Haluški: FIVE SECOND STORIES

Such a beautiful Spring-most trees and shrubs are fully leafed out.

The purple iris and alliums are in bloom out front:

The white spiraea in the West Garden is blooming for the first time since I planted it 3 years ago:

On campus, there are a couple of huge trees with unusual blooms-they are Japanese Horse Chestnut:

I was working in the Back 40 when a Tiger Swallowtail flew past:

His Lordship keeping an eye on things around the Diner. We've seen Mamachuck just a couple of times and a young Stampy came by at Dusk. It was seen a month ago with a sibling-both had tails with white tips.

The West Garden is filled with the scent of lily of the valley:

We're had a stretch of rain about every other day. The lawn was pretty high but at least the dandelion rush is over. It was drizzling so Bud found a dry spot under C's bedroom window.

On May 7, heavy storms were pounding much of the center of the country. Early in the evening, conditions were such that the Weather Service issue the first ever Tornado emergency for SW Michigan. Tornadoes swept through Portage and Kalamazoo doing some major damage but killed no one. Luckily for us, the strength of those systems that spawned the twisters dissipated by the time it reached here. We got .6" of an inch of rain.

A EF-2 with winds of 135 mph struck Portage. A real twig snapper!

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Orangutan researchers in Indonesia witnessed one of their subjects chew up the leaves of a medicinal plant and apply them to a facial wound. It healed in 5 days. This is the first time a wild primate was seen using medicine to try to heal itself.

Meanwhile, our own attempts for better health as seen in a recent ad on my YT feed-The Squatty Potty:

That's right! With a tagline of "poop like a caveman", SP suggests that this bench creates a more natural angle for your colon that is more comfortable, faster and more efficient in emptying your bowels. Ahh, capitalism: better, bigger, brighter! Only $24.99 made of sustainably resourced bamboo.

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I enjoyed the 1963 film Jason and the Argonauts featuring the fabulous stop-motion special effects by Ray Harryhausen. The other day I wondered if there had been a recent remake and found that indeed one came out in 2000 as a two-part TV miniseries from Hallmark. It sucks. How bad is it? Well, Jason is portrayed sporting an awesome mullet.

Hallmark decided to follow the time-worn trend of writing dialogue with that archaic manner that turns up in biblical epics: "I have greater things to ponder than these games" declares Jason. Oi. I only made it through 20 minutes although the scene where Jason talks to a Minotaur was cool. Dennis Hopper co-stars chewing the rug with his patented crazy guy routine portraying Jason's murderous uncle.

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The Richat Structure aka The Eye of Sahara:

Located in Mauritania in Northern Africa

It is an eroded geological dome 25 miles in diameter, exposing sedimentary rock in layers that appear as concentric rings. While long known to indigenous people, it did not receive European attention until the 1930's.

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Ectotherms (old designation cold-blooded) version of hibernation or dormancy is called brumation. It is triggered by a lack of heat and a decrease in the hours of daylight in winter, similar to hibernation. Reptiles including turtles, lizards, snakes and crocs generally begin brumation in late autumn (more specific times depend on the species). They often wake up to drink water and return to "sleep". They can go for months without food. Reptiles may eat more than usual before the brumation time but eat less or refuse food as the temperature drops. However, they do need to drink water.

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Who is this Simpson's character?

The unibrow baby’s real name is Gerald Samson, and he’s the exact same age as Maggie, though he has been seen standing steadier than Maggie. Both babies were born on the same day and at the same hospital, but there were some big differences in how they were treated there. At that moment, the Springfield General Hospital had only one diaper left, and it was given to Maggie, while Gerald was wrapped in the discount section of the Springfield Shopper. This made Gerald develop a rash that has persisted, and so he blames Maggie for this uncomfortable situation and spends a big part of his time plotting his revenge against the young Simpson.

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As someone who grew up in the '60's, it is still startling to hear the first Saturday of the month tests of the warning sirens conducted by the township. Especially when it is not a stormy day.

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I watched "A Month in the Country" with very young Colin Firth and Kenneth Branagh starring as two soldiers who survived the WWI trenches and grappling with PTSD. It's 1920 when they meet up in Yorkshire, Firth hired to restore an mural in an ancient church that had been white-washed; Branagh ostensibly tasked with an archaeological dig for a lost grave.

They have a conversation about the mural now restored. Branagh comments: "A wintery hard-liner, that ancient Christ from the early days-All Justice, no mercy".

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The Odessa TX Stonehenge:

From Roadside America site: The officially titled "University of Texas of the Permian Basin Stonehenge" was built in the summer of 2004 by stoneworkers Connie and Brenda Edwards. The University thought that a nearly-full-size Stonehenge would make a good teaching tool -- and an alluring Druidic tourist attraction for the city.

Although the original Stonehenge took 2,000 years to complete, this one went up in only six weeks. Connie Edwards reportedly said at the time that he'd be happy just to build Stonehenges for the rest of his life.

Made of limestone slabs up to 19 feet tall and 20 tons apiece, Permian Basin Stonehenge is slightly shorter than the original, but it's exact in horizontal size and astronomically accurate. Although a plaque in front of the 'henge claims that the replica is "as it appears today in England," that's not exactly true. The slabs are blocky leftovers donated by a quarry, so they're approximations, not duplicates; the Stonehenge stands in a circle of reddish Texas gravel, not the green Salisbury Plain; and the Heel Stone, which marks the summer solstice, had to be stuck in the ground across a street.