Thursday, 20 July 2023
When the sky darkens at 6:20 in the evening in the summer, get worried. That’s how I look at it. And the darkening preceded a storm front, as you might expect. The front came through with blasts of wind, and kept going, with the wind fading, then some rain, then ho-hum.
And I exhaled. All is well again.
Wednesday, 19 July 2023
The predicted overnight rain never materialized, but the air shifted and the AQ improved…so I went for a wee walk, returning before seven (!), because hot. humid.
Plenty of neighborhood water systems nevertheless kicked on…in this case weighing down these limp grasses. Are they grasses? They look like it.
Tuesday, 18 July 2023
Air Quality was poor today, with high haze. I stayed inside and felt…a bit guilty…but healthy (hah!). A storm’s supposed to come through tonight and into the morning, and disperse the haze.
I have a short-term perspective on this. Exercise tomorrow? Wait and see….
Tuesday, 11 July 2023
An hour after I made yesterday’s post, our power went out, then we had a fierce storm that didn’t last terribly long…thunder, lightning, rain. The power was out for about nine hours, but thankfully back on in time for coffee-making. By sunrise, it was all clear and sparkly out, although some of the now-tall grasses were wet and lodged. They perked up after the sun and wind dried them, and I managed to pull off two sessions with The Beast.
Sunday, 2 July 2023
Previous summers I have had multiple opportunites to take foggy morning photos. This year I suspect it’s been just too darned dry for the fog to form. So, I was excited this morning to see the fog thicken as the sun rose, and went to to capture images. Since I now have a clear path from my activities with The Beast, I headed out into the field for a different perspective than I usually get from near the cottage. After this shot, and a few more steps, I scared up a sleeping deer, which huffed-snorted at me for the indignity.
Also, the day stayed cool longer in the morning, which made my almost-an-hour with The Beast easier to endure. Still humid, though….
Saturday, 1 July 2023
Golden-lit potentilla.
My morning fun…exercising The Beast.
The Beast…waiting.
Last summer, we bought The Beast to frustrate, and hopefully to ultimately remove, an invasive grass that has very strong stems and out-competes the “normal” pasture grasses. Of course, this is no longer a pasture, nor doesn’t anyone hay it, or otherwise manage it for agriculture. Just. Too. Much. Effort. [Yes, more than operating the beast on hot, humid, hazy days. Long story.]
Wednesday, 28 June 2023
This is what I think of as the standard, even ubiquitous milkweed leaf shape on this property.
Lately, I’ve noticed that a minority have this narrower leaf shape. Without a doubt still a milkweed….
I haven’t seen enough monarch action to see if they notice a difference.
After poking around in details online, I think the first one may be Asclepias syriaca, and the second Asclepias meadii, but that’s an off-the-cuff assessment.
And I thought a milkweed is just a milkweed. My ignorance.
Yeah, I know the light is totally different. The colors of the two are slightly different, with the broader leaf plants “greener,” and the narrower leaved ones, slightly more blue-green. IMHO
Monday, 26 June 2023
We did a wee bit of time travelling this evening and watched “Yellow Submarine.” I’m sure I never saw it before. Great music; I sang along with all the songs!
Sunday, 25 June 2023
This yesterday-photo better illustrates the lake level than one from today would. Today has been breezy and variable, with 8-inch rain—as in drops eight inches apart…meaning enough to note but not enough to make any difference to the vegetation or even a measuring device. Note that there is beach, or enough sand exposed to be called beach, for the first time in, what?, two decades or more? I forget.
In my youth (yes…), the beach at the point (this view; this point) was sometimes twenty feet wide. You might be thinking “climate change” and that probably is not wrong, but more, it is the result of the lake outflow being far more heavily restricted, which has the effect of raising the lake levels. For years, it has been much higher, like on the order or two feet, than in the past. This means increased erosion, among other things.
Our lake is shallow, historically usually less than eight-to-ten feet across much of the basin (which is on the order of three by six miles), so people with their big speed boats, that is: MUCH bigger than the rowboats that we used to use, have been much happier with the greater depth, while…blah blah blah. I’m for the historic levels, but I’m probably in the minority of landowners with lakefront property.
Tuesday, 20 June 2023
Ya leave for two nights and the critters and varmints and infestations set in. Aphids are sucking the juices out of (a minority, I admit) the lupines. Arrgh; it’s tough to be a human molding the world. [Hello, Anthropocene.]