Musings

This story-of-the-day’s-walk is self explanatory and has no plot: Look! A Dekay’s brown snake! Right there!

The other story takes longer to write although I took it in in about three glances. I have no picture* for it—too scary-sad for my personal taste. We were walking down a side street—no traffic, and the road was smoother than the sidewalks. And I saw up ahead lots of small pieces of broken, rotten branches. I said, oooooh, I’m not walking right there; looks like that tree is shedding! Then I realized that the small black car parked along the curb had four star-breaks in the windshield—thankfully, not broken all the way. But.

* In the kale-substitute photo, I quite how the droplets are lensing the sky above….

Posted at 6:58 PM | Comments Off on No moguls here

We loaded up and when The Guru fired up the beastie (complete with a full electrical charge (yay!)), it gave us this temp. Time to head south, we agreed. It even dropped another degree by the time we crossed the Potomac one last time east of Harpers Ferry. The water sparkled in the sun; we were southbound; life is good, we also agreed.

The landscape was mostly open and we saw a few “fancy” houses. I tried not to think about the ugly history of slavery in this former(?) tobacco-farming region. (We saw very few (surviving?) tobacco barns, unlike this latitude on our northbound leg.)

It was Sunday and perhaps that is partly why this was the only active farm vehicle we saw….

All the horses I remember seeing on the many mini-farms had lovely jackets. I don’t think they’re anything like the old-fashioned “horse blankets.” I suspect these are high-tech and perhaps even Goretex.

I loved the low sun angle at this, our last rest area of the journey.

Proof that home is not far ahead…the Gaffney peach. And attendant power lines….

Such a great trip; such a diversity of experiences! We especially enjoyed last night’s socializing with our friends from Venezuela* (presently in northern Maryland). Still smiling!

* And, yes, the terrible things you have heard about people starving to death, lack/absence of medicines (including for malaria), and brutality by…well, you get the idea of what’s happening in Venezuela…yes, what you’ve heard: true, true, true. Soooo, so sad. We are glad they are safe. For now….

Posted at 9:14 PM | Comments Off on Winter tour concludes

We went for a wee walk this morning, and I thought maybe I’d capture a vegetation picture for this space…

…or maybe autumn fleurs.

Then, in the afternoon, the sharp-eyed Guru noticed a big bird swoop into the back yard…and got out the big lens…and gave me this super barred owl shot that I am passing along. Crappy light, yet lovely feather patterns, ¿no?

Posted at 10:13 PM | 2 Comments »

I’m thinking this flower/weed is butterweed/cressleaf groundsel, or a closely related species.

We got out for a short loop, the Guru, me, crutches and The Boot. We decided not to push it and so didn’t go terribly far (no record setting today!), and somehow the Fitbit even deigned to give me a massive nine active minutes.

The bonus on our walk was that when I spotted this bumbler s/he was on a lower flower, and then flew up to this cluster, where I could actually reach down to photograph her/him.

And not drop a crutch.

Posted at 7:34 PM | Comments Off on Busy, big bumbler

We made a bold decision: to go for a Sunday drive! In the Prius! Since The Event, we have been using the Venerable, with the bench rear seat that allows me to elevate the foot easily. Today, we explored (heh) our options.

Among our wanders, we had a fun, quick visit with my FIL, then turned downhill and found posing urban turtles!

Summary: a great experience!

Posted at 6:33 PM | Comments Off on Out, about

The sun finally (finally!!) came out about noon, and things began to dry out and seem normal. So normal that The Guru sent the drone up. Look at the Beaut/Beast, the new dock!

Later, I was walking toward the beach, and had this great view of the lake…and denizens! Whatta crop of Canadas this year! Reproductive success! Not that the populations are endangered or anything, but call it like it is…. And a few steps later, I thought, uh oh.

Sure enough, the Canada-gang had tagged the New Dock big time. Yipes. Not holding anything back, “one” might say.

If I had more time, I’d work on a monofilament “fence” to protect the dock….

Be happy, I thought about calling this “Fouled by fowl.”

Posted at 8:28 PM | Comments Off on UP saga

Big birds. A pair of sandhill cranes inspect wavy railroad tracks.

