September 18, 2025 · 22:01

Peering Through The Layers

We again had a bit of weather pass through today. Nothing too violent or wet, although there were showers and some thunder heard.

By sunset it was broken clouds, with multiple layers at different altitudes, with holes here and there, so I could watch different layers fly by in different directions and speeds.

Best of all was the view where, while it was just past sunset here, off to the east probably 25-30 miles there were thunderheads towering up over the horizon, brightly lit in brilliant white.

Then in just a few minutes (4 minutes between pictures to be exact) that blinding white started to turn pink and orange. (No extra charge for the blurry hummingbird zipping by on the right – it was pissed that I was standing next to its favorite feeder.)

My vision of a boring, hot, windy, unchanging weather environment have (fortunately) been disproven by three fascinating rain storms in less than two months.

Variety *IS* the spice of life!

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Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Sunsets, Weather

September 17, 2025 · 23:24

The Fall Is Coming

And, no, I’m not talking about the Fall of Western Civilization and the collapse of the American government and the Second Civil War – although we most certainly can’t rule those things out, as batshit insane as that might be.

No, I’m talking about the season. Fall. Autumn.

We might be living in the middle of a gazillion acres of desert with dirt, tumbleweeds, Joshua trees, creosote, and the odd cactus, but inside the tract walls, in our front yards, mixed in with all of the rock and talm trees and “drought resistant landscaping,” they put a few oddball, water-sucking decorative trees. Our neighbor’s yard has a white birch. We (on the right) have a very nice maple tree.

Very, VERY FEW native maples found in the SoCal desert. Or anywhere else in SoCal. Maybe a few in the mountains. Maybe.

But here we have one and having spent formative years in the forests of Vermont, I’m loving this decorative addition to our yard. In two months in might be fully engulfed in yellows and reds and oranges. For now, there are a handful of pioneer leaves, hinting at the autumnal glories to come.

The Fall is coming!

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September 16, 2025 · 23:00

They Don’t Like These

One thing I’ve noticed in refilling the birdseed feeders is that the bottom is always full of these little, round, red seeds:

I don’t know what’s wrong with them – do they not taste good? Are they difficult to pick up? Are they hard and a pain to crack open?

It’s yet another mystery.

Maybe the squirrels will eat them? Waste not, want not!

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Filed under Birds, Forever Home, Photography

September 15, 2025 · 23:50

Proof Of Life – September 15th

I wish that I could stop watching the news. It’s bad out there. Scary shit going on and I have no idea how to deal with it or make it better.

There were some nice things today on a personal level. Trying to focus on those.

Watching “Field of Dreams” (with commercials, unfortunately) helps. What a perfect movie. The whole story arc at the end with Archie Graham…

Tuesday awaits.

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Filed under Paul

September 14, 2025 · 23:23

The Back Wall As A Tripod

I still haven’t found all of my tripods out the the PODS following the move, but with the almost full Moon near the horizon a couple of days ago and the back wall there to set the lens on (and very, very short exposure times for the very, very bright moon), the results didn’t suck.

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography

September 13, 2025 · 22:43

Finch At Feeder

I refilled the birdseed feeder AGAIN – two days this cycle. And I updated my Chewy “Autoship” order to once every three weeks instead of once every twelve weeks.

As we’ve brought patio furniture, some shelves, a BBQ, chairs, and other stuff onto the large back patio near the pergola, after dining the birds are retiring to rest in the shade on the new resting and roosting locations. I haven’t seen any nest building activity yet (that’s more of a spring thing) but I really would prefer they stay off of the telescope at least. There may be a BBQ cover in the telescope’s near future. (Form follows function!)

They’re also starting to peck at the small apples growing on the apple tree, but they seem to be leaving the pears alone. We’ll see what’s left to harvest in a couple of weeks.

GO TEAM BIRDS!

