It’s late Sunday night, tomorrow is Monday and we start all over again.
The good news is that the cyclic nature of life means we get a chance every day to have thunderboomers like yesterday or sunsets like this.
And every day has the potential for joys, small and large. Today, I saw a sparrow discover the new birdseed feeder that I put up, the first that I know of to visit. It’s a start!
Filed under Birds, Forever Home, Photography, Sunsets
I am a god! Zeus, apparently! I can trigger lightning!
It’s easy! When we get a thunderstorm nearby, I turn on my cell phone camera trying to capture video of lightning. There will be no lighting to be seen for the entire time that I’m recording. However, within two seconds of ending the recording, lighting will strike right in the middle of the frame! It happened multiple times today. I can trigger lightning! I am Zeus!
It remains to be seen if I can cause lightning to appear on command (or lack of a command) out of a clear, blue sky. If I can… Let’s just say that there’s a list, and there will be signs that I have a new toy to play with.
I got up this morning to find not just a few scattered clouds, but complete overcast with some nasty, dark, low clouds moving in from the southwest. The weather radar was showing light showers down over the “Inland Empire” areas of the LA metro area, which were turning into convective cells (i.e., thunderstorms) as they were pushed up the mountains and got heated over the desert.
The weather app also said we had a 55% chance of rain today – that couldn’t be right!!
An hour later, I was sure that I was hearing thunder. For a reason, it turns out.
We had two separate thunderstorm cells near us, one to the west, and one to the southeast. Based on the timing between the lightning flashes and the thunder arriving, this was about three and a half miles away and coming straight at us.
I moved a chair out into the back yard, started watching the thunderstorm and rain, watching the four or five hummingbirds that were feeding at our two feeders, and listening to the trains from two different lines running past our house on either side. The Long-Suffering Wife referred to me as being “in hog heaven,” and she’s not wrong.
This went on for the better part of an hour, after which it moved on toward Barstow and parts north.
I know for many you who have weather like this on a regular basis, my reaction sounds overblown and hyperbolic. But we don’t get this sort of activity often. In LA, while we might have eight or ten or a dozen rainy days a year (maybe), we would only get more violent weather like this once every several years. It’s slightly more common up here in the desert, but not much. To get it out of nowhere with little or no warning just a month after moving up here is quite a treat!
LET ME HAVE MY JOY!
There were more New Forever Home Firsts (NFHFs) later in the day. I saw our first squirrel up on the brick wall in the back yard. (Coincidentally, I also put up the first birdseed feeder near that wall earlier today, but he didn’t seem aware of it and never went near. Concidence, or timing?) I also saw our first fence lizard, a decent-sized (8 inches maybe?), all black critter skittering along the back wall toward a row of planters in that back corner.
Finally, there were some interesting tidbits that may point to a most interesting first-time realization about our new house. At the height of the storm, about 10:45, the Virtual Railfan webcam that’s less than a mile away went off the air. Folks were talking about the power being out as SC Edison cut power in a lot of places due to the wind and lightning, in an attempt to minimize the chances of starting a brush fire is something went wrong. And when we went out to dinner, the restaurant was closed (no power?) and we saw a couple of traffic lights that were out or had been out.
So all signs point to a reasonably widespread power outage from about 10:45 to 17:00. Were we lucky that we never lost power or noticed any problem at all? Well, if you think it’s “lucky” that we have a whole slew of solar power panels on the roof…
Not a blip, not an iota of problems with our A/C, computers, lights, refrigerators, cable, internet, etc…
Yet another reason we’re both really liking this house!
Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Video, Weather
You’ll recall that we closed escrow on Tuesday, July 22nd and started moving in – it’s been a month now. While we’re making progress, I continue to be astonished by how little my expectations and perceptions of reality actually match up to real reality in the sense that every single freakin’ facet of this entire process of packing, moving, and unpacking takes so, so, SOOOOO much longer than I expect it to. In terms of just functioning (i.e., sleeping and moving and walking and that sort of thing) I continue to be way “behind the plane” and it’s making me nuts. (“Behind the plane” refers to flying and how as a pilot you want as much as possible to be in control, proactive instead of reactive, and anticipating what you’re going to need and do next BEFORE you get there. You want to be ahead of the plane, not be behind it. Many things in life have the same lesson apply.)
Today I could see some convective activity off to the north and east, out where I-15 heads up to Barstow and on to Las Vegas. I know that at times there can be some big thunderstorms building up out here – I’m really looking forward to that. I love watching thunderstorms. (Safely.) Nothing too near to us today, but the weather radar apps were showing a few lightning strikes out there.
