tower dates from the late 1600s - one of the two bells is a rare dated Tudor example. Gargoyles, originally hidden in the walls and believed to have been pranks by the original builders, have been made visible in the reconstruction.

 

Restored to its 1822 condition, the interior has been furnished with Georgian box pews sourced from a church in Somerset. Visitors can access all parts except the bell tower. The nave includes a small gallery level, at the tower end, while the chancel includes a church office.

 

Joe the Quilter's Cottage

The most recent addition to the area opened to the public in 2018 is a recreation of a heather-thatched cottage which features stones from the Georgian quilter Joseph Hedley's original home in Northumberland. It was uncovered during an archaeological dig by Beamish. His original cottage was demolished in 1872 and has been carefully recreated with the help of a drawing on a postcard. The exhibit tells the story of quilting and the growth of cottage industries in the early 1800s. Within there is often a volunteer or member of staff not only telling the story of how Joe was murdered in 1826, a crime that remains unsolved to this day, but also giving visitors the opportunity to learn more and even have a go at quilting.

 

Other

A pack pony track passes through the scene - pack horses having been the mode of transport for all manner of heavy goods where no waggonway exists, being also able to reach places where carriages and wagons could not access. Beside the waggonway is a gibbet.

 

Farm (1940s)

Presented as Home Farm, this represents the role of North East farms as part of the British Home Front during World War II, depicting life indoors, and outside on the land. Much of the farmstead is original, and opened as a museum display in 1983. The farm is laid out across a north–south public road; to the west is the farmhouse and most of the farm buildings, while on the east side are a pair of cottages, the British Kitchen, an outdoor toilet ("netty"), a bull field, duck pond and large shed.

 

The farm complex was rebuilt in the mid-19th century as a model farm incorporating a horse mill and a steam-powered threshing mill. It was not presented as a 1940s farm until early 2014.

 

The farmhouse is presented as having been modernised, following the installation of electric power and an Aga cooker in the scullery, although the main kitchen still has the typical coal-fired black range. Lino flooring allowed quicker cleaning times, while a radio set allowed the family to keep up to date with wartime news. An office next to the kitchen would have served both as the administration centre for the wartime farm, and as a local Home Guard office. Outside the farmhouse is an improvised Home Guard pillbox fashioned from half an egg-ended steam boiler, relocated from its original position near Durham.

 

The farm is equipped with three tractors which would have all seen service during the war: a Case, a Fordson N and a 1924 Fordson F. The farm also features horse-drawn traps, reflecting the effect wartime rationing of petrol would have had on car use. The farming equipment in the cart and machinery sheds reflects the transition of the time from horse-drawn to tractor-pulled implements, with some older equipment put back into use due to the war, as well as a large Foster thresher, vital for cereal crops, and built specifically for the war effort, sold at the Newcastle Show. Although the wartime focus was on crops, the farm also features breeds of sheep, cattle, pigs and poultry that would have been typical for the time. The farm also has a portable steam engine, not in use, but presented as having been left out for collection as part of a wartime scrap metal drive.

 

The cottages would have housed farm labourers, but are presented as having new uses for the war: Orchard Cottage housing a family of evacuees, and Garden Cottage serving as a billet for members of the Women's Land Army (Land Girls). Orchard Cottage is named for an orchard next to it, which also contains an Anderson shelter, reconstructed from partial pieces of ones recovered from around the region. Orchard Cottage, which has both front and back kitchens, is presented as having an up to date blue enameled kitchen range, with hot water supplied from a coke stove, as well as a modern accessible bathroom. Orchard Cottage is also used to stage recreations of wartime activities for schools, elderly groups and those living with dementia. Garden Cottage is sparsely furnished with a mix of items, reflecting the few possessions Land Girls were able to take with them, although unusually the cottage is depicted with a bathroom, and electricity (due to proximity to a colliery).

 

The British Kitchen is both a display and one of the museum's catering facilities; it represents an installation of one of the wartime British Restaurants, complete with propaganda posters and a suitably patriotic menu.

 

Town (1950s)

As part of the Remaking Beamish project, with significant funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the museum is creating a 1950s town. Opened in July 2019, the Welfare Hall is an exact replica of the Leasingthorne Colliery Welfare Hall and Community Centre which was built in 1957 near Bishop Auckland. Visitors can 'take part in activities including dancing, crafts, Meccano, beetle drive, keep fit and amateur dramatics' while also taking a look at the National Health Service exhibition on display, recreating the environment of an NHS clinic. A recreation and play park, named Coronation Park was opened in May 2022 to coincide with the celebrations around the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II.

 

The museum's first 1950s terrace opened in February 2022. This included a fish and chip shop from Middleton St George, a cafe, a replica of Norman Cornish's home, and a hairdressers. Future developments opposite the existing 1950s terrace will see a recreation of The Grand Cinema, from Ryhope, in Sunderland, and toy and electricians shops. Also underdevelopment are a 1950s bowling green and pavilion, police houses and aged miner's cottages. Also under construction are semi-detached houses; for this exhibit, a competition was held to recreate a particular home at Beamish, which was won by a family from Sunderland.

 

As well as the town, a 1950s Northern bus depot has been opened on the western side of the museum – the purpose of this is to provide additional capacity for bus, trolleybus and tram storage once the planned trolleybus extension and the new area are completed, providing extra capacity and meeting the need for modified routing.

 

Spain's Field Farm

In March 2022, the museum opened Spain's Field Farm. It had stood for centuries at Eastgate in Weardale, and was moved to Beamish stone-by-stone. It is exhibited as it would have been in the 1950s.

 

1820s Expansion

In the area surrounding the current Pockerley Old Hall and Steam Wagon Way more development is on the way. The first of these was planned to be a Georgian Coaching Inn that would be the museum's first venture into overnight accommodation. However following the COVID-19 pandemic this was abandoned, in favour of self-catering accommodation in existing cottages.

 

There are also plans for 1820s industries including a blacksmith's forge and a pottery.

 

Museum stores

There are two stores on the museum site, used to house donated objects. In contrast to the traditional rotation practice used in museums where items are exchanged regularly between store and display, it is Beamish policy that most of their exhibits are to be in use and on display - those items that must be stored are to be used in the museum's future developments.

 

Open Store

Housed in the Regional Resource Centre, the Open Store is accessible to visitors. Objects are housed on racks along one wall, while the bulk of items are in a rolling archive, with one set of shelves opened, with perspex across their fronts to permit viewing without touching.

 

Regional Museums Store

The real purposes of the building presented as Beamish Waggon and Iron Works next to Rowley Station is as the Regional Museums Store, completed in 2002, which Beamish shares with Tyne and Wear Museums. This houses, amongst other things, a large marine diesel engine by William Doxford & Sons of Pallion, Sunderland (1977); and several boats including the Tyne wherry (a traditional local type of lighter) Elswick No. 2 (1930). The store is only open at selected times, and for special tours which can be arranged through the museum; however, a number of viewing windows have been provided for use at other times.

 

Transport collection

Main article: Beamish Museum transport collection

The museum contains much of transport interest, and the size of its site makes good internal transportation for visitors and staff purposes a necessity.

 

The collection contains a variety of historical vehicles for road, rail and tramways. In addition there are some modern working replicas to enhance the various scenes in the museum.

 

Agriculture

The museum's two farms help to preserve traditional northcountry and in some cases rare livestock breeds such as Durham Shorthorn Cattle; Clydesdale and Cleveland Bay working horses; Dales ponies; Teeswater sheep; Saddleback pigs; and poultry.

 

Regional heritage

Other large exhibits collected by the museum include a tracked steam shovel, and a coal drop from Seaham Harbour.

 

In 2001 a new-build Regional Resource Centre (accessible to visitors by appointment) opened on the site to provide accommodation for the museum's core collections of smaller items. These include over 300,000 historic photographs, printed books and ephemera, and oral history recordings. The object collections cover the museum's specialities. These include quilts; "clippy mats" (rag rugs); Trade union banners; floor cloth; advertising (including archives from United Biscuits and Rowntree's); locally made pottery; folk art; and occupational costume. Much of the collection is viewable online and the arts of quilting, rug making and cookery in the local traditions are demonstrated at the museum.

 

Filming location

The site has been used as the backdrop for many film and television productions, particularly Catherine Cookson dramas, produced by Tyne Tees Television, and the final episode and the feature film version of Downton Abbey. Some of the children's television series Supergran was shot here.

 

Visitor numbers

On its opening day the museum set a record by attracting a two-hour queue. Visitor numbers rose rapidly to around 450,000 p.a. during the first decade of opening to the public, with the millionth visitor arriving in 1978.

 

Awards

Museum of the Year1986

European Museum of the Year Award1987

Living Museum of the Year2002

Large Visitor Attraction of the YearNorth East England Tourism awards2014 & 2015

Large Visitor Attraction of the Year (bronze)VisitEngland awards2016

It was designated by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council in 1997 as a museum with outstanding collections.

 

Critical responses

In responding to criticism that it trades on nostalgia the museum is unapologetic. A former director has written: "As individuals and communities we have a deep need and desire to understand ourselves in time."

 

According to the BBC writing in its 40th anniversary year, Beamish was a mould-breaking museum that became a great success due to its collection policy, and what sets it apart from other museums is the use of costumed people to impart knowledge to visitors, rather than labels or interpretive panels (although some such panels do exist on the site), which means it "engages the visitor with history in a unique way".

 

Legacy

Beamish was influential on the Black Country Living Museum, Blists Hill Victorian Town and, in the view of museologist Kenneth Hudson, more widely in the museum community and is a significant educational resource locally. It can also demonstrate its benefit to the contemporary local economy.

 

The unselective collecting policy has created a lasting bond between museum and community.

Decibelle is one of many creations from a group of various engineers. Their goal is to create androids that are catered to a specific task. She was created as a radio technician and was programmer to be a social communications tower. She is the older sister to Circuit, who was created by the same group.

After a sudden power down, she awoke to a new world where she was sheltered from the world. Due to her being unable to travel and move, she used her skill to gather others who would travel to her location and get her information from there. She grew bored with her time, wanted to interact more with the world around her. She had heard of people who would perform on the Internet for fun and money.

She outfitted herself with the appropriate equipment for gaming, the most popular genre of online entertainment. She gave herself an alternate face to her original ‘cyclops’ face that is meant for function, with a cleaner looking face that she assumed viewers would like more. She marketed herself as playing games she had never played before, and while streaming online, she had her webcam pointed from the waist up to hide her tower-like lower body.

She was recognized quickly, and was later contracted by news outlets and broadcast studios to cover events and add commentary. She developed small drones to be her outside eyes, and experience traveling in the world she resides without being able to leave.

 

Check out my YouTube for more MOCs like this!

 

goo.gl/1axFRH

  

All the spots have been filled!

 

For specific Audition Information, follow the link below:

www.wix.com/bratznextmodel/evelated#!__audition

 

DEADLINE: Friday, December 23 2011

 

____________________________________________________________________________________

 

ENTRANTS

 

1. Adrianna Which | yasminrules123

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4. - | angelcoolcat13

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5. Abigail Garcia | tomboy551

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7. - | An-Chee ♡

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13. Aurea Swan | CoolBraatz ®

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18. Maci Stone | Drekitude™

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19. BreeAnna Pollock | reesecups

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20. Leia | °•ακчα•°♥™

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Retrowave refers to a specific type of synthwave where artists recreate the 80s when synthwave was most popular. It heavily utilizes Retro-Futurism by adopting the optimistic and neon-filled vision of the future prevalent at the time.

~

ai/gimp/pixlr

The raccoon (/rəˈkuːn/ or US: /ræˈkuːn/ ⓘ, Procyon lotor), also spelled racoon[3] and sometimes called the common raccoon to distinguish it from the other species, is a mammal native to North America. It is the largest of the procyonid family, having a body length of 40 to 70 cm (16 to 28 in), and a body weight of 5 to 26 kg (11 to 57 lb). Its grayish coat mostly consists of dense underfur, which insulates it against cold weather. Three of the raccoon's most distinctive features are its extremely dexterous front paws, its facial mask, and its ringed tail, which are themes in the mythologies of the indigenous peoples of the Americas relating to the animal. The raccoon is noted for its intelligence, as studies show that it is able to remember the solution to tasks for at least three years. It is usually nocturnal and omnivorous, eating about 40% invertebrates, 33% plants, and 27% vertebrates.

 

The original habitats of the raccoon are deciduous and mixed forests, but due to their adaptability, they have extended their range to mountainous areas, coastal marshes, and urban areas, where some homeowners consider them to be pests. As a result of escapes and deliberate introductions in the mid-20th century, raccoons are now also distributed across central Europe, the Caucasus, and Japan.

 

In Europe, the raccoon is included since 2016 in the list of Invasive Alien Species of Union concern (the Union list).[4] This implies that this species cannot be imported, bred, transported, commercialized, or intentionally released into the environment in the whole of the European Union.[5]

 

Though previously thought to be generally solitary, there is now evidence that raccoons engage in sex-specific social behavior. Related females often share a common area, while unrelated males live together in groups of up to four raccoons in order to maintain their positions against foreign males during the mating season and against other potential invaders. Home range sizes vary anywhere from 3 ha (7.4 acres) for females in cities, to 5,000 ha (12,000 acres) for males in prairies. After a gestation period of about 65 days, two to five young known as "kits" are born in spring. The kits are subsequently raised by their mother until dispersal in late fall. Although captive raccoons have been known to live over 20 years, their life expectancy in the wild is only 1.8 to 3.1 years. In many areas, hunting and vehicular injury are the two most common causes of death.

 

Etymology

 

The mask of a raccoon is often interrupted by a brown-black streak that extends from forehead to nose.[6]

Names for the species include the common raccoon,[7] North American raccoon,[8] and northern raccoon.[9] In various North American native languages, the reference to the animal's manual dexterity, or use of its hands is the source for the names.[10] The word raccoon was adopted into English from the native Powhatan term meaning 'animal that scratches with its hands', as used in the Colony of Virginia. It was recorded on John Smith's list of Powhatan words as aroughcun, and on that of William Strachey as arathkone.[11] It has also been identified as a reflex of a Proto-Algonquian root *ahrah-koon-em, meaning '[the] one who rubs, scrubs and scratches with its hands'.[12] The word is sometimes spelled as racoon.[13]

 

In Spanish, the raccoon is called mapache, derived from the Nahuatl mapachtli of the Aztecs, meaning '[the] one who takes everything in its hands'.[14]

 

Its Latin name literally means 'before-dog washer'.[15] The genus Procyon was named by Gottlieb Conrad Christian Storr.[10] The animal's observed habit of "washing" or "dowsing" (see below) is the source of its name in other languages.[16][17] For example, the French "raton laveur" means "washing rat".

 

The colloquial abbreviation coon is used in words like coonskin for fur clothing and in phrases like old coon as a self-designation of trappers.[18][19] In the 1830s, the United States Whig Party used the raccoon as an emblem, causing them to be pejoratively known as "coons" by their political opponents, who saw them as too sympathetic to African-Americans. Soon after that the term became an ethnic slur,[20] especially in use between 1880 and 1920 (see coon song), and the term is still considered offensive.[21] Dogs bred to hunt raccoons are called coonhound and coon dog.[22]

 

Taxonomy

 

Skins of P. lotor and P. cancrivorus

 

Skulls of P. lotor and P. cancrivorus

In the first decades after its discovery by the members of the expedition of Christopher Columbus, who were the first Europeans to leave a written record about the species, taxonomists thought the raccoon was related to many different species, including dogs, cats, badgers and particularly bears.[23] Carl Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy, placed the raccoon in the genus Ursus, first as Ursus cauda elongata ('long-tailed bear') in the second edition of his Systema Naturae (1740), then as Ursus Lotor ('washer bear') in the tenth edition (1758–59).[24][25] In 1780, Gottlieb Conrad Christian Storr placed the raccoon in its own genus Procyon, which can be translated as either 'before the dog' or 'doglike'.[26][27] It is also possible that Storr had its nocturnal lifestyle in mind and chose the star Procyon as eponym for the species.[28][29]

 

Evolution

Based on fossil evidence from Russia and Bulgaria, the first known members of the family Procyonidae lived in Europe in the late Oligocene about 25 million years ago.[30] Similar tooth and skull structures suggest procyonids and weasels share a common ancestor, but molecular analysis indicates a closer relationship between raccoons and bears.[31] After the then-existing species crossed the Bering Strait at least six million years later in the early Miocene, the center of its distribution was probably in Central America.[32] Coatis (Nasua and Nasuella) and raccoons (Procyon) have been considered to share common descent from a species in the genus Paranasua present between 5.2 and 6.0 million years ago.[33] This assumption, based on morphological comparisons of fossils, conflicts with a 2006 genetic analysis which indicates raccoons are more closely related to ringtails.[34] Unlike other procyonids, such as the crab-eating raccoon (Procyon cancrivorus), the ancestors of the common raccoon left tropical and subtropical areas and migrated farther north about 2.5 million years ago, in a migration that has been confirmed by the discovery of fossils in the Great Plains dating back to the middle of the Pliocene.[35][33] Its most recent ancestor was likely Procyon rexroadensis, a large Blancan raccoon from the Rexroad Formation characterized by its narrow back teeth and large lower jaw.[36]

 

Subspecies

 

A Torch Key raccoon (P. l. incautus) in Cudjoe Key, Florida. Subspecies inhabiting the Florida Keys are characterized by their small size and very pale fur.

 

Female raccoon of the Vancouver Island subspecies at Sidney, British Columbia, with characteristic dark fur

As of 2005, Mammal Species of the World recognizes 22 subspecies of raccoons.[37] Four of these subspecies living only on small Central American and Caribbean islands were often regarded as distinct species after their discovery. These are the Bahamian raccoon and Guadeloupe raccoon, which are very similar to each other; the Tres Marias raccoon, which is larger than average and has an angular skull; and the extinct Barbados raccoon. Studies of their morphological and genetic traits in 1999, 2003 and 2005 led all these island raccoons to be listed as subspecies of the common raccoon in Mammal Species of the World's third edition. A fifth island raccoon population, the Cozumel raccoon, which weighs only 3 to 4 kg (6.6 to 8.8 lb) and has notably small teeth, is still regarded as a separate species.[38][39][40][41]

 

The four smallest raccoon subspecies, with a typical weight of 1.8 to 2.7 kg (4.0 to 6.0 lb), live along the southern coast of Florida and on the adjacent islands; an example is the Ten Thousand Islands raccoon (Procyon lotor marinus).[42] Most of the other 15 subspecies differ only slightly from each other in coat color, size and other physical characteristics.[43][44] The two most widespread subspecies are the eastern raccoon (Procyon lotor lotor) and the Upper Mississippi Valley raccoon (Procyon lotor hirtus). Both share a comparatively dark coat with long hairs, but the Upper Mississippi Valley raccoon is larger than the eastern raccoon. The eastern raccoon occurs in all U.S. states and Canadian provinces to the north of South Carolina and Tennessee. The adjacent range of the Upper Mississippi Valley raccoon covers all U.S. states and Canadian provinces to the north of Louisiana, Texas and New Mexico.[45]

 

The taxonomic identity of feral raccoons inhabiting Central Europe, Causasia and Japan is unknown, as the founding populations consisted of uncategorized specimens from zoos and fur farms.

 

Description

Physical characteristics

 

Lower side of front paw with visible vibrissae on the tips of the digits

 

Skeleton

 

Skull with dentition: 2/2 molars, 4/4 premolars, 1/1 canines, 3/3 incisors

 

Baculum or penis bone

 

Female genitourinary system

 

Male genitourinary system

Head to hindquarters, raccoons measure between 40 and 70 cm (16 and 28 in), not including the bushy tail which can measure between 20 and 40 cm (7.9 and 15.7 in), but is usually not much longer than 25 cm (9.8 in).[71][72][73] The shoulder height is between 23 and 30 cm (9.1 and 11.8 in).[74] The body weight of an adult raccoon varies considerably with habitat, making the raccoon one of the most variably sized mammals. It can range from 2 to 26 kg (4.4 to 57.3 lb), but is usually between 5 and 12 kg (11 and 26 lb). The smallest specimens live in southern Florida, while those near the northern limits of the raccoon's range tend to be the largest (see Bergmann's rule).[75] Males are usually 15 to 20% heavier than females.[76] At the beginning of winter, a raccoon can weigh twice as much as in spring because of fat storage.[77][78][79] The largest recorded wild raccoon weighed 28.4 kg (63 lb) and measured 140 cm (55 in) in total length, by far the largest size recorded for a procyonid.[80][81]

 

The most characteristic physical feature of the raccoon is the area of black fur around the eyes, which contrasts sharply with the surrounding white face coloring. This is reminiscent of a "bandit's mask" and has thus enhanced the animal's reputation for mischief.[82][83] The slightly rounded ears are also bordered by white fur. Raccoons are assumed to recognize the facial expression and posture of other members of their species more quickly because of the conspicuous facial coloration and the alternating light and dark rings on the tail.[84][85][86] The dark mask may also reduce glare and thus enhance night vision.[85][86] On other parts of the body, the long and stiff guard hairs, which shed moisture, are usually colored in shades of gray and, to a lesser extent, brown.[87] Raccoons with a very dark coat are more common in the German population because individuals with such coloring were among those initially released to the wild.[88] The dense underfur, which accounts for almost 90% of the coat, insulates against cold weather and is composed of 2 to 3 cm (0.79 to 1.18 in) long hairs.[87]

 

The raccoon, whose method of locomotion is usually considered to be plantigrade, can stand on its hind legs to examine objects with its front paws.[89][90] As raccoons have short legs compared to their compact torso, they are usually not able either to run quickly or jump great distances.[91][92] Their top speed over short distances is 16 to 24 km/h (9.9 to 14.9 mph).[93][94] Raccoons can swim with an average speed of about 5 km/h (3.1 mph) and can stay in the water for several hours.[95][92] For climbing down a tree headfirst—an unusual ability for a mammal of its size—a raccoon rotates its hind feet so they are pointing backwards.[96][92] Raccoons have a dual cooling system to regulate their temperature; that is, they are able to both sweat and pant for heat dissipation.[97][98]

 

Raccoon skulls have a short and wide facial region and a voluminous braincase. The facial length of the skull is less than the cranial, and their nasal bones are short and quite broad. The auditory bullae are inflated in form, and the sagittal crest is weakly developed.[99] The dentition—40 teeth with the dental formula:

3.1.4.2

3.1.4.2

—is adapted to their omnivorous diet: the carnassials are not as sharp and pointed as those of a full-time carnivore, but the molars are not as wide as those of a herbivore.[100] The penis bone of males is about 10 cm (3.9 in) long and strongly bent at the front end,[101][102] and its shape can be used to distinguish juvenile males from mature males.[103][104][105] Seven of the thirteen identified vocal calls are used in communication between the mother and her kits, one of these being the birdlike twittering of newborns.[106][107][98]

 

Senses

The most important sense for the raccoon is its sense of touch.[108][109][110] The "hyper sensitive"[109] front paws are protected by a thin horny layer that becomes pliable when wet.[111][112] The five digits of the paws have no webbing between them, which is unusual for a carnivoran.[113] Almost two-thirds of the area responsible for sensory perception in the raccoon's cerebral cortex is specialized for the interpretation of tactile impulses, more than in any other studied animal.[114] They are able to identify objects before touching them with vibrissae located above their sharp, nonretractable claws.[89][110] The raccoon's paws lack an opposable thumb; thus, it does not have the agility of the hands of primates.[110][112] There is no observed negative effect on tactile perception when a raccoon stands in water below 10 °C (50 °F) for hours.[115]

 

Raccoons are thought to be color blind or at least poorly able to distinguish color, though their eyes are well-adapted for sensing green light.[116][117][118] Although their accommodation of 11 dioptre is comparable to that of humans and they see well in twilight because of the tapetum lucidum behind the retina, visual perception is of subordinate importance to raccoons because of their poor long-distance vision.[119][120][121] In addition to being useful for orientation in the dark, their sense of smell is important for intraspecific communication. Glandular secretions (usually from their anal glands), urine and feces are used for marking.[122][123][124] With their broad auditory range, they can perceive tones up to 50–85 kHz as well as quiet noises, like those produced by earthworms underground.[125][126]

 

Intelligence

Zoologist Clinton Hart Merriam described raccoons as "clever beasts", and that "in certain directions their cunning surpasses that of the fox". The animal's intelligence gave rise to the epithet "sly coon".[127] Only a few studies have been undertaken to determine the mental abilities of raccoons, most of them based on the animal's sense of touch. In a study by the ethologist H. B. Davis in 1908, raccoons were able to open 11 of 13 complex locks in fewer than 10 tries and had no problems repeating the action when the locks were rearranged or turned upside down. Davis concluded that they understood the abstract principles of the locking mechanisms and their learning speed was equivalent to that of rhesus macaques.[128]

 

Studies in 1963, 1973, 1975 and 1992 concentrated on raccoon memory showed that they can remember the solutions to tasks for at least three years.[129] In a study by B. Pohl in 1992, raccoons were able to instantly differentiate between identical and different symbols three years after the short initial learning phase.[129] Stanislas Dehaene reports in his book The Number Sense that raccoons can distinguish boxes containing two or four grapes from those containing three.[130] In research by Suzana Herculano-Houzel and other neuroscientists, raccoons have been found to be comparable to primates in density of neurons in the cerebral cortex, which they have proposed to be a neuroanatomical indicator of intelligence.[131][132]

 

Behavior

Social behavior

 

Eastern raccoons (P. l. lotor) in a tree: The raccoon's social structure is grouped into what Ulf Hohmann calls a "three-class society".

