FIVE SECOND STORIES (updated)

In the Neighborhood:

8/8-Our first ripe tomato! We had our ritual first mater as a BLT, although because of the cyclospora outbreak, we omitted the lettuce. C had hers with a new "bacon" product made from mushrooms and avocado. My greens were basil. Both sammies were yummy.

While warm and muggy during the day, a front had swung down  lowering the mugginess with a freshening breeze. Buddy had spent the morning snoozing on the couch.

Early one morning, I looked out front and saw a mating pair of Sandhill Cranes:

Thanks to the blog, I was able to look at past years and curiously, we seem to frequently have these visits in August. Research indicates they are raising their nearly grown chicks and fueling up for the big flight South in October.

8/9-first batch of storms came this afternoon. I always like to witness this event where the rain begins light without wind and produces this visual which only lasts a short while:

I guess with the recent historic dates of the atomic attacks in Japan as a reminder, this looks like the reversal of the flash shadows-this one is from Hiroshima:

Buddy had been on patrol and came back following the dry deck areas under the roof overhang-note the "shadows" have gone:

We didn't get much rain out of this batch, but it did cool things down refreshingly. 

8/10-huge thunderstorms early this morning. I began to hear the rumble off in the distance (I had awakened from first sleep) and it kept getting louder. It was moving fast and while there was not much wind, the thunder and lightning were very loud and intense with pouring rain. The noise got to Buddy, who retreated to a safe place in the basement until it was over. All told from yesterday afternoon-we received a much needed 1.5" of rain. Yay!

C had put out some elderly almond milk on the Buffet and MamaC enjoyed it very much:

Seen in the garden:

I saw this guy last month-Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (ETS)

 This week I saw this by the tomatoes:

Meet Mrs. ETS, in her "dark morph" stage which mimics the toxic Pipevine Swallowtail as an evolutionary solution to avoid predators especially during this time in August when she is laying the eggs of her second brood.

Hodgepodge for $400: 

One day, MamaC discovers a liminal space while eating a pear.

We received a letter featuring a skunk stamp (well, they are Stampies, after all) with postmark. Is this coincidental or planned clever visual?

Interesting vid about Hudson Bay and Churchill, a village that can only be reached reliably by sea or by air:

One curious aspect of life in Churchill is a major inter-species issues between humans and polar bears. Every Fall, Churchill is a gathering place for the bears who are waiting for ice to form. The bear's life cycle is this: when it warms, they have to go inland and essentially fast throughout Summer, living off their Winter fat. So, when Fall comes around, they head to Churchill which is located in an estuary. Bears need ice to support their weight while they hunt seals who pop out of the water. While they wait, they are weak and hangry. Cultural snapshot: folks leave their vehicles unlocked, providing shelter for someone being chased by a bear. There is a hotline to call if you see a bear in your street and even a lockup facility for troublesome bears-usually juveniles. The permanent population of humans there is under 900. 

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In the 8/7 NYT, there was an article about scientists who trained artificial intelligence on libraries of DNA and then asked the model to create recipes for viral genomes. Sixteen of them were viable, yielding new viruses not found in nature.

So, unlike The Terminator which featured robots killing off our species, here is a much more efficient method. 

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Germfask MI-a place that is not a name but a collection of initials. Located in the Southern UP, just NW of Manistique and Gulliver (where Michele's father's people are from), it is a unincorporated community of 469 souls (2020 census). The name was derived from the surname initials of eight of the original settlers of 1881: John Grant, Matthew Edge, William Robinson, Thaddeus Mead, Dr. W. W. French, Ezekiel Ackley, Oscar (O.D.) Sheppard, and Hezekiah Knaggs.

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MADads-In grocer Aldi's new ad campaign, customers regularly experience hallucinations while shopping where they meet up with a cowboy who gives sage advice on the advantages of shopping at Aldi:

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Cautionary tales: There Will Come Soft Rains

1918-WWI still rages and a new plague has arrived in the form of the Spanish Flu. Sara Teasdale wrote this:

(War Time)

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

In 1950, Ray Bradbury wrote a short story with the same title, appearing in Collier's magazine and later as a chapter in the Martian Chronicles. Considering the rapid expansion of AI, this tale is uneasily prescient. From Wiki:

A nuclear catastrophe has left the city of Allendale, CA, entirely desolate. However, within one miraculously preserved house, the daily routine continues –automatic systems within the home prepare breakfast, clean the house, make beds, wash dishes, and address the former residents without any knowledge of their current state as burnt silhouettes on one of the walls. 

