Musings

I walked this morning in the coolness, nose-level or nose-down as is typical for me. Below this I noticed a one-foot chunk of wooden pole, triggering a look-up.

Yup, replacement underway. The upper lines and a transformer (?) have been switched to the new, taller pole, but the old one, albeit shortened, still seems to be carrying the lower lines.

You can tell it’s relatively early in the day, as the light is bright only on the tree-tops. [Proud of myself; photo was taken at 6:48am.]

Posted at 9:25 PM | Comments Off on Infrastructure updating

Here’s a different visualization of a bit of the neighborhood, both the angle and the exposure/crazy-camera. Looks almost like a jungle….

Posted at 9:37 PM | Comments Off on Crape myrtle framing

Around here, June was a bust for rainfall…we received close to zero-zilch. The last four days have more than made up for that deficit and launched us most of the way to our July average to boot.

The tough part is that it is darned humid outside (outside meaning: beyond the air-conditioning).

Posted at 9:23 PM | Comments Off on Drops do accumulate

Our Left Coasters departed today, and left behind this image of the gorgeous 4th fireworks across Puget Sound.

Posted at 8:26 PM | 1 Comment »

This picture and last night’s picture were taken one day and five-and-a-half minutes apart. We had rain in the late afternoon, which, I’m guessing, sapped some of the dramatic color.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Sky speculation

And from the sky descended an airplane carrying precious cargo…loved ones visiting from the Left Coast.

Posted at 9:44 PM | Comments Off on Aren’t we lucky?!

Look at all the visual contrasts! Color, shapes, living vs inanimate—the whole shebang!

Fireworks began precisely at 9:15pm, and they’re now booming in various locations in the southern direction…with nothing sounding in the northern quadrants. This is audio contrasts?

Posted at 9:44 PM | Comments Off on Delving into contrast

Sometime in the dark hours, I woke up and was fuzzy about why I woke up. Soon, I realized there was a snuffly noise outside…pretty sure it was a deer, perhaps the doe we’ve been seeing, calling to her wee fawn (tracks just over an inch long).

By dawn, we had rain.

Then, it stopped for a few hours and I went down to the beach.

Sometime around two, more rain came in, with lightning, thankfully in the distance. Just after three, the power went out. And the rain quit. So much for the mint sauce I was planning to make for our communal dinner.

The power came back on about 7:30. I was so happy.

Posted at 9:38 PM | Comments Off on Living with weather

Oh, and another fatality in the lake in the food web shifts accompanying the zebra mussel infestation—no live clams, only clam shells. The mussels cluster on the clams, and pfft, the clams don’t survive.

Posted at 9:56 PM | Comments Off on Three shells

The grass came on fast this year, and is much taller than in recent years. Why?

Here’s why. There was very little snow last winter, as in multiple locals have told me they used their snowblowers only twice…twice total. That’s in contrast to near daily or even twice a day. No snow.

So, when the temps began to rise in the spring, the soil got warm faster, and the grass began growing earlier, and it “went tall.” Normally, it is unable to span this path when it lodges. Also, we usually can look over the grass heads and get glimpses of the lake. Not so this summer.

We had rain overnight and in the early hours of the morning, but then most of the clouds scooted and I waded in the lake. Yes, the clear water looks beautiful, but it’s clear because of the infestation of zebra mussels (native to Eurasia, brought in ballast water to the Great Lakes, then spread by fisherfolk and boaters). Zebra mussels are filter feeders removing plankton and whatever from the water. This does help the eagles and other predators to see prey, however. The mussels therefore upset the food web big time.

Posted at 9:47 PM | Comments Off on Natural history update