sleepy time time

[Ed. Note: "Sleepy Time Time" is a blues tune from Cream's 1966 album, "Fresh Cream"]

This morning I awoke a little after 7 A.M., very late for me, especially since I fell asleep at about noon yesterday. At some point during the night, I let George out, but other than that I slept like a rock.

There was a wonderfully picturesque fog when I went out to hang the flag and read the electric meter. It rained a bit yesterday, a few brief thunderstorms that knocked flower petals out of the tulip trees. But the tree canopy has filled out, and the rain came down like a spray under the trees.

I've been meaning to write about politics for a while but it just hasn't happened. Oh well. It seems so far away, living in this mountain forest paradise, but of course it's not that far. My very own state of North Carolina has been taken over by rabid right-wing Tea Party types who insist on rolling back the progress this state has made.

Dang it, I don't want to think about that and get mad. Radio time.

bye bye, CNN

I removed the CNN link from the sidebar of this blog. It had been under the heading, "News, Radio and TV," but I almost never click on the CNN link any more. They've lost a lot of credibility so I don't even bother with them.

Since I use this blog as my home page and use the links in the sidebar constantly, I didn't see a reason to keep CNN. Bye bye, Wolfie, goodbye.

the polite dog and the buttercups

Rocko is the most polite dog I've ever known. He refuses to eat until there is food in the cat's dish too. Even if George isn't in the house at all, Rocko waits until I pour something in George's dish.

It's funny, really. After I fill Rocko's dish, I make the open-handed gesture that means "go ahead" to Rocko, and I reinforce that by saying "go ahead" out loud. Rocko goes to his dish, looks at George's, and stops. He turns and looks at me. I get the bag of cat food, carry it over, and Rocko puts his muzzle down into his dish - but doesn't eat. He's looking at the cat dish. Once the cat food hits the dish, Rocko starts to eat. Then I praise him for being the politest dog in the world.

This happens every day, and it is a real bright spot for me.

Today I went out in the yard early on. I saw a slug and said, "Hello, slug!" It wasn't in the act of eating anything I care about, so I let it be. I talked to the house plants (which are deck and porch plants for the next few months) and complimented them on how happy they all look. Yesterday evening I topped up most of their pots with some cheap potting mix. It appears to be mostly composted tree bark. Anyway, it's dark grey, almost black, and it looks nice.

I watered them all well and tended to my tomato and sage seedlings. The two surviving tomatoes were in the same planting cell and have both put out their first set of real leaves, so it was time to split them up. I did just that and put them in their own cells next to the two sage seedlings. All four are now in one flat, in their own cells. I have several other four-cell flats with a bunch of other things: basil, catnip, peppers and okra. I don't remember which is which since none have come up yet, but that will get sorted out.

Now I'm going out to thrash at the hillside. I have let the undergrowth go wild; the massive amounts of rain we received recently could have weakened the hillside and I felt that the undergrowth would help hold things together. But the rain is gone and if I hack away the unwanted stuff (there are a few things I like and protect) it will rebound before the next big rain.

Besides, I have to plant those herbs and veggies somewhere, and mini-terraces on the hillside are my best option. Gotta hack down the undergrowth before it gets woody and hard to cut. No power tools here, and that's how I like it. I have a drill, of course, but as far as landscaping, the landlord cuts the lawn and I only use hand tools for the portion of landscaping that I tend, i.e. the wilderness. Scotty, the landlord, was impressed last year that we were doing anything at all with the hillside; "nobody has cared about it at all before," he said. We had plans for a terraced garden. That didn't happen last year, but we both felt that we should spend one year learning what was growing where, and where the sun shone the longest. We have a lot of shade, which is nice, but gardens want sun. The hillside outside the bedroom window is the best option.

I got to know the terrain over the last year and a half, and learned what grew where, just as we planned. I was ready for the bloodroot and Jack-in-the-pulpit, but the trillium surprised me. I went back to my photos from last year and found that they were right on time.