The automated house system chimes the date by saying, "Today is August 4, 2026".

A sickly and emaciated dog, having previously belonged to the family, enters the house. It is unable to enter the kitchen, where the automated systems are making pancakes.  It runs around in a frenzy, before dying. After an hour, the automated systems remove the dog's body, incinerating it.

That evening, the house recites to the absent hostess a random selection by her favorite poet, "There Will Come Soft Rains"  by Sara Teasdale. A windstorm blows a tree branch through a window in the kitchen, starting a fire. The house's systems desperately attempt to put out the fire, but the doomed home burns to the ground in a night. The following dawn, all that remains is a single wall, which contains an automated system that endlessly reads aloud the date by repeatedly saying, "Today is August 5, 2026".

As I wrote above, perhaps it will be some superbug that AI creates that will wipe our species off the planet instead of murderous robots or our nuclear weapons. The bug would be a blessing for everything else alive instead of radiation. The planet might just recover given enough time. 

FUBARland: Nasty food fight going on between establishment Dems and insurgent, younger progressive"socialists" over the path of the party. I came across this interesting comment: the Progessives aren't embracing Marxism or even Socialism, they are rejecting Reaganomics.

This past weekend while Roach was golfing at his course at Bedminster, there were surface to air missile systems on the course. Evidently, he takes Iran seriously in their thoughts of going biblical on his worthless ass.

 

FIVE SECOND STORIES

In the Neighborhood:

8/2-a cool,muggy and rainy day yesterday with .5" of rain-a nice soaker. 

 

The hydrangea on the right is suffering from the drought and my lack of attention. I gave them a nice drink on Friday and was grateful with what we received the following day.

M/M Redbird visited the Diner, both looking damp and perhaps coming out of molt: 

The Crimson Bros-Mr. Maple out front has a couple of red leafs-evidently influencers who are jumping the gun on fall:

or most likely, they are symptom of drought stress. C has noticed several trees on campus exhibiting changed leaves as well.

We think the remaining chuckettes have finally left the nest as we have not seen them in several weeks. I was looking at past posts to see how long I have been writing about MamaC. If indeed it is the same woodchuck, then she has been coming here since 2022. Chucks start reproducing in their second season so this would make her 5 years old. AI says that on average, they live 3-6 years in the wild although they can live 10 years or so in a protected environment. Our girl is graying especially around her muzzle-aren't we all.

I've noticed with the kids gone, her range has expanded. I see her galumping from the West to the shed-there's a patch of undergrowth in back of Johnny's that she likes to hang out in. I spotted her way to the East at the edge of Benny's property by a fence entry that will take her to Carrier Creek. 
 

I could see that she was having a bite but couldn't figure out what it might be. Benny only puts out seed. Then I saw several squirrels as well (including LG who later came by) and I realized what was going on: Benny's pear tree is fruiting and many have dropped to the ground. Well, buffet time! 

8/5-she brought home take-out and ate the pear like it was corn-on-the cob! 

We were having supper on the deck when a big heron flew up and landed on our dead pine on the berm! We've never experienced this! 

Upon research, I believe this is a juvenile Great Blue Heron based on its monochrome plumage. Kinda tough with it backlit but it lacks the black stripe over the eye or head feathers. They love dead tall trees especially around a body of water-gives them a clear view of things whether to hunt or watch for predators like eagles. Odd to see this one out of its environment although with the drought, perhaps it has expanded its hunting territory. I did not know that they migrate-many do so heading for the Gulf Coast, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. Some stay, like Canadian geese, as long as there is open water for feeding. If they are snowbirds, they generally leave when things begin to get icy-October/November. 

Our heron flew from one dead tree to the next-that being a telephone pole! It works!

Later in the evening as we entered twilight, fireflies came out by Bin's Rose of Sharon with its ghostly tulle-covered Sharons. I photoshopped a re-creation. Click to enlarge.

This brought to mind a favorite John Singer Sargent painting from 1885-86-Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose:

Fun Fact: Sargent took 2 summers to complete as this was painted plein air with barely 15-20 minutes to work in the changing light. 

