An eye on Everest

Everest: Source - stockphoto.com

I have never climbed Everest. I probably never will. It's an expensive climb -- the average cost of an Everest expedition is $65,000. I'm not that good of a mountaineer... yet -- you never know. But mostly because it's getting really crowded up there on top of the world.

A record 300 climbers headed up for a summit push on May 19, according to a report by Rock and Ice magazine. As of Tuesday, there were 11 confirmed dead climbers on Everest for the 2012 season. The deadliest Everest season was 1996 with 15 fatalities.

Many are predicting a similar bottleneck event that caused eight of the 1996 deaths. A crowd of 34 climbers converged on the Hilary Step at 28,750 feet.

"Between 80 and 150 climbers are currently (Thursday on the mountain; Wednesday in the U.S.) headed up into the night for the summit in windy, rocky and crowded conditions," reports Rock and Ice. In an update today, about half of the teams decided to postpone their summit attempts for one day.

Duane Raleigh of Rock and Ice wrote:

"While accurate weather forecasts are now available to Everest climbers, warning them of impending storms, climbers now all converge at once when the forecast is most favorable, exacerbating an already crowded situation, slowing everyone and making them more likely to get caught in bad weather or run out of oxygen.

According to a recent statistical study, climbers who summit between 9 and 10 a.m. are more likely to survive than those who summit four hours later. The death of Shan Klorfine over the weekend is just one example: she topped out at 2 p.m. and died on the descent, same as most of the dead on the 1996 climb. Her last words to her Sherpa guide were "save me.""

If you are interested in following the activity on Everest, you can follow National Geographic's team on Twitter, @NatGeo. They are tweeting and blogging their progress. 

Sarah Palin* wants to be a mommy

*Just to be clear: the Sarah Palin I'm referring to is my chicken. Pretty sure the human Sarah Palin is already a mommy.

Sarah Palin hunkers down.

It's spring! Want to know how I can tell? Trees are blooming, the humidity is back and my chicken, Sarah Palin, won't get off her ass.

Something inside of her has clicked and the Mommy hormones are flowing. For the past few days she has stopped scratching, has generally lost her appetite and spends all of her time hunkered down in the darkest corner of the chicken coop.

She has stopped laying eggs -- which is a shame, because her eggs were big and beautiful. She will sit on Liz Lemon's eggs (my other chicken) until I come in each day to collect them. And then Sarah will brood over...nothing.

Feathers puffed as she defends eggs that don't exist.

She's not prone to aggression in this state. But when I try to coax her off Liz Lemon's eggs everyday, Palin will puff up her feathers and give me a menacing, deep croak. I try to entice her with food or a mouse. She loves those. But I guess I can't compete with nature.

According to citygirlfarming.com, Palin is brooding. This natural process will last for about a month.

Fertilized eggs take a solid 21 days of incubation before they are ready to hatch. A brooding hen will devote herself to keeping her eggs warm and protected during those three weeks and for a little while after they are born.

Sarah Palin has already proved to me her devotion to her pretend chicks when I found her crouched in a corner with chicken crap on her wing. From what I can figure, Liz Lemon was perched above Sarah Palin when she took a crap and Palin just chalked it up to one of the sacrifices of motherhood.

Sarah Palin and Liz Lemon in their normal state of curiosity.

Sarah Palin should return to her normal self in a few weeks. Until then, I will not stop finding it super cool to watch chicken nature live in my backyard.