In the month we’ve been here, I think it’s the little things that are different that are adding up. The lineup of TV channels is all different. At both the Pomelo house (35+ years) and the Scarborough Peak house (7+ years) we had the same cable company and the same channel lineup. If you travel, of course it’s different in your hotel room, but that’s always temporary, just a day or two, maybe a week. Now, about two weeks in, it hits you that it’s different and that’s the way it’s gonna be forever.
And it’s not just which order the channels are in. There are a lot more of the “holy roller,” fundamentalist televangelist networks here, and where in LA they were buried off in the middle of thousands of channels, here they’re right up front in the first dozen or so. Lots and lots of screaming assholes who I would really, really like to see following Dobson sooner rather than later. Can I get a discount if I block all of them? More to the point, is there an option to pay more and have all of them blocked at the source?
Aside from that, there are a lot more channels showing nothing but hour after hour of old reruns from the 1950’s and 1960’s and 1970’s, and most of them are in the lower, “prime” channels as well. I guess I’m not the target demographic.
With all of that said, one thing that I expected but have seen very little of is the open, fanatical, cult following of MAGAts. I know of one house a couple miles away that I’ve seen have a Trump flag. That’s it. I haven’t seen anyone doing the fully-armed, open carry, 2A cult thing, and I haven’t even seen any vehicles covered in right-wing bumper stickers and cult paraphanalia. It’s a relief to not (yet) be exposed that sort of toxic bullshit.
We’ll see what happens if/when that changes and I come face to face with that level of stupidity and hatred. I know it has to be out there. I suspect that despite a deeply ingrained discomfort with confrontation, I will have limited tolerance for entitled fools.
We can hope!
Overall, we’re doing well a month in. We both still love the new house, and while I had hoped for better on the pace of the transition, I’m learning to allow myself some grace and just do the best I can and not beat myself up when that best doesn’t meet (possibly questionable) expectations. We’re learning our way around town, we’re learning where the stores are, we’re starting our colony of hummingbirds, and I’m getting all of the change of address notices processed. I’ve got the autopay set up for the gas and mortgage and solar and water, and some days (not all!) I can actually find things I need instead of just going out and buying new. (I was working on payroll last week and ran out of printer paper late in the evening – I managed to scavange enough paper from three other printers combined to get through the task, but the next day we hit a Staples to get a couple more reams of paper, despite the fact that I know that SOMEWHERE in those PODS units there are two cases, 20 reams, of new paper. It’s no good to me if I can’t find it. “A bird in the hand…” and all of that.)
I hope all of you are doing well also.
Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Weather
We went to try to solve our phone problem today – we’re all on AT&T and their coverage in this area sucks. So we’re going to switch carriers.
Sundown was nice, lots of contrails and “mare’s tail” clouds.
Gorgeous!
Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Sunsets
This little dude was chilling in the astroturf just before sunset yesterday.
Maybe an inch long.
Remember to be grateful every day that they don’t grow to human-sized. They would rule the planet like xenomorphs or Predators, so fast, so viscious.
Filed under Critters, Forever Home, Photography
In unpacking, I (of course) am keeping all of the old, used bubble wrap since “we might use it sometime in the indistinct future.” As one does.
But there’s soooooo much of it.
Tonight as I was nodding off towards a nap after cleaning up a bunch of this bubble wrap crap and I had “a vision”!!
We have a big, rectangular, walled-in back yard. We have a lot of this bubble wrap. We could fill up the back yard with the bubble wrap!
THEN!
We build a large trebuchet, take it two or three houses down the block into a neighbor’s back yard, and fling folks into the humongous bubble wrap filled back yard at our house!
It’s also a great way to meet the neighbors!
Take a number for your turn, it will require an “E” ticket!
Filed under Farce, Forever Home, Photography, Silly Shit
Literally, not a cloud in the sky. Anywhere. And shades of blue that I never, ever saw in LA.
It’s definitely different up here in the High Desert, but we’re getting used to it. Mostly good stuff. While waiting to be seated for breakfast on Sunday, we saw an ambulance go buy, lights & siren blaring. It occurred to me that it was the first time I had seen anything like that in almost four weeks here. To my memory, I’ve only heard sirens out on the main road (a block away) twice. Between our two homes in LA for almost 35 years, it was a daily occurrence, or more. Granted, we lived near a couple of fire stations and a large hospital, but still…
The population up here is about 550,000 for Victorville, Apple Valley, Hesperia, and the unincorporated areas like Oak Hills combined. I haven’t gathered the statistics or gone looking for them online, but it sure feels like it’s a lot less hectic and stressed.