The title comes from the refrain of a popular song "Ye Shepherds Tell Me" by Joseph Massinghi, a pastoral glee for a trio of male voices, which mentions Flora wearing "A wreath around her head, around her head she wore, Carnation, lily, lily, rose". Here is the melody:

Tree Curiosities:

Brazilian grapetree: aka  Jabuticaba, whose fruit grows directly on the trunk.

You probably have never seen this fruit-it begins to ferment after 3-4 days, making it impossible to store and ship.

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The Tree of Ténéré
 

From Wiki: The Tree of Ténéré (French: L'Arbre du Ténéré) was a solitary acacia that was once considered the most isolated tree on Earth. It was a landmark on caravan  routes through the Ténéré region of the Sahara Desert in northeast Niger, so well known that it and the Arbre Perdu (Lost Tree)  to the north are the only trees to be shown on a map at a scale of 1:4,000,000. The tree is estimated to have existed for approximately 300 years until it was knocked down in 1973 by an allegedly drunk Libyan truck driver. The Tree of Ténéré was the last of a group of trees that grew along the Azalai when the Sahara desert was less parched than it is today. The tree had stood alone for decades. During the winter of 1938–1939, a well was dug near the tree and it was found that the roots of the tree reached the water table 108–118 feet below the surface. 

A simple metal sculpture representing the tree stands to mark its former location and general appearance in the desert. 

In 2017, a tribute to the Tree was exhibited at the Burning Man festival with an enormous climbable tree with 25,000 LED leaves. A canvas of light and music with infinite possibility.

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Árbol del Tule, Oaxaca, Mexico-from Wiki: The largest tree in Mexico is a massive Montezuma cypress that has the stoutest trunk of any tree on Earth measuring 145-164 feet. It is located in the church grounds of Santa María del Tule in Oaxaca.

 

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There's a biological ceiling of how high a tree may grow on Earth, estimated to be between 400 and 426 feet.

Why Trees Stop Growing

Water Stress: Gravity and friction make it extremely hard to pull water up to the highest leaves.
Constant Drought: Leaves near the very top of a towering tree experience permanent water stress, which limits photosynthesis.
Vascular Physics: Fluid dynamics and the limits of sap flow mean that beyond this height, no leaf size or vascular structure can adequately feed the plant. 

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 MADads: Orkin: Yo! Rat w/NYC attitude:

Hmmm, just the thing for our infestation in Washington? What's it's efficacy?

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I was watching a show about vintage recipes from the 1970's, one of many that are around that say they aren't eaten anymore or forgotten. I had never come across this: cheese souffle loaf which advertises you can make a souffle without the worry of it falling and "looked sophisticated but remained approachable". Hmm, I've heard that said about some individuals. 

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C loves early 60's dance and dance music. She incorporated such in the Summer classes she taught in Sligo, Ireland. One example turned up in her YT feed that was featured John Water's film "Hairspray"-The Roach 1961 Gene and Wendell:

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Shylight from Studio Drift-very cool kinetic sculpture inspired by time-lapse of flower blooms opening up:

FUBARland:

Dr. El-Sayed, Will Lawrence and James Talarico all won their primaries. Yay!
 

FIVE SECOND STORIES

In the Neighborhood: The drought continues although the temps have been comfy and supper on the deck enjoyable. 

A tribute to GF Birch:

Buddy resting behind a few leaves of grass-dreamland of his ancient past in the savannah:

There's a male robin, who frequents the leaf mulch around the pool. During droughts, they feed on fruit and berries if available or insects as the worms stay well underground. 

We're starting to hear cicadas in the early evening although it's been a single call and brief.

High in GF Birch, a Nutkin enjoying a bite:

Not surprisingly, the cherry toms have some kind disease. Toms are divas-too much water or too little, they throw a fit. Worse, it looks like the Pruners are trimming them. 

Regardless of how the Chucks felt about the one intact hosta which I mentioned in my last post, the Pruners took it out a couple of nights ago. MamaC enjoying a buffet delicacy-pizza crust!

 

In response of these continued attacks, I'm experimenting with protecting the young Rose of Sharon. The damn Pruners are eating all the new growth so after doing research, I am going with this system:
 

That's right-the ghost Sharons! The fabric is Tulle, used for bridal veils and tutus. The larger Sharons were sprayed with deer deterrent. We'll see.