One thing that really surprised me was the explosion of buttercups. As I said before, I hadn't cut down the undergrowth; a lot of it turned out to be buttercups. Last year (to the best of my recollection) I kept the weeds down and they didn't have a chance to bloom like this. In addition to looking nice, they cover the layer of trash on our southwest corner. There's a steep slope there by the road, the scar left over from a mudslide 8 or 9 years ago, and people use to throw trash there. We cleaned up some of it but I'm leaning toward letting nature entomb what's left. The buttercups are a good start; they are "opportunistic colonizers" and I think I'll let them colonize that ugly spot. There is only one other plant in that area that I like; some kind of big-leafed thing that puts up a pole with flowers later in the year. But it's a big, strong perennial and the buttercups won't seem to be bothering it.

dinosaurs live among us

[Reprinted from xkcd]

our 5th 1st anniversary

Today would have been what Lisa and I called "our 5th 1st anniversary". Five years ago today, Lisa and I met in person at a little tiny park at the end of a dead-end road on the Gulf of Mexico.

The location was her idea. I was late, of course. I was riding a bicycle and had missed my turn, going several miles out of my way, and then missed another turn ... she hadn't given up yet when I finally came pedalling down the park road.

She expected a motorcycle because I had said that I'd be on a "bike", but got a kick out of the bicycle. She had brought coffee and bagels from Dunkin Donuts - a great way to start a friendship! We sat and talked all afternoon, then she insisted on driving me home. We managed to fit my bike into her tiny little Saturn coupe somehow.

And so it's our 1st anniversary. Our 2nd is the day I moved in with her.

Even though I saw Lisa at her best and worst, I only remember her being at her very best, unless I concentrate. Even then the worst has faded, and that's good. Lisa wouldn't want to be remembered as a person in constant pain, but as an amazing Amazon - and that's exactly what I remember.

Happy 5th 1st anniversary, baby. I love you.

a visitation from two archangels, or just one crazy man?

Hoo-eee. The first 3/4 of my night at work was spent fighting against the effects of a cold, which was doing its best to make me sit down and do nothing. The last 1/4 of the time, two full hours, was spent listening to a fellow refer to himself as the Archangel Gabriel and also as the Archangel Michael - generally in the third person - as he talked my ear off. At least he took my mind off my achy body.

He started his tale with a vivid account of an encounter with Lucifer and a female sex demon on an Asheville bus, and from there it started to get weird. Evidently he had asked for a cup of water at a Chik-Fil-A in Asheville but what he was given was Drano. And yet he survived unscathed, for he is not of this world; he is the Archangel Michael made flesh. Except when he calls up the Archangel Gabriel to give Michael strength. He did this in my presence and surely seemed to believe everything that he was saying. Most of the time it was Gabriel who spoke.

He was clearly a broken man, emotionally. Occasionally he would go into a mantra, repeating "Love ... love ... love ... it's OK, Gabriel [or Michael], we love you ... love ... love ..." in a monotone voice.

He didn't seem to be a danger to himself or others, but on the other hand he didn't show any signs of slowing down or leaving and I didn't want to leave my female manager alone with him when I went home. So, I nodded when she caught my eye and mouthed, "Should I call someone?"

Eventually the town cops showed up. They were very nice to the guy - his name is probably actually Matthew, from what I could gather during the two-hour monologue, but who's to say for sure - and they asked if he needed a ride anywhere. "I'm going west," he said, "probably Nashville first." They offered to take him to the local truck stop and suggested that he could get a ride from a trucker.

Whether they actually took him there, I don't know. They were still chatting amiably with him some time later when I finally left for home. I do know that he told me that his final goals are the Hopi reservation and then Los Angeles, because the Hopi symbolize hope (if you say so, Gabriel) and the City of Angels needs an archangel to save it from sin.

"O what have I done? I've killed the wabbit!" -- E. Fudd

Disclaimer: the following article deals frankly with the violent death of a small, furry creature. Probably not for the squeamish. On the other hand, it is the stuff of every day -- we just don't all get to see it.

You have been warned. 

------------------------------------------------------------

George caught a baby bunny in our front yard this morning. It happened before my very eyes.

I had just arrived at home - I hadn't even gotten all the way out out of the car yet. Just like any other morning, George came out from wherever he had been holed up, stretched, meowed and started up the path toward me. I called out, "Good morning, George! Did you catch the mouse last night?"