Small bird. Pretty sure it’s a spruce grouse. Eat many pine needles. Interesting choice.

Here’s the east side of West Bay, which I call Grand Marais Bay in my head. From ground level.

Here’s approximately the same direction/angle from Droney. In spite of some serious wind. Tough drone!

On the ground, the water-topping flowers are in full display.

And we found a swan family—four cygnets!—browsing.

And a solo loon…posing…or watching us back.

Posted at 6:15 PM | Comments Off on Big n small variants

We’re getting toward the end of the lupine, with many fully in seed pods. A few are still opening at the tips, however.

Farm news: ML and DL have installed a new dock! It’s a beaut! Smells like fresh lumber.

I channeled Diana the Huntress (21st century version) and stalked the shallows for the lithe and limber lacustrine annelids, finding eight in about ten minutes and removing them from the breeding pool. And the lake. It may have been the perfect stick I found for catching them and tossing them into the brush that brought me luck. But not them.

The late afternoon became overcast and waves of drippy rain, straight down, so the windows all could remain open.

Posted at 7:19 PM | 2 Comments »

This fawn sighting is from yesterday, overlooked due to poor monitoring by yours truly or it would have appeared (ahem) then. The photo is by the Guru. The fawn was nowhere near this close when I saw (spotted? hahaha) him/her. Kudos to the Guru for this digital capture.

These potentilla blossoms were not mewling and strolling away (like the Odocoileus virginianus of yesterday), so I managed to capture them in all their glory. What gutsy insect is eating the petals?

Turns out that Potentilla is now Dasiphora…geeze, can’t those taxonomists settle on genus/species???? huh????

Posted at 9:34 PM | Comments Off on Observations, localized

We spent most of the day at a 170-acre living history village-and-rural-area that is paired with an indoor museum of transportation. We began in the rural area. At least a half-dozen stone cottages in different styles and dates offer the opportunity to think about heating/cooking with coal or peat turves and living in close proximity to farm animals. One cottage (no photo) even had a byre at one end and family space at the other—with no wall in between; maybe it was only used seasonally, however.

We enjoyed a long chat with a spade-smith; he makes spades, not shovels (shovels are for loose materials). This is his water-powered trip hammer. 3K pounds of pressure per smack. No water flowing to make it trip today….

And this is a shot from a 1940 news-reel/documentary about spade and shovel making in the town of Monard, County Cork. With water power and coal-fired forges. Laborers worked six days a week. On the seventh they went to church, played gambling games, and played music and danced. Ireland had a great diversity of spade and shovel types. Over a hundred, and then many different sizes of each. Diversity.

John tried a bullfighter move with these geese. No horns involved, thankfully, just hissing.

Me, I had a chat with this horse (we think in a field next to the museum property).

And we both had a moment with this donkey. One lady looked around for grass-not-nettles and fed her a small handful. Happy day for the donkey.

This wall is cut-away and labeled to highlight the crucks—those curving beams that go up from the ground and support the roof beams. I think folks used ropes to bend trees to make the needed shapes. Crucks were also used in ship-building.

Here’s the fireplace in one apartment in a row of village/urban row-homes with this small room downstairs, two teensy bedrooms upstairs, and a tiny yard out back with a water closet and coal bin, and a bit more room for washing laundry, etc. I thought this is the kind of place where TB would have spread quickly.

Look at the rows of tools etc. in this carpenter’s shop.

Next we went across the highway to the Transport Museum. Of course, we started with trains. This is the shamrock detail on the County Donegal Railways seal.

Here’s the third-class area on a train carriage. They had to pass a law in Ireland to make the railways put roofs and sidewalls on third-class spaces. They used to be like riding in a cart—just relatively low side walls, with riders fully exposed to the weather.

Loved this stylized image of Giant’s Causeway and the cliffs that frame it even today. I think I read that this began to be a travelers’ destination in the 1700s. !!

Cars, too! An MGB Roadster, 1975 model.

Droney made two short runs, and the Guru captured the lovely shadow from this long railroad bridge during the first one.

Posted at 4:48 PM | Comments Off on Tired of ruins?