Category Archives: Nature

100 Words, Art, Gatherings, Nature, pets, Stories, Uncategorized

On the Wall

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As I was turning the corner after leaving the library, I saw a man walking his big dog. Only the big dog was walking up on the retaining wall along the sidewalk.  He was walking very steadily on the wall, which was about 2 feet high, negotiating the corner with ease.

I slowed down and called out my car window to the man, asking if his dog likes all retaining walls or just this one. He laughed and said “all walls, but this is his favorite”.  He said to have a good day and I drove off.

Tell me about your favorite circus memory!

Family, home, Nature, Uncategorized, Weather

Water Damage

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We live in a semi-arid part of the US. We don’t get much rain. The rain, when it falls, is usually no more than a quarter of an inch at a time. This has lulled me and Husband into a false sense of security when it comes to our gutters and down spouts. Why make a point to clear out the spouts when it hardly ever rains? Why check to make sure that the spouts are fully functional?

For the second time in the 30 years we have lived in our home, we have water damage in the basement due to our rain spout neglect.  The first time the extension that takes the water away from the house fell off, so the water poured out of the spout right along the foundation of the house.  The water traveled along the side of the house and came into the basement through a hole in the basement wall where a well pipe enters the basement foundation.  We replaced all the basement carpet.

This most recent time, the down spout was clogged with leaves, so the water poured over the gutter right by the foundation and traveled into  an egress window and soaked the drywall and carpet below the window in a basement bedroom. We rarely go into that room, and I discovered wet carpet and moldy drywall on Friday, about a month after the rain.  It smells pretty grisly. I suspect we need to replace the carpet in that room, and the drywall guy is coming Monday to check  out the drywall. I am pretty disgusted with our lack of diligence. I feel pretty stupid flooding our home for the second time. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have one’s entire house damaged by water.

What mistakes have you made with home ownership and maintenance?

Art, Family, gardening, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized, Weather

Autumn Gardening

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You all know that I love gardening in the spring and summer. And that I am horrible at gardening in the fall.  I’m not sure but I think it’s too much delayed gratification.  Anything you do in the fall isn’t really going to give you results until spring.  Or maybe I’m just worn out after the spring and summer hours pulling, hacking and digging.

In any case, over the weekend I had to FORCE myself to get out and do a little clean up and plant some bulbs and tubers. I added some more tulips to the front boulevard and also two patches of daffodils.  I moved my yellow and purple dwarf iris a bit (they were getting swallowed up by lilies) and I also added some Open Your Eyes dwarf iris tubers this year

I had put this off over the last couple of weekends, using YA’s accident/surgery as an excuse and, truth be told, I have been very busy, but 2 weekends in a row, the gardening was on my list and just didn’t get done. So now I feel an immense sense of satisfaction and relief.  Why can’t I get myself to do gardening in the fall, when I know it will feel great when I’m done?

How do you get yourself motivated?

education, Fantasy, History, Movies, Nature, Science, space, Travel, Uncategorized

Aliens Among Us?

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Back to my rant on reactionary headlines. Now I’m seeing news that some videos from quite a few years ago have been leaked from Navy archives, videos that the Navy says are “real”.  They show unidentified objects that have never been explained.  So now aliens exist and are among us according to the headlines.

Personally I’m not willing to say that we are the only life in the universe. As Matthew McConaughey says in the movie, Contact

However, I’m pretty sure that if there is other life in the universe, the human race doesn’t have it within itself to RECOGNIZE that life. I think that our definition of life is too small.  Even our definition of life is based on what we currently believe to be life:  “the condition that distinguishes animals and plants form inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity and continual change preceding death.”

I’m also pretty sure that any kind of life/civilization that can get to Earth is/will be way more advanced than we can imagine. So I’m not really concerned that the Navy video is really aliens – if aliens are here, they are advanced enough to keep themselves hidden from us.  For all we know, aliens do walk among us and we’ll probably never figure it out?

