FIVE SECOND STORIES

In the Neighborhood: For a couple of days, our Sandhill Crane friends visited many Diners and backyards. Here, they're on the berm behind us next to the Sparrow West building:

I had an amazing encounter with them: I was driving out to run errands and they were strolling on folk's lawns along our street. They paid me no mind, just kept walking  as my car moved next to them. 

They just stayed the 2 days.  

8/14-Turkey Bros! The Gang of 4 were out visiting everyone's Diners. They visited Benny's but gave mine a pass-probably leery of the new construction next to mine. They followed the berm and checked out Johnny's backyard. Their alpha led the way:
 

They next went to John's Diner across the street. Curiously, the alpha kept apart from his pals while they fed-perhaps to stand watch.

 

After having a bite, they returned to Carrier Creek.

Our new pool deck/steps are taking shape:

Our tomatoes are ripening! 

8/12- Total Solar Eclipse seen in Greenland, Iceland, Spain and parts of the Mediterranean. Here was the view from Corsica near sundown:

 8/16: pool steps completed!

 

I'm going to plant some shrubs along the front to mask the cement footings. I'm leaning towards Diervilla or bush honeysuckle which has delicate yellow blooms in Summer and leaves that turn red in the Fall.

Today it got up to 87° and muggy with a chance of showers. Nice fluffy clouds, though.

Tiger in my backyard. Now that construction has ended, it's time for some patrolling.

One of his many outposts outside...

and inside: 

Getting his hard-earned reward of belly-rubs from his Mum:

Exotic dessert on the Buffet-rainbow sherbet. It was nasty, more sweet than flavor. MamaC imbibed:

The next morning, the container was clean as a whistle-either she or Rocky's finished it off.

LG explored the new steps and enjoyed the solar cover posts as a convenient spot to have a peanut:
 

We were having supper on the deck and LG came over: Got Nuts??

It's probably been nearly 4 weeks since I've mowed the yard. It was getting shaggy especially up by the street where it gets any rain runoff. My attitude:

 The lawn needs mowin' and I don't care

 The lawn needs mowin' and I don't care

 The lawn needs mowin' and I don't care

Gee, those weeds are nice and green.   

8/18-I finally get out there and mow as some rain is promised for the evening. Mild and overcast-good working weather. Now, I have often observed that Mother Nature has a habit of letting we apes know that we are in her realm. Little cuts and scrapes from branches, bug bites and annoying noseeums. She outdid herself: all of a sudden, I discovered that we have several yellow jacket nests. The first was quite obvious-a hole about the size of a softball behind the pool that had been dug up. I think the Stampy's were responsible as I had seen a number of golf ball-sized digs across the yard. They are known to enjoy eating wasps and their comb. Plus, I could see wasps inside the hole. So, I'm out front and all of a sudden I feel a sharp pain: stung just above the sock line. I encounter more nests along the raised beds in the East Garden-stung twice more-on the other leg above the sock line and one of the bastards flew up my shorts and bit me in the ass! I ran inside, put ointment on the stings, switched to long sweatpants tucked into the socks and finished the mowing. Oi!

We got a nice soaker before midnight: all the models before I went to bed were forecasting .04-.2". We received an inch! Yay! 

Meanwhile, the stinging changed to itch on the wasp bites. Calamine lotion became my new BF.

 ~

Fun fact-US did not issue birth certificates until 1902. How did the government keep track of new citizens? They did so through a decentralized patchwork of local, religious and personal records.

~ 

Origin of saying "the writing is on the wall": From Wiki-In the biblical Book of Daniel chapter 5, there is an episode concerning Belshazzar's Feast. The Babylonian king Belshazzar is said to have defiled the sacred vessels of the enslaved Israelites by using them to serve wine at a banquet. The feast was then disturbed by the appearance of a divine hand, which wrote a glowing inscription on a wall –the writing on the wall – which was interpreted by the prophet Daniel as a portent of Belshazzar's doom. Belshazzar was killed that night, and Darius the Mede succeeded to his kingdom.

This event has been portrayed by many artists over time including Rembrandt. One of the most intriguing was made by British painter John Martin in 1821. It became so popular with the public that the gallery had to install fencing to contain the crowds. It's quite a trippy piece depicting the moment Daniel makes his prediction amidst a huge banquet for a thousand guests held in an open air venue. Daniel is in a dark coat with a raised hand as the words of Yahweh-"MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN" appear glowing on a wall on the left side of the canvas. The guests are freaking out and running away from the apparition. Beyond the venue, you can see the moonlit sky, the Tower of Babel, the Gardens of Babylon and a Grand Ziggurat:

FUBARland: Mike Lindell, the Roach's pal and ass-kisser who ran in the MN primary for governor, was creamed yet refuses to concede defeat. I wonder if this is a test case for the GOP playbook in the mid-terms: refuse to concede in order to obfuscate and muck up the process. As I post this, he still has not conceded.

Insane in the membrane-UK style. Perennial ultra-rightwing asshole, racist, immigrant hater and Brexit-lover was running in a special election for his seat in Parliament. Neither Labour or Tories put forth a candidate to oppose him. Instead, there was Count BinFace, a inter-galactic space warrior:

 

 

The Count received about 25% of the vote in a poorly participated election. I bet Bender Rodriguez would be thrilled with him:

Is Natalie Harp Roach's Eva Braun? 

 

Oh baby, let's go into the Ballroom bunker and leave the planet together!

 

Cuing up the band Garbage's hit song "#1 Crush" from 1995:

I would die for you, I would die for you
I've been dying just to feel you by my side
To know that you're mine

I will cry for you, I will cry for you
I will wash away your pain with all my tears
And drown your fear

I will pray for you, I will pray for you
I will sell my soul for something pure and true
Someone like you

See your face every place that I walk in
Hear your voice every time that I'm talking
You will believe in me
And I will never be ignored

I will burn for you, feel pain for you
I will twist the knife and bleed my aching heart
And tear it apart

I will lie for you, beg and steal for you
I will crawl on hands and knees until you see
You're just like me

Violate all the love that I'm missing
Blow away all the pain that I'm living
You will believe in me
And I can never be ignored

I would die for you
I would kill for you
I would steal for you
I'd do time for you
I will wait for you

I'd make room for you

I'd sail ships for you
To be close to you
To be part of you
'Cause I believe in you
I believe in you
I would die for you

 

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. 

~ 

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. 

~

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.

~ 

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:

 ~

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.

~

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.

~

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.

 

~ 

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. 

~

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

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

~

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. 

~

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:

~

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!