Let's hear it for most-successful humans

Ski hill in distance is twice as far away as our atmosphere is thick

That, of course, would be Homo erectus.
These hominids survived for two million years and eventually cohabited the Earth with several other human species including Homo neanderthalensis, Homo floriensis, Homo denisova and yes, Homo sapiens, the "wise one."
It wasn't the Neanderthals or the Denisovans that named us that. We thought up the "wise one" moniker ourselves. Homo sapiens have a lot of qualities but modesty isn't one of them.
Everybody got along in their respective regions: Asia, southwestern Europe, Indonesia, Siberia and East Africa.
Sapiens, who have been around for only 150,000 years, were much like the other hominids. They hunted and gathered and made fires just like the others had done for hundreds of thousands of years.
Then something went terribly "wrong" about 70,000 years ago. Sapiens streamed out of Africa and eventually killed everyone. In fact you could say we killed everyone and everything.
Our historical relationship with nature could be summed up with: "We ate the big ones first and then we ate the rest."
It is estimated our species has, at best, another 1,000 years.
So what happened 70,000 years ago? Author Yuval Noah Harari says in the book Sapiens that is when the Cognitive Revolution started. People started believing in mythologies that eventually became religions, social hierarchies, systems of economics, corporations and countries. Things began snowballing downhill with the Agricultural Revolution 10,000 years ago and went ballistic with the Industrial Revolution, just 200 years ago. It is the latter revolution that will finish us along with most of the rest of life on the planet. It's one thing to have speared, shot and netted umpteen species into extinction but it is exponentially worse to pollute the very atmosphere everything breathes and alter the temperature of the entire planet so that nothing lives other than insects and bacteria.
That we can do this and not even care says everything about our species.We are arrogant, greedy, violent and conniving but that isn't even the worst about us. The worst is we believe in fantasies and refuse to accept reality when it conflicts with our beliefs. Case in point: How many people believe that those other humans mentioned above were steps on the evolutionary ladder that eventually led to the pinnacle of evolution - Sapiens! That fits with our mythology that we are the most intelligent and therefore the most deserving to be alive today and it helps us ignore the reality that if we are indeed "intelligent" we would not be exterminating all life.
Homo erectus walked the Earth from 2,000,000 years ago until 10,000 years ago. Our species started 150,000 years ago and will be gone at 151,000.
Must this be our outcome? No, it doesn't.  We know as a species how to save the planet, how to live sustainably. There are real-world solutions. Our parents were called the Greatest Generation because they saved the world from Nazi tyranny through their hard work, sacrifice and ingenuity. Our generation needs to step up and save the world, period.
We are in a boat surrounded by a sea of uninhabitable space and we have continually been removing boards from the top of the boat. We're now down to the waterline.
Here's something to ponder: See that ski hill in the photo above? It is Mount Baldy as seen from our house in Nolalu. It is 36 miles away. That is exactly twice as far as the thickness of our atmosphere.
It is just 18 miles high. Now do you understand how easy it is to pollute it, to change its composition?
When we look up at the sky it seems endless because there is nothing on the other side. It is anything but. It is a thin, fragile veneer and it is the only thing that supports Life.

Temperature is definitely 'snappy' today

Cork and I walk our snowshoe trails daily

Webbing on these 'shoes needed revarnishing

At dawn today the thermometer registered -27 C or -16 F. That is the record so far this winter in Nolalu. It was far colder in Red Lake. I heard on the radio that it was only -36 C there. Those temperatures do not take into account the wind chill. I could certainly feel the wind as I walked down the road to the mail box. At these temperatures even the slightest breeze makes you turn your head away.

(Update: Temperature Sunday was -34 C which happens to be 30 below F)

I had big plans about raising the final beam on my wood shed today but came to the conclusion that a better idea was to sit in the sunroom where a combination of the sun and the wood stove made it feel like a tropical beach. So I read a book the whole afternoon.
Cork and I have now packed down the snow on all of our bush trails. It was tough going with snowshoes the first time around. The snowshoes plunge about half way down through the two feet of the white stuff. I noticed that I have worn off all the varnish on my snowshoes so I brought them into the house for a few coats. In the meantime I borrowed Brenda's which are of a modern design and have a solid nylon material under the foot. I broke some new trail with them just to see if they held me further aloft but no such luck.
It is important to varnish the rawhide lacing on snowshoes from time to time to waterproof them. If the temperature ever gets above freezing the untreated rawhide will stretch and make walking absolutely miserable.
There are no signs of any canines in the bush now, not foxes, wolves or coyotes. I'm a little worried that something drastic has happened to the whole lot, like disease. On the other hand it could be these animals are hampered by the deep snow now and aren't moving.
Every time I snowshoe on a trail that I have made I think back to when I was a kid. I loved to make trails in the bush around our house at Red Lake. Perched three feet above the ground in the deep snow I could fly over the windfalls that make summer walking difficult.
One time my friends Dennis and Brian Larson and I found a deep drift at the edge of the lake and beside a small game trail. We thought it a great spot to make a fort and spent hours chopping out blocks of snow and piling them around the hole we had dug using our snowshoes as shovels.
We were exhausted and sat with our backs against one side of the "igloo" that had no top. Uncharacteristically we were silent, probably because we were too tired to speak for the moment and it just felt good to soak up the sun's rays down in the hole where there was no wind.
Just then a dog came walking along the game trail which was on top of the snow and about three feet higher than our heads. It was only about six feet from where I sat. The dog never saw us and walked down to the lake where it followed the little trail to the other side of the bay and walked into the bush.
As it disappeared all three of us realized at once, "That was a wolf!"

Wood shed site now buried in snow

Evidence that nature abhors a vacuum

A Harris's Sparrow, rare in these parts, is a regular visitor to our feeder this winter

There is a postscript to the posting awhile back regarding grey foxes appearing for the first time in Nolalu. It now seems that something has happened to the usual population of red foxes. I haven't seen a single one all winter, not even along the roads. Red foxes are just about the most commonly seen animal on our rural roads, especially at night. Where are they?
It is still early to say for sure but a neighbour reports finding two dead red foxes last year. What could be killing them? One suggestion is distemper.
At any rate that might explain how grey foxes are gaining a foothold. It is only about 30 miles from here to Minnesota where grey foxes are fairly common. The greys may be filling the niche left open by the reds.
In other wildlife news, the Harris's Sparrow above seems to have made the decision to spend the winter at our bird feeder. He showed up with the first snows in November. He is about half a continent away from his usual territory of Alberta - to - Texas.

New Year's Eve buck still has antlers

Whitetails will be dropping their antlers any day