Musings

We’re getting toward the end of the lupine, with many fully in seed pods. A few are still opening at the tips, however.

Farm news: ML and DL have installed a new dock! It’s a beaut! Smells like fresh lumber.

I channeled Diana the Huntress (21st century version) and stalked the shallows for the lithe and limber lacustrine annelids, finding eight in about ten minutes and removing them from the breeding pool. And the lake. It may have been the perfect stick I found for catching them and tossing them into the brush that brought me luck. But not them.

The late afternoon became overcast and waves of drippy rain, straight down, so the windows all could remain open.

Posted at 7:19 PM | 2 Comments »

On warm days like this, we are taking advantage of the insulation that this cottage now has that it didn’t when I was a youngster. By that I mean that we close the windows late morning and “keep the cool in” until late afternoon. The temperature on the porch, with the lovely new ceiling fan (last summer?, I think), does drift with the day, being cooler than the house in the early morning, and much warmer by late afternoon, when the sun streams in. Today’s popup storms brought the temps down for a while in the mid-afternoon, but the skies cleared and all was soon toasty as normal.

BTW, I’m pretty sure this is feverfew; it’s not from our place.

Posted at 11:14 PM | Comments Off on Probably this is more info than you care about

The wind (more than the rain) is bringing down the apple petals. They are reminiscent of snow on the grass.

This lupine is developing color, but still tight-closed.

Love the purple shades that develop in the blossoms. Some tend a bit toward lavender, and we have a small minority that are white or pink.

I just checked the lilacs, and ours have color but the buds are unopened. I smelled, and no scent yet. ;-(

Posted at 4:43 PM | Comments Off on Overcast, but springing

I thought this was our “last” high cross of the trip, and then we saw a replica in a museum. Does that count?

Also at Ardboe (no ruins of the monastery that was here), we found grave monument setters at work, and this lilac. Can you see the white spots in the first photo? And a couple of flies in this picture? Many bugs…a hatch. They weren’t house flies. Still annoying, however.

Haven’t noticed L-shaped stoplights before….

Strange that all these sheep turned their tails toward us—and they have tails. Lots of that here, but plenty are docked.

Last stone circles of the trip. These are the Beaghmore group.

JCB and the drone captured some fine shots. This is just part of the area of circles, alignments, cairns, etc. Further, this valley is peppered with stone features. And without a doubt more are undiscovered beneath the peat. The peat is covered by brown and grey vegetation in the drone photo.

On to the last ring fort occupied into the 1600s. This is a famous spot, as one of the last Gaelic kings (sub-king I’d say) was inaugurated here in 1593; his name was Aodh Mór Ó Néill. Aodh is Hugh in English. Mór means great. Aodh would have called this place Tulach Óc; today it’s Tullyhogue. Someone lived here in a wooden building into the 1600s. This is the entrance and the original entrance probably required a Z-shaped path between wooden palisades.

We’ve been seeing these blooming hawthorns everywhere—down hedgerows and here at Tulach Óc. The scent is strong.

In Belfast! Here’s the formal façade of Queens University Belfast.

Next to the core buildings of the Univ is the Ulster Botanic Gardens.

This is the door to the Palm House. The plants were ho-hum. There was a HOT room, that made my chest feel compressed.

A metal Lord Kelvin stands inside the main entrance to the BotGarden.

This is a sculpture outside the Ulster Museum.

Just periodic overcast, no sprinkles. Is this really Ireland?

Posted at 4:17 PM | Comments Off on Winding things up

This morning’s low temp…and maybe not again until autumn. Around here, we have a heightened awareness of the under-60 category….

Posted at 9:18 PM | Comments Off on Numerology

We had several waves of rain and wind come through—not too much wind, thankfully. We needed the rain.

And, things have cooled off.

Time to go find some plants and start the garden. Herbs, I think. And maybe just herbs. Thai basil. Italian basil. Hmmmm.

Posted at 10:36 PM | Comments Off on More on shoulders than head

This resulted from the last cold spell…took a while. The present cold spell isn’t very cold, as cold goes, but I notice it….

Anyway, poor azalea. Bloomed before its time. I’m not saying climate warming. But [climate warming].

Posted at 11:07 PM | Comments Off on Not pretty

Today was cold and windy. The cold is relative…but the wind is unarguable.

Prescription: mmmmmm pasta mini-raviolis and tomato sauce. Topped with fresh basil (splurge) and fresh-grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (another splurge). Mmmmmm.

Tomorrow is to be more cold and windy. It’ll be short-lived; next week: in the 80s.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Compensating

So, late yesterday here in Atlanta we had a (localized) apocalyptic fire. Then, in the lantern hours we suffered a big rain and wind storm .

The fire—no human casualties, but I just heard law enforcement made arrests after the evening news—firebugs. And the storm, we weathered it (teehee).

It knocked back the pollen for a few hours…. [This was before the storm….]

Posted at 9:38 PM | 1 Comment »

I couldn’t decide which order to present these photos. Which is another way of saying I couldn’t come up with a narrative.

So, I’ll play it safe. Weather.

We got through last night’s storm, wind and rain, but mostly just the front. I think it dissipated some before it got to our house. It raged in other neighborhoods. We were lucky.

Is this an unfolding peony? I’ll watch—more data….

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on [Headline forgotten]