 

California raccoon (P. l. psora) climbing a tree in Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge

 

Baby raccoon chatter

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Studies in the 1990s by the ethologists Stanley D. Gehrt and Ulf Hohmann suggest that raccoons engage in sex-specific social behaviors and are not typically solitary, as was previously thought.[133][134] Related females often live in a so-called "fission-fusion society"; that is, they share a common area and occasionally meet at feeding or resting grounds.[135][136] Unrelated males often form loose male social groups to maintain their position against foreign males during the mating season—or against other potential invaders.[137] Such a group does not usually consist of more than four individuals.[138][139] Since some males show aggressive behavior towards unrelated kits, mothers will isolate themselves from other raccoons until their kits are big enough to defend themselves.[140]

 

With respect to these three different modes of life prevalent among raccoons, Hohmann called their social structure a "three-class society".[141] Samuel I. Zeveloff, professor of zoology at Weber State University and author of the book Raccoons: A Natural History, is more cautious in his interpretation and concludes at least the females are solitary most of the time and, according to Erik K. Fritzell's study in North Dakota in 1978, males in areas with low population densities are solitary as well.[142]

 

The shape and size of a raccoon's home range varies depending on age, sex, and habitat, with adults claiming areas more than twice as large as juveniles.[143] While the size of home ranges in the habitat of North Dakota's prairies lie between 7 and 50 km2 (3 and 20 sq mi) for males and between 2 and 16 km2 (1 and 6 sq mi) for females, the average size in a marsh at Lake Erie was 0.5 km2 (0.19 sq mi).[144] Irrespective of whether the home ranges of adjacent groups overlap, they are most likely not actively defended outside the mating season if food supplies are sufficient.[145] Odor marks on prominent spots are assumed to establish home ranges and identify individuals.[124] Urine and feces left at shared raccoon latrines may provide additional information about feeding grounds, since raccoons were observed to meet there later for collective eating, sleeping and playing.[146]

 

Concerning the general behavior patterns of raccoons, Gehrt points out that "typically you'll find 10 to 15 percent that will do the opposite" of what is expected.[147]

 

Diet

Though usually nocturnal, the raccoon is sometimes active in daylight to take advantage of available food sources.[148][149] Its diet consists of about 40% invertebrates, 33% plant material and 27% vertebrates.[150] Since its diet consists of such a variety of different foods, Zeveloff argues the raccoon "may well be one of the world's most omnivorous animals".[151] While its diet in spring and early summer consists mostly of insects, worms, and other animals already available early in the year, it prefers fruits and nuts, such as acorns and walnuts, which emerge in late summer and autumn, and represent a rich calorie source for building up fat needed for winter.[152][153]

 

Contrary to popular belief, raccoons only occasionally eat active or large prey, such as birds and mammals. They prefer prey that is easier to catch, specifically crayfish, insects,[154] fish, amphibians and bird eggs.[155] Raccoons are virulent predators of eggs and hatchlings in both birds and reptile nests, to such a degree that, for threatened prey species, raccoons may need to be removed from the area or nests may need to be relocated to mitigate the effect of their predations (i.e. in the case of some globally threatened turtles).[156][157][158][159][160] When food is plentiful, raccoons can develop strong individual preferences for specific foods.[78] In the northern parts of their range, raccoons go into a winter rest, reducing their activity drastically as long as a permanent snow cover makes searching for food difficult.[161]

 

Dousing

 

Captive raccoons often douse their food before eating.

One aspect of raccoon behavior is so well known that it gives the animal part of its scientific name, Procyon lotor; lotor is Latin for 'washer'. In the wild, raccoons often dabble for underwater food near the shore-line. They then often pick up the food item with their front paws to examine it and rub the item, sometimes to remove unwanted parts. This gives the appearance of the raccoon "washing" the food. The tactile sensitivity of raccoons' paws is increased if this rubbing action is performed underwater, since the water softens the hard layer covering the paws.[109][162] However, the behavior observed in captive raccoons in which they carry their food to water to "wash" or douse it before eating has not been observed in the wild.[163][164] Naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, believed that raccoons do not have adequate saliva production to moisten food thereby necessitating dousing, but this hypothesis is now considered to be incorrect.[162][163][165][166] Captive raccoons douse their food more frequently when a watering hole with a layout similar to a stream is not farther away than 3 m (10 ft).[166] The widely accepted theory is that dousing in captive raccoons is a fixed action pattern from the dabbling behavior performed when foraging at shores for aquatic foods.[162][166][167][168] This is supported by the observation that aquatic foods are doused more frequently. Cleaning dirty food does not seem to be a reason for "washing".[166]

 

Reproduction

Raccoons usually mate in a period triggered by increasing daylight between late January and mid-March.[169][170][171] However, there are large regional differences which are not completely explicable by solar conditions. For example, while raccoons in southern states typically mate later than average, the mating season in Manitoba also peaks later than usual in March and extends until June.[171] During the mating season, males restlessly roam their home ranges in search of females in an attempt to court them during the three- to four-day period when conception is possible. These encounters will often occur at central meeting places.[172][173][174] Copulation, including foreplay, can last over an hour and is repeated over several nights.[175] The weaker members of a male social group also are assumed to get the opportunity to mate, since the stronger ones cannot mate with all available females.[176] In a study in southern Texas during the mating seasons from 1990 to 1992, about one third of all females mated with more than one male.[177] If a female does not become pregnant or if she loses her kits early, she will sometimes become fertile again 80 to 140 days later.[178][179][180]

  

An eastern raccoon (P. l. lotor) kit

After usually 63 to 65 days of gestation (although anywhere from 54 to 70 days is possible), a litter of typically two to five young is born.[181][182] The average litter size varies widely with habitat, ranging from 2.5 in Alabama to 4.8 in North Dakota.[183][184] Larger litters are more common in areas with a high mortality rate, due, for example, to hunting or severe winters.[185][184] While male yearlings usually reach their sexual maturity only after the main mating season, female yearlings can compensate for high mortality rates and may be responsible for about 50% of all young born in a year.[186][187][188] Males have no part in raising young.[138][189][190] The kits (also called "cubs") are blind and deaf at birth, but their mask is already visible against their light fur.[191][192] The birth weight of the about 10 cm (4 in)-long kits is between 60 and 75 g (2.1 and 2.6 oz).[192] Their ear canals open after around 18 to 23 days, a few days before their eyes open for the first time.[193] Once the kits weigh about 1 kg (2 lb), they begin to explore outside the den, consuming solid food for the first time after six to nine weeks.[194][195] After this point, their mother suckles them with decreasing frequency; they are usually weaned by 16 weeks.[196] In the fall, after their mother has shown them dens and feeding grounds, the juvenile group splits up.[197] [198] While many females will stay close to the home range of their mother, males can sometimes move more than 20 km (12 mi) away. This is considered an instinctive behavior, preventing inbreeding. However, mother and offspring may share a den during the first winter in cold areas.

 

Life expectancy

Captive raccoons have been known to live for more than 20 years. However, the species' life expectancy in the wild is only 1.8 to 3.1 years, depending on the local conditions such as traffic volume, hunting, and weather severity. It is not unusual for only half of the young born in one year to survive a full year. After this point, the annual mortality rate drops to between 10% and 30%. Young raccoons are vulnerable to losing their mother and to starvation, particularly in long and cold winters. The most frequent natural cause of death in the North American raccoon population is distemper, which can reach epidemic proportions and kill most of a local raccoon population. In areas with heavy vehicular traffic and extensive hunting, these factors can account for up to 90% of all deaths of adult raccoons. The most important natural predators of the raccoon are bobcats, coyotes, and great horned owls, the latter mainly preying on young raccoons but capable of killing adults in some cases. In Florida, they have been reported to fall victim to larger carnivores like American black bear and cougars and these species may also be a threat on occasion in other areas. Where still present, gray wolves may still occasionally take raccoons as a supplemental prey item. Also in the southeast, they are among the favored prey for adult American alligators. On occasion, both bald and golden eagles will prey on raccoons. In the tropics, raccoons are known to fall prey to smaller eagles such as ornate hawk-eagles and black hawk-eagles, although it is not clear whether adults or merely juvenile raccoons are taken by these. In rare cases of overlap, they may fall victim from carnivores ranging from species averaging smaller than themselves such as fishers to those as large and formidable as jaguars in Mexico. In their introduced range in the former Soviet Union, their main predators are wolves, lynxes and Eurasian eagle-owls. However, predation is not a significant cause of death, especially because larger predators have been exterminated in many areas inhabited by raccoons.

 

Range

Although they have thrived in sparsely wooded areas in the last decades, raccoons depend on vertical structures to climb when they feel threatened. Therefore, they avoid open terrain and areas with high concentrations of beech trees, as beech bark is too smooth to climb. Tree hollows in old oaks or other trees and rock crevices are preferred by raccoons as sleeping, winter and litter dens. If such dens are unavailable or accessing them is inconvenient, raccoons use burrows dug by other mammals, dense undergrowth or tree crotches. In a study in the Solling range of hills in Germany, more than 60% of all sleeping places were used only once, but those used at least ten times accounted for about 70% of all uses. Since amphibians, crustaceans, and other animals around the shore of lakes and rivers are an important part of the raccoon's diet, lowland deciduous or mixed forests abundant with water and marshes sustain the highest population densities. While population densities range from 0.5 to 3.2 animals per square kilometer (1.3 to 8.3 animals per square mile) in prairies and do not usually exceed 6 animals per square kilometer (15.5 animals per square mile) in upland hardwood forests, more than 20 raccoons per square kilometer (51.8 animals per square mile) can live in lowland forests and marshes.

 

Distribution in North America

Raccoons are common throughout North America from Canada to Panama, where the subspecies Procyon lotor pumilus coexists with the crab-eating raccoon (Procyon cancrivorus). The population on Hispaniola was exterminated as early as 1513 by Spanish colonists who hunted them for their meat. Raccoons were also exterminated in Cuba and Jamaica, where the last sightings were reported in 1687. The Barbados raccoon became extinct relatively recently, in 1964. When they were still considered separate species, the Bahamas raccoon, Guadeloupe raccoon and Tres Marias raccoon were classified as endangered by the IUCN in 1996.

  

A Raccoon sleeping on a tree in High Park, Toronto

There is archeological evidence that in pre-Columbian times raccoons were numerous only along rivers and in the woodlands of the Southeastern United States. As raccoons were not mentioned in earlier reports of pioneers exploring the central and north-central parts of the United States, their initial spread may have begun a few decades before the 20th century. Since the 1950s, raccoons have expanded their range from Vancouver Island—formerly the northernmost limit of their range—far into the northern portions of the four south-central Canadian provinces. New habitats which have recently been occupied by raccoons (aside from urban areas) include mountain ranges, such as the Western Rocky Mountains, prairies and coastal marshes. After a population explosion starting in the 1940s, the estimated number of raccoons in North America in the late 1980s was 15 to 20 times higher than in the 1930s, when raccoons were comparatively rare. Urbanization, the expansion of agriculture, deliberate introductions, and the extermination of natural predators of the raccoon have probably caused this increase in abundance and distribution.

 

Distribution outside North America

s a result of escapes and deliberate introductions in the mid-20th century, the raccoon is now distributed in several European and Asian countries. Sightings have occurred in all the countries bordering Germany, which hosts the largest population outside of North America. Another stable population exists in northern France, where several pet raccoons were released by members of the U.S. Air Force near the Laon-Couvron Air Base in 1966. Furthermore, raccoons have been known to be in the area around Madrid since the early 1970s. In 2013, the city authorized "the capture and death of any specimen". It is also present in Italy, with one self-sustaining population in Lombardy.

 

About 1,240 animals were released in nine regions of the former Soviet Union between 1936 and 1958 for the purpose of establishing a population to be hunted for their fur. Two of these introductions were successful – one in the south of Belarus between 1954 and 1958, and another in Azerbaijan between 1941 and 1957. With a seasonal harvest of between 1,000~1,500 animals, in 1974 the estimated size of the population distributed in the Caucasus region was around 20,000 animals and the density was four animals per square kilometer (10 animals per square mile).

 

Distribution in Japan

In Japan, up to 1,500 raccoons were imported as pets each year after the success of the anime series Rascal the Raccoon (1977). In 2004, the descendants of discarded or escaped animals lived in 42 of 47 prefectures. The range of raccoons in the wild in Japan grew from 17 prefectures in 2000 to all 47 prefectures in 2008. It is estimated that raccoons cause thirty million yen (~$275,000) of agricultural damage on Hokkaido alone.

 

Distribution in Germany

In Germany – where the raccoon is called the Waschbär (literally, 'wash-bear' or 'washing bear') due to its habit of "dousing" food in water – two pairs of pet raccoons were released into the German countryside at the Edersee reservoir in the north of Hesse in April 1934 by a forester upon request of their owner, a poultry farmer. He released them two weeks before receiving permission from the Prussian hunting office to "enrich the fauna". Several prior attempts to introduce raccoons in Germany had been unsuccessful. A second population was established in eastern Germany in 1945 when 25 raccoons escaped from a fur farm at Wolfshagen (today district of Altlandsberg), east of Berlin, after an air strike. The two populations are parasitologically distinguishable: 70% of the raccoons of the Hessian population are infected with the roundworm Baylisascaris procyonis, but none of the Brandenburgian population is known to have the parasite. In the Hessian region, there were an estimated 285 raccoons in 1956, which increased to over 20,000 in 1970; in 2008 there were between 200,000 and 400,000 raccoons in the whole of Germany. By 2012 it was estimated that Germany now had more than a million raccoons.

 

The raccoon was once a protected species in Germany, but has been declared a game animal in 14 of the 16 German states since 1954. Hunters and environmentalists argue the raccoon spreads uncontrollably, threatens protected bird species, and supersedes indigenous competitors. This view is opposed by the zoologist Frank-Uwe Michler, who finds no evidence that a high population density of raccoons leads to negative effects on the biodiversity of an area. Hohmann holds that extensive hunting cannot be justified by the absence of natural predators, because predation is not a significant cause of death in the North American raccoon population.

  

Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org.

The raccoon is extensively hunted in Germany as it is seen as an invasive species and pest. In the 1990s, only about 400 raccoons were hunted yearly. This increased dramatically over the next quarter-century: during the 2015–2016 hunting season, 128,100 raccoons were hunted, 60 percent of them in the state of Hesse.

 

Distribution in the former Soviet Union

Experiments in acclimatising raccoons into the Soviet Union began in 1936, and were repeated a further 25 times until 1962. Overall, 1,222 individuals were released, 64 of which came from zoos and fur farms (38 of them having been imports from western Europe). The remainder originated from a population previously established in Transcaucasia. The range of Soviet raccoons was never single or continuous, as they were often introduced to different locations far from each other. All introductions into the Russian Far East failed; melanistic raccoons were released on Petrov Island near Vladivostok and some areas of southern Primorsky Krai, but died. In Middle Asia, raccoons were released in Kyrgyzstan's Jalal-Abad Province, though they were later recorded as "practically absent" there in January 1963. A large and stable raccoon population (yielding 1,000~1,500 catches a year) was established in Azerbaijan after an introduction to the area in 1937. Raccoons apparently survived an introduction near Terek, along the Sulak River into the Dagestani lowlands. Attempts to settle raccoons on the Kuban River's left tributary and Kabardino-Balkaria were unsuccessful. A successful acclimatization occurred in Belarus, where three introductions (consisting of 52, 37, and 38 individuals in 1954 and 1958) took place. By January 1963, 700 individuals were recorded in the country.

 

Urban raccoons

Due to its adaptability, the raccoon has been able to use urban areas as a habitat. The first sightings were recorded in a suburb of Cincinnati in the 1920s. Since the 1950s, raccoons have been present in metropolitan areas like Washington, DC, Chicago, Toronto, and New York City. Since the 1960s, Kassel has hosted Europe's first and densest population in a large urban area, with about 50 to 150 animals per square kilometer (130 to 390 animals per square mile), a figure comparable to those of urban habitats in North America. Home range sizes of urban raccoons are only 3 to 40 hectares (7.5 to 100 acres) for females and 8 to 80 hectares (20 to 200 acres) for males. In small towns and suburbs, many raccoons sleep in a nearby forest after foraging in the settlement area. Fruit and insects in gardens and leftovers in municipal waste are easily available food sources. Furthermore, a large number of additional sleeping areas exist in these areas, such as hollows in old garden trees, cottages, garages, abandoned houses, and attics. The percentage of urban raccoons sleeping in abandoned or occupied houses varies from 15% in Washington, DC (1991) to 43% in Kassel (2003).

 

Health

Raccoons can carry rabies, a lethal disease caused by the neurotropic rabies virus carried in the saliva and transmitted by bites. Its spread began in Florida and Georgia in the 1950s and was facilitated by the introduction of infected individuals to Virginia and North Dakota in the late 1970s. Of the 6,940 documented rabies cases reported in the United States in 2006, 2,615 (37.7%) were in raccoons. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, as well as local authorities in several U.S. states and Canadian provinces, has developed oral vaccination programs to fight the spread of the disease in endangered populations. Only one human fatality has been reported after transmission of the rabies virus strain commonly known as "raccoon rabies". Among the main symptoms for rabies in raccoons are a generally sickly appearance, impaired mobility, abnormal vocalization, and aggressiveness. There may be no visible signs at all, however, and most individuals do not show the aggressive behavior seen in infected canids; rabid raccoons will often retire to their dens instead. Organizations like the U.S. Forest Service encourage people to stay away from animals with unusual behavior or appearance, and to notify the proper authorities, such as an animal control officer from the local health department. Since healthy animals, especially nursing mothers, will occasionally forage during the day, daylight activity is not a reliable indicator of illness in raccoons.

 

Unlike rabies and at least a dozen other pathogens carried by raccoons, distemper, an epizootic virus, does not affect humans. This disease is the most frequent natural cause of death in the North American raccoon population and affects individuals of all age groups. For example, 94 of 145 raccoons died during an outbreak in Clifton, Ohio, in 1968. It may occur along with a following inflammation of the brain (encephalitis), causing the animal to display rabies-like symptoms. In Germany, the first eight cases of distemper were reported in 2007.

 

Some of the most important bacterial diseases which affect raccoons are leptospirosis, listeriosis, tetanus, and tularemia. Although internal parasites weaken their immune systems, well-fed individuals can carry a great many roundworms in their digestive tracts without showing symptoms. The larvae of the roundworm Baylisascaris procyonis, which can be contained in the feces and seldom causes a severe illness in humans, can be ingested when cleaning raccoon latrines without wearing breathing protection.

 

While not endemic, the worm Trichinella does infect raccoons, and undercooked raccoon meat has caused trichinosis in humans.

 

Trematode Metorchis conjunctus can also infect raccoons.

 

Relationship with humans

Raccoons have become notorious in urban areas for consuming food waste. They possess impressive problem-solving abilities and can break into all but the most secure food waste bins, which has earned them the derisive nickname trash panda. The presence of raccoons in close proximity to humans may be undesirable, as raccoon droppings (like most wild animals) contain parasites and other disease vectors. Raccoon roundworm is of particular concern to public health. It can be contracted in humans by accidental ingestion or inhalation of the eggs, which are present in the feces of infected raccoons. While usually harmless to the host, it causes progressive neurological damage in humans, and is eventually fatal if untreated. It is found in about 60% of adult raccoons. The general presence of raccoons in an area is not typically of concern, but nests or droppings found within or near structures should be destroyed. Roundworm eggs are very robust and bleach alone is insufficient; burning or treatment with hot solutions of sodium hydroxide is required. The keeping of raccoons as pets is illegal in some jurisdictions due to these risks.

 

The increasing number of raccoons in urban areas has resulted in diverse reactions in humans, ranging from outrage at their presence to deliberate feeding. Some wildlife experts and most public authorities caution against feeding wild animals because they might become increasingly obtrusive and dependent on humans as a food source. Other experts challenge such arguments and give advice on feeding raccoons and other wildlife in their books. Raccoons without a fear of humans are a concern to those who attribute this trait to rabies, but scientists point out this behavior is much more likely to be a behavioral adjustment to living in habitats with regular contact to humans for many generations. Raccoons usually do not prey on domestic cats and dogs, but isolated cases of killings have been reported. Attacks on pets may also target their owners.

  

A Florida raccoon (P. l. elucus) in the Everglades approaches a group of humans, hoping to be fed

While overturned waste containers and raided fruit trees are just a nuisance to homeowners, it can cost several thousand dollars to repair damage caused by the use of attic space as dens. Relocating or killing raccoons without a permit is forbidden in many urban areas on grounds of animal welfare. These methods usually only solve problems with particularly wild or aggressive individuals, since adequate dens are either known to several raccoons or will quickly be rediscovered. Loud noises, flashing lights, and unpleasant odors have proven particularly effective in driving away a mother and her kits before they would normally leave the nesting place (when the kits are about eight weeks old). Typically, though, only precautionary measures to restrict access to food waste and den sites are effective in the long term.

 

Among all fruits and crops cultivated in agricultural areas, sweet corn in its milk stage is particularly popular among raccoons.[309][310] In a two-year study by Purdue University researchers, published in 2004, raccoons were responsible for 87% of the damage to corn plants. Like other predators, raccoons searching for food can break into poultry houses to feed on chickens, ducks, their eggs, or food.

 

Mythology, arts, and entertainment

In the mythology of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, the raccoon is the subject of folk tales. Stories such as "How raccoons catch so many crayfish" from the Tuscarora centered on its skills at foraging. In other tales, the raccoon played the role of the trickster which outsmarts other animals, like coyotes and wolves. Among others, the Dakota believe the raccoon has natural spirit powers, since its mask resembles the facial paintings, two-fingered swashes of black and white, used during rituals to connect to spirit beings. The Aztecs linked supernatural abilities especially to females, whose commitment to their young was associated with the role of wise women in their society.

 

The raccoon also appears in Native American art across a wide geographic range. Petroglyphs with engraved raccoon tracks were found in Lewis Canyon, Texas; at the Crow Hollow petroglyph site in Grayson County, Kentucky; and in river drainages near Tularosa, the San Francisco River of New Mexico and Arizona. The meaning and significance of the Raccoon Priests Gorget, which features a stylized carving of a raccoon and was found at the Spiro Mounds, Oklahoma, remains unknown.

 

Hunting and fur trade

The fur of raccoons is used for clothing, especially for coats and coonskin caps. At present, it is the material used for the inaccurately named "sealskin" cap worn by the Royal Fusiliers of Great Britain. Sporrans made of raccoon pelt and hide have sometimes been used as part of traditional Scottish highland men's apparel since the 18th century, especially in North America. Such sporrans may or may not be of the "full-mask" type. Historically, Native American tribes not only used the fur for winter clothing, but also used the tails for ornament. The famous Sioux leader Spotted Tail took his name from a raccoon skin hat with the tail attached he acquired from a fur trader. Since the late 18th century, various types of scent hounds, called coonhounds, which are able to tree animals have been bred in the United States. In the 19th century, when coonskins occasionally even served as means of payment, several thousand raccoons were killed each year in the United States. This number rose quickly when automobile coats became popular after the turn of the 20th century. In the 1920s, wearing a raccoon coat was regarded as status symbol among college students. Attempts to breed raccoons in fur farms in the 1920s and 1930s in North America and Europe turned out not to be profitable, and farming was abandoned after prices for long-haired pelts dropped in the 1940s. Although raccoons had become rare in the 1930s, at least 388,000 were killed during the hunting season of 1934–1935.

