Monthly Archives: April 2025

April 20, 2025 · 22:45

Tiny Oasis

We had a drought a couple years ago which resulted in there being significant restrictions imposed on water useage, especially things like yard irrigation. We managed to keep some/most of the front yard green-ish, but the back yard got abandoned. Even though we’ve gotten some rain again in the last year or two and the restrictions are gone, the back yard has never come back and is pretty much just hard-packed dirt and bird seed.

The sprinkler system is still there, and even though it doesn’t get used it’s still pressurized, and the sprinkler heads still drip or leak the tiniest little bit. This has led to tiny little oases surrounding the sprinkler heads, where hearty little weeds have managed to eke out an existence. Now they’re blooming.

This makes me think that the back yard could be re-planted with some work – breaking up the hard-packed topsoil, fertilizing, getting some grass seed (or sod if we wanted to be fancy fancy), watering it, and so on. But all of those steps come with dollar signs attached and I would rather save my dollars to spend on The Forever Home and getting out of here and into it. If the landlord doesn’t care, then I’m going to pass as well.

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Filed under Castle Willett, Forever Home, Photography

April 19, 2025 · 23:37

Easter Eve Gradient

I hear that tomorrow is Easter. Okay.

Not a holiday for me, I’m afraid. I just need to keep track so I know to keep away from crowds going to brunch and flooding the stores looking for lillies and chocolate bunnies.

But sunset tonight was lovely, even without a cloud in the sky. That spectacular gradient as white fades to pink fades to orange fades to blue fades to indigo fades to black, with 100,000 separate shades squeezed in between.

Enjoy your chocolate bunnies. In fact, you can hae mine. I got chewed out by my doctor this week about my A1C numbers that are moving in the wrong direction.

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Filed under Photography, Sunsets

April 18, 2025 · 23:40

To Fly In The Moonlight

“May Grey” (which leads to “June Gloom” here in SoCal) has arrived early. Coastal fog and clouds, often thickening enough to get light drizzle, but never any real rain.

At night, the clouds often allow some moonlight to filer through from above, while also reflecting all of the city lights. Yet you can still see some texture and the occasional hole where a bright star might shine through.

I hear the owls and night hawks and think of how wonderful I imagine it would be to be up there in these clouds and odd light, soaring and diving, drifting and coasting on the thermals.

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Filed under Photography, Weather

April 17, 2025 · 23:40

Found Feathers

At first, I just saw two or three large feathers on the back porch. No big deal.

Then there were a couple more on the sidewalk. Again, no biggie.

It was only after I had done my lap around the back yard and got back to this point that my brain started to register all of the other feathers, well hidden by their coloration matching the dirt. Aside from the two on the sidewalk, how many can you find on the dirt? (I’ve got eleven so far, but every time I look I seem to find more.)

Now that my stupid brain knew what to focus on, I started spotting them all over a circle about ten feet across. Sometimes when this happens I see far, far more, but I think it depends on whether the mourning dove was in the air or on the ground, how high the hawk or owl was diving from, and whether the predator ate here or just made the strike and then took its meal off elsewhere to eat or feed its chicks.

The tiny, fluffy feathers all around the right side of the sprinkler head at the bottom were the confirmation for me. The bigger feathers can sometimes shed naturally, particularly if one of the big, fat mourning doves goes crashing into the sliding glass door. (They can really make a “thud” that echoes through the house!) But for there to be a handful of those finer (insulating?) feathers from underneath the big flight feathers, something violent needed to happen.

The hawk or owl (and possibly their chicks) eat today, while we’re one mourning dove down. Circle of life and all of that. We have a handful of hawks and owls in the neighborhood – we have dozens and dozens of mourning doves every morning when The Long Suffering Wife casts her bounty of bird seet upon her adoring throngs of feathered friends. (She’s like Snow White out there…)

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Filed under Birds, Photography

April 16, 2025 · 23:31

No Context For You – April 16th

And finally…breathing room.