He stopped, distracted by something in the grass just off the gravel. He pounced on it and held it up by the back of the neck. What was it? It took me a few seconds to figure out. It was way too big to be a mouse. Not a rat, either. Red squirrel? Big even for that, and no visible tail. At least the size of a gray squirrel.

Then Cat Mandu turned and I saw the ears and eye. Bunny!

I really couldn't scold him for it. Not after the way I've encouraged him. Every day, at least once a day, I tell him to go out and catch a mouse. Or, if the birds are singing, I'll tell him to catch a bird. Or a frog, if it's raining. So when he caught a half-pound bunny right in front of me, what could I do? I praised him high and low.

But I'm pretty sure that George didn't actually kill the little critter. That honor likely goes to Rocko.

It took me a few minutes to get the house open far enough for Rocko to come out and for me to go in; George was between me and the door with a still-living rabbit in his jaws. He wanted to bring it in, and I wasn't having it. Finally I managed to distract him out into the yard long enough to let Rocko out, and told Rocko to "go see George's bunny!"

By this time, George was letting it try to get away but (as cats do) he kept catching it with the swipe of an arm. The critter kept crying out every time George caught him. Rocko and I went over to see the bunny. Rocko was pretty interested and started snuffling around it. It was still breathing at that point, and I told Rocko to leave it alone. Then he started protecting it from George. I went in the house for a moment, and while inside I heard the bunny cry out one last time. "George got it back," I thought.

When I got back out, Rocko was sniffing at and licking it and it was apparently dead. No respiration; no reaction when I blew at its eye. I figure that the final cry was when Rocko picked it up and gave it a good shake. This was a relief, really. George would have tormented it for a lot longer.

It was quickly apparent that Rocko was going to eat this baby bunny no matter where I threw it, so I figured the best thing to do would be to give him his breakfast first and then let him at it, so he could eat it fresh but he wouldn't have raw bunny on an empty stomach.

I called out "time for breakfast," and both of the boys came in, leaving the bunny in the yard. After they ate I let them back out. Rocko went straight to the bunny and started snuffling at and licking on it. I told him I wasn't staying to watch. "Do what you will. I'm going in." George stayed to watch. I think he's hurt that he didn't get to eat any. Rocko finished it and now it's gone, fuzz, fur and guts.

I figure that the little critter's mother was probably picked off by a raptor during the night, and it just hunkered down there until George found it. A young rabbit alone like that just ain't right.


And then the sun rose higher in the sky and life went on, the lilac and trillium and thornapple bloomed and Jack stood in his Pulpit in the gully among the ferns. We all took a walk and now they're napping and I'm going to join them.

No cartoon wabbits were harmed in the production of this documentary. I can't say the same about the real rabbit,

If you find all of this quite shocking, welcome to the world of your pets. Yours would do the same given the chance. They are animals.

I didn't see this as a great problem because somebody was going to kill and eat that bunny, be it fox, owl or dog. George and Rocko had a rare treat. How often are they going to have a chance to maul and eat a decent sized prey animal? I'm not worried about them making a habit out of eating rabbits.

whitewater

Our crystal-clear river is brown and white today, the result of about 4" of rain. It's still raining, and the river is still rising. I'm safe from flooding up here, but of course the hillside could let go. Probably not, though. There are plenty of trees to hold things together.

On my drive home this morning I kept my eye on the water. In a lot of places, the meanders of the river have been replaced by straight runs in a number of places; gravel bars and spits are underwater. It's fun to look at but I'm glad I don't have one of those places right down on the water.

My hummingbirds are hanging pretty close to the feeder. I made a new batch of sugar water and will top up the feeder as soon as I can figure out what I can stand on to do the job. I usually stand on a chair, but it would sink into the mud in this weather.

doing the hermit thing

Software problems have kept me mostly off-line for the past few days. Almost a week now. I can use my Slax USB stick to get online to research my problems, but have to reboot into text mode to work on it. That slows things down a lot.

But besides that, it's been rainy and chilly. I was called in for the evening shift on Wednesday after only getting a couple of hours of sleep. But it was OK, I might even get time and a half for it.

