8:00 am temp: 14
Yesterday: 32/17
Normal: 29/14
Corn spilled along the train tracks
This morning I saw a young doe get hit by the train. It was the Amtrak train that hit her, but she was on the tracks feeding on corn spilled from a freight train.
We went down and dragged her body off the tracks and called the food bank to see if they could come harvest the meat.
Rest in peace girl, you just didn’t understand about trains.
8:00 AM temp: 37
Yesterday: 55/33
Normal: 50/29
Freight train heading west. Photo taken earlier in March.
Between my house and the lake is a rail line over which about 45 freight trains and two Amtrak trains run each day. I like watching the trains go by, and I figure I can tell a lot about the world economy from what is being hauled back and forth across the country.
When I moved in last summer, the first thing that struck me was the high percentage of containers with the names of Chinese shipping companies on them: Hanjin, Yang Ming, China Shipping, COSCO, CSCL. Lately I don’t notice this as much; what catches my eye is the number of shiny black tanker cars going by. Whole long trains of tankers that look brand spanking new wind through here, presumably headed for the Bakken oil fields on the eastern edge of Montana and in North Dakota. So far we don’t see coal trains here, but that could change if those who want to ship Montana coal to China are successful.
Backyard Climate Report 