It’s been a while!
Either it’s been clear and a million with <10% humidity or it’s been coastal clouds (May Gray leading to June Gloom).
Today finally there’s some moisture around (about a 5% chance of showers and thunderstorms over the coastal waters off in this direction) and something for the sunset to bounce off of.
Add in the odd contrail or two and it makes for a most beautiful display. A great way to end the weekend.
Filed under Photography, Sunsets
The thing is with these “No Context For You” posts is that, while I may not be sharing any context for a blurry or distorted or altered image so that you can immediately figure out what it is and why, so far *I* have always known what it was, or at least had a pretty darn good guess.
Some of them have been pictures accidentally taken when the camera/phone got bumped or I had fat fingers while taking it out of my pocket or putting it into my pocket or some such thing. But when I look at the other pictures in the series around it and look at the time stamp to see where I was and what I was doing then, I can be pretty sure of my guess.
Not these! They’re colorful, which I like, but I found them in that old, old cache of misfiled cellphone pictures from 2008-2016. They’re old enough so that I don’t have a clue what they’re of or why/how they got taken.
A little mystery is good for us all. Granted, I would prefer to have the mystery be that I won that freakin’ HUGE lottery and I’ve used the hundreds of millions of dollars to establish myself with a secret superhero identity out fighting crime, injustice, and the Republican Party (but I repeat myself…), but no, we’ll just have to settle for the moment to being puzzled over some pictures that go back to sometime in late 2016.
They’re colorful. They’re weird. They’ve been found and pulled back from the abyss.
Take what you can get!
Filed under Art, Photography
Looking for something else, saw a directory that seemed out of place, checked it out…
Oh, so THAT’s where those EIGHT YEARS of cell phone photos got misfiled. Just exactly what’s in there?
Thank god for my phone alarm going off and warning me that it’s 23:50…
Old trips, football games, baseball games, plane trips, pets, old houses, CYA stuff from work…
I know that I never throw old files out (disk space is cheap) but that doesn’t mean that it can’t get accidentally deleted or misfiled. Deleted is bad, misfiled is inconvenient.
And then you get a surprise and a rabbit hole to disappear down into for a while.
Surprise! I was on a plane!
Filed under Paul, Photography
Vermont.
From the French, “vert” for green, “mont” for mountain, thus the Green Mountain State.
And when it’s not this green, it’s white, as in covered in snow and ice.
Except for a few weeks in between when it’s every color imaginable.
(We will not speak of the fifth season, “Mud.”)
I’ve been thinking a lot about Vermont in the last couple of days, and all of my friends from high school who still live there, as the state got inundated with monster storm. Some places got more rain in a couple of hours than they normally get in a year, and the flooding has been horrific. Check out the stuff I’ve been sharing on Facebook for examples.
I’ve also been amazed and gratified by the response of the people of Vermont. One store and restaurant after another is rushing free meals and aid to those who have been devastated, even those that have been devastated themselves. Farms and stores and whole villages that have been under 6′ or more of water, without power, without clean water, with bridges and roads wiped out, all are asking for help in cleaning up while also saying they’re not going to do a Go Fund Me or anything like that because there are so many others who need it more. They just need a little help from their friends.
If you get a chance to visit Vermont, take it. Every time. Hit me up, I’ll be glad to give you advice and suggestions on where to go and what to see. And while you’re cruising around, find a tiny restaurant that might actually be a world-class gem in hiding. (I know of a couple…) Stop at a farmer’s market or a roadside stand to get some real maple syrup. Hit up the Vermont Country Store (or one of its kin) and find things you haven’t seen since you were a kid. Find a field and just lay there on the grass and watch the red-winged blackbirds, maybe an eagle or hawk, and if you’re really still, maybe some deer or a moose will wander through.
Just don’t try to take any bad pictures! Can’t do it!
Filed under Photography, Travel
Remember the day that a HUGE red-tailed hawk swooped right past me in the front lawn and grabbed onto something in this bush that’s grown up around a support pillar in front of my front door? (Here are the pictures.) I may have figured out what it was going after.
A couple of weeks ago, after noticing some mockingbirds flying into and out of that bush more and more often, I took a closer look and found a nest in there.
Yesterday I heard a very soft peeping sound coming from there, and found at least three mockingbird chicks in there.
They’re ALL MOUTH. They must only be a day or so old because they’re blind and just running on instinct. Something comes near (i.e., me) and they pop up for a few seconds, mouths open, peeping, then hunker down and hide if no food is incoming.
When I’m getting close enough to get these pictures, rest assured that Mama Mockingbird isn’t far away and is giving me the stink eye every second. The nest is at about head height, with the gutter about four feet above. She’ll perch up there sometimes, the better to be that much closer to me so she can save time in attacking and gouging my eyes out if I make a false move. Or she’ll be out on the power line, thirty feet away, with a mouthful of food to bring back as soon as I get out of sight.
Directly above them on the inside of the roof line is the mourning dove nest, still with two fledgelings, although they’re big enough now to take off more and more often.