 

After persistent population increases began in the 1940s, the seasonal coon hunting harvest reached about one million animals in 1946–1947 and two million in 1962–1963. The broadcast of three television episodes about the frontiersman Davy Crockett and the film Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier in 1954 and 1955 led to a high demand for coonskin caps in the United States, although it is unlikely either Crockett or the actor who played him, Fess Parker, actually wore a cap made from raccoon fur. The seasonal hunt reached an all-time high with 5.2 million animals in 1976–1977 and ranged between 3.2 and 4.7 million for most of the 1980s. In 1982, the average pelt price was $20. As of 1987, the raccoon was identified as the most important wild furbearer in North America in terms of revenue. In the first half of the 1990s, the seasonal hunt dropped to 0.9 from 1.9 million due to decreasing pelt prices.

 

Food

While primarily hunted for their fur, raccoons were also a source of food for Native Americans and early American settlers. According to Ernest Thompson Seton, young specimens killed without a fight are palatable, whereas old raccoons caught after a lengthy battle are inedible. Raccoon meat was extensively eaten during the early years of California, where it was sold in the San Francisco market for $1–3 apiece. American slaves occasionally ate raccoon at Christmas, but it was not necessarily a dish of the poor or rural. The first edition of The Joy of Cooking, released in 1931, contained a recipe for preparing raccoon, and US President Calvin Coolidge's pet raccoon Rebecca was originally sent to be served at the White House Thanksgiving Dinner.

 

Although the idea of eating raccoons may seem repulsive to most mainstream consumers, who see them as endearing, cute, or vermin, several thousand raccoons are still eaten each year in the United States, primarily in the Southern United States. Some people tout the taste of the meat.

 

Other uses

In addition to the fur and meat, the raccoon baculum (penis bone) have had numerous traditional uses in the Southern United States and beyond. Indigenous people used the bones as a pipe cleaning tool. The bones were used by moonshine distillers to guide the flow of whiskey from the drip tube to the bottle. With their tips filed down, the bones were used as toothpicks under the moniker "coon rods". In hoodoo, the folk magic of the American South, the baculum is sometimes worn as an amulet for love or luck. The bones also have decorative uses (e.g. on the trademark hat of stock car racer Richard Petty or as earrings by actresses Sarah Jessica Parker and Vanessa Williams).

 

Pet raccoons

Raccoons are sometimes kept as pets, which is discouraged by many experts because the raccoon is not a domesticated species. Raccoons may act unpredictably and aggressively and it is extremely difficult to teach them to obey commands. In places where keeping raccoons as pets is not forbidden, such as in Wisconsin and other U.S. states, an exotic pet permit may be required. One notable pet raccoon was Rebecca, kept by US president Calvin Coolidge.

 

Their propensity for unruly behavior exceeds that of captive skunks, and they are even less trustworthy when allowed to roam freely. Because of their intelligence and nimble forelimbs, even inexperienced raccoons are easily capable of unscrewing jars, uncorking bottles and opening door latches, with more experienced specimens having been recorded to open door knobs. Sexually mature raccoons often show aggressive natural behaviors such as biting during the mating season. Neutering them at around five or six months of age decreases the chances of aggressive behavior developing. Raccoons can become obese and suffer from other disorders due to poor diet and lack of exercise. When fed with cat food over a long time period, raccoons can develop gout. With respect to the research results regarding their social behavior, it is now required by law in Austria and Germany to keep at least two individuals to prevent loneliness. Raccoons are usually kept in a pen (indoor or outdoor), also a legal requirement in Austria and Germany, rather than in the apartment where their natural curiosity may result in damage to property.

 

When orphaned, it is possible for kits to be rehabilitated and reintroduced to the wild. However, it is uncertain whether they readapt well to life in the wild. Feeding unweaned kits with cow's milk rather than a kitten replacement milk or a similar product can be dangerous to their health.

Sheep (pl.: sheep) or domestic sheep (Ovis aries) are a domesticated, ruminant mammal typically kept as livestock. Although the term sheep can apply to other species in the genus Ovis, in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticated sheep. Like all ruminants, sheep are members of the order Artiodactyla, the even-toed ungulates. Numbering a little over one billion, domestic sheep are also the most numerous species of sheep. An adult female is referred to as a ewe (/juː/ yoo), an intact male as a ram, occasionally a tup, a castrated male as a wether, and a young sheep as a lamb.

 

Sheep are most likely descended from the wild mouflon of Europe and Asia, with Iran being a geographic envelope of the domestication center. One of the earliest animals to be domesticated for agricultural purposes, sheep are raised for fleeces, meat (lamb, hogget or mutton) and milk. A sheep's wool is the most widely used animal fiber, and is usually harvested by shearing. In Commonwealth countries, ovine meat is called lamb when from younger animals and mutton when from older ones; in the United States, meat from both older and younger animals is usually called lamb. Sheep continue to be important for wool and meat today, and are also occasionally raised for pelts, as dairy animals, or as model organisms for science.

 

Sheep husbandry is practised throughout the majority of the inhabited world, and has been fundamental to many civilizations. In the modern era, Australia, New Zealand, the southern and central South American nations, and the British Isles are most closely associated with sheep production.

 

There is a large lexicon of unique terms for sheep husbandry which vary considerably by region and dialect. Use of the word sheep began in Middle English as a derivation of the Old English word scēap. A group of sheep is called a flock. Many other specific terms for the various life stages of sheep exist, generally related to lambing, shearing, and age.

 

Being a key animal in the history of farming, sheep have a deeply entrenched place in human culture, and are represented in much modern language and symbolism. As livestock, sheep are most often associated with pastoral, Arcadian imagery. Sheep figure in many mythologies—such as the Golden Fleece—and major religions, especially the Abrahamic traditions. In both ancient and modern religious ritual, sheep are used as sacrificial animals.

 

History

Main article: History of the domestic sheep

The exact line of descent from wild ancestors to domestic sheep is unclear. The most common hypothesis states that Ovis aries is descended from the Asiatic (O. gmelini) species of mouflon; the European mouflon (Ovis aries musimon) is a direct descendant of this population. Sheep were among the first animals to be domesticated by humankind (although the domestication of dogs probably took place 10 to 20 thousand years earlier); the domestication date is estimated to fall between 11,000 and 9000 B.C in Mesopotamia and possibly around 7000 BC in Mehrgarh in the Indus Valley. The rearing of sheep for secondary products, and the resulting breed development, began in either southwest Asia or western Europe. Initially, sheep were kept solely for meat, milk and skins. Archaeological evidence from statuary found at sites in Iran suggests that selection for woolly sheep may have begun around 6000 BC, and the earliest woven wool garments have been dated to two to three thousand years later.

 

Sheep husbandry spread quickly in Europe. Excavations show that in about 6000 BC, during the Neolithic period of prehistory, the Castelnovien people, living around Châteauneuf-les-Martigues near present-day Marseille in the south of France, were among the first in Europe to keep domestic sheep. Practically from its inception, ancient Greek civilization relied on sheep as primary livestock, and were even said to name individual animals. Ancient Romans kept sheep on a wide scale, and were an important agent in the spread of sheep raising. Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History (Naturalis Historia), speaks at length about sheep and wool. European colonists spread the practice to the New World from 1493 onwards.

 

Characteristics

Domestic sheep are relatively small ruminants, usually with a crimped hair called wool and often with horns forming a lateral spiral. They differ from their wild relatives and ancestors in several respects, having become uniquely neotenic as a result of selective breeding by humans. A few primitive breeds of sheep retain some of the characteristics of their wild cousins, such as short tails. Depending on breed, domestic sheep may have no horns at all (i.e. polled), or horns in both sexes, or in males only. Most horned breeds have a single pair, but a few breeds may have several.

 

Sheep in Turkmenistan

Another trait unique to domestic sheep as compared to wild ovines is their wide variation in color. Wild sheep are largely variations of brown hues, and variation within species is extremely limited. Colors of domestic sheep range from pure white to dark chocolate brown, and even spotted or piebald. Sheep keepers also sometimes artificially paint "smit marks" onto their sheep in any pattern or color for identification. Selection for easily dyeable white fleeces began early in sheep domestication, and as white wool is a dominant trait it spread quickly. However, colored sheep do appear in many modern breeds, and may even appear as a recessive trait in white flocks. While white wool is desirable for large commercial markets, there is a niche market for colored fleeces, mostly for handspinning. The nature of the fleece varies widely among the breeds, from dense and highly crimped, to long and hairlike. There is variation of wool type and quality even among members of the same flock, so wool classing is a step in the commercial processing of the fibre.

  

Suffolks are a medium wool, black-faced breed of meat sheep that make up 60% of the sheep population in the U.S.

Depending on breed, sheep show a range of heights and weights. Their rate of growth and mature weight is a heritable trait that is often selected for in breeding. Ewes typically weigh between 45 and 100 kilograms (100 and 220 lb), and rams between 45 and 160 kilograms (100 and 350 lb). When all deciduous teeth have erupted, the sheep has 20 teeth. Mature sheep have 32 teeth. As with other ruminants, the front teeth in the lower jaw bite against a hard, toothless pad in the upper jaw. These are used to pick off vegetation, then the rear teeth grind it before it is swallowed. There are eight lower front teeth in ruminants, but there is some disagreement as to whether these are eight incisors, or six incisors and two incisor-shaped canines. This means that the dental formula for sheep is either

0.0.3.3

4.0.3.3

or

0.0.3.3

3.1.3.3

There is a large diastema between the incisors and the molars.

 

In the first few years of life one can calculate the age of sheep from their front teeth, as a pair of milk teeth is replaced by larger adult teeth each year, the full set of eight adult front teeth being complete at about four years of age. The front teeth are then gradually lost as sheep age, making it harder for them to feed and hindering the health and productivity of the animal. For this reason, domestic sheep on normal pasture begin to slowly decline from four years on, and the life expectancy of a sheep is 10 to 12 years, though some sheep may live as long as 20 years.

 

Skull

Sheep have good hearing, and are sensitive to noise when being handled. Sheep have horizontal slit-shaped pupils, with excellent peripheral vision; with visual fields of about 270° to 320°, sheep can see behind themselves without turning their heads. Many breeds have only short hair on the face, and some have facial wool (if any) confined to the poll and or the area of the mandibular angle; the wide angles of peripheral vision apply to these breeds. A few breeds tend to have considerable wool on the face; for some individuals of these breeds, peripheral vision may be greatly reduced by "wool blindness", unless recently shorn about the face. Sheep have poor depth perception; shadows and dips in the ground may cause sheep to baulk. In general, sheep have a tendency to move out of the dark and into well-lit areas, and prefer to move uphill when disturbed. Sheep also have an excellent sense of smell, and, like all species of their genus, have scent glands just in front of the eyes, and interdigitally on the feet. The purpose of these glands is uncertain, but those on the face may be used in breeding behaviors. The foot glands might also be related to reproduction, but alternative functions, such as secretion of a waste product or a scent marker to help lost sheep find their flock, have also been proposed.

 

Comparison with goats

Sheep and goats are closely related: both are in the subfamily Caprinae. However, they are separate species, so hybrids rarely occur and are always infertile. A hybrid of a ewe and a buck (a male goat) is called a sheep-goat hybrid, known as geep. Visual differences between sheep and goats include the beard of goats and divided upper lip of sheep. Sheep tails also hang down, even when short or docked, while the short tails of goats are held upwards. Also, sheep breeds are often naturally polled (either in both sexes or just in the female), while naturally polled goats are rare (though many are polled artificially). Males of the two species differ in that buck goats acquire a unique and strong odor during the rut, whereas rams do not.

 

Breeds

The domestic sheep is a multi-purpose animal, and the more than 200 breeds now in existence were created to serve these diverse purposes. Some sources give a count of a thousand or more breeds, but these numbers cannot be verified, according to some sources. However, several hundred breeds of sheep have been identified by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), with the estimated number varying somewhat from time to time: e.g. 863 breeds as of 1993, 1314 breeds as of 1995 and 1229 breeds as of 2006. (These numbers exclude extinct breeds, which are also tallied by the FAO.) For the purpose of such tallies, the FAO definition of a breed is "either a subspecific group of domestic livestock with definable and identifiable external characteristics that enable it to be separated by visual appraisal from other similarly defined groups within the same species or a group for which geographical and/or cultural separation from phenotypically similar groups has led to acceptance of its separate identity." Almost all sheep are classified as being best suited to furnishing a certain product: wool, meat, milk, hides, or a combination in a dual-purpose breed. Other features used when classifying sheep include face color (generally white or black), tail length, presence or lack of horns, and the topography for which the breed has been developed. This last point is especially stressed in the UK, where breeds are described as either upland (hill or mountain) or lowland breeds. A sheep may also be of a fat-tailed type, which is a dual-purpose sheep common in Africa and Asia with larger deposits of fat within and around its tail.

 

Breeds are often categorized by the type of their wool. Fine wool breeds are those that have wool of great crimp and density, which are preferred for textiles. Most of these were derived from Merino sheep, and the breed continues to dominate the world sheep industry. Downs breeds have wool between the extremes, and are typically fast-growing meat and ram breeds with dark faces. Some major medium wool breeds, such as the Corriedale, are dual-purpose crosses of long and fine-wooled breeds and were created for high-production commercial flocks. Long wool breeds are the largest of sheep, with long wool and a slow rate of growth. Long wool sheep are most valued for crossbreeding to improve the attributes of other sheep types. For example: the American Columbia breed was developed by crossing Lincoln rams (a long wool breed) with fine-wooled Rambouillet ewes.

 

Coarse or carpet wool sheep are those with a medium to long length wool of characteristic coarseness. Breeds traditionally used for carpet wool show great variability, but the chief requirement is a wool that will not break down under heavy use (as would that of the finer breeds). As the demand for carpet-quality wool declines, some breeders of this type of sheep are attempting to use a few of these traditional breeds for alternative purposes. Others have always been primarily meat-class sheep.

 

A minor class of sheep are the dairy breeds. Dual-purpose breeds that may primarily be meat or wool sheep are often used secondarily as milking animals, but there are a few breeds that are predominantly used for milking. These sheep produce a higher quantity of milk and have slightly longer lactation curves. In the quality of their milk, the fat and protein content percentages of dairy sheep vary from non-dairy breeds, but lactose content does not.

 

A last group of sheep breeds is that of fur or hair sheep, which do not grow wool at all. Hair sheep are similar to the early domesticated sheep kept before woolly breeds were developed, and are raised for meat and pelts. Some modern breeds of hair sheep, such as the Dorper, result from crosses between wool and hair breeds. For meat and hide producers, hair sheep are cheaper to keep, as they do not need shearing. Hair sheep are also more resistant to parasites and hot weather.

 

With the modern rise of corporate agribusiness and the decline of localized family farms, many breeds of sheep are in danger of extinction. The Rare Breeds Survival Trust of the UK lists 22 native breeds as having only 3,000 registered animals (each), and The Livestock Conservancy lists 14 as either "critical" or "threatened". Preferences for breeds with uniform characteristics and fast growth have pushed heritage (or heirloom) breeds to the margins of the sheep industry. Those that remain are maintained through the efforts of conservation organizations, breed registries, and individual farmers dedicated to their preservation.

 

Diet

Sheep are herbivorous mammals. Most breeds prefer to graze on grass and other short roughage, avoiding the taller woody parts of plants that goats readily consume. Both sheep and goats use their lips and tongues to select parts of the plant that are easier to digest or higher in nutrition. Sheep, however, graze well in monoculture pastures where most goats fare poorly.

 

Ruminant system of a sheep

Like all ruminants, sheep have a complex digestive system composed of four chambers, allowing them to break down cellulose from stems, leaves, and seed hulls into simpler carbohydrates. When sheep graze, vegetation is chewed into a mass called a bolus, which is then passed into the rumen, via the reticulum. The rumen is a 19- to 38-liter (5 to 10 gallon) organ in which feed is fermented. The fermenting organisms include bacteria, fungi, and protozoa. (Other important rumen organisms include some archaea, which produce methane from carbon dioxide.) The bolus is periodically regurgitated back to the mouth as cud for additional chewing and salivation. After fermentation in the rumen, feed passes into the reticulum and the omasum; special feeds such as grains may bypass the rumen altogether. After the first three chambers, food moves into the abomasum for final digestion before processing by the intestines. The abomasum is the only one of the four chambers analogous to the human stomach, and is sometimes called the "true stomach".

 

Other than forage, the other staple feed for sheep is hay, often during the winter months. The ability to thrive solely on pasture (even without hay) varies with breed, but all sheep can survive on this diet. Also included in some sheep's diets are minerals, either in a trace mix or in licks. Feed provided to sheep must be specially formulated, as most cattle, poultry, pig, and even some goat feeds contain levels of copper that are lethal to sheep. The same danger applies to mineral supplements such as salt licks.

 

Grazing behavior

Sheep follow a diurnal pattern of activity, feeding from dawn to dusk, stopping sporadically to rest and chew their cud. Ideal pasture for sheep is not lawnlike grass, but an array of grasses, legumes and forbs. Types of land where sheep are raised vary widely, from pastures that are seeded and improved intentionally to rough, native lands. Common plants toxic to sheep are present in most of the world, and include (but are not limited to) cherry, some oaks and acorns, tomato, yew, rhubarb, potato, and rhododendron.

 

Effects on pasture

Sheep are largely grazing herbivores, unlike browsing animals such as goats and deer that prefer taller foliage. With a much narrower face, sheep crop plants very close to the ground and can overgraze a pasture much faster than cattle. For this reason, many shepherds use managed intensive rotational grazing, where a flock is rotated through multiple pastures, giving plants time to recover. Paradoxically, sheep can both cause and solve the spread of invasive plant species. By disturbing the natural state of pasture, sheep and other livestock can pave the way for invasive plants. However, sheep also prefer to eat invasives such as cheatgrass, leafy spurge, kudzu and spotted knapweed over native species such as sagebrush, making grazing sheep effective for conservation grazing. Research conducted in Imperial County, California compared lamb grazing with herbicides for weed control in seedling alfalfa fields. Three trials demonstrated that grazing lambs were just as effective as herbicides in controlling winter weeds. Entomologists also compared grazing lambs to insecticides for insect control in winter alfalfa. In this trial, lambs provided insect control as effectively as insecticides.

 

Behavior

Sheep are flock animals and strongly gregarious; much sheep behavior can be understood on the basis of these tendencies. The dominance hierarchy of sheep and their natural inclination to follow a leader to new pastures were the pivotal factors in sheep being one of the first domesticated livestock species. Furthermore, in contrast to the red deer and gazelle (two other ungulates of primary importance to meat production in prehistoric times), sheep do not defend territories although they do form home ranges. All sheep have a tendency to congregate close to other members of a flock, although this behavior varies with breed, and sheep can become stressed when separated from their flock members. During flocking, sheep have a strong tendency to follow, and a leader may simply be the first individual to move. Relationships in flocks tend to be closest among related sheep: in mixed-breed flocks, subgroups of the same breed tend to form, and a ewe and her direct descendants often move as a unit within large flocks. Sheep can become hefted to one particular local pasture (heft) so they do not roam freely in unfenced landscapes. Lambs learn the heft from ewes and if whole flocks are culled it must be retaught to the replacement animals.

 

Flock behaviour in sheep is generally only exhibited in groups of four or more sheep; fewer sheep may not react as expected when alone or with few other sheep. Being a prey species, the primary defense mechanism of sheep is to flee from danger when their flight zone is entered. Cornered sheep may charge and butt, or threaten by hoof stamping and adopting an aggressive posture. This is particularly true for ewes with newborn lambs.

 

In regions where sheep have no natural predators, none of the native breeds of sheep exhibit a strong flocking behavior.

 

Herding

Farmers exploit flocking behavior to keep sheep together on unfenced pastures such as hill farming, and to move them more easily. For this purpose shepherds may use herding dogs in this effort, with a highly bred herding ability. Sheep are food-oriented, and association of humans with regular feeding often results in sheep soliciting people for food. Those who are moving sheep may exploit this behavior by leading sheep with buckets of feed.

 

Dominance hierarchy

Sheep establish a dominance hierarchy through fighting, threats and competitiveness. Dominant animals are inclined to be more aggressive with other sheep, and usually feed first at troughs. Primarily among rams, horn size is a factor in the flock hierarchy. Rams with different size horns may be less inclined to fight to establish the dominance order, while rams with similarly sized horns are more so. Merinos have an almost linear hierarchy whereas there is a less rigid structure in Border Leicesters when a competitive feeding situation arises.

 

In sheep, position in a moving flock is highly correlated with social dominance, but there is no definitive study to show consistent voluntary leadership by an individual sheep.

 

Intelligence and learning ability

Sheep are frequently thought of as unintelligent animals. Their flocking behavior and quickness to flee and panic can make shepherding a difficult endeavor for the uninitiated. Despite these perceptions, a University of Illinois monograph on sheep reported their intelligence to be just below that of pigs and on par with that of cattle. Sheep can recognize individual human and ovine faces and remember them for years; they can remember 50 other different sheep faces for over two years; they can recognize and are attracted to individual sheep and humans by their faces, as they possess similar specialized neural systems in the temporal and frontal lobes of their brains to humans and have a greater involvement of the right brain hemisphere. In addition to long-term facial recognition of individuals, sheep can also differentiate emotional states through facial characteristics.[68][69] If worked with patiently, sheep may learn their names, and many sheep are trained to be led by halter for showing and other purposes. Sheep have also responded well to clicker training. Sheep have been used as pack animals; Tibetan nomads distribute baggage equally throughout a flock as it is herded between living sites.

 

It has been reported that some sheep have apparently shown problem-solving abilities; a flock in West Yorkshire, England allegedly found a way to get over cattle grids by rolling on their backs, although documentation of this has relied on anecdotal accounts.

 

Vocalisations

Sounds made by domestic sheep include bleats, grunts, rumbles and snorts. Bleating ("baaing") is used mostly for contact communication, especially between dam and lambs, but also at times between other flock members. The bleats of individual sheep are distinctive, enabling the ewe and her lambs to recognize each other's vocalizations. Vocal communication between lambs and their dam declines to a very low level within several weeks after parturition. A variety of bleats may be heard, depending on sheep age and circumstances. Apart from contact communication, bleating may signal distress, frustration or impatience; however, sheep are usually silent when in pain. Isolation commonly prompts bleating by sheep. Pregnant ewes may grunt when in labor. Rumbling sounds are made by the ram during courting; somewhat similar rumbling sounds may be made by the ewe, especially when with her neonate lambs. A snort (explosive exhalation through the nostrils) may signal aggression or a warning, and is often elicited from startled sheep.

 

Lamb

In sheep breeds lacking facial wool, the visual field is wide. In 10 sheep (Cambridge, Lleyn and Welsh Mountain breeds, which lack facial wool), the visual field ranged from 298° to 325°, averaging 313.1°, with binocular overlap ranging from 44.5° to 74°, averaging 61.7°. In some breeds, unshorn facial wool can limit the visual field; in some individuals, this may be enough to cause "wool blindness". In 60 Merinos, visual fields ranged from 219.1° to 303.0°, averaging 269.9°, and the binocular field ranged from 8.9° to 77.7°, averaging 47.5°; 36% of the measurements were limited by wool, although photographs of the experiments indicate that only limited facial wool regrowth had occurred since shearing. In addition to facial wool (in some breeds), visual field limitations can include ears and (in some breeds) horns, so the visual field can be extended by tilting the head. Sheep eyes exhibit very low hyperopia and little astigmatism. Such visual characteristics are likely to produce a well-focused retinal image of objects in both the middle and long distance. Because sheep eyes have no accommodation, one might expect the image of very near objects to be blurred, but a rather clear near image could be provided by the tapetum and large retinal image of the sheep's eye, and adequate close vision may occur at muzzle length. Good depth perception, inferred from the sheep's sure-footedness, was confirmed in "visual cliff" experiments; behavioral responses indicating depth perception are seen in lambs at one day old. Sheep are thought to have colour vision, and can distinguish between a variety of colours: black, red, brown, green, yellow and white. Sight is a vital part of sheep communication, and when grazing, they maintain visual contact with each other. Each sheep lifts its head upwards to check the position of other sheep in the flock. This constant monitoring is probably what keeps the sheep in a flock as they move along grazing. Sheep become stressed when isolated; this stress is reduced if they are provided with a mirror, indicating that the sight of other sheep reduces stress.

