Musings

Our recent wild weather patterns have moved us from the drought I wrote of over and over last winter (and before), and now we’re in a weather pattern of rain, partial clearing, followed by more rain.

Some of the rain’s been pretty hard, so rivers are flooding, and so are apartments, etc. We’re glad to be far enough up the hill, so we watch the runoff billowing past along the curb.

I am chafing at not walking, at being cooped up. Well, I have a book to finish before tomorrow, so…I. Must. Apply. Myself.

Posted at 4:08 PM | 2 Comments »

Only careful scrutiny of last week’s red okra photo would reveal the delicate, pale yellow blooms the plants sport. Here’s a close-up. With fly.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Another flower-insect photo…

So, I set off for a solo walk, yes, to the usual destination: Piedmont Park and the active oval. I figure the active oval is better than pavement, better on the legs, ankles, feet, and knees. Hips, too.

So, I made the bend and was looking south, and for the first time realized that the sky was a looming grey—an unbroken cloud sitting down over midtown and downtown.

Oops.

So, I made a head’s-up call to The Guru, alerting him that I wasn’t sure of the weather. Hmm, he said, checking the radar.

I made a second circuit, and dialed again (no dialing, actually, only “touching”)….

“Help,” I said. I’m paraphrasing.

Our timing was good. I only caught a few sprinkles before I settled into the dry car.

I confess, this happened yesterday. In the picture you see the accumulated rainfall, because the ground is saturated. This does not bode well.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Precipitation saga

View toward the street.

View from opposite direction….

All the rain last night transformed the majestic pokeweed (aka poke salad, Phytolacca americana) specimen that’s growing right next to the oak stump from a looming canopy above to the tragic fallen biomass, shown right. I assume the weight of the water shattered the main branching junction, but perhaps it was windy enough that that was a factor (wind, shiver…)….

You may remember (okay, vaguely) this photo (follow the link) from early April of the young shoot part of this plant’s history….

We all pretty much agreed that this had to be the largest pokeweed plant we’ve seen. The stem is big enough to merit being referred to as a trunk, I think. I ought to get out and measure it….

The birds have been stealing the berries as they get ripe from the tips of the clusters inward (upward?—no longer!). The downside of feeding the birds is that they scatter the seeds, and, voila!, next year we may have a huge crop of pokeweed in this neighborhood!

Posted at 6:54 PM | 1 Comment »

Yeah, we call this a canna lily, but apparently it’s not really a lily (Lilium family), but is related botanically to ginger and bananas…and canna is from the Celtic word for cane/reed.

Rain off and on all day, and I neglected to scoot out for a walk during any of the breaks. Thus, I bring you a photo from the other day, when it was sunny and pleasant….

In fact, right now we’re under a red blob on the weather maps and it’s pouring….

Should you be interested in real content, visit Terminus 2.0, where Rebecca writes about speaking to Jimmy Carter today…. Carter likes the word “vituperative*.”

* Apple dictionary = “bitter and abusive.” Good word.

Posted at 6:23 PM | Comments Off on Spotting pretty petals

So, the big photo is from Monday, when I was downtown and basking in civic duty. There’s quite some historic controversy, apparently, about the statue of the female on top of the capitol dome.

The statue stands between 15 and 20 feet high, depending on how she is measured, weighs about 1,800 pounds, and is made of copper.

The little picture to the right is the 3-D version of Georgia’s capitol as rendered in Google Earth. I haven’t yet explored the collection in the gallery “Historic Places 3D Tour,” but it may be included. Oddly, there is no “National Registry of Historic Places,” the way it’s noted by Google. Instead it’s the National RegistER of Historic Places.

Or perhaps I’m nit-picking.

Sidenote: Finding a Notary Public (in today’s modern, digital world)—not so easy, especially if your bank is closed.

Posted at 5:39 PM | 1 Comment »

Today, out of at minimum several hundred people waiting to find out if they were called to go to a courtroom and “try out” for an actual jury pool, I was Juror #1.

I never have “luck” like that!

However, after the dust settled, the lawyers passed on putting me on the jury for a murder/robbery trial.

Fine with me!

Over the lunch break, two hours in my case, I walked and looped and looped around downtowns streets, mixing with the homeless and GA State students and office types, thankful that it was overcast and even a tad cool (for around here in mid-Sept), so I only got a little sweaty, and then after I stopped walking. Tidy enough for being “public,” I thought….

During my visit downtown, and especially my peregrinations, I was able to spot-check our fair city’s infrastructure. A bit shabby, but not quite the “gritty urban” situation, as the common phrase goes, maybe because it wasn’t breezy; instead, the gritty was more liquid and I won’t get into details.

The problem pictured, however, is serious—some of the pavement at Underground Atlanta, brickwork flooring the upper level (that is, above air), hmmmm, has support problems. I walked across the next level down, which is a not large area, and there was a “bouncy” area there that also seemed to have support problems. Not good.

That was today’s adventure….

Posted at 6:49 PM | 2 Comments »

Upgrade!

Posted at 9:12 PM | 2 Comments »

Very tall red okra (Abelmoschus esculentus) with very, very long pods—up to 10 inches or so! I didn’t know there was red okra. I didn’t know okra got this tall! I didn’t know okra pods got this big!

Over in Piedmont Park is a small vegetable garden, labeled “Community Garden,” located on perhaps the best soil in the park. Until today, we’d only seen the Community walking by. This morning several adults had about two dozen youngsters gathered outside the garden doing some lessons, it seemed to me. I will find out next time I walk by if they also did weeding, harvesting, etc.

We also toured the booths at the Atlanta Arts Festival, but didn’t spend any money though I was tempted by the pottery of Ken Jensen of St. Augustine. We took samples of several flavors of Lärabars, an energy bar with only a few ingredients, all with names you’d recognize, and no soy or chemicals. I had never tried them before. I’ve only sampled the Key Lime flavor so far, and it was tasty, but fairly high calorie for the volume—which would be most excellent for backpackers.

Posted at 4:24 PM | Comments Off on Red okra

As near as I can tell, this is a golden rain tree (Koelreuteria paniculata), an Asian import favored by some landscapers due to these glorious flowers.

This week we’ve watched various contractors prepare Piedmont Park for this weekend’s event: the Atlanta Arts Festival (no pets). In fact, you can see one of the white tents that are now ubiquitous at such events at the far left of this photo….

I hope the weather smooths out; this morning we walked among intermittent drops, and it’s still overcast.

Posted at 2:20 PM | Comments Off on Rain and rain tree