Musings

I noticed a fluffy ginger cat sprawled atop the neighbor’s red car across the street, alert not sleeping.

Then I saw a black-and-white cat cross my front yard, stopping at the far right to take up a post on a low wall.

Aha, I figured out, they are aware of each other. I went out to watch the soap opera.

I quietly took a seat on the porch.

Soon, fluffy hopped down and I lost track of him (probably a him given the color).

After a bit, black-and-white headed back across our yard, staying amidst the azaleas, protected from cat—and my—eyes. Less than a minute later, fluffy popped up just where black-and-white had been sitting.

Like any soap opera, that’s the installment I witnessed. I didn’t hear any caterwauling or hissing, so I think they must have gone their separate ways….

Posted at 2:21 PM | 1 Comment »

Wind and weather have brought the leaves down in the backyard (garden, in England) over the last twenty-four hours.

Just gorgeous.

Posted at 6:30 PM | Comments Off on Compost ahead

We spotted this fungi the other day (it’s one of several of the same type stacked on the side of a tree that otherwise looks healthy), and I went back today to photo it. This section is about 3 inches thick.

Posted at 6:53 PM | 3 Comments »

Our lovely next-door neighbors have these in a front bed—an ornamental pepper that starts out black-blue (lower right), and then turns bright red. The leaves range from green to black-blue, but are mostly the latter right now.

As beautiful as they are, I managed to take three crappy photos and this marginally salvageable one…at least by blog-post standards.

Posted at 7:34 PM | Comments Off on (I voted!)

Another plant at the ABG with a name I failed to note…these look like gem-clusters along its stem…a conservatory special.

Once again, the time change wreaks havoc on my biorhythms (and I suspect, algorithms).

Posted at 9:13 PM | 5 Comments »

I would have sworn this is a Peperomia, so I didn’t even look for a sign. Checking images on the web, hmm, probably not Peperomia…live and learn?

Posted at 8:15 PM | 2 Comments »

This was less than an hour ago, when it had stopped and I thought, oh maybe this is all we’re getting.

But, no; it’s been coming down in big fat slow flakes for the last half-hour.

I promise this is the last of the morning oh-look-there’s-snow posts. And, the science experiment is: how much snow fade with this hotspot wifi?

Posted at 9:41 AM | Comments Off on Accumulations expected

I succumbed to impulse this morning, and did an Instagram-style blog entry…forgive me.

After the dramatic early hours of the day, we ended up with a wash of pre-sunset sunlight backlighting, in this case, a few grapes still on The Botanist’s grapevine, over by the juniper and the peonies (the floral decorations on the path by the outhouse). I will have to nab those grapes, but maybe the fact that the critters have not already consumed them is an indication of their less-than-attractive flavor….

UPDATE: Whoops, more flurries, then just overcast at dusk. Sheesh.

Posted at 6:08 PM | Comments Off on Afternoon perspective

Rain. Spitty rain. Mist. Just wet out. Today’s been variable.

Recent winds have brought down many leaves, but plenty are still on the branches.

These leaves came from a maple my uncle planted several decades ago. It has an unusual upright shape for a maple. The Botanist once told me that nursery-folk have a special term for these types of trees, which are especially useful in many urban settings. Of course, I cannot remember the term. Maybe it was fastigate. Maybe columnar. Maybe something else I couldn’t turn up in a quick Google-searching adventure.

Posted at 5:37 PM | Comments Off on Columnar or fastigate?

Kind readers, here’s a second Sunday post: bluebirds and waxwings dining on the barberries (of last Thursday), accompanied by a monitoring bluejay and happy chipmunks gathering pieces that fell to the ground.

Dining? We went to Manistique for lunch. Followed by groceries….

Posted at 12:06 PM | 3 Comments »