 

Taste is the most important sense in sheep, establishing forage preferences, with sweet and sour plants being preferred and bitter plants being more commonly rejected. Touch and sight are also important in relation to specific plant characteristics, such as succulence and growth form.

 

The ram uses his vomeronasal organ (sometimes called the Jacobson's organ) to sense the pheromones of ewes and detect when they are in estrus. The ewe uses her vomeronasal organ for early recognition of her neonate lamb.

 

Reproduction

Sheep follow a similar reproductive strategy to other herd animals. A group of ewes is generally mated by a single ram, who has either been chosen by a breeder or (in feral populations) has established dominance through physical contest with other rams. Most sheep are seasonal breeders, although some are able to breed year-round. Ewes generally reach sexual maturity at six to eight months old, and rams generally at four to six months. However, there are exceptions. For example, Finnsheep ewe lambs may reach puberty as early as 3 to 4 months, and Merino ewes sometimes reach puberty at 18 to 20 months. Ewes have estrus cycles about every 17 days, during which they emit a scent and indicate readiness through physical displays towards rams.

 

In feral sheep, rams may fight during the rut to determine which individuals may mate with ewes. Rams, especially unfamiliar ones, will also fight outside the breeding period to establish dominance; rams can kill one another if allowed to mix freely. During the rut, even usually friendly rams may become aggressive towards humans due to increases in their hormone levels.

 

After mating, sheep have a gestation period of about five months, and normal labor takes one to three hours. Although some breeds regularly throw larger litters of lambs, most produce single or twin lambs. During or soon after labor, ewes and lambs may be confined to small lambing jugs, small pens designed to aid both careful observation of ewes and to cement the bond between them and their lambs.

  

A lamb's first steps

Ovine obstetrics can be problematic. By selectively breeding ewes that produce multiple offspring with higher birth weights for generations, sheep producers have inadvertently caused some domestic sheep to have difficulty lambing; balancing ease of lambing with high productivity is one of the dilemmas of sheep breeding. In the case of any such problems, those present at lambing may assist the ewe by extracting or repositioning lambs. After the birth, ewes ideally break the amniotic sac (if it is not broken during labor), and begin licking clean the lamb. Most lambs will begin standing within an hour of birth. In normal situations, lambs nurse after standing, receiving vital colostrum milk. Lambs that either fail to nurse or are rejected by the ewe require help to survive, such as bottle-feeding or fostering by another ewe.

 

Most lambs begin life being born outdoors. After lambs are several weeks old, lamb marking (ear tagging, docking, mulesing, and castrating) is carried out. Vaccinations are usually carried out at this point as well. Ear tags with numbers are attached, or ear marks are applied, for ease of later identification of sheep. Docking and castration are commonly done after 24 hours (to avoid interference with maternal bonding and consumption of colostrum) and are often done not later than one week after birth, to minimize pain, stress, recovery time and complications. The first course of vaccinations (commonly anti-clostridial) is commonly given at an age of about 10 to 12 weeks; i.e. when the concentration of maternal antibodies passively acquired via colostrum is expected to have fallen low enough to permit development of active immunity. Ewes are often revaccinated annually about 3 weeks before lambing, to provide high antibody concentrations in colostrum during the first several hours after lambing. Ram lambs that will either be slaughtered or separated from ewes before sexual maturity are not usually castrated. Objections to all these procedures have been raised by animal rights groups, but farmers defend them by saying they save money, and inflict only temporary pain.

 

Homosexuality

Sheep are the only species of mammal except for humans which exhibits exclusive homosexual behavior. About 10% of rams refuse to mate with ewes but readily mate with other rams, and thirty percent of all rams demonstrate at least some homosexual behavior. Additionally, a small number of females that were accompanied by a male fetus in utero (i.e. as fraternal twins) are freemartins (female animals that are behaviorally masculine and lack functioning ovaries).

 

Health

Sheep may fall victim to poisons, infectious diseases, and physical injuries. As a prey species, a sheep's system is adapted to hide the obvious signs of illness, to prevent being targeted by predators. However, some signs of ill health are obvious, with sick sheep eating little, vocalizing excessively, and being generally listless. Throughout history, much of the money and labor of sheep husbandry has aimed to prevent sheep ailments. Historically, shepherds often created remedies by experimentation on the farm. In some developed countries, including the United States, sheep lack the economic importance for drug companies to perform expensive clinical trials required to approve more than a relatively limited number of drugs for ovine use. However, extra-label drug use in sheep production is permitted in many jurisdictions, subject to certain restrictions. In the US, for example, regulations governing extra-label drug use in animals are found in 21 CFR (Code of Federal Regulations) Part 530. In the 20th and 21st centuries, a minority of sheep owners have turned to alternative treatments such as homeopathy, herbalism and even traditional Chinese medicine to treat sheep veterinary problems. Despite some favorable anecdotal evidence, the effectiveness of alternative veterinary medicine has been met with skepticism in scientific journals. The need for traditional anti-parasite drugs and antibiotics is widespread, and is the main impediment to certified organic farming with sheep.

 

Many breeders take a variety of preventive measures to ward off problems. The first is to ensure all sheep are healthy when purchased. Many buyers avoid outlets known to be clearing houses for animals culled from healthy flocks as either sick or simply inferior. This can also mean maintaining a closed flock, and quarantining new sheep for a month. Two fundamental preventive programs are maintaining good nutrition and reducing stress in the sheep. Restraint, isolation, loud noises, novel situations, pain, heat, extreme cold, fatigue and other stressors can lead to secretion of cortisol, a stress hormone, in amounts that may indicate welfare problems. Excessive stress can compromise the immune system. "Shipping fever" (pneumonic mannheimiosis, formerly called pasteurellosis) is a disease of particular concern, that can occur as a result of stress, notably during transport and (or) handling. Pain, fear and several other stressors can cause secretion of epinephrine (adrenaline). Considerable epinephrine secretion in the final days before slaughter can adversely affect meat quality (by causing glycogenolysis, removing the substrate for normal post-slaughter acidification of meat) and result in meat becoming more susceptible to colonization by spoilage bacteria. Because of such issues, low-stress handling is essential in sheep management. Avoiding poisoning is also important; common poisons are pesticide sprays, inorganic fertilizer, motor oil, as well as radiator coolant containing ethylene glycol.

 

Common forms of preventive medication for sheep are vaccinations and treatments for parasites. Both external and internal parasites are the most prevalent malady in sheep, and are either fatal, or reduce the productivity of flocks. Worms are the most common internal parasites. They are ingested during grazing, incubate within the sheep, and are expelled through the digestive system (beginning the cycle again). Oral anti-parasitic medicines, known as drenches, are given to a flock to treat worms, sometimes after worm eggs in the feces has been counted to assess infestation levels. Afterwards, sheep may be moved to a new pasture to avoid ingesting the same parasites. External sheep parasites include: lice (for different parts of the body), sheep keds, nose bots, sheep itch mites, and maggots. Keds are blood-sucking parasites that cause general malnutrition and decreased productivity, but are not fatal. Maggots are those of the bot fly and the blow-fly, commonly Lucilia sericata or its relative L. cuprina. Fly maggots cause the extremely destructive condition of flystrike. Flies lay their eggs in wounds or wet, manure-soiled wool; when the maggots hatch they burrow into a sheep's flesh, eventually causing death if untreated. In addition to other treatments, crutching (shearing wool from a sheep's rump) is a common preventive method. Some countries allow mulesing, a practice that involves stripping away the skin on the rump to prevent fly-strike, normally performed when the sheep is a lamb. Nose bots are fly larvae that inhabit a sheep's sinuses, causing breathing difficulties and discomfort. Common signs are a discharge from the nasal passage, sneezing, and frantic movement such as head shaking. External parasites may be controlled through the use of backliners, sprays or immersive sheep dips.

 

A wide array of bacterial and viral diseases affect sheep. Diseases of the hoof, such as foot rot and foot scald may occur, and are treated with footbaths and other remedies. Foot rot is present in over 97% of flocks in the UK. These painful conditions cause lameness and hinder feeding. Ovine Johne's disease is a wasting disease that affects young sheep. Bluetongue disease is an insect-borne illness causing fever and inflammation of the mucous membranes. Ovine rinderpest (or peste des petits ruminants) is a highly contagious and often fatal viral disease affecting sheep and goats. Sheep may also be affected by primary or secondary photosensitization. Tetanus can also afflict sheep through wounds from shearing, docking, castration, or vaccination. The organism also can be introduced into the reproductive tract by unsanitary humans who assist ewes during lambing.

 

A few sheep conditions are transmissible to humans. Orf (also known as scabby mouth, contagious ecthyma or soremouth) is a skin disease leaving lesions that is transmitted through skin-to-skin contact. Cutaneous anthrax is also called woolsorter's disease, as the spores can be transmitted in unwashed wool. More seriously, the organisms that can cause spontaneous enzootic abortion in sheep are easily transmitted to pregnant women. Also of concern are the prion disease scrapie and the virus that causes foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), as both can devastate flocks. The latter poses a slight risk to humans. During the 2001 FMD pandemic in the UK, hundreds of sheep were culled and some rare British breeds were at risk of extinction due to this.

 

Of the 600,300 sheep lost to the US economy in 2004, 37.3% were lost to predators, while 26.5% were lost to some form of disease. Poisoning accounted for 1.7% of non-productive deaths.

 

Predators

A lamb being attacked by coyotes with a bite to the throat

Other than parasites and disease, predation is a threat to sheep and the profitability of sheep raising. Sheep have little ability to defend themselves, compared with other species kept as livestock. Even if sheep survive an attack, they may die from their injuries or simply from panic. However, the impact of predation varies dramatically with region. In Africa, Australia, the Americas, and parts of Europe and Asia predators are a serious problem. In the United States, for instance, over one third of sheep deaths in 2004 were caused by predation. In contrast, other nations are virtually devoid of sheep predators, particularly islands known for extensive sheep husbandry. Worldwide, canids—including the domestic dog—are responsible for most sheep deaths. Other animals that occasionally prey on sheep include: felines, bears, birds of prey, ravens and feral hogs.

 

Sheep producers have used a wide variety of measures to combat predation. Pre-modern shepherds used their own presence, livestock guardian dogs, and protective structures such as barns and fencing. Fencing (both regular and electric), penning sheep at night and lambing indoors all continue to be widely used. More modern shepherds used guns, traps, and poisons to kill predators, causing significant decreases in predator populations. In the wake of the environmental and conservation movements, the use of these methods now usually falls under the purview of specially designated government agencies in most developed countries.

 

The 1970s saw a resurgence in the use of livestock guardian dogs and the development of new methods of predator control by sheep producers, many of them non-lethal. Donkeys and guard llamas have been used since the 1980s in sheep operations, using the same basic principle as livestock guardian dogs. Interspecific pasturing, usually with larger livestock such as cattle or horses, may help to deter predators, even if such species do not actively guard sheep. In addition to animal guardians, contemporary sheep operations may use non-lethal predator deterrents such as motion-activated lights and noisy alarms.

 

Economic importance

Main article: Agricultural economics

Global sheep stock

in 2019

Number in millions

1. China163.5 (13.19%)

2. India74.3 (5.99%)

3. Australia65.8 (5.31%)

4. Nigeria46.9 (3.78%)

5. Iran41.3 (3.33%)

6. Sudan40.9 (3.3%)

7. Chad35.9 (2.9%)

8. Turkey35.2 (2.84%)

9. United Kingdom33.6 (2.71%)

10. Mongolia32.3 (2.61%)

World total1,239.8

 

Source: UN Food and Agriculture Organization

Sheep are an important part of the global agricultural economy. However, their once vital status has been largely replaced by other livestock species, especially the pig, chicken, and cow. China, Australia, India, and Iran have the largest modern flocks, and serve both local and exportation needs for wool and mutton. Other countries such as New Zealand have smaller flocks but retain a large international economic impact due to their export of sheep products. Sheep also play a major role in many local economies, which may be niche markets focused on organic or sustainable agriculture and local food customers. Especially in developing countries, such flocks may be a part of subsistence agriculture rather than a system of trade. Sheep themselves may be a medium of trade in barter economies.

 

Domestic sheep provide a wide array of raw materials. Wool was one of the first textiles, although in the late 20th century wool prices began to fall dramatically as the result of the popularity and cheap prices for synthetic fabrics. For many sheep owners, the cost of shearing is greater than the possible profit from the fleece, making subsisting on wool production alone practically impossible without farm subsidies. Fleeces are used as material in making alternative products such as wool insulation. In the 21st century, the sale of meat is the most profitable enterprise in the sheep industry, even though far less sheep meat is consumed than chicken, pork or beef.

 

Sheepskin is likewise used for making clothes, footwear, rugs, and other products. Byproducts from the slaughter of sheep are also of value: sheep tallow can be used in candle and soap making, sheep bone and cartilage has been used to furnish carved items such as dice and buttons as well as rendered glue and gelatin. Sheep intestine can be formed into sausage casings, and lamb intestine has been formed into surgical sutures, as well as strings for musical instruments and tennis rackets. Sheep droppings, which are high in cellulose, have even been sterilized and mixed with traditional pulp materials to make paper. Of all sheep byproducts, perhaps the most valuable is lanolin: the waterproof, fatty substance found naturally in sheep's wool and used as a base for innumerable cosmetics and other products.

 

Some farmers who keep sheep also make a profit from live sheep. Providing lambs for youth programs such as 4-H and competition at agricultural shows is often a dependable avenue for the sale of sheep. Farmers may also choose to focus on a particular breed of sheep in order to sell registered purebred animals, as well as provide a ram rental service for breeding. A new option for deriving profit from live sheep is the rental of flocks for grazing; these "mowing services" are hired in order to keep unwanted vegetation down in public spaces and to lessen fire hazard.

 

Despite the falling demand and price for sheep products in many markets, sheep have distinct economic advantages when compared with other livestock. They do not require expensive housing, such as that used in the intensive farming of chickens or pigs. They are an efficient use of land; roughly six sheep can be kept on the amount that would suffice for a single cow or horse. Sheep can also consume plants, such as noxious weeds, that most other animals will not touch, and produce more young at a faster rate. Also, in contrast to most livestock species, the cost of raising sheep is not necessarily tied to the price of feed crops such as grain, soybeans and corn. Combined with the lower cost of quality sheep, all these factors combine to equal a lower overhead for sheep producers, thus entailing a higher profitability potential for the small farmer. Sheep are especially beneficial for independent producers, including family farms with limited resources, as the sheep industry is one of the few types of animal agriculture that has not been vertically integrated by agribusiness. However, small flocks, from 10 to 50 ewes, often are not profitable because they tend to be poorly managed. The primary reason is that mechanization is not feasible, so return per hour of labor is not maximized. Small farm flocks generally are used simply to control weeds on irrigation ditches or maintained as a hobby.

 

Shoulder of lamb

Sheep meat and milk were one of the earliest staple proteins consumed by human civilization after the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture. Sheep meat prepared for food is known as either mutton or lamb, and approximately 540 million sheep are slaughtered each year for meat worldwide. "Mutton" is derived from the Old French moton, which was the word for sheep used by the Anglo-Norman rulers of much of the British Isles in the Middle Ages. This became the name for sheep meat in English, while the Old English word sceap was kept for the live animal. Throughout modern history, "mutton" has been limited to the meat of mature sheep usually at least two years of age; "lamb" is used for that of immature sheep less than a year.

 

In the 21st century, the nations with the highest consumption of sheep meat are the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, New Zealand, Australia, Greece, Uruguay, the United Kingdom and Ireland. These countries eat 14–40 lbs (3–18 kg) of sheep meat per capita, per annum. Sheep meat is also popular in France, Africa (especially the Arab world), the Caribbean, the rest of the Middle East, India, and parts of China. This often reflects a history of sheep production. In these countries in particular, dishes comprising alternative cuts and offal may be popular or traditional. Sheep testicles—called animelles or lamb fries—are considered a delicacy in many parts of the world. Perhaps the most unusual dish of sheep meat is the Scottish haggis, composed of various sheep innards cooked along with oatmeal and chopped onions inside its stomach. In comparison, countries such as the U.S. consume only a pound or less (under 0.5 kg), with Americans eating 50 pounds (22 kg) of pork and 65 pounds (29 kg) of beef. In addition, such countries rarely eat mutton, and may favor the more expensive cuts of lamb: mostly lamb chops and leg of lamb.

 

Though sheep's milk may be drunk rarely in fresh form, today it is used predominantly in cheese and yogurt making. Sheep have only two teats, and produce a far smaller volume of milk than cows. However, as sheep's milk contains far more fat, solids, and minerals than cow's milk, it is ideal for the cheese-making process. It also resists contamination during cooling better because of its much higher calcium content. Well-known cheeses made from sheep milk include the feta of Bulgaria and Greece, Roquefort of France, Manchego from Spain, the pecorino romano (the Italian word for "sheep" is pecore) and ricotta of Italy. Yogurts, especially some forms of strained yogurt, may also be made from sheep milk. Many of these products are now often made with cow's milk, especially when produced outside their country of origin. Sheep milk contains 4.8% lactose, which may affect those who are intolerant.

 

As with other domestic animals, the meat of uncastrated males is inferior in quality, especially as they grow. A "bucky" lamb is a lamb which was not castrated early enough, or which was castrated improperly (resulting in one testicle being retained). These lambs are worth less at market.

 

In science

Sheep are generally too large and reproduce too slowly to make ideal research subjects, and thus are not a common model organism. They have, however, played an influential role in some fields of science. In particular, the Roslin Institute of Edinburgh, Scotland used sheep for genetics research that produced groundbreaking results. In 1995, two ewes named Megan and Morag were the first mammals cloned from differentiated cells, also referred to as gynomerogony. A year later, a Finnish Dorset sheep named Dolly, dubbed "the world's most famous sheep" in Scientific American, was the first mammal to be cloned from an adult somatic cell. Following this, Polly and Molly were the first mammals to be simultaneously cloned and transgenic.

 

As of 2008, the sheep genome has not been fully sequenced, although a detailed genetic map has been published, and a draft version of the complete genome produced by assembling sheep DNA sequences using information given by the genomes of other mammals. In 2012, a transgenic sheep named "Peng Peng" was cloned by Chinese scientists, who spliced his genes with that of a roundworm (C. elegans) in order to increase production of fats healthier for human consumption.

 

In the study of natural selection, the population of Soay sheep that remain on the island of Hirta have been used to explore the relation of body size and coloration to reproductive success. Soay sheep come in several colors, and researchers investigated why the larger, darker sheep were in decline; this occurrence contradicted the rule of thumb that larger members of a population tend to be more successful reproductively. The feral Soays on Hirta are especially useful subjects because they are isolated.

 

Domestic sheep are sometimes used in medical research, particularly for researching cardiovascular physiology, in areas such as hypertension and heart failure. Pregnant sheep are also a useful model for human pregnancy, and have been used to investigate the effects on fetal development of malnutrition and hypoxia. In behavioral sciences, sheep have been used in isolated cases for the study of facial recognition, as their mental process of recognition is qualitatively similar to humans.

 

Cultural impact

Sheep have had a strong presence in many cultures, especially in areas where they form the most common type of livestock. In the English language, to call someone a sheep or ovine may allude that they are timid and easily led. In contradiction to this image, male sheep are often used as symbols of virility and power; the logos of the Los Angeles Rams football team and the Dodge Ram pickup truck allude to males of the bighorn sheep, Ovis canadensis.

 

Counting sheep is popularly said to be an aid to sleep, and some ancient systems of counting sheep persist today. Sheep also enter in colloquial sayings and idiom frequently with such phrases as "black sheep". To call an individual a black sheep implies that they are an odd or disreputable member of a group. This usage derives from the recessive trait that causes an occasional black lamb to be born into an entirely white flock. These black sheep were considered undesirable by shepherds, as black wool is not as commercially viable as white wool. Citizens who accept overbearing governments have been referred to by the Portmanteau neologism of sheeple. Somewhat differently, the adjective "sheepish" is also used to describe embarrassment.

 

In heraldry

In British heraldry, sheep appear in the form of rams, sheep proper and lambs. These are distinguished by the ram being depicted with horns and a tail, the sheep with neither and the lamb with its tail only. A further variant of the lamb, termed the Paschal lamb, is depicted as carrying a Christian cross and with a halo over its head. Rams' heads, portrayed without a neck and facing the viewer, are also found in British armories. The fleece, depicted as an entire sheepskin carried by a ring around its midsection, originally became known through its use in the arms of the Order of the Golden Fleece and was later adopted by towns and individuals with connections to the wool industry. A sheep on a blue field is depicted on the greater/royal arms of the king of Denmark to represent the Faroe Islands. In 2004 a modernized arms has been adopted by the Faroe Islands, which based on a 15th century coat of arms.

 

Religion and folklore

In antiquity, symbolism involving sheep cropped up in religions in the ancient Near East, the Mideast, and the Mediterranean area: Çatalhöyük, ancient Egyptian religion, the Cana'anite and Phoenician tradition, Judaism, Greek religion, and others. Religious symbolism and ritual involving sheep began with some of the first known faiths: Skulls of rams (along with bulls) occupied central placement in shrines at the Çatalhöyük settlement in 8,000 BCE. In Ancient Egyptian religion, the ram was the symbol of several gods: Khnum, Heryshaf and Amun (in his incarnation as a god of fertility). Other deities occasionally shown with ram features include the goddess Ishtar, the Phoenician god Baal-Hamon, and the Babylonian god Ea-Oannes. In Madagascar, sheep were not eaten as they were believed to be incarnations of the souls of ancestors.

 

There are many ancient Greek references to sheep: that of Chrysomallos, the golden-fleeced ram, continuing to be told through into the modern era. Astrologically, Aries, the ram, is the first sign of the classical Greek zodiac, and the sheep is the eighth of the twelve animals associated with the 12-year cycle of in the Chinese zodiac, related to the Chinese calendar. It is said in Chinese traditions that Hou ji sacrificed sheep. Mongolia, shagai are an ancient form of dice made from the cuboid bones of sheep that are often used for fortunetelling purposes.

 

Sheep play an important role in all the Abrahamic faiths; Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and King David were all shepherds. According to the Biblical story of the Binding of Isaac, a ram is sacrificed as a substitute for Isaac after an angel stays Abraham's hand (in the Islamic tradition, Abraham was about to sacrifice Ishmael). Eid al-Adha is a major annual festival in Islam in which sheep (or other animals) are sacrificed in remembrance of this act. Sheep are occasionally sacrificed to commemorate important secular events in Islamic cultures. Greeks and Romans sacrificed sheep regularly in religious practice, and Judaism once sacrificed sheep as a Korban (sacrifice), such as the Passover lamb. Ovine symbols—such as the ceremonial blowing of a shofar—still find a presence in modern Judaic traditions.

 

Collectively, followers of Christianity are often referred to as a flock, with Christ as the Good Shepherd, and sheep are an element in the Christian iconography of the birth of Jesus. Some Christian saints are considered patrons of shepherds, and even of sheep themselves. Christ is also portrayed as the Sacrificial lamb of God (Agnus Dei) and Easter celebrations in Greece and Romania traditionally feature a meal of Paschal lamb. A church leader is often called the pastor, which is derived from the Latin word for shepherd. In many western Christian traditions bishops carry a staff, which also serves as a symbol of the episcopal office, known as a crosier, which is modeled on the shepherd's crook.

 

Sheep are key symbols in fables and nursery rhymes like The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, Little Bo Peep, Baa, Baa, Black Sheep, and Mary Had a Little Lamb; novels such as George Orwell's Animal Farm and Haruki Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase; songs such as Bach's Sheep may safely graze (Schafe können sicher weiden) and Pink Floyd's "Sheep", and poems like William Blake's "The Lamb".

