Live Writer and Blogger Feud! Red-cockaded Woodpecker. SF Quake. Grace Kelly.

I wasn't able to publish the post that it took me so long to draft yesterday, as Live Writer and my blog aren't speaking, so won't recognize each other.  That's a first in over 1500 posts.  So I have copied and pasted some of it into Blogger.  As pictures are hard to manage in Blogger, I haven't included any of the pictures, live cams or videos about the birds that it took me so long to get together. 

For “Winged Wednesday”:

Red-cockaded Woodpecker




“The small, mainly black and white Red-cockaded Woodpecker is associated with mature southern pine forests. The male has a small red mark (cockade) on the side of its nape. This species, one of the few endemic to the continental United States, was originally found throughout the southeast, but is now limited to isolated populations, the largest in South Carolina and Florida.
This species requires open pine forests with large, old trees for nesting, a habitat normally maintained by periodic natural burns. Decades of fire suppression and removal of large trees by European settlers destroyed much suitable habitat and brought populations of Red-cockaded Woodpecker dangerously close to extinction. The species was listed as Endangered under the Endangered Species Act in 1970.
Unlike most woodpeckers, which nest in dead wood, this woodpecker excavates its nest cavity only in living pines that are at least 70 years old and affected with red heart disease. This fungus softens the wood and allows the bird to dig out a cavity. The live pine then "bleeds" pitch around the nest hole, which helps keep tree-climbing snakes away from the nest.

The Red-cockaded Woodpecker is a cooperative breeder, living in small family groups composed of one breeding pair and several helpers that assist in raising young. The entire family often forages as a group, moving together from tree to tree.

On public lands, managers now set controlled fires to mimic the natural burns which maintain suitable habitat for this woodpecker. Maintaining older trees in the landscape, along with building artificial nest cavities and translocation programs, have also helped boost populations and establish new colonies. These conservation measures have helped stabilize and increase populations.”

Help ABC conserve this and other birds and their habitats!
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On This Day:
San Francisco earthquake, Apr 18, 1906:

“A devastating earthquake begins to shake the city of San Francisco in the morning hours of this day in 1906. The first of two vicious tremors shook San Francisco at 5:13 a.m., and a second followed not long after. The quake was powerful enough to be recorded thousands of miles away in Cape Town, South Africa, and its effect on San Francisco was cataclysmic. Thousands of structures collapsed as a result of the quake itself. However, the greatest devastation resulted from the fires that followed the quake. The initial tremors destroyed the city's water mains, leaving overwhelmed firefighters with no means of combating the growing inferno. The blaze burned for four days and engulfed the vast majority of the city.

By the time a heavy rainfall tamed the massive fire, the once proud city of San Francisco was in shambles. More than 28,000 buildings burned to the ground and the city suffered more than $500 million in damages. The human toll was equally disastrous: authorities estimated that the quake and fires killed 700 people, and left a quarter of a million people homeless. The famous writer and San Francisco resident Jack London noted, "Surrender was complete."

Despite the utter devastation, San Francisco quickly recovered from the great earthquake of 1906. During the next four years, the city arose from its ashes. Ironically, the destruction actually allowed city planners to create a new and better San Francisco. A classic western boomtown, San Francisco had grown in a haphazard manner since the Gold Rush of 1849. Working from a nearly clean slate, San Franciscans could rebuild the city with a more logical and elegant structure. The destruction of the urban center at San Francisco also encouraged the growth of new towns around the bay, making room for a new population boom arriving from the U.S. and abroad. Within a decade, San Francisco had resumed its status as the crown jewel of the American West.”
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Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier marry, Apr 18, 1956:

“American actress Grace Kelly marries Prince Rainier of Monaco in a spectacular ceremony on this day in 1956. Kelly, the daughter of a former model and a wealthy industrialist, began acting as a child. After high school, she attended the American Academy for Dramatic Arts in New York. While she auditioned for Broadway plays, she supported herself by modeling and appearing in TV commercials. In 1949, Kelly debuted on Broadway in The Father by August Strindberg. Two years later, she landed her first Hollywood bit part, in Fourteen Hours. Her big break came in 1952, when she starred as Gary Cooper's wife in High Noon. Her performance in The Country Girl, as the long-suffering wife of an alcoholic songwriter played by Bing Crosby, won her an Oscar in 1954. The same year, she played opposite Jimmy Stewart in Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window.

While filming another Hitchcock movie, To Catch a Thief (1955), in the French Riviera, Kelly met Prince Rainier of Monaco. It wasn't love at first sight for Kelly, but the prince initiated a long correspondence, which led to their marriage in 1956. Afterward, she became Princess Grace of Monaco and retired from acting. She had three children and occasionally narrated documentaries. Kelly died tragically at the age of 52 when her car plunged off a mountain road by the Cote D'Azur in September 1982.”
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Yesterday:

Misty and I went to get Jay, but this time during her walk, she didn’t pick up cockleburs on her legs. That was the whole idea of cutting her leg hair down the day before. First, Jay and I got the little brown Sanyo dorm fridge out of the storage area, as a lady was coming to see it in the afternoon. That was the fridge that we tried to use in the little cargo trailer/camper. It didn’t matter where we put it, it just wouldn’t fit, unless we scrapped the plan of having a dinette/bed which wasn’t going to happen. (Then I found a nice little white fridge, which we built in the bottom of the closet, see picture). The lady bought the Sanyo fridge.

As we had plugged in the Frigidaire fridge that we got from a neighbor, and it works well, we cleaned it up. We had to scrub the door gasket with bleach-water. The crisper drawer was missing, and the shelf above it, but we found some Plexiglas for a shelf, and a crisper drawer that fit it. One more thing to sell.

We are still working on my computer desk, so to get the computer off the floor, we added a shelf on the right side of the desk.

I hope that I can find out what is going on with this feud between Live Writer and Blogger, today.