Welcome to the Atomic Age
Today is Saturday, 2 December 2006.
On this day in 1943, at approx. 3:47 PM, CST, humanity entered the atomic age.
Chicago Pile Number One, located in a squash court at the University of Chicago, went critical, and created the first human-made chain reaction.
Humans had succeeded in tapping the energies of the atomic nucleus.
More to say on this later. For now, my city is covered in snow, and we have many errands to run. The temperature is 11 degrees F. Thursday morning, my wife saw, here in the midst of the city, a red fox against the snow in our front yard.
On this day in 1943, at approx. 3:47 PM, CST, humanity entered the atomic age.
Chicago Pile Number One, located in a squash court at the University of Chicago, went critical, and created the first human-made chain reaction.
Humans had succeeded in tapping the energies of the atomic nucleus.
More to say on this later. For now, my city is covered in snow, and we have many errands to run. The temperature is 11 degrees F. Thursday morning, my wife saw, here in the midst of the city, a red fox against the snow in our front yard.
posted by HH at 7:38 AM
2 Comments:
What a nice bit of optimistic observation. My maternal relatives homesteaded property a year or two after the '89 land rush about halfway between Davenport and Chandler and just off old hwy 66 a couple of miles.
I spent months of hours exploring the woods and creek bottoms for miles around their farm in my youth. During all of my wandering, I do not recall having ever encountered any apex mammal predator. Even the ubiquitous Oklahoma trickster, the coyote was a rare and transient visitor, if it knew what was good for it.
I dreamed of the day when I would catch a glimpse of that agile, almost catlike member of the dog family. I can remember only once did I think that I might have seen the residual shadow of Br'er Fox on their farm.
Your sighting provides me with a ray of hope that has become much too rare with the continually increasing stress that we are placing on Gaia.
About 2 years ago I first noticed red foxes in our small town urban area. I've observed them hunting at a construction site, and once even located a summer den - it was, amazingly, in a sheltered thicket in the field behind a strip shopping center. I was looking for the adult fox I'd sort of followed there, when suddenly up popped two kits playing in the high field grass -
what a treat!
It's fascinating how these creatures have adapted - and even thrived - in spite of our encroachment on their habitat.
I was quite happy to find out that they ARE a protected species - here's a pretty good link about them:
http://www.foxes.org/urbanfox
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