FIVE SECOND STORIES

Father's Day: another beautiful evening. The Diner had its regulars coming in and out including M/M Goldfinch:

 

The big tiger lilies out front are in their glory:

C and Buddy did their deck yoga:

Bud later retired for a rest on one of the chairs. All of our cats have enjoyed them. One of the callas is blooming by the fountain.

When I turned in around 10.30 pm, the forecast was calling for a 30% chance of rain and maybe .10" accumulation. They were wrong. The first storms came in around midnight and another batch around 4 am and it poured. Neither of us slept well between the weather and his lordship coming in soaking wet and getting his Mum up for a towelling. In the morning, my rain gauge read 2.6"! This was badly needed going into a week of intense heat and we had been in a deficit for the past 2 months and the lawns were beginning to brown up.

Buddy was exhausted:

 

The following week, we are having our first spell of 90°+ weather. We're not sleeping all that well, a bit off our feed and Buddy's tail is dragging with his fur pjs. It's hot Mum and Dad!

Meanwhile, all the chuckettes are back.

6/21-A nice Summer afternoon shower:

Which cooled things off for a bit before the sun came back resulting in roasty-toasty heat and muggy-wuggy humidity.

The new pool program, which began a while back with the removal of the deck has progressed with the tear-down of the old pool. It now appears that we have a meteor crater in our backyard.

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Curious things our species does: once a sacred site has been established, over time it is built over by prevailing religions-Rome over pagan, Christian over Roman, Christian over Aztec, Hindu over Moslem are good examples. 

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Over 500 years ago, Luca Signorelli began work on a series of frescos in a cathedral located in Orvieto, Umbria. The first dealt with the Apocolypse, known as The Preaching of the Antichrist. This figure represented Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican friar whose teachings and prophecies turned him into a political threat to the Vatican and the Florentines resulting in his execution. His depiction would not have been lost on the locals. 

In the painting, the Antichrist stands in a crowd to speak but is befuddled and forgets his lines. Coming to his rescue is Satan who tells him what to say. These words spread wickedness throughout the world and mislead the faithful. 

I was struck by the similarities with today's cultural and political turmoil. A befuddled man of power who requires the aid of someone to follows him around with a wireless printer so his advisors, who are monitoring the situation, can shoot him talking points.

Yep, the same ole shit, different century. Things do not change much, do they?

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I was sitting in a local taqueria finishing my tacos when a familiar tune came on with a female singing in Spanish. I wracked my brains for the title and finally it came: "Total Eclipse of the Heart". Gawd. Made famous by Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler 1983. It was followed by another familiar song which again, I could not bring up out of the archives so I asked the v young waiter. He asked the owner/mgr who evidently had stuff playing via some online app. He checked the playlist and revealed this was "The Rose" from 1980, that was a giant hit for Bette Midler. I was not a fan of either-I was listening to a lot of new wave at the time. 

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Fun vids:

Wow-this series turned up on my feed: Bush Barbie (sheila version of Croc Hunter) provides a lewd PSA about the virtues of using a condom, in barely understandable Strine. Fair dinkum!

Summer in Inner Mongolia:

 

 Grassland slides:

 

 Pyrosomes:

From Wiki: Pyrosomes are free-floating colonial tunicates or marine invertebrate animal  that usually live in the upper layers of the open ocean in warm seas, although some may be found at greater depths. Pyrosomes are cylindrical or cone-shaped colonies up to 60 ft) long,made up of hundreds to thousands of individuals, known as zooids. Colonies range in size from less than one centimeter to several metres in length.

 

One of a series of Ai generated ads featuring modern TV series if they were produced in the 1950s with Super Panavision. Here, one of our favs: Futurama:

 

 

Scottish shepherd and his doggies:

We've been watching posts made by a Scottish shepherd showing how he and his dogs herd sheep. The dogs are fabulous to watch and it's interesting to see how they respond to the shepherd's commands. They are very well trained and my hat's off to the shepherd who did the training. The posts give a good glimpse of modern herding techniques in use. The shepherd uses an 4-wheeled ATV, whistling and shouting out commands to the dogs. Watching this, I wondered how his body feels at the end of a cold, drizzly day, after bouncing and jostling around on uneven ground with the vehicle and using his voice constantly. What does he do when he gets a cold and his voice is shot?

Years ago, Michele and I went up to the Highland Festival in Alma held in late May. We were big fans of the Uncle Herriot tales and one of the features we wanted to see at the festival were the herding trials-human, dog, sheep and a pen. Great fun!

The Lycians and their rock tombs:

 

They were known as excellent metalworkers and created some of the best coinage of that period:

 

Aphrodite at left

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A new monolith has been discovered near Las Vegas. It joins a series of these sculptures appearing out West, detailed in Haluski March 14, 2024 post.

It has already been taken done by local authorities citing “public safety and environmental concerns” for idiots hiking in to view it without bringing enough water or having adequate weather considerations.

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I was surfing YT when I came across a vid titled "Lake Michigan Stonehenge". Well, I could not ignore this clickbait and was pleasantly surprised. 

A mile long series of stones were discovered by shipwreck hunters 40 feet below underwater in Grand Traverse Bay. This line, obviously not the result of glaciers, ended in a cul-de-sac. Carbon dating of the stones suggested they were 9000 years old.

Meanwhile, U of M professor John O'Shea, who lead a team studying a similar structure found underwater in Lake Huron has a theory: both structures are Drive Lanes used by Stone Age hunters. Both sites were above water 9000 years ago and humans had figured out that herd animals do not like to step over barriers. A long line of rocks were placed directing the herd to a hunting blind where an ambush was set up. This technique is still used in the Arctic by caribou hunters. This is a photo of the Eddington Blind in Southern Victoria Island, Nunavut, Canada:

 

Similar techniques are used today to direct herds. In cattle country, cattle guards are painted on roads to prevent the herd from wandering. Cattle freak out thinking their hooves will get caught between the white stripes.
 

No relation to:

Stephen Lovekin

I couldn't resist this delicious pun, heh heh. 

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A fabulous short by animator/illustrator Steve Cutts "Happiness" depicting the 21st Century version of the Rat Race. The term in current use dates to the 1930s and became prominent during the post-war period. Although the joke "Even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat" was made famous by Lily Tomlin, Jackie Gleason used the phrase in 1956.