Saturday, 24 February 2018
On today’s errand run, we saw clouds of white blossoms on pears and maybe apples, the larger pink-white blooms of the deciduous magnolias, multicolored tulips, daffodils, several other kinds of bulbs in bloom including hyacinths, and redbuds…love redbuds.
Thanks for the ride, B.!
Friday, 23 February 2018
I became a tornado today, that is, to the extent that I can as a gimp. My goal was to remove dust bunnies, and to remove a bunch of…stuff…that made the house work for gimpy-me, and was still hanging around.
In a tiny and personal way, it’s a new world!
Thursday, 22 February 2018
I saw a construction crew working in a hole in the sidewalk just outside the salon where I was getting chemistry to work in my favor. I found it curious and humorous that the workers stood their signs in the window as shown. Sometime later I got a more complete dataset on this. Turns out, the fellas (and they were all male) were “digging” down to the sewage pipes in this small commercial district.
The digging action was from a pressure-washer-type water stream, with a second pipe sucking the sludge it created from the work area. It wasn’t until I left the work area that I wondered what they’d use for fill since the clay (and it was a clay matrix) was removed and gone and in no fit state to be returned to the hole. (Or so I imagined.)
Anyway, the orange signs were to block splatter on the glass, and after the “digging,” the fellas carefully power-washed the window-glass, but they were old windows, and poorly sealed, so the water poured in around the glass. Sooooo, the sewer-fixit guys came inside with piles of clean rags, and energetically cleaned the glass and all the water that leaked inside. Kudos to the digging-crew!
On a more organic front, the teeny mushrooms (I saw last year, and maybe in previous years?) are thriving during this phase of the spring-springing, but, geeze, what happened to their caps? How did they get tipped off?
Wednesday, 21 February 2018
Without planning to do so, I presently have three active activity trackers. Two kindof agree, and one reports wildly lower counts. The only category all three report is steps. My ancient Fitbit One and my iPhone report similar step-counts, but, providing I remember to carry it all the time, the iPhone will have a higher step-count than the Fitbit (attached to my underwear). The Nokia Steel HR always reports a much lower value each day, like around 20% lower than the other two.
I noticed this variation, and began to watch more closely. I’m pretty sure that if you consider footfalls “steps,” which I think the devices do, the most accurate of the three trackers is the iPhone, the one that consistently gives the highest count.
Your counts may vary.
I can wear the Nokia in the shower, and it gives me a chunk of steps for that (which does’t “fix” the discrepancy, BTW), and sometimes enquires if that time was an “activity.” It’s those rapid little steps to soap, rotate, and bend to get clean?
Tuesday, 20 February 2018
We coffee’d up and got going, finding this local fog-bank somewhere inland—it’s not a marine layer!
After several hours, we left the Spanish Moss State (or so it seemed)…
…and entered the Peanut State.
Then, closer to home, we saw several almost-Vs of sandhill cranes (pretty sure about that ID).
Monday, 19 February 2018
Today we left causeway-world. But not before we did important things.
Like playing with the macro lens.
Including looking at an eroded sand dollar, complete with sand grains.
We watched birds, including the cruising small-packs of pelicans.
There was of course lots of laughing and some tale-telling. We read, we relaxed. Life was darned pleasant.
Just as we were organizing ourselves in the parking lot to depart, a rainbow section emerged.
Sigh. And now the salt-water coast is behind us.
Sunday, 18 February 2018
We spent the day on and (mostly) near the beach. We got out early to enjoy that low-angle light, and it’s a good thing—already almost HOT by 8:30 am!
Circling in the car behind the dunes traveling from one place to another, we found these large bloom clusters; I have no idea what they are.
Late in the day, we found this lovely juxtaposition of light and shadow, shapes and colors.
On a late-day beach wander, we found this sea-denizen, or its fading carcass. Such striking, amazing colors!
Thursday, 15 February 2018
Spring is arriving. I also have seen several cherries/plums in bloom around town. And camellias. Seems too early for the woody shrubs! Bulbs, yes….
Sunday, 11 February 2018
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….
Tuesday, 6 February 2018
Part of the winter mode includes the dry husks of last year’s maturation processes…in this case a tulip poplar husk.
On the other end of the spectrum—these Daphne buds ready to spring into early…spring.