Chesapeake Bay and Black Caviar

It was fantastic outside while I was walking Rosie and Remy this morning.  The temperature was about 60 degrees, there was the faintest hint of a breeze, and the sky was almost cloudless.  It got up to 82 yesterday, and the weather folks say the high today will be around 70.  It's nice fall weather, that the NWS says will continue through the weekend.  My cousin Sarah is due here either Sunday night, or Monday - it depends on what route she and Jeremy will take, and how often they stop and look and take photos on the way here from Las Vegas.  I hope all the passes are clear, as I know she wanted to scatter her father's ashes at the top of Independence Pass.  It will be good to see blood relatives again.

The new season begins for NCIS tonight, so you can bet I'll be sitting in front of the TV, ready and waiting to see Mark Harmon and David McCallum.  Mocha is currently stretched out under Lovey's chair, Lovey is curled up at the foot of my bed, and Nedi is outside somewhere.  I read all of Revenger yesterday, and thoroughly enjoyed it.  I need to go grocery shopping for myself and the cats today - I need Coca-Cola and munchies, and I need to get canned food and kitty litter for the kids (I bought crunchies yesterday).   ....  A very pretty mare named Black Caviar has been named Australia's Horse of the Year and Sprint Champion.  She is by Bel Esprit (a grandson of Nijinsky, by Northern Dancer) and out of the mare Helsinge (a great-grand daughter of Danzig, by Northern Dancer).  I've seen video of her, and she is beautiful in motion!  She is eligible to run in, and has qualified for, the Breeders Cup in November at Churchill Downs.  Whether or not she'll run in the US is the question.  She is 13 for 13, at age 5, and it has been announced that she will run at Royal Ascot during the 2012 season.

Black Caviar

There were several earthquakes last night in Guatemala, with no reports as yet on damages.  But the flooding from Hurricane Irene and TS Lee has done a lot of things to the Chesapeake Bay, where all the water returns.  More than two miles from the mouths of several rivers that flow into the Bay, the sediment levels cause a bright white disc to disappear at less than 4 inches under the water.  The scientist conducting these checks says he hasn't seen the water this muddy in his 15 years of experience.  All of the extra sand, mud, trees, housing timbers, asphalt pieces, etc.  have been washed down to the Bay.  Scientists are afraid that all the sediment will cover the bottom grasses, which will kill the fish and crabs in the shallow waters, and that it will also cover oyster beds, destroying them, as well.  Sandy Point State Park is a place I've driven past many times - it's right beside the Bay Bridge.  It has always looked pristine (except at the very end of the summer, when there is a little bit of trash scattered about) - this is what it looks like today:

Sandy Point State Park, Maryland

It will take quite some time for both the flooded towns, and the Chesapeake Bay, to recover from these two extremely wet storms.