Notes | Brutkey

Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

Frivolous poll of the evening: Does gently but firmly wrestling silly yearling goats up onto a stanchion for hoof trimming + carrying them for a weigh-in count as goat yoga?

Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

It must be nice to have so much lovely wool that you don't even notice that you're covered with snow. (The goats are definitely jealous of him).

A fuzzy brown llama, eating hay from a metal hay rack next to a metal-sided farm building. His back is totally coated with snow. The sky is white with clouds and snow.

Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

Trimmed the hooves of 6 of the 11 goats who needed it. Will try to get the other 5 done tomorrow.

Started the big job of packing up a lot of my family's stuff from 3 rooms that the farmsitter will be living in. I will definitely have nightmares about packing up and moving tonight (that's my brain's go-to stress dream, since I moved an average of once a year for the ~decade and a half before I moved to Saskatchewan. Ah, academia....)

Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

Best part of starting to clean out my home office room is that I found a bunch more stickers, so my laptop is way better prepared to face the world now.

Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

Trimmed the hooves of 6 of the 11 goats who needed it. Will try to get the other 5 done tomorrow.

Started the big job of packing up a lot of my family's stuff from 3 rooms that the farmsitter will be living in. I will definitely have nightmares about packing up and moving tonight (that's my brain's go-to stress dream, since I moved an average of once a year for the ~decade and a half before I moved to Saskatchewan. Ah, academia....)

Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

selfie (barely)

First -30C morning (well, probably not quite, the very old mercury thermometer outside my house seems to read a couple of degrees low.) I almost didn't need a headlamp, the moon was so bright (Jupiter tried too)

I'm only milking 1 goat every morning now, but this magical goat is still giving almost 2L per day! I have to dry her off soon, so I'll try to only take a liter or so the next few mornings.

Very frosty face after feeding all the animals! And it was still dark.

A slightly blurry picture of the full moon with Jupiter nearby, and a very faint moonbow above

A white goat with very long horizontal ears in a wooding milking stanchion, taking a momentary break from happily eating grain to look at the camera

Me, looking at the camera, with most of my face covered by a stripey neck tube, a green hat, a scarf, and a black hood over everything. The headlamp, hood, and neck tube all have frost on them from my breathing. I'm inside a well-used barn, so there's a lot of miscellaneous farm junk in the background.

Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

Happy Friday.

A giant brown fuzzy llama sticking his nose right into the camera, hoping for something edible

A white goat sticking her nose right into the camera, again hoping for treats. Another white goat face is partially visible next to her, also looking for treats. The empty black milk crate sitting on the ground next to them strongly suggests they already ate all the treats.

A yellow dog sitting very seriously as he gazes off across a snowy field. The sky is yellowish and pinkish with approaching sunset, and there are a few clouds. The horizon is very flat, and there are snow fields as far as you can see.

Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

Double-cat-lap-trapped at my desk again. Good thing I am very very slow at writing code.

2 grey cats, one fully grey, one stripey, laying in opposite directions on a lap, with a keyboard tray in the background. The stripey cat is halfway draped over the larger grey cat.

Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

Oh! I forgot to add one last important bit to this rant. In the same document (linked above), SpaceX says basically "oh yeah, no big deal that we dropped a Starlink on Canada. But just in case, we're going to start reentering Starlink satellites over the Pacific."

I have seen ZERO evidence that they are actually doing this, and nobody is asking them to prove it. An awful lot of Starlinks have been observed reentering over land (like this one in Sept: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/saskatoon-space-debris-satelitte-reentry-1.7643516)

Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

I'm very curious what fraction of reported fireballs on the excellent American Meteor Society website are now actually reentries. They often put notes on specific events when they are known to be a reentry, but I don't think there's a quick way to sort that...

https://fireball.amsmeteors.org/members/imo_view/browse_events

Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

That document where SpaceX admits to dropping potentially lethal debris on Canada is still publicly available on their website, which is also kind of wild: https://starlink.com/public-files/Starlink_Approach_to_Satellite_Demisability.pdf

They seem to think it's just a whoopsie and no big deal. But...it's actually a violation of Canadian airspace! And also, terrifying!

SpaceX is scary.

Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

Oh! I forgot to add one last important bit to this rant. In the same document (linked above), SpaceX says basically "oh yeah, no big deal that we dropped a Starlink on Canada. But just in case, we're going to start reentering Starlink satellites over the Pacific."

I have seen ZERO evidence that they are actually doing this, and nobody is asking them to prove it. An awful lot of Starlinks have been observed reentering over land (like this one in Sept: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/saskatoon-space-debris-satelitte-reentry-1.7643516)

Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

I'll note that the Starlink reentry debris that SpaceX dropped on Canada in August 2024 (separate from the Crew Dragon Trunk debris dropped on Canada in Feb 2024), still doesn't appear on this database. And I think that's because the farmer contacted SpaceX directly, SpaceX had him Fedex the debris to them. As far as I can tell, the Canadian gov't didn't find out until I told them, months after it left Canada, so I guess that means it doesn't get to go on this chart?

Really wild stuff...

Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

That document where SpaceX admits to dropping potentially lethal debris on Canada is still publicly available on their website, which is also kind of wild: https://starlink.com/public-files/Starlink_Approach_to_Satellite_Demisability.pdf

They seem to think it's just a whoopsie and no big deal. But...it's actually a violation of Canadian airspace! And also, terrifying!

SpaceX is scary.