The trees are are getting past the budding stage. I was surprised to look out my bedroom window yesterday and see the biggest nearby tree resplendent in real leaves. Buckeye are leafing out too. Soon it will be nearly impossible to see the bottom of the gully, except for a short time during the morning when the sun shines off of the delta of little creeks as they come down from the farm next door. It looks like a 10-foot-wide stream; an optical illusion, of course, but a glorious one.

Earth Day 2013

[Ed. note: I noticed an odd punctuation error the evening after writing this and added some text as well when I got in to fix it.]

Today is the 43rd annual Earth Day.

The Weather Channel showed a clip of Walter Cronkite from the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970. He said,

"Someday, we heard today, the world will be a better place -- if it listens and acts. But in the meantime, perhaps for a generation or more, it will be frighteningly costly to each of us to clean up the mess each of us has made.

"But the cost of not doing so is more frightening. That's what today's message really means. And those who marched today, and those who slept, and those who scorned, are in this thing together.

"What is at stake, and what is in question, is survival."

I was 7 years old on that first Earth Day. The spirit of environmentalism was instilled in me by popular culture and enforced well enough that I am fastidious in both cleaning up after myself and in not making a mess in the first place. (Outdoors, at least.)

For example, even though I smoke, I do not throw cigarette butts anywhere. Sometimes I'll be at somebody's house (an admittedly rare occurrence for a hermit like me) and when they see me searching for an ashtray, they'll say "just throw it in the yard," I won't do it.

If I don't have an ashtray or bucket available, I'll empty out the remaining tobacco, roll up the filter and paper, and stick it in my pocket. Lisa taught me about tobacco offerings, and I always say a few words when I "give the tobacco back to the Mother". Lisa approved of this practice.

But Earth Day is more than just an artificial demi-holiday. The Cuyahoga (why didn't my spellchecker know that name?) River Fires -- yes, there was more than one, it was almost a tradition for 100 years -- were one of the most glaring examples of the rampant pollution. But the pollution was more than just dirty rivers and chemical dumps like Love Canal.

Whenever someone complains about environmental regulations - especially someone my age or older - I ask myself, "Where were these people during the 1960's and 70's?"

Here's my $0.02 on part of what Mr, Cronkite said in 1970, to wit:

"But in the meantime, perhaps for a generation or more, it will be frighteningly costly to each of us to clean up the mess each of us has made."

He was right about that. I would add that the cost of remaining clean will continue. Yes, regulations lead to increased costs for businesses and consumers. But I'd rather pay a bit more along the way than pay billions of dollars in tax money in lump sums to clean up all the new Superfund sites that would rapidly appear should the regulations go away.

Corporations rarely police themselves well enough to justify removing regulations. And the occasional new regulation wouldn't hurt much, either. And why is that? why don't they police themselves well enough? Because they are run by human beings, and humans are imperfect and often greedy. Humans are often willing to make a disgusting mess rather than spend some money. This occurs from the low level of a cigarette butt thrown out a car window to raw sewage flowing into open running streams and rivers.

A bit of trivia: for seven months in the mid-1990's I worked designing circuit boards for a company that designed and manufactured equipment that could detect the type and amount of pollution in water. The engineers would take prototype units down to a nearby creek that ran behind McDonald's. They told me that there were a lot of fats in the water after it ran past McDonald's that weren't present on the other side, so it was good for checking out new designs.

The weather is chilly again, and so on this Earth Day I am watching hummingbirds at the feeder with the American flag blowing in the breeze behind it. When it warms up later I'll take the boys out.

the mighty panther

Cat Mandu, a.k.a. George, left me a present on the front door mat this morning: a dead frog.

It was only yesterday that I asked him to leave his kills where I can see them, so that I can praise him. I have found a few mice dead in the yard recently and I told George that I am sure that he's killed more than that. Leave the evidence where I can see it.

And so he did.

Well, it's a rainy afternoon and I need to sleep before work. We were told to clock in 15 minutes early so that the person being relieved can get out on time. That's OK with me, it ensures that I'll get a little bit of extra time in each paycheck. And I find that getting up earlier allows me to be more relaxed on my drive.

