Musings

Before envelopes, there was letter-locking. This was a European trick, it says here*, for folding a letter and locking it closed with parts of the letter-paper itself, so as to keep its contents concealed from prying eyes. Apparently a recipient judged your folding skills along with your literary talents. This research determined there were a dozen basic styles or techniques for letter-locking.

A fantastic digital manipulation, yes, but not as incredible as blooms.

* “New Technique Reveals Centuries of Secrets in Locked Letters” by William J. Broad, NYTimes, Mar 02.

Posted at 8:27 PM | Comments Off on Blossoming

I was quite happy to vote for Fani T. Willis for Fulton County District Attorney. As I recall, I had to vote for her two times: in the regular election, then in a runoff. As DA, she’s going after ThumpThump for interfering with Georgia’s election, and this effort is ramping up now that we’re in March, as the county is now seating a grand jury, and going before them is a crucial next step in the legal process.

Posted at 9:24 PM | Comments Off on Flowering of truth

Raindrops from last night’s precip lasted through the day…in a few places.

Look near the crossed wires and you’ll see a small flock of sandhill cranes. These were much lower than the group I saw the other day. I suspect this group was looking for a place to stop overnight to rest and feed—central Atlanta is a poor choice for that…keep heading north, birds!

Evidence that film shoots are once again outside the studio….

And, yes, the family of the stinkhorns in the scientific classification system is Phallaceae. Hard to put one over on taxonomic specialists.

Posted at 6:57 PM | Comments Off on Great walk-finds

Yesterday—wait, no, the day before, I noticed the first early-blooming weeds in flower mode…and, yup, today I heard pollen count info on the morning news. So, pollen-count info should be added to yesterday’s list of evidence that the seasons are changing.

This is a hot-pink fringetree bloom…fringetrees are in the Olive family (Oleaceae), typically with white blooms.

Posted at 7:28 PM | Comments Off on Front & center fringe

Here’s the moon doing its daytime thing. Speaking of daytime, I can tell the days are longer than they were. Loving it.

🤨

Seems tacky to note that with a half-million Americans dead who were alive a year ago, killed by the Covid, the vaccine distribution is ramping up, and this is a light…(no tunnel illustration, just a light…artsy is sometimes fartsy).

😉

Posted at 8:56 PM | Comments Off on Details of the times

Visual reference/joke*. [Also: yes, overcast and grey-gloomy.]

Bison meatballs ready for roasting, then adding to pasta sauce. Yum.

I remember going through bicycle dos and don’ts in school, Brownies, 4H, plus from parents. In all: stop completely and put your foot on the ground at stop signs. Old curmudgeonly ways, it seems?

* This is a post, eh?

Posted at 8:10 PM | 1 Comment »

We don’t “do” Val-Day here, although we did have a fancier-than-normal dinner as a nod to the hubbub…the menu included roasted potato chunks…which have better browning these days in our “new” stove with the fan in the oven.

Can you say we roast veggies instead of saints?

Posted at 8:01 PM | Comments Off on Roasting

I’d like to think that if I ever did a ceramic-tile project, I’d use gems like this.

In perhaps 7th-grade art (can’t remember), the assignment and supplies were for making a trivet with little pre-made tiles (tiling, then grout, that kind of progression). Except. As as I recall, the options were from The Ugly Assortment (my judgment). Like medium brown with YELL-ow flecks…ick.

These, HOWEVER, are lovely. Gems. Not good for a trivet, but much better aesthetics. IMHO.

Posted at 9:25 PM | Comments Off on Aesthetics

I see these lovely sculpture-copies and realize my ignorance: who is it? A goddess? A person?

Despite the sunshine, I am in the dark.

Unenlightened may indicate simple ignorance.

Posted at 9:36 PM | Comments Off on I am unenlightened

I saw a squirrel taking advantage of this BIRD feeder installed super-close to the fence-corner…best winter take-out deal for squirrels within miles! [Saw, that is: no proof photo, however.]

Except for a similar feeder in the opposite fence corner.

Posted at 9:15 PM | Comments Off on Winter feeding