4-17-first dandelions, first butterfly seen-it was a West Virginia white. I always thought these were the cabbage white species but those have one-two dark dots on its upper wings. WV version is pure white.
It was a nice day in the 50's and Buddy came in with a warm coat-smart boy had been sunning himself.
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We've been at our house going on 15 years and this is the first Spring where someone is eating the sprouting daylilies. I suspect it's the buns-rather than a Chuck (only one sighting) or deer (no droppings). I was telling my neighbor Benny (who will turn 90 on 4/20!) about this and he said "well, you cat likes rabbit, maybe he can help". I replied "indeed but perhaps this is the problem and it's resulted in vengeful buns: your cat killed and ate our children and so now, we're eating yours". Sigh.
4-18-Began warm and sunny. The Diner was busy-Mr. Redbird and Nutkin at the buffet:
Later in the afternoon, it turned overcast and muggy with temps in the mid-70's. Our feline thermometer let us know it was warm enough for a sprawl on the deck:
Out front, more varieties of daffs are in bloom
West garden:
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Grumpy Old Boy pet peeve: while surfing YT, I see a lot of drone footage. What is up with images of people on top of mountains (ok, I get it-gives us scale and wonder) with their damn arms raised?
Why is this tired trope still out there...since the damn 80's? This gives me PTSD from seeing those inspirational posters every fucking day at the office. Gawd I loathed them. I guess folks too young to have seen these in the insipid corporate context might know of their old use, but shrug and repurpose for their own inspirational memes on Instagram. Cringe.
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Another Winning The World's Worst Lottery: Meet Tsutomu Yamaguchi (1916-2010). He is the only person officially recognized by the Japanese government as having survived both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings. He was in Hiroshima on a business trip when the first bomb was dropped, and then returned to Nagasaki just days before the second bomb fell. While there is an estimated 165 documented cases of people surviving both attacks, not all were close enough to ground zero to be considered immediate victims.
A cautionary tale: In 2023, a tiny roundworm was revived after it was frozen in Siberian permafrost 46,000 years ago, when Neanderthals still walked the Earth. The worm, a previously unknown species of nematode, survived after entering a dormant state known as cryptobiosis, during which the animal doesn't eat and lacks a metabolism. This event added to growing concern about what organisms may revive in the tundra due to our warming climate and what impact they may have, especially pathogens.
A memorable start of a YT recipe watching the steps with narration: Two eggs. I'm whisking the eggs. I'm using a whisk.
No kidding. With the next step, I went to satire in my mind: In a large pan, place 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil, oil made from vegetables. Gawd.
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Turning up in my YT feed (pun intended) are a number of recipe vids seemingly aimed at Gen X nostalgia who may be catastrophizing as a result of the current regime:
>Poverty dinners 1970's
>25 forgotten dinners from the 70's
>Grandma's forgotten dinners
>1970's recipes we want back
>25 forgotten church dinners no one makes anymore
Oh boy, lots of hamburger helper style meals, meat loaf and those icky jello desserts.
A curious sub-genre.
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Fun architecture/sculpture:
Sagrada Familia, Barcelona Spain-Designed by the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí, has been under construction since 1882 with completion slated for 2026.
Casa Batlló, Barcelona Spain-another Gaudi design. He renovated an existing building 1905-06 using a dragon motif. The exterior facade: walls with dragon scales, balconies are skulls, columns are bones.
Jeff Koon's "Puppy"-this sculpture of a West Highland Terrier is covered with over 70,000 flowering plants. The sculpture, which is 43 feet tall, is made of stainless steel and holds over 25 tons of soil watered by an internal irrigation system. It was first created in 1992 and is now permanently displayed at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain.
Mother Earth sculpture at the Montreal Botanical Garden:
Bosco Verticale, Milan, Italy-2 residential skyscraper project for metropolitan reforestation designed by the Boeri Studio. From Wiki: The distinctive feature of the skyscrapers, both inaugurated in 2014, is the presence of over ninety plant species, including tall shrubs and trees, distributed on the facades. It is an ambitious project of metropolitan reforestation that aims to increase the biodiversity of plant and animal species in the Lombard capital through vertical greening, reducing urban sprawl and contributing to the mitigation of the microclimate.
Springtime:
The Lotus Temple, New Delhi, India- Baháʼí House of Worship. Completed in 1986, it is open of all faiths.
Iron tree sculpture, built in archway of the Ministry of Agriculture in Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan in the Russian federation.The tree was designed to cast its shadow on the building’s lobby below.
Fun Canadian stuff
A couple of memes:
Inuit snow goggles. Known as ilgaak, they were worn to help prevent snow blindness. They were traditionally made from driftwood, bone, walrus ivory and caribou antler. The earliest one found dates to 1200 AD.
After Leonard Nimoy died in 2015, Trekkies in Canada began to Spockify their $5 bills to honor him. The Bank of Canada was not amused although said they could still be used as legal tender.
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Fun images
Canola (rapeseed) fields blooming in Luoping, China
Overnight in 2002, someone erected a bronze statue of an African Rhino in the middle of the Dodder river in the suburbs of Dublin, Ireland. No one has claimed responsibility.
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| Karen Russell |
Perseid Meteor shower over Stonehenge
African land snail are huge!
Why wolves have been feared by our kind throughout history- size comparison between an adult Siberian husky and a Grey wolf
Mysterious things seen from space:
The Sajama Lines, Boliva
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| color enhanced for clarity |
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| map of lines |
While many of these sacred lines extend as far as ten or twenty kilometers (and perhaps further), they all seem to maintain a remarkable straightness despite rugged topography and natural obstacles. The sheer number and length of these lines is often difficult to perceive from ground level, but from the air or hilltop vantage points, they are stunning.
They are similar to the Nazca Lines in that both are created by scraping away vegetation and dark surface material. However, there are no depictions of animals. It is thought the lines were used as sacred pilgrimages.
Found throughout the Middle East, including Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen, these geoglyphs, known as "the work of old men" by the Bedouins and date back as far as 8500 BCE. They were first seen from the air by Allied aviators during WWI. The designs include wheels,
which often have spokes radiating out from the center, kites (stone
structures used for funnelling and killing animals), pendants (lines of
stone cairns) and meandering walls, which are mysterious structures that
meander across the landscape for up to several hundred feet.
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Fun vids
Ice eggs in Finland
3D printed sundial that displays time digitally
Taking your pet catfish for a walk after a flood
Lamb challenges sheepdog as the rest of the flock stares in horror in the background: "for the love of Christ laddie, don't do it! He'll rip yer throat out!"
A long one about 15 mysterious patterns found in nature
A falcon flew nearly 7100 miles migrating from South Africa to Finland with a GPS tracker in 42 days!
Weird math stuff-Kapreker's Constant:
Discovered in 1949 by Indian mathematician D.R. Kapreke
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