Musings

Dining yum

We departed from air fryer cuisine and used the cast iron skillet to sear a slab of tuna, plus “stir fry” some veg. Tasty. BTW, the golden veg is “orange” cauliflower.

I’m not a particular fan of diplomats, although I greatly appreciate all the work they do, which is frequently behind the scenes. I’m not sure why TV series writers recently have seized on a diplomat as the lead in stories, but we’ve watched both the Keri Russell version and the British one, binging the latter most recently. They’re very different. I think I enjoyed the British version, set in Barcelona, more. Confession: it was not merely to opportunity to hear Catalan dialogue that made it more interesting.

Careful timing

Cucurbita squash

I see, at minimum, DQ and St__bux are both already vending pumpkin-flavored beverages. These used to be timed with October, even late October, leveraging Halloween symbolism. No longer.

Here’s another tidbit…in the last two weeks, The Hubby received six (SIX!) anti-Kamala oversized postcards. Me: nothing. We’re both registered voters, both with very gendered first names. I’m going with clear gender bias.

Leaves and leaflets

I found this arrangement today…

…and this grouping yesterday. Be mellow and enjoy the leaf patterns (or I’ll start in on watching the thermostat creep up while we were driving to register 99°F outside the car. Yeesh. And it’s 85° outside now. NOW!)

It’s simple

Should you wish to drive from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to Florida, here are general directions. First, cross the Big Bridge. Poufy clouds today….

Then, head south. You’re looking for a sign that reads: State Line…however many miles. Good. Go through Okolona; this is the top of the silos of the huge grain elevators. Okolona is surrounded by maize and soybean fields, with a few patches of woodland, so they can keep a mill very busy during harvest season. Now, head south and look for the Maumee River; it’s substantial, so you won’t miss it. Presto: Florida is where the bridge is. Really.

Variations in conditions

I was rather struck by the delicate shade of these blooms. It took my mind off how hot and humid it was today. I’m going with climate change. Also (in a run-on style), we’ve heard reports of Michigan having a bumper crop of apples this year; not here, we have only a very few apples that set. In contrast, last year we had a bumper crop here.

No QR code

We had another of those fabulous mornings of ground fog paired with a colorful dawn sky…great while sipping fresh, hot coffee.

So right

Lowering sky

I saw this grey above and thought “lowering sky.” Where did I get that?…as in, that’s an uncommon adjective, no?

Elsewhere…I came across this definition: Fishing—precision guesswork based on unreliable data provided by those of questionable knowledge.—observation by character Henry Standing Bear in “Land of Wolves” (2019) by Craig Johnson.

Seeing power

I thought about nature’s dynamism today. It was breezy all day, cloudy-sunny, and waves rolled in early (unusually—it’s more common that the water’s quiet in the morning).

I also managed to capture some of the detail of the light–dark pattern of the surface (or so it appears) of the moon.

Foggy morn

The fog layer makes the lake look endless.

In the field, the fog obscures the midground.

I have not noticed the ground fog this dense all summer.