Cloudy coastal scene along the English Channel near Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy (France).

 

This photo is offered under a standard Creative Commons License - Attribution 3.0 Unported. It gives you a lot of freedom to use my work commercially as long as you credit and link back to this image on my Flickr page.

 

Flickr resolution: 1800 x 1200 px

 

Also available for download at 5000 x 3333 px on my Patreon page, an ever-growing collection of high res images for one low monthly subscription fee. You can find this specific photo at the following post:

www.patreon.com/posts/normandy-channel-25706029

This visualization uses specific colors to describe which areas on the sun cooled or heated over a 12-hour period. The use of reds and yellows imply that higher temperatures dominated earlier in the time period, while lower temperatures dominated later, meaning that the area showed steady cooling over time, but any heating happened too quickly and impulsively to be measured. The image compares wavelength 211 (which shows material in the 2 million K range) to wavelength 171 (which shows material about ten times cooler).

 

Credit: NASA/Viall

 

To read more go to: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/colorful-science...

 

NASA image use policy.

 

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.

 

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WEEK 25 – Columbus Kmart Closing, Set 2

 

We end this week on a straight-on shot of one portion of the rear wall, this specific section graced with a patch of red paint and also – more importantly – on that pole in front of the red, one of this store’s crown jewels: a surviving 90s triangle-style price scanner sign. I explained this before on my first visit to this store, but to repeat: we’re all familiar with the triangle signs on the walls of practically every Kmart store out there, hailing from the 90s just prior to the Big Kmart experiment; what you may not be familiar with is that all the department signs once featured the same triangle motif, price scanner signs included, before later being replaced with the more familiar green and blue signs that we all know and love (okay, maybe just “know” XD ) once the Big Kmart concept and décor finally did roll out later in that same decade.

 

(In effect, Big Kmart left the walls alone, if I’m understanding correctly… which means either most stores already had the previous triangle décor, which makes for a really quick turnaround remodel-wise [surely this didn’t help the company as it hurdled toward bankruptcy in 2002…!]; or, alternatively, the wall-mounted triangle signs were simply retained in the full Big Kmart design, and installed new in stores that didn’t have them yet. That’s actually fun to think about, if true. Can you name any interior décor elements that have transcended across design eras? Best I can come up with are the similarities between Target’s P04 and P09…)

 

More from this store in two weeks, so be sure to stay tuned for that! In the meantime, next week – beginning our other major, five-week summer tour…

 

(c) 2020 Retail Retell

These places are public so these photos are too, but just as I tell where they came from, I'd appreciate if you'd say who :)

 

Production: 105 (1964-1969)

 

Specific history of this car:

GT40 P/1079 was delivered new from Ford Advanced Vehicles (FAV) as one of the few privately entered factory built lightweight racing cars to Mr Jean Blaton from Brussels, Belgium. Compared to the road cars (which are today often rebuilt and used as race cars), the competition cars had a stronger race spec engine, a smaller, but improved clutch and a 140 litre fuel tank. They also featured a lighter flywheel and 25% stiffer suspension all around. Further the race cars were missing its interior trim, the door pockets, a radio, the heater and exhaust silencers compared to the normal road cars. As this car was one of the very late cars built by John Wyer, it belongs to the last series of GT40 which had slightly modified body parts and was lighter than any of the earlier cars.

 

The original invoice, which comes with the car, proves that Blaton received the yellow car on the 20th April 1968 in Ostende, Belgium for the Ecurie Francorchamps. This was just in time to put the car on a transporter for the 1.000 km race in Monza. The drivers Willy Mairesse and “Jean Beurlys” (the racing name of Jean Blaton) qualified the car 6th on the grid, but had to stop the race after 89 laps due to wheel problems. The where still qualified 7th overall and 2nd in class! The next race for 1079 were the 1.000 km of Spa-Francorchamps, were the car was entered by the Belgium Claude Dubois in the name of the Ecurie Francorchamps, still in its Belgium racing colors. The car was again driven by Mairesse and “Beurlys” who qualified the car in third position, only beaten by the local hero Jacky Ickx in another GT40 and a experimental Ford on pole. The start went very well but the Ecurie Francorchamps had to retire after 45 laps.

 

For the 1968 24 hours of Le Mans, the car was once more entered by Claude Dubois in the name of his team Ecurie Claude Dubois. The original and stamped (18 March 1968) entry form and application forms which are coming with the car, are stating Dubois, “Beurlys” and Mairesse as drivers. After some technical problems during the tests, the ended up in qualifying, now with a fresh engine, 10th on the grip. Shortly before the start of the 24 hours race it started to rain. Mairesse drove off first, but lost the car in the rain and crashed it at high speed on the Mulsanne as a door flew open.

 

After the accident the car remained untouched for a while before it went to Switzerland where it was restored. In the late eighties/early nineties the car was sold to a French based investment funds including some other high valued cars. The car was then offered at a French auction in 1994 and also stayed in France until the last owner bought it in the late nineties. During a further restoration the car has been fully stripped and some wrong parts have been replaced or corrected. The car was then showed to Ronnie Spain, author of the book “GT40: An individual history and race record”, who immediately recognised the car and stated it in writing as the original, ex-Jean Blaton car.

 

Since then, the GT40 was successfully driven at several Le Mans Classic races since 2002. It also raced on various Tour Auto events and Goodwood Revivals with great success. 1079 is probably one of the best documented GT40 race cars until today. Not only is there a more than 400 pages expertise by Ronnie Spain, but also a full technical expertise certifying the authenticity of the chassis. We are very proud to offer this rare and original racing Ford GT40 in race-ready condition. Only very seldom do original competition GT40 appear on the market as most of the cars which are found in historic motorsport are modified road cars.

 

Source: www.mustangdrivers.be/Dubois_ShelbyEuropa/DuboisBeurlysGT...

 

In December 2024 a special exhibition was held about classic sports cars having participated in Le Mans races.

 

Metropole Museum

Druten, the Netherlands.

(Made with a Nikon FE 35mm SLR camera + amber light + close-up lens) (1993) (Berkeley, California)

 

("For the first time, the General Social Survey--a large, national survey conducted every two years and widely considered to represent the gold standard for public opinion research--shows a majority of Americans favoring the legalization of marijuana."

 

---Christopher Ingraham, the Washington Post, 3.4. 2015.)

  

(I subscribe to a free official California state website run by the Department of Cannabis Control, which can be found here:

 

cannabis.ca.gov/resources/cannabis-recalls-and-safety-notices/

  

I think their testing of cannabis products is far, far too limited, in that there are many toxic and possibly toxic substances that they are not testing for. Still, there is value in receiving their email warnings, because I am not seeing these warnings about specific products being widely posted anywhere by the online media, and I do not see such warnings being publicly posted at cannabis stores. Below is a warning I received today.

  

"Notification of Mandatory Product Recall

June 25, 2024

 

The Department of Cannabis Control (DCC) is issuing this consumer advisory for a single CUREpen PREMIUM THC OIL Vape Cartridge product due to the presence of the pesticide chlorfenapyr.

 

Consumers who purchased this product are urged to check their packaging for the UID and batch number listed below."

 

The notification also mentions that the recalled product was "Packaged by: Alkhemist DM LLC".)

  

(The website of the large cannabis dispensary Harborside in Oakland, California has a "Seizure-Safe" setting that "clears flashes and reduces color".)

 

(In May 2011, "DistantEchoes" commented on reddit dot com that viewing my art "may cause seizures and brain damage.")

 

("...video games with rapidly changing images or highly regular patterns can produce seizures, and video games have increased in importance as triggers as they have become more common."

 

---from the Wikipedia page "Photosensitive Epilepsy".)

  

("...in November 2017, two months before legal sales were to begin...the California Department of Food and Agriculture released rules that shocked the farming community: The state would allow legal pot farms to grow as large as they want."

 

"Glass House Farms, one of the state’s biggest cultivators, grows cannabis in a 2 million-square-foot greenhouse facility that was financed by a $100 million loan."

 

---Lester Black, 11.17. 2024, SFGATE.

  

["Glass House reported its cost of production at $139 per pound. The company also stated that it sold the equivalent of over 90,000 pounds of dried biomass in the second quarter of 2023 at an average price of $340 per pound."

 

---cannabis benchmarks dot com, 8.22. 2023.]

  

["...we’re the largest cannabis flower brand in the largest market in the world."

 

---glass house brands dot com, 11.19. 2024. The site also says that Glass House has a six million square-foot "state of the art greenhouse footprint".]

  

[On their website, Glass House tells people how to buy stock in Glass House Brands, even providing links to brokers like Charles Schwab.])

  

"'Criminal records for marijuana use and possession have imposed needless barriers to employment, housing, and educational opportunities,' Biden said in December. 'Too many lives have been upended because of our failed approach to marijuana. It's time that we right these wrongs.'"

 

---from a 4.30. 2024 CBS News article "Justice Dept will move to reclassify marijuana in a historic shift, sources say". ("Robert Legare and Willie James Inman contributed to this report.") "The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration will move to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, a historic shift to generations of American drug policy that could have wide ripple effects across the country."

 

(During the course of my career in non-profit quality control, I smoked marijuana every day for 29 of the past 42 years. I found that it often inspired me.

  

***Burning plants and then inhaling the smoke very, very obviously seems like an unhealthy thing to do since there are so many, many possibly toxic substances in the smoke!***

  

[“'On Jan. 1, 2014 in Denver, 1/8 ounce of Bubba Kush was the USA’s first legal sale of this for recreational purposes,' the host said."

 

"One of the $2,000 challenges on a recent episode was to identify the first part of the name of a 'well-known hallucinogen' that ends 'acid diethylamide.' The contestant said 'lysergic,' as in LSD."

 

---Kyle Jaeger, 5.12. 2019, marijuanamoment dot net, writing about the mainstream television game show "Jeopardy".]

 

As of early 2022, there are said to be 779 different strains of marijuana being sold.

 

My favorite imported kinds of marijuana were Punta Roja Colombian, "Thai sticks", and Mexican from Oaxaca. Some of the Cannabis Sativa grown in Hawaii that I smoked was not only potently psychedelic, but also WONDERFULLY TASTY.

 

I also enjoyed some of the hashish that came from Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Nepal. The hashoil I smoked that came from Morocco greatly lifted my spirits and provided unique insight. "Bubble Hash" made in Berkeley gave me colorful visions.

 

I even quaffed Hi-Brew Beer [early 1980s marijuana/alcohol beverage].

  

To celebrate my 70th birthday I smoked a potent "sativa hybrid" strain of marijuana called "Runtz". [29.1% THC, .05% CBD, 33.8% total cannabinoids. Total terpenes: 1.5%. Top 3 terpenes: caryophyllene, limonene, and myrcene. Packaged 9.6. 2021. Tested by Belcosta Labs. Distributed by a company in North Hollywood, California.]

  

[In the 1970s I trimmed MANY pounds of marijuana. One of my associates, a taxi driver who claimed that he had “rolled so many joints I don’t have any fingerprints left” was so impressed that he borrowed my scissors and had them plated with gold.]

  

['Miron had stolen a big pile of wedding invitations... and we would use them to make filters for joints."

 

---Etgar Keret, translated from the Hebrew by Miriam Shlesinger and Sondra Silverston, in his 2002 collection of short stories THE NIMROD FLIPOUT. When I was arrested in 1985 the police seized a small box of filters from me that I had made by cutting some of my business cards into strips. I called them "jay-spacers" and had labeled the box. In 1986 when I went in front of the parole board, they (not knowing what a "jay-spacer" is) made a big deal out of the filters. "You had almost a hundred jay-spacers!" they said very accusingly...]

  

["I was able to access memories I didn't even know I had in extreme detail!!"

 

---Idefe, describing "Peanut Butter Breath", a hybrid strain of marijuana. Leafly dot com, 2019. Idefe gave "Peanut Butter Breath" the highest possible rating. I AGREE!]

  

[And yet:

 

In late April 2021, Facebook warned me that when it comes to illegal drugs, on my Facebook page I am NOT allowed to admit "personal use" without acknowledgment of or reference to recovery, treatment, or other assistance to combat usage...]

  

Surfing on a toke--and when the bowl of the pipe looks like the Grand Canyon, I know I've almost had enough...

  

[Stoner humor: Photo of a marijuana cigarette. Over the first four-fifths of the marijuana cigarette is written "I love nature so much...what a beautiful day." Over the last fifth is written "The raccoons work for the CIA."]

  

[Willie Nelson won 10 Grammy awards, and has appeared in 37 movies and TV shows. More than 40 million copies of his more than 100 albums have been sold. He has smoked marijuana for MANY years. Nelson is an outspoken advocate for the drug and has been arrested several times for possession of marijuana. He was arrested in 2006 for possessing marijuana and hallucinogenic mushrooms. His latest song is titled "Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die".

 

---from an Associated Press news report, 4.21. 2012.]

  

["I smoke two joints in the morning

I smoke two joints at night

I smoke two joints in the afternoon

It makes me feel all right"

 

"I smoke two joints in time of peace

And two in time of war

I smoke two joints before I smoke two joints

And then I smoke two more"

 

---Chris Kay and Michael Kay, in their 1983 song "Smoke Two Joints", which was recorded by The Toyes.]

  

["Things Get Grounded When There's Chemistry"

 

"Cannabis Connects"

 

"Life In Color" (over a rainbow of colors)

 

---from a billboard advertisement for cannabis oil cartridges, edibles, and tinctures made by a company named Chemistry. I saw the billboard, which has a lavender background and depicts two women on a rug smiling at each other, on Telegraph Avenue at 63rd street in Oakland, California in June 2019.]

  

[The first cannabis label that I remember seeing (printed in black ink on blue paper) was "STONY RIDGE" brand marijuana. It was on a one-pound bag of American-grown product that I obtained from Richard Krech in 1972.]

  

["One toke over the line sweet Jesus

One toke over the line"

 

"Waitin' for the train that goes home sweet Mary

Hopin' that the train is on time

Sittin' downtown in a railway station

One toke over the line"

 

---Mike Brewer and Tom Shipley, in their 1970 song "One Toke Over The Line". Vice President Spiro Agnew did not like the song and called it "subversive". After being investigated on suspicion of conspiracy, bribery, extortion, and tax fraud, Agnew was convicted of felony tax evasion and forced to resign.]

  

["California's cannabis-growing nuns pray for profits"

 

---BBC News headline, late October 2022.]

  

["He said 'drugs make you too pleased with everything.'"

 

---Sarah Seiter, associate curator of Natural Sciences at the Oakland Museum of California, quoting David Hockney on the connection between drugs and creativity. Seiter was quoted by Paul Kilduff in an interview about a current show, "Altered State: Marijuana in California". The East Bay Monthly, July 2016 issue.

 

I think I somewhat understand what Hockney said, and I think there is truth in his statement. I also think that I often find great value and much joy in seeing beauty in both the wheat AND the chaff!]

  

[After many years of refusing to go to marijuana stores, I made my first purchase at one in 2020. (I now must purchase my cannabis at a store since, because of my extreme poverty, it is not [and has never been] possible for me to grow marijuana, and since it is no longer safe for me to continue, as I did for decades, to purchase black market marijuana. I enjoy interacting with the many helpful and kind people working at the local cannabis store. It makes me very happy to see them working there!)]

  

Here is a list of some of the cannabis products I have used [and a few that I have not used, or do not remember the effects of using] that were obtained from marijuana stores in the San Francisco bay area. [From labels I saved]:

  

"Jeeter" brand "Mai Tai" [sativa] pre-roll one gram joint of indoor-grown marijuana "infused" with THCA "diamonds" and kief. "MFG/PKG date: June 23RD, 2023" "Total THC: 42.5%, delta-9 THC: 1.69%, THCA: 46.5%"

 

["...a class action lawsuit against DreamFields Inc., and Med for America Inc., on behalf of California consumers who purchased cannabis products with inaccurate THC content labels.

 

The lawsuit alleges that defendants, who make, sell, and market 'Jeeter' brand cannabis products, overcharged consumers by illegally selling products whose THC content was substantially lower than the amounts listed on the label."

 

---from a October 2022 press release.]

 

Blueberry

Tsunami

Outdoor Rom

Trainwreck

Orange Hill Special

Red Widow

Smoothelove

Dutch Passionkush

Northern Green

Spice

Nor Kali Black Spice

Sensi Star

Organic Main Wreck

Sour Diesel ["22.73% THC" (2019)]

Sour Diesel [26.22% THC, .8% CBD, 27.72% total cannabinoids (2021)]

Ice Ice

Fruity Bliss

Organic Remedy

NYC Diesel

S1-5

Organic Super Silver Haze

Morning Star

Sun Grown Purple OG

Jedi

Sweet Nightmare

Kosher Strawberries

Dirty Little Pig

Durbin Poison

Oracle

Space Cowboy

Bubble Haze

White Widow

Mountain Kick

Snow White

Sun Grown Diesel

Yumbolt

Co-op

Organic Flo

Candyland

Silvercratic

Sun Grown Chocolope

Pineapple Kush

Goo-5

Nor Kali Kaui Kola

Dynomite

Nor Kali Buddha's Haze

Old Grand Huck

Grape Ape

Sour Diesel Lemon

Buddha's Sister

Super Jack

Organic Rom Thai

Third Eye

Pink Champagne

World Wide Widow

Afgootiva

Greased Lightning

Outdoor Organic Humboldt

Herijuana

Cherry Pie

Peak 19

Organic Mazar

Outdoor Train Crossing

Organic Shaman

Super Star

Rhino

Burmese

Double Dream

Jelly

Caramel

Kahuna

Shiva's Tears

Organic A-10

Purple Burmese

Lemon Skunk x Royal Orange

Mendo Blendo

The Sativa

Organic Hawaiian Snow

Purple Kush Domina

Organic Ultra Skunk

Sage 'n' Sour

Outdoor Organic Kam

Tree-W

Da Kind

Jack Frost

Pot O' Gold

Shiva Afghani

Gorilla's Mist

Strawberry Cough

Sativa 2

Organic Jane

Organic Purple Way

Outdoor Organic Bonkers

Organic Purps

Outdoor Organic Goo

Juicy Fruit

Mind Eraser

Pearly Baker

Lavender Goo

Titan OG

White Russian

Sonoma Coma

Organic Sticky Nurple

MK Ultra

Outdoor Organic Trainwreck x White Widow

Organic Sweetleaf

Organic Purple Ice

Jack Herer

Zlushie Kush

God's Gift

Outdoor Organic Purple Mendo

Organic Ogre

Organic Trance

William's Wonder x Northern Lights

Blue Ogre

Organic Lamb's Bread

Champagne

Black Bunanna

Super Chunk

Organic Rom Cross

Sun Grown Goji Jack

Rom Hottie

Organic Slider

Animal Cookies

Sunshine Grown Green Dragon

El Bueno

Jakki

Organic Time Warp

Durban Dream

Organic Mist

Cookie Pie

Mantanuska TF

Pineapple Trainwreck

Organic Mantanuska Mist

Organic Mothership

Traincrash

Swazi Haze

Grape Pop

Golden Goo

Organic Trance

Jack'l Berry

Outdoor Mysty

Purple Peak 19

AK-47

Sage

Motor City

Purple Erkel

Crazy Hazy

Bright Star

Green Crack

Power Plant

Organic Cindy 99

Skunk #2

Organic Bonana

Outdoor Organic Hash Plant

Baby Blues

Cat Piss

Mr. Nice (G 13 x Hash Plant)

Girl Scout Cookie

Outdoor Organic Blue Dot

Sour Daze

Thin Mint

Grand Daddy Purple

Spicy Jack

Outdoor Organic Pure Rezin

Old Mother Sativa

Master Yoda Kush

Mountain Girl

Green Ribbon

Ice Cream Cake #5

Super Wreck

Sapphire Star

Grenadine

Bombshell

Also Known As

Pea Soup

Razzlez

Pirate's Kush

Purple Tangie

Leda Una

Cloud Berry

Northern Lights x Big Bud

All Star Organic Oaktown Wreck

Animal Punch

805 Glue

Sunset Sherbet

Forbidden Fruit

Cookie Monster

Blue Dream [Blueberry x Santa Cruz Haze] [26.64% THC, .1% CBD] ["AlphaPinene: 0.51%, BetaCaryophyllene: 0.25%, BetaMyrcene: 0.95%, BetaPinene: 0.23%, Bisabolol: 0.03%, CBC: 0.06%, CBD: 1.08mg/g, CBDa: 1.23mg/g, CBG: 0.07%, CBGA: 0.26%, CBN: 0.02%, Humulene: 0.1%, Limonene: 0.1%, Linalool: 0.06%, THC: 266.45mg/g, THC9: 19.57mg/g, THCA: 281.51mg/g" (Information posted by the Harborside cannabis store in San Leandro, California on 10.23. 2024 about "Dime Bag" brand Blue Dream marijuana flowers.)]

Berry Haze [26.8% THC, .1% CBD, 28.51% total cannabinoids] ["AlphaPinene: 0.03%, BetaCaryophyllene: 0.49%, BetaMyrcene: 0.05%, BetaPinene: 0.06, CBD: 1.02mg/g , CBDa: 1.17mg/g, CBG: 0.06%, CBGA: 1.31%, CBN: 0.02%, Humulene: 0.16%, Limonene: 0.35%, Linalool: 0.1%, THC: 267.97mg/g, THC9: 5.87mg/g, THCA: 298.85mg/g" (Information posted by the Harborside cannabis store in San Leandro, California on 10.23. 2024 about "Dime Bag" brand Berry Haze marijuana flowers.)]

Jelly Cake [27.4% THC, .14% CBD]

Cherry Popperz [28.85% THC]

Blue Face [Face Off OG x Animal Mints (Blue Pheno)] [32.90% THC, .05% CBD]

Orange Tree [27.08% THC, .06% CBD, 28.84% total cannabinoids]

Bubblegum Runtz [32.5% THC]

Starberry Cough [21.51% THC, 21.62% total cannabinoids]

Apple Fritter [37.1% THC]

Girl Scout Cookies [36.58% THC]

Organic Purple Haze

Purple Haze [34.5% THC, .043% CBD, 35.2% total cannabinoids]

Z x Georgia Pie [27.8% THC, 29.1% total cannabinoids]

Space Lollipops [31.42% THC, .12% CBD, 32.1% total cannabinoids]

Snow Runtz [37.34% THC]

Sour Tangie [25.05% THC, 25.29% total cannabinoids]

Rainbow Smacks [indoor shake] [23.37% THC, .01% CBD, 34.64% total cannabinoids (15.4% delta-9 THC)]

Platinum Gelato [18.17% THC, .07% CBD]

Blueberry Space Cake [31.98% THC, 33.6% total cannabinoids] [Said to be a 90% indica-10% sativa hybrid. Packaged on 8.31. 2023.]

 

[I am thinking of legally changing my name to Blueberry Space Cake...]

 

Gooberry [30.43% THC, .1% CBD, 31.75% total cannabinoids]

Lemonwreck [34% THC]

Balance [31% THC]

Chill [34% THC]

Platinum Scout [26.90% THC, .07% CBD, 27.60% total cannabinoids]

Cadillac Cookies [38.79% THC, 39.11% total cannabinoids] [infused with THCA "diamonds"] [With the image of an American flag:"Veteran owned and operated since 2017."]

Woah-Si-Woah [41.7% THC, 42.07% total cannabinoids] [infused with THCA "diamonds"]

Grapes N Cream [27.05% THC, .05% CBD]

Space Mamba [32.14% THC, .14% CBD, 32.71% total cannabinoids]

Blue Horchata Mintz [30.44% THC, .08% CBD, 35.78% total cannabinoids]

Triangle Cookies [19.49% THC, .07% CBD (21.22% total cannabinoids: 14.93% THCA, 6.40% delta-9 THC) (1.32% terpenes, including .69% b-caryophyllene and .21% humulene)]

GMO Fuel [Girl Scout Cookies x Chemdawg] [33.1 % THC, .06% CBD, 35.4% total cannabinoids] [A mostly indica strain that has a strong taste and smell reminding some people of things like "garlic, mushrooms, and onions" aka "GMO". (NOT genetically-modified, at least not in the conventional meaning of the term...)] I smoked GMO Fuel to celebrate becoming 72 years old in 2023.