The other thing you might notice is that the second hummingbird feeder is up. Hummer2 is active and getting traffic, sometimes at the same time as Hummer1. The most I’ve ever seen is four hummers out there flitting about and feeding at once, but I’m hoping that will grow.
No additional sighting of the owl there was out there at sunset a few days ago, and very few finches are around. A bunch of crows, some pigeons, but no hawks at all, which surprises me. We did see a huge turkey vulture circling a few hundred feet up, but it never came down closer.
Also no small critters seen at all. No squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks, or gophers (thank god!!). Also no lizards at all, which I find very odd. We’re surrounded by open desert, have rocks and “desert landscaping” everywhere, and when we were house hunting there were plenty of places where I saw fence lizards, just like in LA. But here, not a single one yet.
We have plenty of black widows outside (it looks like the house has been empty and unoccupied for a while before we bought it, so there hasn’t been much of that light maintenance) but I’m mowing them down like waves of wheat, so they shouldn’t be a problem for long. And no snakes that I’ve seen, although I’m sure they’re out there in the more undeveloped, wilderness areas. I’ll keep an eye open for them if I go hiking or walking and I’ll leave them alone if they do the same for me.
Have I ever told “the snake story” here? Maybe another night…
I thought it was supposed to be up in triple digits this week, but today was lovely. Mid 80’s, toasty in the sun but wonderful in the shade with a nice breeze, keeping the wind chimes active outside my office. And that blue sky!
Filed under Birds, Critters, Forever Home, Photography
I was working on unloading a bunch o’ things from the PODS unit and ended up in the back yard by the small pear tree.
I’m very excited by the expectation that we’ll actually be able to eat some of these pears in a couple of months.
I was admiring the incoming crop.
The pears are still a little on the small and hard side right now, but…
WAIT!! WHAT’S THAT??!! DO YOU SEE IT?
SOUND THE ALERT! We have an INVADER!!!
It would have taken to long to go get a shotgun (especially since I don’t own one) so instead I just flicked it into low Earth orbit. NO PEARS FOR YOU!
Don’t worry, it lived, flew off over the back wall and out into the tumbleweeds and dust to wait for its chance to come back when I’m not being ever vigilant.
Filed under Critters, Forever Home, Photography
There are parties going on, one next door to us and probably another at the end of the cul-de-sac. Nothing raucous or disruptive, judging from the folks parking down the block and walking past earlier it’s families & the dress code is “evening pool party.”
My favorite sound while I was out in front was the train whistle from the BNSF tracks to the southeast, down by where the Virtual Railfans camera is located. Just something about that sound, makes me want to a Steve Goodman song or something country-western.
And WOW!!! Click on that photo and blow it up to full-screen size. LOOK AT THE STARS UP THERE!!!
I had no idea they were there since I just had looked at the photo on my phone before now. You can clearly see the tail of Scorpius on the right above the street light – the two stars close together are Shaula & Lesath, with the “tail” curving down and then up to the right-top corner. To the left of Scorpius, at the top above the pink-lit house, you can clearly see the entire “teapot” of Capricorn. HOLY GUACAMOLE, BATMAN!!! Looking at the full-sized image, there’s a light spot in between the left of the tail of Scorpius and the right side of the “teapot”, and it’s right where (see that tail of Scorpius link a couple lines up, it will take you to a map!) the M7 star cluster is! Did I somehow manage to capture that in this image?!
I’m loving these dark desert skies!
I didn’t even use a tripod for this picture (handheld only, tripods & other camera gear still buried deep in a PODS unit in the driveway) nor did I use one of the good cameras, just my iPhone! I’m gobsmacked!
Filed under Astronomy, Forever Home, Photography
I have a fairly large desk in my office. In the old house, where space was at a premium, most everywhere underneath was filled with stuff, except for where my feet are. But now, with a nice, big house to arrange and organize and store things in other rooms, the garage, cabinets, closets, all of that space is wide open.
As exhausted as I often am when working in here, and given some of the horrors of the world that I would like to escape from, it has occurred to me that this would make a wonderful pillow fort area. We have plenty of extra pillows, blankets, sleeping bags, and so on, and it could be my personal hidey hole that no one else knows about!
Except of course, those of you I’ve just told about it…
Okay, so it’s not a perfect plan!
Filed under Forever Home, Photography
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