Welcome to the “Willett Aviary – Front Yard Edition!” Here’s a quick video of the little squeakers! And you can actually see all three!
Filed under Birds, Photography, Video
From Christmas 2017, what would turn out to be our final Christmas at the old house, although I didn’t know it then. 😭😭😭
Yet another thing that *I* keep in mind when looking at potential new “forever” homes – where do I hang the lights, where do I plug them in, and how many can I put up before I blow the circuit breaker panel?
The “really really nice on the inside but outside it’s just a box on an acre-plus of dirt with zero landscaping” places not only don’t have anyplace to hang lights, they also tend to be so far out in the boonies that no one will ever see them. Yeah, I’m the guy who, when meeting a neighbor from down the street for the first time, goes “YEAH! That’s me!” when they say, “Oh, you’re the lunatic with a gazillion Christmas lights?” (I will also note that many of them who say that are also putting up lights and more lights than before after the first year or two when we moved in. I think of it as being a good influence, leading by example, that sort of thing…)
Filed under Christmas Lights, Photography
What a long day! What a busy weekend, and not necessarily in a good way! So what have I got for you?
That’s right! More lousy roses! (It’s right there in the title!)
I thought that I still had some photos on my phone that I hadn’t used yet. And I was right! (Blow this one up and look at the vein structure detail in those petals!)
These are gorgeous (and I’m particularly fond of gorgeous) and I enjoy sharing them.
The more I look at houses in the high desert (either Lancaster/Palmdale or Hesperia/Apple Valley) and how they have really nice houses plopped down into an acre of slightly graded dirt with no lawn, no landscaping, no NOTHING, the more I know that if we end up getting one of those places, I’m going to harken back to my English heritage (a LOT of generations ago, like, going back to 1664) and start building little gardens to putter around in.
Putter, putter, putter…
Filed under Flowers, Photography
On July 4th we had nice weather and the day off work, so before the local bombardment started (and, for the record, it’s still going on out there tonight, four freakin’ days later!) I had opportunities to get out the big camera and lens and take pictures of hummingbirds and lizards. Then, just before sunset, I heard the unmistakable sound of a group of Texans.
No, not the citizens of that US state between New Mexico and Louisiana. The WW2 training aircraft!
While scrambling to grab the camera and get outside I missed their first pass overhead, but they’re often on training flights over us so I figured they would loop back over. They did! With smoke on, so they were performing for someone!
To my delight, they then came back right overhead for a third pass, still in the diamond formation.
And a fourth pass!! This time in trail. And then it was off to the northeast, back toward their home at Van Nuys Airport.
I can only assume that someone paid them to put on a show for their party somewhere in the neighborhood nearby. There were a number of big parties going on and I don’t know who hired them, but we all enjoyed the show.
Gotta love that “sound of round” from those big old radial engines!
Filed under Flying, Photography
The second photographic opportunity of July 4th on Tuesday was the reappearance of a few fence lizards in the back yard.
It’s either been cool and foggy, which has them off in their burrows to conserve heat, or it’s been boiling hot, which isn’t any better for them. I’ve seen a few during that Goldilocks period in late afternoon when the sun’s setting, but not many. But the 4th was lovely, and there were several out lounging along the wooden dividers.
This dude wasn’t having any part of me wandering around and took off for the bushes as soon as I showed up. He did stop to do a couple of pushups to show me who was the boss. I notice under his chin there’s a bit of color, more green than blue, but there’s some blue behind his front legs.
Bailing off into the Mexican feather grass he paused for a second to give me the stink eye.
This dude didn’t run, but was heavily into the pushups as a show of dominance. I was suitably impressed and intimidated. I also note that he’s showing some blue shading on his belly, similar to the bigger members of his species in the yard.
Filed under Critters, Photography
The Fourth of July here was most pleasant, not too warm, with a number of events worth grabbing the big camera for.
First off, sitting out on the back porch I was amazed at how many hummingbirds we currently have. I have two feeders up, plus all of the flowers that are in bloom, so there’s plenty of food for them. They’re tough to count since they’re zipping about like F-35s in a dogfight, but there are at least six or seven and it may be as many as nine or ten. Maybe more?
As always, Little Bastard was guarding “his” feeder. He’ll zip between a perch in the orange tree on the south side of the yard and one here in the big tree in the middle of the yard.
Whenever any other hummer gets near, he zips over drive them off. I do notice that the others seem to be working together, coming in pairs or trios with one serving as a decoy to be “driven off” while the others hit the feeder for a quick sip before Little Bastard can come back.
When Little Bastard’s neck feathers catch the sun, the bright red iridescence is gorgeous.
It’s quite the game they’ve got going, but it makes little sense to me. I keep both feeders supplied so there’s plenty for everyone, but I guess hummingbird senseless greed and territoriality doesn’t have to make any more sense than human senseless greed and territoriality.
It’s also always surprising just how stinking LOUD they can be when they’re buzzing by at full speed within arm’s length. It’s very cool.
Filed under Birds, Critters, Photography
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