Musings

Today’s neighborhood story was that my wander took me along the path of a fire truck that was going from hydrant to hydrant, with a young(ish) fireman hopping out (not in uniform) with a wrench to open one of the breast-ish-ports, then the valve at the top to assure that the hydrant was emptied of sediment, etc. I saw five hydrants tested during my parallel wander. This is not one along their route.

So much for hunkie guys. (Firemen, it seems to me, tend to be in better shape than cops; after all their lives depend on being in great shape.)

My other story is this miniature moss world. I took this snap using my magnifying glass function on my phone. I got it in focus (yay), and immediately realized that the light was not optimal on the uprights, that is, the sporophytes.

At the next moss-patch: much more light on the sporophytes.

Posted at 7:13 PM | 1 Comment »

I give this seasonal decoration the Most Likely to be Homemade of everything I saw, but I suspect that it isn’t. Traditions do mutate, but I never would have guessed Halloween would have gone from the pagan All Hallows‘ Eve (meaning Saints‘ Eve) to this, the holiday of plastic yard ornaments and gewgaws, now including giant black spiders with fur in their joints.

Also, here’s a gorgeous flower, a camellia, surely both real and not the least bit scary, eerie, or witchy.

Posted at 8:43 PM | Comments Off on See any Saints?

Earlier it was college football time (in this half of the continent), and of all unexpected results to see: MSU beat Mich. Go Green. We didn’t watch; the score just flipped by.

Also, Georgia beat Florida (bound to happen).

Now, it’s baseball time. Third inning, with the other team in the lead 1–0. Nowhere near the end of the game. Or the series.

Posted at 9:12 PM | 1 Comment »

The slip-sliding potential is high these days, what with all the mast and mast-husk frags on the sidewalks and streets. Here: acorns.

Confession: I glanced at these and my brain popped up the phrase “five chinese brothers.” [It’s the round-headed comparison. I’m guessing public libraries and schools have purged that book as too racist and damaging for the kiddies.]

Posted at 7:05 PM | Comments Off on Tread carefully

We visited the Detroit Institute of Arts this afternoon with friends. Starting with the Diego Rivera murals (1932) is an obvious choice. One section is of workers on an automotive assembly line. I thought this fellow has a modern hairstyle, or maybe I don’t know 30s hairstyles.

The first special exhibit we saw was Ofrendas, shrines for the Day of the Dead. They were multicultural rather than just the iconic cempazuchitls, or marigolds. BTW, the zuchitl or suchitl or xochitl suffix means flower.

Our main goal was “Detroit Style: Car Design in the Motor City, 1950–2020.” While there were lovely concept cars, there were more drawings, the kind you never see, that are only in offices and workrooms away from the public eye. A fun nostalgia trip.

Elsewhere, I was enamored of these three lovelies when I spotted them from across the room on a large ceramic vase.

I may be wrong, but I thought the title of this was “Three Tigers.” The eyes have it.

Posted at 8:48 PM | Comments Off on DIA visit

I did get two “crowns” of rhubarb transplanted. They were so poorly that neither was a crown, truth be told. They REALLY needed to be transplanted. I just hope some of the bits survive.

After reburial, I lightly watered the survivors, then put some dessicating fern fronds on top for winter protection.

Posted at 7:00 PM | Comments Off on Fingers crossed

Enjoyed a glorious sunny, lovely morning, as if it hasn’t been raining off and on for days.

Even the playhouse looked inviting.

However, overcast had returned by the time I walked in mid-afternoon. I took a detour along the back edge of the pine plantation, and discovered the tree guys have been busy.

Here’s the detail on how the rootballs are wrapped and prepped for shipping. They used to use burlap for the wrapping, and this fabric does look like burlap, but I’m guessing it may have some artificial fiber incorporated (polyester?). Ages ago when I worked in the plant nursery world, trees prepared this way were called B&B, for balled and burlapped. [Nobody even cracked a smile.] I never saw the metal frame way back when; seems like a smart improvement.

Posted at 6:21 PM | Comments Off on Pretty + trees ready for shipping

I’ve been keeping an eye on this project. At first, I just saw guys and heard sawing. Then, poof, walls and siding, but no roof. I thought it was a camp cabin, but now I think it’s a garage. There’s already a structure in the woods behind it, but it doesn’t look cabin-y either. Outside the frame to the right is another garage, pretty large. So: all garages, no domiciles? I await developments….

Posted at 8:32 PM | Comments Off on Building complex mysteries

The fog lasted and lasted this morning, although it just looks odd in this photo of the ghost elm.

Speaking of odd, a rough-skinned heirloom squash.

Another local sign. A now truncated parking area…gravel, so unorganized.

Posted at 9:02 PM | Comments Off on October is here

I believe that today is number 365 of My Life with Apple Watch [not iWatch].

I have decided that of all the metrics for moving around and being busy on a daily basis, the most useful for me is “Move,” that is, the red ring. Move is portrayed as calories over baseline/basal counts (the calories needed to exist). Move clearly reacts to walking or running, and I assume cycling and swimming and skiing. Move still increases if you are active but not walking, and say gardening or house-cleaning. On this: yay for Move measurements.

Other places, Apple refers to Move as Active Energy, and and the basal metabolism as Resting Energy. Apple indicates that the units of both are calories, by which they mean calories just as you see listed in nutrition tables.

It is my belief that both these Energy measures exceed non-Apple calorie counts, so that they are below 75% of non-Apple calories, at about 72–73%. I derived this from looking at my two energies versus my approximate calorie intake, and watching it closely for weeks on end.

So I was not surprised to read this week a NYT article, “Your Workout Burns Fewer Calories Than You Think,” by Gretchen Reynolds (September 22), which says that despite careful measurements of energy expenditure, “most people seemed to be burning only about 72 percent as many additional calories, on average, as would be expected, given their activity levels.” I promise you I came up with 72% before I read the Reynolds article. The scientists who did the study do not know why the descrepancy.

I have said for a long time that a calorie is real and accurate in a test tube and in a laboratory, and it’s a great concept, but that energy does not measure the same in a body. Somehow.

Posted at 8:48 PM | Comments Off on One year