Obama Runtz [30.61% THC, .09% CBD, 31.02% total cannabinoids]

Headband [OG Kush x Sour Diesel] [37% THC]

Jetfuel [31% THC]

GMO [28.7% THC]

Rainbow Belts [Moonbow x Zkittlez] [32% THC}

Wet Dream [Blue Dream x Ocean Beach Haze] [28.65% THC, 28.94% total cannabinoids]

Animal Mints [Thin Mint GSC x Fire OG] [25.03% THC, .03% CBD, 26.62% total cannabinoids]

Mixed Berry Runtz [30.6% THC, .07% CBD, 32.7% total cannabinoids]

Gello [21.4% THC, .04% CBD, 22.15% total cannabinoids] ["Indoor Sugar-Trim"]

Bernie Hana Butter [24.65% THC]

Prism [25.17% THC, 30.06% total cannabinoids]

Delirium [29% THC, 35% total cannabinoids]

Pave [29.9% THC, 30.9% total cannabinoids]

Astro Funk [21.2% THC] [Pre-ground indoor-grown flower shake] [Limited amounts of this surprisingly potent marijuana were being legally sold in California cannabis stores in May 2023 for fifty cents per gram as marijuana "extender"...]

Lemonchello Gelato [33.205% THC] ["Main Terpenes: limonene, caryophyllene, humulene"] A FAVORTE!

Gush Mints [27.32% THC]

Gush Mints [18.6% THC] ["indoor sugar-trim"]

OG Legend Littles [23.11% THC, .06% CBD]

Cherry Chem [21.16% THC, .04% CBD]

Dosilato [27.32% THC]

Cereal Milk [24.5% THC]

Fuji Ice [Apple Fritter x Ice Bx2] [31.44% THC]

White Cherry Gelato [25.07% THC]

Peanut Butter Gelato [Do-Si-Dos x Mendo Breath] [28% THC]

Toffee [26.6% THC]

Maui Cheesecake [24% THC]

Wedding Cake "Sugar Shake" [30.31% THC]

Kush Mints "Sugar Shake" [24.32% THC, 26.46% total cannabinoids]

Apple Sauce [33.84% THC, 37.91% total cannabinoids]

Early Bird [34.71% THC, 38.16% total cannabinoids]

Purple Cake Batter [25.82% THC, .06% CBD, 31.21% total cannabinoids]

True OG [26.4% THC, 27.2% total cannabinoids]

Magic City Mango [Platinum Cookies x GDP x Blue Power x Gelatti] [26.4% THC, .07% CBD, 31.3% total cannabinoids]

Cookie Dawg [26.89% THC, .07% CBD, 31.79% total cannabinoids]

Lemon Jack [25.86% THC, .06% CBD, 30.90% total cannabinoids]

Hawaiian Haze [25.56% THC, .07% CBD, 30.65% total cannabinoids]

Marshmallow OG [24.99% THC (22.49% THCA, 5.25% THCD9), 1.06% CBD, 29.16% total cannabinoids, 4.6% terpenes (1.72% Limonene, .82% B-Caryophyllene, .47% Myrcene, .35% B-Pinene, .30% Linalool, .25% a-Humulene, .24% a-Pinene, .23% Nerolidol) (indoor-grown)]

GMO Crasher [Wedding Crasher x GMO] [24.7% THC, .062% CBD, 26.46% total cannabinoids]

Black Diamond [28.26% THC, .08% CBD, 34.51% total cannabinoids]

Bubba Berry [36.57% THC, .11% CBD, 44.47% total cannabinoids]

Cookies and Cream [26.6% THC, .08% CBD, 32.7% "total active cannabinoids"]

Blue Cookies [38.25% THC, .15% CBD, 46.77% total cannabinoids]

Snowcap [38.96% THC, 41.35% total cannabinoids] [Packaged in May 2022 with an image of people dancing and the words "a Party in every Bag!"]

Hawaiian Dream [26.71% THC, .8% CBD, 31.97% total cannabinoids]

Cookies Kush [27.66% THC, .08% CBD, 32.72% total cannabinoids]

White Kush [26.06% THC, .07% CBD, 34.60% total cannabinoids]

Papaya Punch [28.10% THC, .07% CBD, 33.02% total cannabinoids]

Royal Kush [24.47% THC, .07% CBD, 29.31% total cannabinoids]

Platinum Cake [31.63% THC, .11% CBD, 38.23% total cannabinoids]

Gorilla Breath [22.33% THC, .16% CBD, 23.56% total cannabinoids]

French Cookies [Girl Scout Cookie x Chemdawg] [21.44% THC, .06% CBD, 26% total cannabinoids]

Bubba Hash [34.32% THC, .16% cbd, 35.68% total cannabinoids]

Dank You [26.57% THC, .06% CBD, 31.86% total cannabinoids]

Sugar Plum [27.87% THC, .23% CBD, 28.64% total cannabinoids]

Mazar Kush [36.86% THC, .16% CBD, 38.25% total cannabinoids]

Blackberry Hashplant [26.09% THC, .06% CBD, 31.19% total cannabinoids]

Kali Mist [26.24% THC, .08% CBD, 31.47% total cannabinoids]

Gumball No. 3 [29.73% THC, 35.73% total cannabinoids]

Gumball No. 4 [27.93% THC, 28.31% total cannabinoids]

Wedding Pie [28.13% THC, 32.72% total cannabinoids]

E85 [Jetfuel OG x Biscotti] [32.99% THC, 2.11% CBD, 2.56% terpenes, 35.1% total cannabinoids]

Super Lemon Cherry [31.4% THC, 36.6% total cannabinoids, 2.3% terpenes "white ash, no black ash, all organic, 14-day flush, slow cure"] Sour Jack [24.24% THC, .2% CBD, 25.23% total cannabinoids]

Sweet Diesel [34.3% THC, .06% CBD, 34.41% total cannabinoids]

Banana Dream [25.2% THC, .09% CBD, 30.5% total cannabinoids]

Banana Bread [Banana OG x Maui Bread] [34.98% THC, 42.2% total cannabinoids]

Kush Mountains [30.2% THC, .07% CBD, 35.19% total cannabinoids]

Hindu Kush [24.1% THC, .04% CBD, 28.79% active cannabinoids]

Hindu Kush [24.99% THC, .07% CBD, 29.92% total cannabinoids]

Biscotti Cookies [22% THC]

LA Pop Rocks [27% THC, 31% total cannabinoids]

OCC [17.87% THC, 20.38% total cannabinoids]

Sundae Driver [24% THC]

Flow White [22.14% THC, 0.056% CBD]

Slurricane [22.57% THC, 0.065% CBD]

Super Silver Haze [24% THC, 0.07% CBD, 1.30% total terpenes]

Super Silver Haze [27.87% THC, .16% CBD, 29.98% total cannabinoids]

Space Cakes [31.96% THC]

Gorilla Goo [23.24% THC]

King Louis [20.82% THC, 25.77% total cannabinoids]

Turquoise Jeep [23.6% THC]

OG Kush [22.0% THC]

Kush Mint Cookies [31.36% THC]

Willie's Kush [23.97% THC]

Chem Reserve [38.56% THC]

Petrol Kush [20.73% THC]

Mimosa [24.8% THC, .1% CBD]

Mimosa [27.05% THC, .14% CBD, 27.99% total cannabinoids]

Mimosa [28.49% THC, 0% CBD]

Clout Cake [26.14% THC, .06% CBD] ["Friends Don't Let Friends Smoke Mids"]

Cali Cherry Pie [20.60% THC, .08% CBD]

PR OG [16.51% THC]

Meat Breath [21.26% THC, 26.56% total cannabinoids]

Orange Cookies [19.90% THC]

White Fire [29.1% THC, .07% CBD, 34.5% total cannabinoids]

Motorbreath [15.42% THC]

805 Sour [20.72% THC]

Cherry Dosido [Cherry Cheesecake x Dosido] [29.98% THC]

Cherry Do-Si-Do [24% THC]

Super Chem [Sour 2.0 x Chem] [21.28% THC, 26.17% total cannabinoids]

Orange [20.08% THC]

Malawi Dream [20.4% THC, .19% CBD]

Purple Cake [18.34% THC]

Strawberry Banana [20.59% THC, .19% CBD]]

Peanut Butter Breath [18.18% THC]

Peanut Butter Breath [27.7% THC, .05% CBD, 32.8% total cannabinoids]

Alien OG [20.18% THC]

Garanimal Cookies [20.64% THC, .03% CBD]

Dark Karma [Dutch Treat x Strange Love] [25.71% THC, .04% CBD]

China White [26.42% THC]

Gushers [20.65% THC]

Gushers [36.08% THC]

Los Angeles Kush [23.05% THC]

Triple Scoop Gelato [27.7% THC]

Purple Punch [26.44% THC]

Trifi Cookies [21.99% THC]

Rollins [24.36% THC]

Wedding Chemz [24.2% THC] [from a cannabis company founded by Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart]

Han Solo Burger [GMO Cookies x Larry F8] [More than 30% THC]

Cereal Milk [29% THC, 31.12% total cannabinoids] [A hybrid strain that is distributed in glass jars with VIVIDLY colorful reflective metallic labels containing 28 pre-rolled filter-tipped marijuana cigarettes. Each marijuana cigarette contains .5 gram "greenhouse hydroponic" cannabis.

 

One of the warnings on the label:

 

"Smoking cannabis increases your cancer risk and during pregnancy exposes your child to delta-9-THC and other chemicals that can affect your child's birth weight, behavior, and learning ability."]

 

Ice Cream Cake [22.2% THC] ["Honest Flower" brand "Indica" from Eden Enterprises. "Flower You Can Trust" 3.5 grams in a small child-resistant plastic container from Calyx Containers. "Made in USA"]

Humboldt OG ["17.76% THC" hybrid pre-roll. Cultivator: "Grouse Mountain Green" in Humboldt County, California. Distributor: "Emerald Family Farms" 2019]

Ghost OG ["22.49% THC .05% CBD" hybrid "Manufactured and distributed by Flora California" from "Sessions Supply Co." pre-roll]

Wedding Cuvee ["21.60% THC .05% CBD" hybrid "Manufactured and distributed by Flora California" from "Sessions Supply Co." "Time For Blast Off" (On package containing 3.5 grams) 2019]

Jungle Glue ["Krush Kingz" pre-roll by "Berkeley Pharmz" 2019]

Orange Mango ["19.8% THC" "Distributed by Black Oak Gallery" 2019]

Ziablo [Grown by IC Collective.] [2019] [The jars containing 3.5 grams feature one of my favorite labels, a very colorful skeleton-skull!]

Now and Laters ["20.51% THC" "Sativa" Grown in Shasta County, California, and distributed by Ember Valley, 2019.]

Ghost Mints ["23.31% THC, 0.9% CBD". "...may be habit forming." "This product may be unlawful outside of Washington State." from "Green Fire Production, Inc."]

Extreme Jack [16.49% THC "even hybrid" "greenhouse-grown" "Warning: This product can expose you to chemicals including arsenic, which is known to the state of California to cause cancer. For more information, go to www.p65warnings.ca.gov&quot; from Foxworthy Farms, 2019.]

Blackout ["Inspire featuring limonene 7.84% THC, 8.05% CBD. From Abatin Farms, 2018]

Cherry Vortex [Sativa-dominant."17.46% THC". From Headwaters. Source: UPI Supply Systems, Inc. Origin: Carpenteria, CA. Packaged 12. 14. 2018. Expiration date: 12. 13. 2019. "WARNING: Cancer and Reproductive harm."]

Wedding Cake ["14.36% THC" pre-roll from "Humboldt Growers". 2019] [Also: from Marley Natural, "grown in Trinity County, California." "16.3% THC" 2019] [Also: "from Sublime, in Oakland, California." "Fuzzies" brand pre-roll, "infused with cannabis concentrate, kief, and terpenes" "25% THC and 1% CBD" 2019] [Also: from Pacific Stone in Santa Barbara, California 2019]

Blueberry Muffin ["15.94% THC" pre-roll from "Humboldt County Indoor". Harvested 12.1. 2018]

Unicorn Tears [indoor Sativa"blend"] "22.8% THC", 1 gram pre-roll from Sunset Connect in San Francisco, 2024.

Raspberry Diesel ["18.2% THC", grown by "Fleur d'elite"]

Banjo [hybrid pre-roll from "Just Chief"]

Banjo [2 gram bottle from "Coastal Sun Farm". Package date: 8.28. 2019. "26% THC. 30.9% total cannabinoids". "Consciously Grown." "Healthy Plants Heal Humans".]

Banjo ["16.49% THC "sativa" from Pacific Stone in Santa Barbara, California.

Wifi43 [pre-roll from State Flower Cannabis Company, San Francisco 2019 "19.63% THC"]

Dolato [hybrid pre-roll from "Just Chief"]

Miss U.S.A. [1 gram all flower Indica pre-roll from Lowell Smokes. 18% THC. In a glass tube. "Test: Cannasafe 01. 19. 19"]

Royal Blend ["Krush Kings" brand pre-roll from "Industry Standard Group, Inc." 18.74% THC "hybrid-indica" "Your Royal Highness"]

San Fernando Valley OG ["The Weed Brand pre-roll. 1 gram."]

Shark Shock ["The Weed Brand pre-roll. 1 gram." "grown by Caliber." "Harvested 4.20. 2019." "19.5% total cannabinoids"]

Gelato 45 [The Weed Brand preroll. Harvest date: 7.23. 2018. Packed: 9.24. 2018. "Best Buy": 7.23. 2019. 16.9% THC. 0.26% CBD.]

Banana Bubble [1 gram pre-roll. 160 mg THC. Manufactured by Marigold. Packaged in Santa Rosa, California. 9.28. 2018. "Cultivation with a conscience"]

Fire OG [1 gram pre-roll. 29.23% THC. "infused with oil and kief". From Jeeter.] Pure Kush [Indica. pre-roll. 133 mg THC. "Harvested 7.6. 2018. Best by 10.3. 2019."]

Grizzly Bones [Hybrid. 1 gram pre-roll. Indoor-grown. 155 mg THC. "Grown by Grizzly Peak Farms."]

"Lifted" brand .7 gm "House Cone Fortified with Hash Oil"]

"Cookies" brand "Triple Scoop Infused Blunt" [1 gram flower, .25 gram BADDER, and .25 gram THCA] [hemp wrap and glass tip.]

Super Silver Haze [infused pre-roll] [29.26% THC]

Chocolate Hashberry [Grown in downtown Los Angeles. "Manufactured by Purple Heart Compassionate, Inc."]

Orange Citron ["19.19% THC, 0.02% CBD" "Packaged 4.24. 2019" from "Molecular Farms" in California.]

El Fuego [from "Molecular Farms"]

Key Lime Pie ["Humboldt Farms" "Premium Flower-Hybrid" "15.2% THC, 0.00% CBD" "Harvested on July 2018, Packaged on July 2018" "One-Eighth Ounce" in a clear glass jar with a stopper made of wood. The label has a 1" x 2" colorful detailed image of tall trees and small flowers and a small white Volkswagen van. Printed with metallic ink. After smoking some Key Lime Pie I decided that, in my opinion, this extremely appealing image is the best illustration I have seen on a cannabis label.]

Taffie [This medical cannabis strain is sold in cork-lined light-proof well-labeled tins, each containing 5 joints. The tins come sealed in a bag that contains a Boveda 2-way humidity control packet. This product is distributed by Humboldt Legends, and is labeled Steelhead Sativa. Organically grown in sunlight and harvested by hand. The label has the name (and a copy of the handwritten signature) of the person who grew the marijuana (Scott Davies). Also the batch number and the percentages of THC (19.5%) and CBD (0.0%). The label on the back of the tin states that the group of cultivators who call themselves "Humboldt Legends" have been growing marijuana for "forty years". A warning note states that marijuana is a “Schedule 1 controlled substance”. And that “Smoking this product will expose you and those in your immediate vicinity to marijuana smoke...known to the State of California to cause cancer.” “Keep out of reach of children and animals.” "This product may impair the ability to drive or operate machinery." Obtained in the San Francisco bay area, 2017. (After I smoked some of this marijuana in a dark room, I closed my eyes and saw beautiful hallucinations that were extremely complex, with uniquely vivid colors. When I opened my eyes I had a VERY strong urge to write poetry.)]

Juicee Fruit ["bud-only pre-roll. 1 gram. Cultivated 7.28.18. Packaged 7.16.18. Batch ID 6-15-18-JF.] THC 21.14%. 211.4 mg/serving. 0mg CBD/serving V.H.H.C. Juicy Fruit $9.99+Tax" Seven Leaves brand, packaged in black plastic child-proof tube]

"Top Shelf Rainbow Diesel Minis [Sativa]" [small joints]

"Top Shelf Hell OG Minis [Indica]" [small joints]

"Maui Wowie" [infused flowers] 25.20% Delta-9 THC, 41.75% total cannabinoids [from Baby Jeeter]

"Blue Poison" indoor-grown ground Sativa flower infused with solventless cannabis oil [45.1% THC, 47.8% total cannabinoids]

"Pineapple Express" hybrid indoor cannabis-infused 51.17% THC prerolls, live resin-infused, kief-coated, and terp-enhanced. Five prerolls in a glass jar from Stiiizy. Each pre-roll weighs .5 gram.

"Mericanna" hybrid [small joint] "16.79% THC" [2018]

"Pacific Remedy Shatter joint, hand-rolled in California" "Blue Russian flower, Kosher Kush, BHO Snake" "Indica-dominant" [2017]

"Heshies" brand pre-rolls "Selfies" [small joints] [2019]

"Sour Diesel X Sherbet" [Hybrid pre-roll. 19.97% THC.] [2019] [From Pacific Sunset.]

"Sublime King Fuzzies", pre-roll terpene-enhanced "top shelf bud, CO2 wax/kief", "Indica OG Kush" "THC 253 mg". [2017]

"Watermelon" ["Fuzzies" infused pre-roll, 54.72% THC]

"Trix Bubble" [concentrate]

"Fire Walker" [Raw Garden brand .5 gram pre-roll infused with "Crushed Diamonds" from fresh frozen whole flower. 42.4%

cannabinoids]

ZAZA flower pre-rolls [65% THC, .84% CBD "infused with dual refined distillate, rolled in golden kief"]

"Shiva Crystals" [hashish]

"Pineapple Fruz" [52.56% THC] "Diamond-infused select flowers" in a glass jar containing 2.5 grams of flowers, plus one gram "diamond". [Pineapple Fruz flowers are totally covered with THC "diamond" that looks like dense confectioner's powdered sugar.]

Bombed Buzz [36.46% THC, 36.30% total cannabinoids] ["ingredients: cannabis flwers, THCa, terpene blend"] The packaging features a colorful and vivid cartoon of a bee wearing aviator goggles, smoking a joint while kicked-back on a red bomb falling through the clouds, with these words: "Our mission is to achieve federal legalization for veterans. Your purchase helps fund our lobbying efforts to pressure Congress and the White House to make it happen ASAP. Thank YOU for YOUR support. Let's Roll!" [From the "American Weed Company"]

"Biscotti" [Indica] [Half gram THC pods, for vaping.] [88.24% THC.] [2019] [From STIIIZY. Made by Ironworks Collective.]

"Juicy Melon" [Half gram pods, for vaping.] [41.05% THC, 1:1 CBD] [2020] [From STIIIZY] "This product can expose you to chemicals including Beta-myrcene, which is known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm."

"Sky Diver" ["Refined raw resin. 84.68% THC .29% CBD" ["Indica hybrid" cartridge made by "Raw Garden" "100% fresh frozen whole flower terpenes and cannabis oil" 2019]

Jack Herer brand 1 ml cannabis oil cartridge 83.98% THC, .16% CBD, 89.49% total cannabinoids

"Yogi Berries"["Refined raw resin. 81.99% THC."] ["Indica hybrid" cartridge made by "Raw Garden" 2019]

"Skydoggie" ["Refined raw resin. 83.33% THC 0.2% CBD"] ["Indica" cartridge made by "Raw Garden" 2019]

"Chemberry" ["Refined raw resin. 81.65% THC .35% CBD"] ["Indica" cartridge made by "Raw Garden" 2019]

"Chem Walker" ["Refined raw resin. 81.82% THC" ["Indica hybrid" cartridge made by "Raw Garden" 2019]

"Lemon Haze" [Distilled CO2 extract.] ["90.63% THC 1.64% CBD".] [Made by "Clear Day". 2019]

"Mendo Breath" [CO2- extracted cannabis oil. 78.2% THC.] [From by Marley Natural.] [2019]

"Mango Kush" [Cannabinoid extract plus terpene blend cartridge] [2019] [Made by "Pure Extracts".]

"Select" brand "Mimosa" "cannabis oil vape cartridge" [125 doses per cartridge] 3.5 mg THC per dose. [from the "Select" brand label: "Curating the Science of Feeling" [2018]

Cali Gold H20 [extracted cannabis resin]

"Emerald Dream" ["Single Origin"] [Trinity County, CA] [58% THC] cannabis oil extracted with CO2 [cartridge for use with "Highlighter" vapor pen]

Garlic Cookies [Raw Zen solvent-less cannabis extract. 72.45% THC. One gram in a small glass jar.] [2019]

"Chemdawg" ["terpene rich distillate" by Bakked. 81% THC. 1.14% CBD.]

"XJ-13" [distillate. 88.08% THC. ]

"Granddaddy Purple" ["Flavored Cannabis Extract" cartridge, for vaping, by "Naked Extracts"] ["Indica] ["Ingredients: Cannabis Extract, Non-Cannabis Terpene Blend, Natural Flavors"] [2019]

"Granddaddy Purple" "cured resin" [79.6% THC, 82.1% total cannabinoids]

"Green Crack" [distillate. 88.13% THC.]

[Concentrates:

Banana Kush 95.25% THC

Banana OG 79% THC

Skywalker OG 91.62% THC

Alien OG 87.76% THC

Sour Cookies 89.53% THC

King Louis XIII 85.85% THC

King Louis XIII 90.76% THC

King Louis XIII 92.28% THC

Blue Valley 77.54% THC, .23% CBD

Acapulco Gold 87% THC, .18% CBD, 92% total active cannabinoids

Lemon Tree 90% THC

OG Kush 91.68% THC

Purple Punch 91.7% THC

Super Silver Haze 79.46% THC [live resin]

Electric Blue 78.69% THC [live resin]

Dutch Treat Haze 84% THC, .20% CBD

Blackberry Kush 82.4% THC

SFV OG (San Fernando Valley OG) 78% THC

Crunch Berries Crumble 88.96% THC, 89.09% total cannabinoids

Apple Jack 88% THC

Strawberry Shortcake 91% THC

Dream Queen 87% THC

Star Chaser 89.42% THC

Berry Blast 88.13% THC

Jack Herer 90.83% THC

Blackberry Diesel 91.1% THC

Beach Party 2 83.07% THC

God's Gift 90.8% THC

Mango Dream 86% THC

Strawnana 92.25% THC

Stawberry Shortcake 91% THC

Melonade 91% THC

Incredible Hulk [Green Crack x Jack Herer] 88.93% THC

Strawberry Cough 85.47% THC

Mendo Clouds 83.77% THC

Golden Kiwi 82.84% THC

Do-Si-Dos 91.35% THC

Cookies 84% THC

Blue Beary 83.91% THC

Birthday Cake 83.15% THC

Birthday Cake 87.72% THC

Watermelon Z 71.45% THC

Watermelon OG 91% THC

Cannis Major x Milky Way 65.6% THC, 67.9% total cannabinoids

Double Platinum Cookies 73.27% THC

Gorilla Cookies 77.65% THC

Orange Cookies #12 83.89% THC

Yoda OG 90.43% THC

Blueberry Cookies 85.0% THC

Grapefruit Romulan 92.2% THC

Limeade 83.20% THC

Premium Jack 90.5% THC

Dosi Lemonade 81.62% THC

White Fire 93% THC

Fruity Pebble OG 92.0% THC

Slurmberry 82.71% THC

Pineapple Express 92.82% THC

Georgia Peach 90.63% THC, .23% CBD

"Raw Garden" brand "Forbidden Fruit" "liquified diamonds and botanical terpenes" [87.98% THC, 92.81 total cannabinoids] ***Ocean Beach .5 gram "dry flower" vape cartridge from Cookies (November 2021): 35.3% delta-9 THC, 59.3% total THC, THCA 27.3%. Total terpenes: 7.53%, 1.8% Limonene, 1.08% Linalool, 1.54% Betacaryophyllene***

"hybrid cannabis" from Space Monkey Meds.

