Musings

Last evening and overnight we got real rain, enough to give some people a bad day. Not here, though. The Guru and I return from a quick morning walk just before eight, and the temp hadn’t yet reached seventy. So unusual—especially this year. Our rainfall deficit must have dropped dramatically.

It’s hard to take photos that convey the complex sky that signals a coming storm. This is a southwest view during the summer rainy season, in Oaxaca one afternoon, from up on El Mirador (well, near the overview).

Posted at 3:17 PM | 4 Comments »

Backlighting is a powerful visual effect.

Backlighting plus dew: a handful of trump cards!

Every once in a while a cosmic alignment occurs and the steep-angle light post-dawn makes the dew into strings of clear gems, here on an overgrown asparagus, also decorated with a few berries. Festooned with spider webs, the effect is magical.

Know that my feet were bare, drippy wet from the dew on the lawn, and cold, ’cause mornings are almost always cool in the UP, even in August.

Know that my arms were warmed by the sun.

After I took almost a hundred images, I went inside to be warmed by coffee and a laptop review of the images I’d just taken.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Archives again…

…and lunch, and dinner, and snacks.

An insect scourge of the Southern Gardener these days is the Japanese beetle, which has no sense of personal space. This cluster demolishes a rose….

Posted at 7:50 PM | Comments Off on Beetle breakfast

These brilliant poppies are embedded in what looks like orchard grass; we found them in a Michigan ditch last week (plenty of rain there this year). Here it’s just plain hot and dry; we’re watering our favorite plants with the dishwater. I felt guilty doing a load of wash knowing the graywater was going down the sewer. Well, those in south Georgia, lower down the Chattahoochee need it too, I guess—at least, that’s my understanding of where our treated sewage ends up….

Posted at 10:22 PM | 3 Comments »

In honor of my Bro’s b-day today (forty-something), how ’bout some science? Since he’s a scientist, of course (that’s him in front of me)….

Here is an article by Heike Vibrans, “Epianthropochory in Mexican Weed Communities.” The title and abstract sent me to the dictionary (sometimes Wikipedia) multiple times….

Today’s vocabulary:

epianthropochory

humans as dispersers of species, here weeds from fields (I gather)

Bonus points: agrestal

Posted at 2:31 PM | 2 Comments »

My biggest excitement today was finding this critter trying to check out the garage. S/he had already crawled up a 4-inch “cliff” to reach the door sill, quite a feat for having a carapace approximately the diameter of a basketball! Dad coaxed her/him (well, prodded her/him with a stick) into a small plastic garbage can and I carried her/him across the road to the neighbors, since we figured s/he was headed for their ponds.

Later, Dad saved a painted turtle that was crusing down the center line of the road. Not a smart move on the turkel’s part!

Posted at 10:22 PM | 2 Comments »

Early morning in the Tennessee Blue Ridge, sometimes you get lucky and see the ridges tinted blue.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Driving blues

Last night we went for a late-night walk, between nine and ten, enjoying the clear night and pleasant temps. This morning I got up and noticed a vague smoky odor, which I couldn’t pin down. I thought it might be the Guru breakfasting but 1) it was only 6:50 am, and 2) it didn’t smell like toast.

Around 9 am I took some kitchen-water out to the desiccating hostas and azaleas, and then I really smelled the smoke. I finally caught the local TV weather-dude revealing useful information; he said that our quiet air patterns have the trapped smoke from the fires south toward the GA-FL state line in our part of the state. Whew! Must be just awful down there.

Oh, and the picture? When was the last time you noticed the climbing pegs on a power/telephone pole? And this one was right in-town.

Posted at 9:11 AM | Comments Off on Smoke arrives

I’ve never seen anything quite like this garden critter—loved especially the beak detail/accuracy.

I’ve long valued winsomeness in garden decor, but never achieved it. The closest we currently have is the grotesque (gargoyle to some, inaccurately) that lives in shady (not very visible) places in the back yard. The next closest is the bench under the tree in the front yard, I guess. See, short list. And not at all inspired.

Mom gave the Guru the grotesque, because she, like many people, hadn’t a clue what to give him one year for his birthday. He really really doesn’t like it, hence its near-hidden residence(s).

Posted at 10:22 PM | 5 Comments »

This wee (clay) face peers out from under a houseplant.

In the northwest quadrant of Ohio, northwest of Columbus, is a locally important town called Bellefontaine. The local pronunciation is belle-fountain, avoiding any pretense of fanciness, just plain American.

Once, I stopped in Bellefontaine for a big lunch. This was aeons ago, in another life. It was Sunday, and the tables were full of the after-church crowd. By herself at the next table sat a lady, dolled up in a suit complete with a fur shawl, and, I guess being bored, or just seeing it as her right as a life-time resident, she began chatting.

The upshot was, by the time we had finished eating, we traipsed out to her shiny new-model Cadillac sedan, and she opened the rear door to display, well, footwells full of glacial cobbles. Which she said had faces on them.

She even popped the trunk to show me her favorites, and with a pencil drew in a face or two so I’d know exactly what she was talking about.

I’ve lost track of the small travel-sized example she gave me, when she finally let me go on my way.

These days, I don’t lunch in Bellefontaine any more—partly to make the north-south trip go faster, and partly because I don’t need any more cobbles.

Posted at 10:22 PM | 1 Comment »