7/27-28: some rain afternoon/overnight measuring .8". The neighborhood was relieved, less stressed. We were lucky as well missing out on violent storms/hail/lightning which whacked WI, IL. So far, only 1.6" has fallen for the month. 

7/31-8/1: a bit more rain. Weirdly cool yet humid. July rain totals were 2.36"-.58" below average. 

Buddy has another wound on his shoulder. No one has seen The Black Kitty in weeks so is this the result of a fight with an unknown cat or self-inflicted due to overly vigorous itch scratching? He's healing up.

Seen recently in the garden-Northern Crescent butterfly which are only 1"-1.5" wide:

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Curiosities: 

Petrifying well or Mother Shipton's Cave-from Wiki:

Mother Shipton's Cave is at Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, England, near the River Nidd. Nearby is a petrifying well-the oldest tourist attraction to charge a fee in England, and has been operated since 1630. The water of the well is so rich in sulphate and carbonate that artifacts may be put in the well to be "petrified" (encrusted) as a tourist attraction.

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The Rudston Monolith: Located in the village of Rudston in Yorkshire, England. Erected 3500-2000 BC and at 25 feet tall, it is the largest stone standing stone in the UK. Around 1100 AD, the Normans built a chapel and over the centuries it has been expanded and updated to the current All Saints Church.

Cheeky local folklore says the stone was thrown at the church by the devil and missed. Nevermind that the stone was there many centuries before the church was built.

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Lake Chad and Lake Congo 100,000 years ago:

Lake Chad was the largest freshwater lake on the planet at a time when North Africa was filled with grasslands and savannahs due to changes in the Earth's orbital tilt and axial wobble (precession) strengthened the African monsoon. Many human populations lived around the lakes and the rivers that fed into it. This same tilt and wobble changed, shifting the monsoon southward and the land grew drier. Populations were forced to migrate in order to survive. This is where the ancestors of the Egyptian culture came from. They moved East until they came across the Nile river and settled along its banks.

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Our near-extinction event: Chimps living in a single forest in Central Africa possess more genetic variation than the entire human population of 8 million. What caused this?

Roughly 74,000 years ago something happened and our species was reduced to an estimated 3000-10,000 individuals. All of us are related to this handful of Homo Sapiens that were anatomically-modern hunter-gatherers living in Africa, Asia and parts of Europe.

One contentious theory is that the eruption of the Toba Volcano in Sumatra, Indonesia created a volcanic winter where its ash caused global cooling and dark skies for a number of years. Plants and animals perished. Human groups in places like Africa and India adapted and survived, proving resilient rather than going extinct. 

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Ancient trek: Fossilized footprints at White Sands National Park in NM reveal an adult carrying a toddler on a nearly 1 mile journey. The tracks show the adult shifting the child's weight and occasionally setting the toddler down.

Distance: 0.93 miles (1.5 km) one-way, making it the longest known ancient human trackway.

Age: Estimated between 11,550 and 23,000 years old from surrounding sediment and seed layers.

Behaviors: The adult's footprints show slips and wider positioning in the mud from the extra load of carrying the young child.

Ice Age Encounters: The path crosses with tracks from extinct animals like a Columbian mammoth and a giant ground sloth that reacted to the human scent.  

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The giant arrows from Atlantic to Pacific:

Google Earth

Beginning in 1927, the Department of Commerce installed giant concrete arrows to help guide air mail and commercial pilots fly across the country.

Major problems with this idea were that these aids only worked in daylight and visible at low altitude. By 1931, they were phased out when new navigation technology advanced.

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Do robots get electric hemorrhoids? 

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A Mom described how she and her daughter survived  the recent EF-3 tornado event in Menasha WI. When the warnings went off, they grabbed a kitty and ran downstairs. The tornado was close-their ears were popping. Over the noise, they heard the cry of another kitty whom they had forgotten in the rush. The daughter ran back upstairs to get it "...and she ran back downstairs because the trees were coming down!" 

An event the girl will always remember.

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FUBARland: 

After trotting out a fake pic and lying that Mitcho is alive and well, the WH has gone silent about the whereabouts/fate of the senior Republican Senator. They claim he is in rehab but the Dems are screaming for proof of life. Like everything else with this administration, just bizarre.

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Our species is really dumb-we keep making the same mistakes over and over again, often because of our own hubris: it won't happen to us. Here's a tale of historical empires and generational issues that asks the question-where are we in this pattern?

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