What place in the universe would you like to visit?

Family, Food, home, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized

The Chestnut Tree

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Today’s post comes to us from Ben.

The horse chestnuts are falling.

The walnuts are falling too and they make more noise when they fall. And boy, if they hit the deck it’s a good “Thud”. But hit the metal deck table? Wow, that’ll wake you up. “KABANG”! We have 4 nice big walnut trees that shade the deck. But they sure make a mess.

But it’s the horse chestnuts that I’m attracted too.

This is the one chestnut tree we have at home.

I planted it from a seed. Mom says she’s surprised it ever grew at all because I was digging it up every day to see if it had sprouted yet.

I would collect the nuts on Sundays along the sidewalk on the way from church. There were several chestnut trees next to the parking lot we used and in the fall I’d be lucky to find some left from the kids at the earlier services.

They’re just so appealing with their large size and smooth shell and the nice brown color. And they’re fairly easy to get out of the husk. Walnuts are messy and stain your fingers and they’re just dark brown and yucky. Acorns are kinda cool, but they’re small and sometimes hard to get out of the husk. But horse chestnuts. I get warm fuzzies just thinking about them.

Here’s part of what I collected. There doesn’t seem to be very many this year. Yet another victim of our cool, wet spring?

Here’s chestnunts in their natural habitat.

And the empy husk, which was almost as appealing as the nut itself.

I had the big yellow Tonka dump truck and I’d fill it with acorns I picked up while playing in the street. Yeah, Mom and dad told me to go play in the street. Not exactly; the oak trees are along our driveway so that’s where I had to go to collect acorns. I was probably about 9 or 10 years old.

I remember when I was about 4 or 5, mom and dad had just built the new house. There was a tree stump in the backyard that I played on. And it seems like there was an upended stump; all roots sticking out, I could climb up in there and find a place to sit in among the roots. That was fun.

I’ve lived here 55 years. A lot of trees have come and gone.

TALK ABOUT A TREE.

Family, home, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized

Four & Twenty Blackbirds

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Today’s post comes to us from Ben.

The blackbirds have arrived. Or maybe they’ve just arrived en-mass. Kelly does not like them. She will go out at 6 a.m., slapping two boards together to scare them off. To me it looks like an exercise in futility. She’s thinking if she scares them off soon enough and often enough they’ll stay away. And I’m not sure – I can’t prove it *won’t* work. But I don’t think it is working.

It’s morning, she’s just driven off to work and the trees are already filled with cackling blackbirds. I’m sure it upset her no end; she knows they are mocking her now. But I admire her determination. The barn swallows have moved on so that’s depressing as well. Tonight when she gets home, she’ll be out there cracking those boards together.

We’ve even tried firing shotguns at them. Yep, they all fly away, but then they’re right back. Like turkey or deer. Or raccoons. Or a bad fungus.

The city of Rochester has also been fighting crows roosting in trees in the downtown area. So at least we’re not fighting the messy droppings of the blackbirds, just the noise.

“What wakes you up in the morning?”

Fantasy, History, Media, Nature, News, Science, Uncategorized

Who Dunnit?

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We all know that headlines don’t always tell the story. The last few days there have been lots of articles about scientists “solving the Loch Ness Monster”.  Although I am a skeptic in general, I couldn’t help clicking on the first story I saw.  Of course scientists have NOT solved the mystery of Nessie.  What they have done is find more eel dna in the water of the lake than they expected.  All it took was for one person to say “maybe the Loch Ness Monster is really a giant eel” for the story to take off.

The same arguments for why the Loch Ness Monster can’t exist apply to a giant eel (lake too cold, not enough food to keep a giant eel alive, no bones/evidence of previous generations) but that hasn’t stopped the explosion of “Nessie is a giant eel” stories.