Bed time. The Schwarz Brothers, Rocko and George, are already curled up on the bed.

hummingbirds and fireflies

The first hummingbird of the season showed up at my feeder on 17 April 2013. I  didn't get a close look, but I think it's only one so far. I hung the feeder on the 10th and have been watching it carefully.

This morning at 4 A.M. the boys and I went out on the front porch. It was warm, about 55 degrees, and cloudy. We got some rain yesterday; it was dark and humid.

Fireflies are starting to light up under the grass. They may only be larvae at this point. The boys convinced me to put on boots and walk around in the dark, and I saw a lot of fireflies under the grass.

During the light of day, trees are budding out. The Bloodroot and Solomon's Seal are starting to show up, and I'm eagerly awaiting the Jack in the Pulpit and our abundant trillium. The daffodils are long done, except for one late individual down near the far corner of the field, standing proud and profoundly alone. Evidently that particular bulb didn't get the climate change memo.

silence

xkcd

Margaret Thatcher followup

I found this Ted Rall cartoon not too long after writing my last bit.

Margaret Thatcher in brief

Today's International Hour of the Diane Rehm Show discussed, in part, the legacy of Margaret Thatcher. In describing the reaction in Britain to Baroness Thatcher's passing, one of the guests said that while some were genuinely mourning her death (surely not many who were old enough to be aware during her reign), others were helping to drive "Ding, Dong, The Witch Is Dead" up the pop charts for the first time in many years.

I'm with the "Witch Is Dead" crowd. I did not agree with her policies, nor those of her buddy Ronald Reagan, and she was never one to show much remorse. Hope you don't mind if I keep this short. I'm trying not to push Lisa's photo down to page too quickly. Listen to The Diane Rehm Show, it's good for ya. Especially the Friday domestic and international shows. She does them every week.

stormin'

It's not stormy here yet, but clouds are starting to move in. I'll have to bring in all those potted plants so they don't get damaged by the wind, rain and and hail they are predicting.

The landlord's giving the yard its first haircut of the year so my sinuses are complaining, but the rains will wash the pollen away. I noticed a yellow film on my car this morning and a yellow ring in the outside water dish just an hour ago.

yesterday

All of the houseplants were re-potted yesterday. I had one empty pot that was big enough for the desert rose, which had been in the largest pot, so everybody got to move up to a hand-me-down pot.

Some of the plants, notably the desert rose, will need re-potting again soon into a still larger pot. That poor desert rose has thick underground roots that were bent from hitting the bottom of the old pot. It looks like it's going to need a big, floor-style pot, because its biggest roots want to run at least half as deep as the plant is high above the surface.

I left a few windows partially open last night. Yesterday morning I turned off the heat pump because it was nearly 80℉ outside. With the heat off and the windows open, I arose at 9 A.M. to a 71℉ house. That's nice. I usually have the heat set at 67℉ during the day and 62℉ at night.

Time to go outside and drink coffee with Cat Mandu (a.k.a. George) and Dog Boy (a.k.a. Rocko). Cat Mandu came inside a few minutes ago, rubbed on my leg, and went back out. Dog Boy is out there giving me a pleading look. They love our morning walk. We have a route that we take, heading down to the north end, around that area a bit, then back up and over to the creek in the gully behind the house.

Gotta go be with the boys.

Republican interview subjects make me mad

Listening to some Republican legislator on NPR talking about why Congress is rejecting President Obama's budget before they even had time to read it, was frustrating as usual. She decried the President's budget proposal as "more of the same."

More of the same? Yes, I can agree on that phrase, if not the Republican's intent behind it.

What it is more of is, an attempt to compromise with a House that won't hear of it.

spring-a-ding-ding

The first Luna moth of the year was spotted in the convenience store lights in Clyde last night. A largish yellow butterfly, probably one of our ubiquitous swallowtails, flew down the gully while George and I were relaxing down there.

A few tiny ants were found drowned in the outside water dish when I got back to the house from our walk. The songbirds are songing up a storm.

George stayed down by the creek in a small clearing, as is his wont, returning just now.

Spring is really here. It's supposed to be in the mid to upper 70's today and Im already seeing guys wearing shorts to work. I'm going to be wearing them too, maybe tonight.

Ahh. A very relaxing day with only a small cloud of gnats to bother me as I sit on the front porch writing this.