That HUGE FREAKIN’ CRISIS has been resolved, all of the data entry and bank reconciliations and reports got done for this morning’s meeting, payroll got done for tomorrow morning (which is why I was suddenly posting something quick on five minute’s notice yesterday), the funeral is over, the family has all gone back home, I’ve got my bathroom back, I had my normal weekly gym session tonight (and I’m sore as hell as usual, which again, is “normal,” THANKS SEAN!), I even got all of my tax backup documents over to our CPA only to find out that because of the fires and the FEMA state of emergency we actually don’t have to file until October, and all of a sudden…

There aren’t any “helmet fires” going on at the moment. (“Helmet fire” is a term used by Mace Curran in describing being a fighter pilot and later a pilot in the Air Force Thunderbirds, where there’ too much life and death, split second decision stuff coming at you all at once.)

No one has noticed one of the funniest things that I’ve ever posted on social media, and while dealing with the helmet fires enough non-critical tasks got shoved on to the back burners to keep me going for a month of Sundays, and some of those could become new helmet fires if not dealt with quickly, but HEY!

This lack of a constant adrenaline flow that resembled Niagra Falls is something I could get used to, I think.

I hope I’m not jinxing anything…

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Filed under Farce, Paul

April 15, 2025 · 23:58

Proof Of Life – April 15th

Damn, that was a long few days.

Here’s the stuff of life:

Caffeine. Taste. Mmmmmmm.

Had a medical professional today on the phone tell me that I needed to drink water instead. She lost me, right there and then.

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Filed under Paul, Photography

April 14, 2025 · 23:43

Purple Trumpets

They’re everywhere. Just in case the hummingbirds aren’t happy with the standard fare in the feeders.

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Filed under Flowers, Photography

April 13, 2025 · 21:54

Chasing The Last Photons Of The Day

Flowers will move to track the Sun through the day. (See “heliotropism.”)

Tonight I went out to the front yard about an hour after sunset, still a bit of light in the western sky.

Down by the mailbox, it was strinking how the flowers were all lined up, all pointing west. It was spooky, like, 1960’s British, low-budget, horror movie sort of spooky.

There were still a few solar photons creeping over the horizon, and by god, they were going to photosynthesize them OR KNOW THE REASON WHY!

I was very careful to not let my shadow fall on them. Never underestimate the potential power of eldritch horror lurking in the innocent flowers at the beginning of a 1960’s British, low-budget, horror movie!

Professor Quatermass taught us that.

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Filed under Flowers, Photography, Sunsets

April 12, 2025 · 23:31

A Bad Influence On Dogs

Blanc (the neighbor’s dog) had been howling earlier in the day while I was petting him over the fence, so I reminded him that the “pink” (so named because of the flowers and cherry blossoms blooming at this time of year) new moon was rising tonight, and I promised to come back out later and howl at the rising moon with him.

I came out just as the full moon was peeking over the horizon, went over to the fence, petted Blanc some more, and started howling. Blanc was confused and started barking instead of howling. His owner came out and yelled at him to stop barking and I had to explain that it was my fault for teaching Blanc to do bad things.

I wanted to get a picture of me, Blanc, and the rising full moon, but Blanc wouldn’t stay still long enough.

Two out of three ain’t bad, I guess.

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Filed under Astronomy, Paul, Photography

April 11, 2025 · 22:59

Conditioned

Last weekend when we went down to Anaheim and saw the Angels’ home opener on Friday and stayed for fireworks night on Saturday, we stayed overnight rather than schlep three-plus hours each way back and forth. Like with many newer hotels, they don’t have little bars of soap and tiny bottles of shampoo any more – they have these large squirt bottles in the shower instead.

But without my glasses on in the shower, I can’t read the small print. So I think that I lathered up my entire body with the conditioner, not the body wash.

It didn’t work. It’s been a week and I’m in the same condition I was in a week ago, possibly worse. I didn’t even turn that avacado green color or anything cool.

I guess we’re stuck with that same old same old me! Sorry.

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Filed under Farce, Photography, Travel