I don’t make it a point of following stories like the Loch Ness Monster, the faked moon landing or anything having to do with Area 51, but I look at reports if they cross my path. I do follow the work being done on Amelia Earhart’s disappearance fairly closely (TIGHAR) and I do think this mystery will be solved in my lifetime.  But Nessie, not so much.

What mystery would you like to be explained?

Family, Fifty Words, gardening, Nature, Uncategorized

Zinnias

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Every year Husband insists on planting Zinnias from seed. He had some standard varieties he likes (Oklahoma is one) and gets ones of differing heights for the back and front of the flower bed.  Every spring I think he is silly about this, and every August I admit that they are the highlights of the late summer garden.  They are the only annuals we plant. He is already searching last year’s seed catalogue s for other varieties  for next year.

  • What are your favorite annual flowers? How do you plan your gardens?

 

Family, Food, home, Nature, pets, Uncategorized

Kitchen Captives

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Two weeks ago,  Husband ordered some sourdough starter from King Arthur Flour. Until this point he had been a haphazard, sourdough self starter, making a starter and then discarding it when he felt like it. This time, he bought a deceptively small container with about a tablespoon of starter in it. It has held us captive ever since it arrived.

Husband followed the instructions for starter care religiously. This meant refreshing the starter ever 6-8 hours the first couple of days. This involved taking  4 ounces of  the growing  starter to which you add 4 ounces of flour and 4 ounces of water. You discard any starter beyond the 4 ounces, saving the discard for pancakes and waffles, or whatever else you want.  There are only so many sourdough waffles, pancakes, and biscuits a person can consume every day.

Last weekend we made 10 loaves of a variety of breads. Our freezers are full. I feel trapped in my kitchen by this demanding starter. It reminds me of the man eating plant in Little Shop of Horrors.  It is like having a new pet in the house. Husband says he will freeze the starter soon to bring peace and serenity to our home.

What responsibility have you taken on that you have come to regret?

 

Family, home, Nature, pets, Stories, Uncategorized

My Smart Kitty Boy

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I’ve told the tale of Zorro joining our household before but I’m not sure I have ever told about how smart he was.  Here’s one story of his intelligence.

Zorro was a scratcher. I’ve known a lot of cats over the years (other people’s cats) and no one could scratch like Zorro.  And he scratched everything: sofa, beds, tables, piano bench, speakers.  Everything.  I tried every technique you can think of to re-direct him.  Multiple kitty scratching posts, catnip spray (to entice him to the posts), cans with pennies, squirt bottles, double-sided tape, aluminum foil, bitter apple spray.  I even tried little shields that you put onto the kitty’s claws.  Take it from me, don’t try this.  You’ll get damaged doing it and within 24 hours, the kitty will have chewed half of them off.

I know that de-clawing a cat is an awful thing to do. I know exactly what they do and I know that many vets will not do the procedure.  I had a long talk with my vet and as much as I loved Zorro, it was coming down to keeping Zorro without claws or having to find Zorro a new home.  This was a terrible decision and I flip-flopped back and forth for over a month.  But he was literally scratching his way through the house.  The day I caught him scratching the piano leg (ignoring the kitty post that was 12” from him), I knew I had to act.

Suffice it to say that it was a rough surgery and he ended up staying at the vet two extra days so that they could keep him contained and quiet. After he got home, he limped for two weeks, breaking my heart with every step.  I knew I was going straight to kitty-owner’s hell.  Then one afternoon, I was standing in the kitchen and from where I was located, I could see Zorro up on the buffet in the dining room, but he didn’t see me.  He jumped down and walked toward the kitchen with no limp whatsoever.  As he crossed the threshold into the kitchen, he looked up and saw me; he immediately sat down and lifted up his “sore” paw.  I snorted at him and told him he was busted; he must have heard my intonation or maybe he just knew the gig was up.  He never limped again.

So all those folks who think cats aren’t smart because they can’t be trained like a dog, I say, you didn’t know Zorro!

Have you ever been scammed?