Chemdawg + Gelato "Sativa cannabis flowers" distributed in 2019 by "Papa's Herb", 3.5 grams in a lightproof ziplock bag.

  

"Green Crack" cannabis flowers bought at High Fidelity, a marijuana store next to Amoeba Music on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, several blocks from the University of California campus. "Grown by: Blue Nose. Harvested: 10.18. 2018. THC: 16.42%." High Fidelity motto: "Your supreme source for herbal inspiration and higher education."

(After smoking this marijuana, I ate a bag of HIPPEAS brand Bohemian Barbecue Flavor organic chickpea puffs. "Store in a dry and, like, totally cool place.")

 

("UC Berkeley synthetic biologists have engineered brewer's yeast to produce marijuana's main ingredients--mind-altering THC and non-psychoactive CBD--as well as novel cannabinoids not found in the plant itself. Feeding only on sugar, the yeast are an easy and cheap way to produce pure cannabinoids that today are costly to extract from the buds of the marijuana plant..."

 

---Robert Sanders, "Yeast Produce Low-Cost High-Quality Cannabinoids", news.berkeley.edu, 2.27. 2019).

  

"THC-Indica" transdermal patch 18.4 mg THC per patch. By Mary's Medicinals. [Made: 2.4. 2019. Expires: 2.4. 2021.] I have also tried the CBD version.

 

"Releaf Patch" Transdermal patch by Papa & Barkley. "18.56 mg THC plus 18.61 mg CBD" Mfg. date: 7.15. 2019 Best by date: 8.5. 2020

 

Oh, Yes! [cannabis extract + aloe vera] [for vaginal use] [from Quim]

  

[A few times I have gone for months without smoking marijuana, and then smoked a potent joint. On more than one such occasion I have experienced intense fearful disorientation, acute paranoia, and horrible physical distress including nausea and a sudden loss of consciousness. CAUTION IS ESSENTIAL!]

  

I have eaten a variety of cannabis preparations sold at marijuana stores in Berkeley, including:

 

"Emerald Bay Extracts" ["a women owned company"] brand 25 mg THC tablets. [Each of these tablets is said to contain 25 mg of THC from RSO "full spectrum" marijuana oil extracted from a very potent strain of Cannabis Indica called "Afgoo". (The strain is so-named because it is very resinous and is genetically related to marijuana from Afghanistan.) RSO "full spectrum" marijuana oil is named for a Canadian, Rick Simpson, who claimed in 2003 that "full spectrum" marijuana oil can cure a variety of ailments. RSO is VERY easily made by soaking dried and cured marijuana flowers in ethyl alcohol, then filtering out the flowers by pouring the alcohol/marijuana oil mixture through a coffee filter, then removing the alcohol from the alcohol/marijuana oil mixture by heating, leaving the "full spectrum" marijuana oil in the bottom of the container.

 

"Full spectrum" marijuana oil can be made from any strain of marijuana. I first made "full spectrum" marijuana oil more than 51 years ago. Over the decades I made and smoked quite a bit of it. I remain convinced that "full spectrum" marijuana oil made using pure food-grade ethyl alcohol as a solvent yields a product that gets me higher when I smoke it than any other marijuana oil I have tried that was made by any other method.

 

I never ate any of the "full spectrum" marijuana oil I made because I thought it was too difficult to accurately measure the dosage.

 

I find these easily dividable tablets to be EXTREMELY potent.

 

["Emerald Bay Extracts" also produces 25 mg THC tablets containing RSO "full spectrum" marijuana oil extracted from a very potent and, to me, very mind-active strain of Cannabis Sativa, "Blue Dream". Also 25 mg THC tablets containing RSO "full spectrum" marijuana oil extracted from a powerful and, to me, dreamy strain of Cannabis Indica, "Grand Daddy Purple". Also 25 mg THC tablets containing RSO "full spectrum" marijuana oil extracted from what to me is a wonderfully sensual strain of Cannabis Sativa, "Super Sour Diesel". Also 25 mg tablets containing RSO "full spectrum" marijuana oil extracted from a mysterious and exotic strain of Cannabis Sativa known as "Blackberry Sour". Also 25 mg tablets containing RSO "full spectrum" marijuana oil extracted from a strain of Cannabis Indica, "Ice Cream Cake". Also 25 mg THC tablets containing RSO "full spectrum" marijuana oil extracted from a (what I often find to be trippy) strain of indica-dominant hybrid cannabis, "Trifi Cookies". Also 25 mg tablets containing RSO "full spectrum" marijuana oil extracted from a strain of hybrid cannabis, "Banana Kush". Also 25 mg tablets containing RSO "full spectrum" marijuana oil extracted from a strain of Cannabis Sativa, "Lemon Zest". Also 25 mg tablets containing RSO "full spectrum" marijuana oil extracted from a thrillingly tasty strain of indica-dominant hybrid cannabis called "Dosilato" that seems to make art come alive. Also 25 mg tablets containing tasty RSO "full spectrum" marijuana oil extracted from a hybrid strain of Cannabis Sativa, "Lemon Cherry Gelato" ("Sunset Sherbet" x "Girl Scout Cookies"). Also 25 mg tablets containing RSO "full spectrum" marijuana oil extracted from a hybrid strain, "Runtz". The indescribable mental effects I experience after taking "Banana Kush" tablets are INTENSE.]

 

["Emerald Bay Extracts" gave me a free tin of small tablets. The rainbow-colored tin contained 20 tablets made in a variety of colors. Each 5 mg THC tablet contained RSO "full spectrum" marijuana oil extracted from a strain of marijuana called "XXX". "Pride Pack", April 2021.]

 

["Emerald Bay Extracts" also produces stronger 50 mg THC tablets containing RSO "full spectrum" marijuana oil extracted from a fascinatingly dreamy strain of Cannabis Indica, "Biscotti". I was given a free 20-tablet tin of these stronger doses at a cannabis store on 4.20. 2023..."WARNING! SUPER POTENT!"]

 

"Plus" brand vegan "10:1 Calm Mango" gummies, each containing 1 mg THC, 10 mg CBD, and a blend of terpenes. [20 gummies per container]

"Froot" brand orange tangie-flavored cannabis-infused "chews", each containing 10mg of THC. "sativa" [10 "chews" per package]

"Froot" brand blue razz dream-flavored cannabis-infused "chews", each containing 10mg of THC. "hybrid" [10 "chews" per package]

"Pax" brand wild strawberry-flavored cannabis-infused live rosin gummies containing 10mg THC. [10 gummies per package]

"Park Jams" brand coconut-flavored cannabis-infused gummies containing 10 mg THC. [10 gummies per package]

"Kiva" brand peppermint pattie-flavored dark chocolate-coated cannabis-infused "bites" containing 5 mg THC from "solventless cold water hash". [20 "bites" per container]

"Yummi Karma" brand "Wicked Apple Drops". Each bottle contains 30 milliliters of fractionated coconut oil, "whole plant cannabis extract" said to contain 1000 mg THC, flavors and sweetener. Each one milliliter dose is said to contain 32.89 mg THC, .08 mg CBD, .89 mg CBG, and .42 mg CBC. [San Francisco bay area in California, 2022]

"Uncle Arnie's" brand "Blueberry Night Cap" cannabis-infused beverage. Each 59 ml bottle contains cannabis oil containing 100 mg THC and 25 mg CBN.

"High Power" brand "Watermelon "cannabis-infused THC tincture", 250 mg THC per bottle.

"Korova" brand "Cannabis-Infused Tincture", said to contain 1000 milligrams of [what I experience as VERY POTENT] "THC distillate" per bottle. With "Midnight Guava" flavoring, water, etc. ["DRINK ME. MIX ME. MICRODOSE. MACRODOSE."]

"Butter Brothers" brand Brownies, Phat Mints, Blackberry Streusel, Ginger Snaps, Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies, and Peanut Butter Cookies.

"Absolute Extracts" brand Sleepy Time blueberry lavender cannabis-infused gummies containing "Ice Water Cannabis Extract, CBN, terpenes", etc. [5 mg THC plus 2.5 mg CBN per gummy] [2023]

"Dr. Norm's" brand SleepWell gummies containing "nanotized THC, nanotized CBN & long acting THC" [10 mg nano THC blend, 5 mg nano CBN, and 1 mg CBD per gummy] [2023]

"Chill" brand chocolate bar with finely crushed espresso coffee beans and 100 mg THC.

"Pura Vida" brand Ocean Spray, Happy Trails, Chocolate Jubilee, and Chocolate Chip Protein Bar.

"Ganja Candy" brand Caramel, Blackberry, and Dr. Pepper.

"Tainted" brand Thin Mints

"Dank" candy

"420 Grand" candy

HealTHCare "Private Reserve OG" [cannabis tincture in vegetable glycerin base]

"Double-Strength Medi Pills" [cannabis oil capsules]

"Shiva Candy" [hashish candy]

"Auntie Dolore's Medical Cannabis Glazed Pecans"

"Hashey's 200 mg Indica Bar" [made with dark chocolate In Santa Cruz]

"Rhino Pellet" [tiny cookie]

"Potlava" [vegan cannabis baklava]

"Enjoyable Edibles" brand cannabis-infused Snickerdoodle cookies. ["10.8 mg THC" per cookie. Each package contains 10 cookies. Made with "full-spectrum cannabis extract" by Ironworks Collective. 2019]

"Habit" brand "Sparkling Pineapple Cooler". 10 doses of THC in each 12.6 fl. oz. bottle. Made in Los Angeles by Canna Healthcare, Inc.

"Orange Zest Awakening Mints" [sublingual 10 mg THC tablets]

"Drivn" brand watermelon-flavored cannabis-infused gummies, 10 mg THC per gummy.

"Breez" brand mints [sublingual 5 mg THC tablets]

"Kiva" brand Blackberry Dark Chocolate [cannabis oil candy]

"Black Cherry Gummi" [cannabis oil candy]

"Wyld" brand Elderberry gummies [10 mg THC and 5 mg CBN per piece] For sleeping. "It's a little like watching sheep count you."

"Absolute Extracts" brand Blueberry Lavender gummies [5 mg THC and 2 mg CBN per piece] For sleeping.

"Original PLUS Super Potent Hybrid Cannabis-Infused Gummies" ["20 mg THC"]

"PureCure Sativa Strips" [preparation for oral use] [from the label: "EXTREMELY STRONG!"]

"Dr. Norm's Extra Strength medical cannabis cookie" "Chocolate Chip Therapy" 25 mg THC per cookie. hybrid.

"Full Extract Cannabis Oil" [Indica-dominant strain, for oral use. Full-plant extracted with ethyl alcohol. Dated 12.1. 2015 and provided in a 3 milliliter oral syringe marked for 0.1 milliliter doses. "THC 37.05%"]

"Stokes" brand "Mint Micros" [Sativa-strain] [small tablets, each containing 5 mg of cannabis extract] [I have used 2 different flavors: Mint and Watermelon]

OMedibles brand "Tree Hugger Medical Cannabis Cinnamon Maple" [high CBD extract mixed with nuts and spices]

Utopia Farms brand "Medical Cannabis Raspberry Macaroons"

"Cafe Attitude THCoffee" 40 mg THC per 8 oz. bottle ["70% Sativa, 30% Indica"]

 

"Evil Aunt Emily's Seriously Psychotic Suckers" [cannabis oil candy] ["79 mg cannabis oil" per sucker])

 

("'Remember when Abigail got her prescription for medical marijuana and we all went to the top of Doheny and sucked on those marijuana lollipops and watched the sun set?'

 

'That was a perfect day', Cheryl says definitely."

 

---A.M. Homes, portraying some young people in Los Angeles in a short story in her book DAYS OF AWE.)

 

"Sprig" brand citrus soda containing 45 mg THC per can. Made in California. [2017]

Petra "Moroccan mint"-flavored medical cannabis tablets, each containing 2.5 mg THC plus matcha tea. Produced in 2017 by Kiva, a not-for-profit collective. Lab tested by CW Analytical. "A micro-dosed blend." Packaged in tins containing 42 tablets.

 

Kiva "Lost Farm" cannabis-infused fruit chews, 10mg THC from "live resin" per piece. These fruit chews are strain-specific. My favorite so far is BLUEBERRY.

 

["CW uses its best efforts to deliver high-quality results and to verify that the data contained therein are based on sound scientific judgement. However, CW makes no warranties or claims to that effect and further shall not be liable for any damage or misrepresentation that may result from the use or misuse of this data in any way."

 

---from a disclaimer issued by CW Analytical. (found outside of a warehouse in Berkeley in 2019.)]

  

"KushyPunch" brand plum flavor Cannabis Indica gummies. Each gummy contains 10 mg THC + 0.1 mg CBD + 0.8 gm sugar. "Feel the power of the punch"

"Korova" brand Peanut Butter Dip cookie, containing 100 mg THC.

"OmEdibles" brand Sour Apple flavor cannabis gummies. Each gummy contains 10 mg THC. Distributed in plastic boxes containing 6 gummies each.

"OmEdibles" brand Lychee Blossom flavor cannabis gummies, packaged the same as the above.

"CuriouslyCannabis" brand "Rayne Drops" berry, orange, and lemon flavor cannabis pastilles. Each pastille contains 5 mg THC. Distributed in tins containing 20 pastilles each.

"Emerald Sky" brand Alpine Strawberry cannabis-infused licorice. 10 mg THC per piece [Cannabis Sativa]. 10 pieces per container.

"Emerald Sky" brand Creme Filled Chocolate cannabis infused cookies. 10 mg THC per cookie [hybrid cannabis]. 10 cookies per box.

Kanha "Enhanced Nanomolecular Gummies" made from hybrid cannabis 10 mg THC in each "Blueberry Blast"-flavored dose. 2019.

"Cannabis-Infused" organic microwave popcorn, 44.5 gram pop-up bag containing 10 mg THC and less than 2 mg CBD. Made in Berkeley in 2019 by "Type 7 Manufacturing, Inc". "Movie Night's New Best Friend".

"Somatik" brand "Sparks" cannabis-infused chocolate coffee beans. 3 mg THC per bean. 25 beans per container. '"Lovingly made by A Tribe of Us Collective". "Turn Your Magic On".

"Smokiez Edibles" brand Cannabis Infused Watermelon Fruit Chews. 10 mg THC per piece.

"Smokiez Edibles" brand Cannabis Infused Peach Fruit Chews. 10 mg THC per piece.

"Smokiez Edibles" brand Cannabis Infused Green Apple Fruit Chews. 10 mg THC per piece.

Kaneh Co. brand Mango Chile fruit jellies. 5 mg THC per serving. Manufactured by Xtracta.

Distribution, Inc. Made and packaged 3.6. 2019. Best by 7.6. 2019. Tested 3.15. 2019 by Infinite Chemical Analysis.

Kaneh Co. brand Raspbery Lime fruit jellies. 5 mg THC per serving.

"Edible Cannabis Oil" batch 030119-MUT-5-01 [4.30. 2019] by CalVape Collective.

"Chew & Chill" Blueberry Dream + Sky Og Indica "LIVE RESIN" gummies, 10 mg THC per gummy

"MC Farma" brand "Full Spectrum Oil" capsules "THC 90 + THCV" ["THC 80.11 mg + CBD 20.35 mg + THCV 29.09 mg + CBG 2.98 mg" per capsule. Cannabinoids, lipids, fats, and terpenes remain in full spectrum extraction, which "enhances efficacy and is known as the 'entourage' effect." Each package contains 10 capsules. Manufactured in 2020 in Marin County, California.

Also: "MC Farma" brand "Full Spectrum Oil" capsules "THC 60" [" THC 62.86 mg + CBD .38 mg + THCV 2.92 mg +CBN 1.66 mg + CBG 3.63 mg" per capsule.]

Glowing Buddha brand grape flavor cannabis candy, 10 mg THC per piece. Made in Santa Rosa, California. 2020

 

[It is not uncommon for people to have EXTREMELY negative experiences after they have eaten too much of a product containing cannabis. CAUTION IS ESSENTIAL!])

  

(The cannabinoid cannabidiol [CBD], along with the cannabinoid tetrahydrocannabinol [THC], is produced by many marijuana [cannabis] plants. Bottled water containing CBD is currently [2021] being sold over-the-counter ["AN EXTREMELY EXTREME VALUE"] at my local grocery store, where it apparently is frequently purchased by schoolkids. [From the "CBD Living Water" label: "Consult your physician before use if you are pregnant, lactating, have a medical condition or are taking any medication. CANNABIDIOL USE MAY BE HARMFUL. KEEP OUT OF THE REACH OF CHILDREN. These staements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease."] Last night I saw an ad for "Harrelson's Own CBD" on national TV: "When Life Gets Crazy...It Just Makes Everything About My Day Better")

  

("...the dudebros continue to pile into pot. Perhaps their worst public showing was when a bunch of them traversed the convention floor during MJ Bizcon wearing t-shirts that read 'Buy Weed From Rich White Men'. This was supposedly a response to the Buy Weed From Women movement, which has popular t-shirts of its own."

 

---Dan Mitchell, in his article "Low Times-2022: the year of stunts and desperation", East Bay Express, 12.28. 2022.)

  

("...marijuana is not legal."

 

---Ed Rosenthal, interviewed by Paul Kilduff, The Monthly, December 2014.)

  

("Indeed, positive hits for pathogenic mold are already changing grower operations. 'You smoke ten random samples of cannabis and you've most likely smoked aspergillus [mold],' said Dave, one of the lab's two founders. 'It's in there, often at unacceptable levels. Now it's up to the industry to respond. We also are not in a position where we want to make enemies and piss people off. We want to see it happen in the best way for the movement and the industry to kind of just naturally evolve.'

While the distributed nature of California's cannabis supply network obviously benefits mom-and-pop growers, it doesn't encourage quality assurance. Consequently, Dave and his peers believe that some pot consumers are in danger.

'It's expensive to test every single thing that comes through the door — that's the price you pay with a decentralized supply system,' Dave said. 'But that's what you've got. You've got five pounds coming from here and two from there and one individual. I mean, a dog walks in the grow room, and wags its tail — anything can be coming off that dog's tail. It's gross. Fertilizers with E. coli. Compost teas that they don't make right, anaerobic tea that has elevated levels of E. coli and salmonella...There's no way that this is sustainable. All it takes is one story of immune-compromised people dying from aspergillus infection. The myth that cannabis hasn't killed a single person in 3,000 years is allowed to go on. Well, it's not cannabis that kills people, it's all the shit that's in it.'

 

[From "The Manhattan Project of Marijuana", David Downs, the East Bay Express, 3.4. 2009.])

  

(Steep Hill Lab says eighty-five percent of the medical marijuana samples it tests "show traces of mold".

 

---Peter Hecht, "Pot Lab Fills Need for Oversight", the Sacramento Bee, 4.6. 2010. The owners of Steep Hill Lab in Oakland California [which is NOT a federally-certified laboratory] are extremely in favor of medical marijuana...)

  

("We find e.coli in hash. We're seeing pseudomonas aeruginosa, a bacteria that's found in filth."

 

---Robert Martin, of the Association of California Cannabis Labs. Martin was quoted by David Downs in the East Bay Express, 4.11. 2012.)

  

("It's a nasty little secret in the medical marijuana world that many growers spray their plants liberally with pesticides..."

 

---Robert Gammon, the East Bay Express, 7.28. 2010.)

  

(In places like Berkeley in 2018, where cannabis production is encouraged, much cannabis waste is generated. Some of the waste is toxic if consumed. Moldy marijuana, marijuana contaminated with chemicals, contaminated hashish, and contaminated cannabis concentrates do not seem to be rare. Some homeless people, alcohol addicts, and methamphetamine addicts find these sometimes poisonous contaminated cannabis products in garbage containers and sell them on the streets...)

  

("A 2015 study published in The Journal of Toxicological Sciences found that more than 80 percent of the concentrate samples were contaminated by residual solvents."

 

"In the same 2015 study, pesticides were detected in one-third of the concentrate samples."

 

---Kathleen Richards, The East Bay Express, 3.21. 2018, in an article about vaping cannabis.)

  

("...the true danger in untested cannabis comes from the potential pathogens--pseudomonas, aspergillis, and E. coli are routinely found by our laboratory [CW Analytical]."

 

---David Egerton, in a letter to the editor of the East Bay Express, 7.18. 2012.)

  

("...Anresco Laboratories conducted tests on all of the cannabis featured at the HempCon Festival held in San Francisco in August 2017. The San Francisco-based laboratory discovered that 80 percent of the cannabis at the festival was contaminated with unhealthy levels of solvents, pesticides, molds, fungus, or various bacteria."

 

---John Geluardi, East Bay Express, 9.20. 2017.)

  

(Over the decades, I have seen MANY careless and ignorant people with hands contaminated by perfume, cologne, cosmetics, grease, oils [and a number of other toxic substances] use their fingers to prepare marijuana for smoking. I am dismayed by the amount of marijuana I have had to throw away because of toxic substances that stupid and/or careless people have allowed marijuana to come into contact with!)

  

("Illegal Vapes are Killing People. Blame the 'Legal Market'"

 

---title of an article by Dan Mitchell, 9.11. 2019, East Bay Express. This San Francisco bay area newspaper is extremely pro-marijuana.

 

"Legal cannabis has created a market for manufactured products like vapes and gummies. If not for that legal market, there would likely be far fewer pirates out there making what look like legal vapes--complete with legit-looking packaging--but were actually made half-assedly by random cretins. When it comes to vapes, half-assed production can mean illness and death."

 

There is a full color ad for the Magnolia dispensary in Oakland on the same page as the article. "Dab Bar and Vape Lounge Open 7 Days 9AM--9PM".)

  

("People like to make poison. If you don't understand this, you will never understand anything."

 

---Margaret Atwood, in a short story, quoted by Jia Tolentino in her review of Atwood's 2019 novel THE TESTAMENTS, a sequel to THE HANDMAID'S TALE. The review was in the 9.16. 2019 issue of The New Yorker.)

  

("Mycobutanil...was found in a product recently recalled by Mettrum Ltd., a Toronto-based medical marijuana company."

 

Mycobutanil, used to control mildew, is said to emit hydrogen cyanide gas when heated.

 

"The Mettrum discovery was made recently, when a random screening of the company's products by Health Canada turned up the unauthorized use of pyrethrin, a pesticide...that is also not approved for medical cannabis..."

 

---Grant Robertson, The Globe and Mail, 3.10. 2017.)

  

("While I am grateful for access to the pot clubs...I am at a bit of a loss to understand why, given the virtual absence of risk in producing and distributing pot, it is still so expensive."

 

"What we have...are facilities charging the high end of street prices to people who are already ostensibly facing hardship."

 

["An ounce for $300 to $400..."]

 

"...besides basic capitalist greed, why does it still cost so much? Most of the truly disabled and terminally ill are on a fixed income, rendering the cost of pot not at all that compassionate."

 

--- Quotes from a letter written by Steve Stevens to the editor of the San Francisco Weekly, 1.20. 2010.)

  

("...in the Wild West of recreational marijuana consumption roamed by pandemic-stressed adults."

 

---Valeriya Safronova, The New York Times, 5.23. 2021. Article title: "Big Candy Is Angry". Some cannabis companies make drug-infused candy that is packaged to look similar to popular brand-name mainstream candy.)

  

("Each one-gram of flower is packaged in a wine bottle-shaped tin, topped with a version of Coppola's signature label and an embossed pot leaf. Each tin will retail for $99 and comes with a branded pipe and rolling papers."

 

---Katie Shapiro, Forbes.com, 11.2. 2018, describing marijuana grown in California's Humboldt County that will be sold by Francis Ford Coppola, who directed the 1972 film The Godfather.)

  

("According to Rand Corporation estimates...legalized...high-grade pot would cost just $20 per pound to produce. And low-grade weed would cost only $5 per pound."

 

---David Downs, East Bay Express, 10.9. 2013.)

  

(Since May 2011, four marijuana stores in Richmond, California [near Berkeley and Oakland] "...have paid $486,390 in police fees."

 

"To some, the situation evokes...the protection racket."

 

---David Downs, East Bay Express, 8.28. 2013)

  

(Daniel Rush, the former chair of Berkeley's Medical Cannabis Commission, was charged with 15 criminal counts, including extortion, fraud, and money-laundering. He later pleaded guilty to three felony counts.

 

["...federal authorities charged him for offering special treatment to one of the applicants for Berkeley's fourth dispensary spot."

 

---Frances Dinkelspiel, Berkeleyside, 6.23. 2017.])

   

C’è voglia di anticlericalismo, in giro. Si sente la necessità di riprendere con serietà e decisione una battaglia che storicamente appartiene a più di un filone culturale e politico: ai socialisti come ai repubblicani, ai liberali come ai radicali, ai massoni come alle religioni “minori” (valdesi, ebrei, ecc.) e anche a noi anarchici. A ciascuno con la sua specificità, certo, ma con la comune necessità e volontà di difendersi dall’irrefrenabile “espansionismo” di Santa Madre Chiesa e dalla sua connaturata esigenza di controllare l’intera società civile.

Le recenti vicende dei Dico, del Family day, della vicenda Bagnasco e mille altre ancora sono tutti segnali potenti e prepotenti di questa presenza sempre più ingombrante e condizionante del Vaticano.

Più ancora che sui privilegi e i comportamenti arroganti della Chiesa – abilissima, peraltro, a farsi passare da vittima del “laicismo” – la nostra attenzione si appunta sul servilismo di tutti quei “laici” (e sono la quasi totalità) che quotidianamente si prostrano alle gerarchie ecclesiastiche. Basti vedere le reazioni scomposte alle poche ed educate affermazioni critiche con la Chiesa espresse da un presentatore nel corso della manifestazione sindacal-musicale dello scorso 1° maggio a Roma.

 

A - Rivista Anarchica

 

I attended AllFord at Alford this afternoon Sunday 19th August 2018, its a yearly event attended by Ford car lovers and owners displaying their cherished vehicles within the grounds of Grampian Transport Museum in Alford, Aberdeenshire .

 

I had my Nikon D750 with me, I walked the grounds capturing cars that caught my eye or have a specific interest for me, after the event had ended I stayed around to watch the cars leave etc, climbing over the barrier and up a small hill I noticed a row of Aston Martins all parked together, excitement overtook me and I snapped away capturing each car in detail, finally I whipped out my iphone to capture the scene on video, this file is the result.

 

Aston Martin DB5

 

The Aston Martin DB5 is a British luxury grand tourer that was made by Aston Martin and designed by the Italian coachbuilder Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera. Released in 1963, it was an evolution of the final series of DB4. The DB series was named honouring Sir David Brown (the owner of Aston Martin from 1947 to 1972).

 

Although not the first in the DB series, the DB5 is famous for being the most recognised cinematic James Bond car, first appearing in the James Bond film Goldfinger (1964).

 

Design

The principal differences between the DB4 Series V and the DB5 are the all-aluminium engine, enlarged from 3.7 L to 4.0 L; a new robust ZF five-speed transmission (except for some of the very first DB5s); and three SU carburettors.

 

This engine, producing 282 bhp (210 kW), which propelled the car to 145 mph (233 km/h), available on the Vantage (high powered) version of the DB4 since March 1962, became the standard Aston Martin power unit with the launch in September 1963 of the DB5.

 

Standard equipment on the DB5 included reclining seats, wool pile carpets, electric windows, twin fuel tanks, chrome wire wheels, oil cooler, magnesium-alloy body built to superleggera patent technique, full leather trim in the cabin and even a fire extinguisher. All models have two doors and are of a 2+2 configuration.

Like the DB4, the DB5 used a live rear axle.

 

At the beginning, the original four-speed manual (with optional overdrive) was standard fitment, but it was soon dropped in favour of the ZF five-speed.

 

A three-speed Borg-Warner DG automatic transmission was available as well.

The automatic option was then changed to the Borg-Warner Model 8 shortly before the DB6 replaced the DB5.

 

Standard coupé:

* Engine: 3,995 cc (243.8 cu in) Inline-6

* Power: 282 bhp (210 kW) at 5,500 rpm (210) Net HP

* Torque: 288 lb·ft (390 N·m) at 3,850 rpm

* Weight: 1,502 kg (3,311 lb)

* Top Speed: 143 mph (230 km/h)[8]

* 0–60 mph (97 km/h) Acceleration: 8 s

 

James Bond's DB5

 

Two Aston Martin DB5s were built for production, one of which had no gadgets.

The Aston Martin DB5 is one of the most famous cars in the world thanks to Oscar-winning special effects expert John Stears, who created the deadly silver-birch DB5 for use by James Bond in Goldfinger (1964). Although Ian Fleming had placed Bond in a DB Mark III in the novel, the DB5 was the company's latest model when the film was being made.

 

The car used in the film was the original DB5 prototype, with another standard car used for stunts. To promote the film, the two DB5s were showcased at the 1964 New York World's Fair, and it was dubbed "the most famous car in the world",and subsequently sales of the car rose.[12] In January 2006, one of these was auctioned in Arizona; the same car was originally bought in 1970 from the owner, Sir Anthony Bamford, by a Tennessee museum owner.[13] A car, mainly used for promoting the movie, is now located in the Louwman Museum, Netherlands.

 

The first DB5 prototype used in Goldfinger with the chassis number DP/216/1 was later stripped of its weaponry and gadgetry by Aston Martin and then resold. It was then retrofitted by subsequent owners with nonoriginal weaponry. The Chassis DP/216/1 DB5 was stolen in 1997 from its last owner in Florida and is currently still missing.

Within the universe of James Bond, the same car (registration BMT 216A) was used again in the following film, Thunderball, a year later.

 

A different Aston Martin DB5 (registration BMT 214A) was used in the 1995 Bond film, GoldenEye, in the which the car is Bond's personal vehicle. Three different DB5s were used for filming. A variation of the registration number (BMT2144) was used on the BMW 750IL in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) and was set to make a cameo appearance in the Scotland-set scenes in The World Is Not Enough (1999), but these were cut in the final edit. Yet another DB5 appeared in Casino Royale (2006), this one with Bahamian number plates and left-hand drive (where the previous British versions had been right-hand drive).

 

Another silver-birch DB5 with the original registration BMT 216A is used in the 23rd James Bond film, Skyfall, during the 50th anniversary of the release of the first James Bond film Dr. No.

 

In the film "M" (Judi Dench) describes the car as "not very comfortable". The DB5 is destroyed in the film's climactic finale. It is seen again in Spectre, firstly in Q's underground workshop in various stages of rebuild, and at the film's ending, fully rebuilt, with Bond driving away with it.

 

On 1 June 2010, RM Auctions announced the upcoming auction of a DB5 used in both Goldfinger and Thunderball. The owner (Jerry Lee, president/owner of WBEB Radio in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) originally bought the car from the Aston Martin company in 1969. At the auction, the DB5 was sold for £2.6 million.

 

In popular culture

 

Although the DB5 is often credited as being the first car James Bond drives in the movies, it is in fact not. The first "Bond car" was a 1962 Sunbeam Alpine Series II used in the very first movie Dr. No. The DB5 is however unquestionably the most recognised cinematic James Bond car.

 

It was also used by actor Roger Moore, as he played a James Bond parody character in the film The Cannonball Run. Moore plays Seymour Goldfarb, Jr., a man who believes himself to be both Roger Moore and James Bond, who participates in a madcap, cross-country road race. The registration number BMT 216A, and the original bond car in its original dark red paintjob also appear in "The Noble Sportsman", a 1964 episode of "The Saint" TV series starring Roger Moore.

 

The 1983 reunion telefilm The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E.: The Fifteen Years Later Affair includes a brief cameo by George Lazenby as "JB", a white-tuxedoed British man shown driving an Aston Martin DB5, who assists Napoleon Soloduring a car chase. "It's just like On Her Majesty's Secret Service," enthuses a female character at the conclusion of the cameo. This special came out in 1983, the same year as Octopussy and Never Say Never Again.

 

It appears in several video games such as 007 Racing, Driver San Francisco (Deluxe Edition), James Bond 007: Agent Under Fire, From Russia with Love, and James Bond 007: Blood Stone. The From Russia with Love movie was released in 1963, one year before Goldfinger (in which the DB5 used the first time), but the video game used the car.

 

It appeared in animated form in James Bond Jr. in the very first episode "The Beginning". In the episode it was able to transform into a plane and could be driven by remote control. The car was destroyed in a plane crash and its remains recycled into a red sports car, which the PAL VHS cover identifies as the "Aston Martin Super".

A version of the car appeared in Grand Theft Auto: London 1969, being called a "James Bomb".

 

Leonardo DiCaprio was seen driving one in Catch Me If You Can, imitating Bond (even down to the suit) in Goldfinger.

In 2003, it appears in the action comedy film Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, driven by Bernie Mac's character, Jimmy Bosley. It is only seen once in which Bosley is driving a witness, Max Petroni (portrayed by Shia LaBeouf) to his mother's house, to be safe from the O'Grady Crime Syndicate.

 

The 2004 French spy comedy film, called Double Zéro (directed by Gérard Pirès) also showed a DB5. It can be seen once in the film, when the two main characters go to meet the parody of Q.

 

In 2011, an Aston Martin DB5 appeared in heavily stylized form as "Finn McMissile", a British secret agent voiced by Michael Caine in the 2011 Pixar film Cars 2. The car character was a homage to the Bond DB5 although has also been known to bear resemblance to the Volvo P1800, as used by the fictional British secret agent Simon Templar in The Saint.

 

In 2013, Grand Theft Auto V featured a car called the "JB 700" that heavily alluded to being a DB5, or was based on the DB5; specifically the one used by James Bond. Need for Speed: Most Wanted released a DLC named "Movie Legends" that featured the car.

 

The music video for the Usher song Burn, features a DB5. The exact same car with the same registration number appears a number of times in the short lived TV series Fastlane, it later turned out to be fake.

 

In the 2015 TV series Thunderbirds Are Go a DB5 can be seen as Lady Penelope gets into Fab 1 in the first episode Ring Of Fire.

LENS TEST: RICOH Rikenon P 28mm f2.8

 

Reflections of Shinjuku. Tokyo, Japan. © Michele Marcolin, 20221.

 

LENS MANIA: RICOH Rikenon P 28mm f2.8

 

Another lens I rescued for peanuts from the auction junkyard almost by chance. It turned out to be a relatively rare early version.

 

The genealogical tree of this series is not yet fully clear, because there were multiple models with more or less evident differences of components or also makers (Cosina, Tomioka, etc.); or even differences of general design that not always had reflection in the names (such as for ex. “Auto P Rikenon”, “XR Rikenon” “MACRO”, etc.). However in the case of this “Rikenon P 28mm f2.8” it seems there were three main production variants that can generally be identified as follows.

 

• Early model: lens barrel and distance ring made of metal; value ring and aperture ring made of plastic; green circle on aperture-stop button; counterclockwise helicoid direction (infinity mark on the right); "P" in lens name plate is white; shortest shooting distance of 30 cm.

 

• Model-I: all plastic; clockwise helicoid direction (infinity mark on the left); "P" in lens name plate is green; shortest shooting distance of 25 cm.

 

• Model-II: all plastic; clockwise helicoid direction (infinity mark on the left); "MACRO" and "P" in lens name plate is green; macro function; shortest shooting distance is 25 cm.

 

The lens reviewed here is the first of them, which among all is the only one that was made by Tomioka. It was introduced in 1984, when Tomioka Optics had already been absorbed by Yashica (1968), which in turn became a subsidiary of Kyocera (1983) after its bankruptcy. Sources suggest that this lens could have been one of the last jobs of Tomioka Optics.

 

It is very compact and light, but with a good feel and easy handling: the helicoid is quite sensitive and with a short run, therefore focusing requires some attention. Relatively solid despite the plastic-oriented production standards starting in those years. Reliable and relatively good for any situation as an all-rounder tool. I am using it on K1 and despite having its age, it produces very appealing and up-to-today standard-needs images. Its short min. focus distance makes it ideal for small objects and details shots, as well as for environmental and street snaps.

 

It has some vignette wide open, but nothing much noticeable. It is quite sharp, with good definition, an interesting mae-bokeh and a background bokeh which I do not find bad as other reviewers described. It does not have a specific color cast, even if I'd say it displays the typical Rikenon 'gray' tone of those year productions (I noticed it on the 45mm f2.8, the 50mm f2, the 50mm f1.7). Shadows tend to achieve a cyano-violet tone in unsuitable contrast situations, with suppression of yellows (I guess as a result of the coating). The only negative thing I can find in it is visible barrel distortion, when you use it on straight architectural lines. Nothing tragic, but keep in mind it will show up.

 

The lens does not seem to have cemented elements inside, so if you find one with fog or mold, chances are you will be able to clean it up and bring it back to use.

:O

 

Description: The individual portrayed is a male of Odontomachus sp., possibly Odontomachus bauri as this is one of the most common species in this specific area of distribution and my suspicions shot skywards when I saw a picture of a male of Odontomachus bauri which I provided below, containing the same thorax designs and features. They belong in the order Hymenoptera, suborder Apocrita, infraorder Aculeata, superfamily Formicoidea, family Formicidae, subfamily Ponerinae and tribe Ponerini. They are commonly known in Brazil as a whole as "formigas-de-estalo" and specifically in the Northwestern states as "trinca-cunhão".

 

The males of Odontomachus differ incredibly from the females, which possess very strong jaw muscles and very large, elongate trap-jaws which stays open horizontally similar to open scissors at 180º when they are seeking prey. The trap is triggered when the prey touches the frontal trigger setae beneath the mandibles; the jaws click shut at incredible speeds and force. In fact, this is the fastest movement ever measured in any animal. Kinematic data indicate that the force of the jaws closure in Odontomachus scales positively with body size, while acceleration scales inversely with body size. The reason to this nature for foraging is still unknown. The workers generally feel their prey with their antennae, proceeding to withdraw the antennae and snaps the mandibles shut on the prey, which is held in the mandibles and lifted off the substrate, stung, and then transported to the nest. The stinging part is sometimes not necessary. This behaviour can suffer changes depending on the prey, and multiple mandibular strikes can be used to stun or dismember prey. Workers are very cautious during prey capture, especially when they are dealing with potentially dangerous prey. A few workers learned to avoid overly dangerous prey.

 

Some Odontomachus conduct rapid mandibular strikes for other uses, with the force being used to bounce to safety or onto intruders or eject intruders away. They can also use their mandibles for basic tasks such as nest construction and brood care.

 

Males (the subject portrayed) lack the intimidating appearance of the females and lack their trap-jaws. The antennal segment count of males reach a number of thirteen, while a worker's count reaches twelve. The male and the worker's antennal club are absent. Dental count on workers are between 3 and 20, while on males that count reaches zero. The mandibles are reduced and non-opposable. Their genital capsule is not fully retractile and the cerci are well developed and conspicuous. The petiolar node in Odontomachus males is more or less conical, with narrowly rounded or even pointed apex. Counting the stretched antennae, the subject portrayed measured approximately 1,3cm in length and possessed well developed wings. The head is broad, with half to just about all of the sides of the head occupied by large compound eyes with, generally, weak emarginate mesal margins in frontal (dorsal) view and weak emarginate lateral margins as seen from the sides. The clypeus is small and convex, with convex or nearly straight anterior free margin. The ocelli are large and close to each other, normally situated on an eminence. The mandibles are small and narrow with acute to bluntly rounded apices. The labrum is small, bilobed, with a median cleft, fitting into the space between the mandibles. The antennae have a short, cylindrical scape and even shorter pedicel. The trunk is rather robust. Pygidium produced as a sharp, slender downcurved spine in all known Odontomachus males. The hypogygium is linguiform, with parallel sides and rounded or subtruncate apex. The legs and tarsal claws are slender with or without a small submedian tooth. More information on the source provided below.

 

In addition to the incredibly powerful trap-jaws, Odontomachus also feature a stinger at the apex of the abdomen which is also used to harm prey. Salticidae spiders of the genus Enoplomischus SEEM to mimic Odontomachus ants.

 

Most species can be found in tropical and subtropical zones, but some can be found in temperate and even semi-desert zones. The nesting behaviour of Odontomachus often include the construction of nests in the soil, rotting wood, arboreally or in abandoned termite nests.

 

In general they prey arthropods, but some specialize on certain prey such as termites. Still, Odontomachus are carnivorous ants. The colony size varies a lot between species. Most species possess typically winged queens, but some do possess wingless queens. Some queens perform tasks that are typical to workers, such as foraging outside of the nest. It's possible to hear a clicking sound when the traps are triggered due to the incredible speed and force that the jaws shut close. Bites and stings from females of Odontomachus are painful and can cause local burning, which can be intense. Moments later, a skin swelling that varies in duration and that can be very itchy might appear. They are harmless to the life of humans and animals, though.

 

They are leaf litter ants that forages individually most of the time underneath the leaf litter. The Odontomachus bauri is distributed throughout the Neotropical zone. Colonies establish foraging territories and tend to avoid conspecific territories of neighboring nests, but are normally found in forests of many kinds, suburban habitats and even urban habitats.

 

Text revision by Marina de Azevedo Guerra (www.facebook.com/marina.guerragymnopaedist)

 

Subfamilies of Formicidae:

 

Aenictinae

Aenictogitoninae

Agroecomyrmecinae

Amblyoponinae

Aneuretinae

† Armaniinae (extinct)

† Brownimeciinae (extinct)

Cerapachyinae

Dolichoderinae

Dorylinae

Ecitoninae

Ectatomminae

† Formiciinae (extinct)

Formicinae

Heteroponerinae

Leptanillinae

Leptanilloidinae

Martialinae

Myrmeciinae

Myrmicinae

Paraponerinae

Ponerinae

Proceratiinae

Pseudomyrmecinae

† Sphecomyrminae (extinct)

 

Incertae Sedis:

 

† Calyptites (extinct)

Condylon

† Cretopone (extinct)

† Curticorna (extinct)

† Eoanictites (extinct)

† Eoformica (extinct)

† Fonsecahymen (extinct)

† Gerontoformica (extinct)

† Klondikia (extinct)

† Kohlsimyrma (extinct)

† Myanmyrma (extinct)

† Petropone (extinct)

 

Tribes within Ponerinae:

 

Platythyreini

Ponerini

Thaumatomyrmecini

Incertae Sedis

 

Genera within Ponerini:

 

Anochetus

† Archiponera (extinct)

Asphinctopone

Belonopelta

Bothroponera

Centromyrmex

† Cephalopone (extinct)

Cryptopone

† Cyrtopone (extinct)

Diacamma

Dinoponera

Dolioponera

Emeryopone

Feroponera

Harpegnathos

Hypoponera

Leptogenys

Megaponera

† Messelepone (extinct)

Myopias

Odontomachus

Odontoponera

Pachycondyla

Phrynoponera

Paltothryreus

Plectroctena

Ponera

Promyopias

† Protopone (extinct)

Psalidomyrmex

Simopelta

Streblognathus

Austroponera (?)

Ectomomyrmex (?)

Iroponera (?)

Parvaponera (?)

Pseudoponera (?)

Rasopone (?)

 

Sources:

 

Picture of a male of Odontomachus bauri, one of the most common species in this specific area of distribution, containing thorax designs and a few other traits that can be compared to the subject in my picture: doidoporformigas.blogspot.com.br/2010/12/odontomachus-bau...

 

Ant Wiki (Odontomachus): www.antwiki.org/wiki/Odontomachus

 

Ant Wiki (New World Ponerinae key): www.antwiki.org/wiki/Key_to_New_World_Genera_of_Ponerinae

 

Wikipedia (PT): pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odontomachus

 

Wikipedia (EN): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odontomachus

 

Lackluster Wikipedia article in Portuguese showcasing the Brazilian common name of trap-jaw ants but without further reliable details and explanations: pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formiga-de-estalo

 

Feeding type: Predator.

 

PROJECT NOAH (Português): www.projectnoah.org/spottings/1747050567

Oranienbaum Park is a most valuable example of garden and park art from the second half of the 18th to the mid-19th century. It covers an area of 162 hectares. Until the 1770s, the main artistic technique in the park's design was the formal layout, which was later replaced by the landscape style. The park consists of several historically developed sections, each formed during specific periods of the palace and park complex creation.

 

Upper Park: 18th - 20th centuries - formation of the general landscape, 1710 - 1720s - development of the water system, garden masters: L. Lamberti, D. Bush, L. Meinecke.

Whilst not based on any specific prototype, this image is representative of the many road vehicles utilised by British Railways for collection and delivery work. The Loadstar was the second incarnation of Austin K4, which, in original form, was commonly known as the Birmingham Bedford because of its similarity to the contemporary Bedford O-Series. In this Mk II form, it gained its own identity with a stylish new cab and bonnet assembly, used also on the 4x4 Austin K9. There was to be one further iteration of the K4 with long-nosed Mk III. The base image is an Austin Loadstar, preserved in the livery of RC Jeffrey but now with a subsequent owner, photographed on the 2015 Tyne Tees Run but transplanted onto a new background (18-Nov-16).

 

All rights reserved. Follow the link below for terms and conditions, additional information about my work; and to request work from me:

www.flickr.com/photos/northernblue109/6046035749/in/set-7...

While the mall doesn't have a specific photo policy on its website or posted at the mall, Macy's is pretty clear about no photography. The store has a fair amount of people walking about, so I am not really interested in flouting this rule. Even still, I managed to grab this shot just open entering from the upper level of the Macy's parking deck.

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Tri-County Center opened on September 26, 1960. When it opened, the open-air center contained such stores as Shillito's, Pogue's, Kroger, a Kresge 5 and 10, and over 45 other stores. The center was enclosed by 1968 and renamed Tri-County Mall. Sears came to the mall around that same time. Between 1989 and 1992, the mall saw the addition of a second floor, along with the construction of MacAlpin's as a fourth anchor.

 

Today, Sears is the only mall anchor that has not had a name change. Shillito's became Shillito Rikes in 1982 when the two stores combined. In 1986, the store became a Lazarus; it was known as Lazarus-Macy's in 2003, then simply Macy's in 2005. Pogue's was renamed L.S. Ayres in 1983 and was closed in 1988. J.C.Penney took over that space, closing in July 2005. Today, the former J.C.Penney store is the site of an additional mall entrance, B.J.'s Restaurant & Brewhouse, Ethan Allan Furniture, and several smaller stores. The upper level of the former J.C.Penney became an indoor theme park, which is no longer open. McAlpin's became Dillard's in 1998. The Dillard's store was "downgraded" to a clearance center in 2013 and closed in 2015. As of today, that space is still vacant.

Palmer, Alfred T.,, photographer.

 

Students at Washington High School at class, training for specific contributions to the war effort, Los Angeles, Calif.

 

1942 Sept.

 

1 transparency : color.

 

Notes:

Title from FSA or OWI agency caption.

Transfer from U.S. Office of War Information, 1944.

 

Subjects:

Washington High School (Los Angeles, Calif.)

Schools

World War, 1939-1945

Vocational education

United States--California--Los Angeles

 

Format: Transparencies--Color

 

Rights Info: No known restrictions on publication.

 

Repository: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA, hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

 

Part Of: Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Collection 12002-40 (DLC) 93845501

 

General information about the FSA/OWI Color Photographs is available at hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.fsac

 

Higher resolution image is available (Persistent URL): hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsac.1a35367

 

Call Number: LC-USW36-287

  

Although no specific mention has been made for this species, there have been reports that some members of this genus can cause photo-sensitivity in susceptible people.

Many species also contain oxalic acid (the distinctive lemony flavour of sorrel) - whilst not toxic this substance can bind up other minerals making them unavailable to the body and leading to mineral deficiency. Having said that, a number of common foods such as sorrel and rhubarb contain oxalic acid and the leaves of most members of this genus are nutritious and beneficial to eat in moderate quantities. Cooking the leaves will reduce their content of oxalic acid. People with a tendency to rheumatism, arthritis, gout, kidney stones or hyper-acidity should take special care if including this plant in their diet since it can aggravate their condition.

 

The whole plant is antiseptic and astringent. An infusion has been used in the treatment of stomach complaints, VD and fevers.

The plant produces a soft white mass, a froth like that of soap. It can be applied externally to burns or used to bathe and wash clothes.