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Filed under Birds, Forever Home

September 12, 2025 · 23:17

Proof Of Life – September 12th

Critical deadlines met. One way or the other. In this case, the “other” meant a marathon, 20-hour-plus work session yesterday with the final draft reports being emailed out at 03:15.

I checked with my Oura Ring to see what it thought of my two hours of sleep and the message was, “DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE!!! WTF!!!???”

Maybe there is something to this AI thing?

I may sleep in and sit on my ass all weekend. I trust that the remaining stuff in the one PODS container will still be there on Monday. As will be the empty PODS container that was scheduled to be picked up last Wednesday, then yesterday, then… There are certain local managers and member of the PODS C-suite that would not get my vote for a performance bonus this year. In fact, I would recommend clawing back any performance bonus they got last year!

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Filed under Forever Home, Health, Paul

September 11, 2025 · 23:52

Proof Of Life – September 11th

Bird seed.

At the old house in West Hills we would put out a cup or two a day in bird seed and it would attract house finches, sparrows, juncos, mourning doves, squirrels, and whatever else happened to be passing through. We might get as many as ten or twelve mourning doves, but the other species were smaller flocks.

In the new house, I’ve put up four much bigger hanging feeders full of seed. No juncos, no mourning doves, one scrawny squirrel who as far as I can tell hasn’t yet figured out how to get to the hanging feeders, but will feast on the droppings on the ground. LOTS of house finches and sparrows.

When I put up the first feeder and just had the one out there, it took about two weeks to get emptied. Just a handful of birds had found it. But there were more every day.

When I put up the other three (total of four), the floodgates opened.

They cleaned them all out in a week. I refilled.

They cleaned them all out in four days. I refilled.

Three days. I refilled.

I noticed today that they’re all empty again, and it hasn’t even been 36 hours.

How? Well, when I looked out there this morning there were 50+ birds.

Paging Alfred Hitchcock! The white courtesy phone for Alfred Hitchcock! The black courtesy phone for Roger Thornhill!

If you see us starting a Go Fund Me for bird seed, you’ll know why.

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Filed under Birds, Forever Home

September 10, 2025 · 23:22

Proof Of Life – September 10th

One small but non-trivial change in moving to the High Desert in general and to this house in particular is our morning wakeup routine. Our bedroom windows face east and we’ve gotten into the habit of leaving the plantation shutters open, so the Sun is shining in about 6:00 AM.

The iPhone can’t even come close to recording the pink and orange hues that greeted me this morning. Imagine the saturation and warmth turned up to 11! The Sun was still just below the horizon, but the sky made it look like we were inside of a ginormous neon tube. With the shutters, pergola, bird feeders, and high-tension power line towers in the distance all silhouetted against the glow, it was fantastic.

It makes it tough to sleep in, but we’re adjusting – and views like this make it worth it.

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Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Sunsets

September 9, 2025 · 21:55

Progress Moon

We have all kinds of weird names for various seasonal full Moons these days – pumpkin moon, harvest moon, bullseye moon… I figured I would make up my own – this is the Progress Moon!

That’s it, 92% illuminated, rising over the house and the two PODS storage units sitting in the driveway. I was moving the cars out of the driveway and onto the street since they’re going to be here (in theory) at 7:45 AM tomorrow to pick up the PODS unit on the right.

This move! DAMN!

They say that which doesn’t kill you will only make you stronger. Bullshit. Between packing, getting out of the old house, closing escrow, filling these PODS, unpacking all of the “primary” stuff that the movers brought up, getting to a functional state since I still have a job, trying desperately to stay caught up at work through a particularly busy time of year to begin with, unpacking the PODS… Actually having this shit put me in the hospital sounds like a break at this point.

But a push over the last weekend got the first of the PODS emptied, so tomorrow it gets picked up. With luck I’ll finish getting the other one emptied out this upcoming weekend – so, by Christmas, right?

It’s a good thing we’re loving the Forever Home, ’cause we’re NEVER leaving!

All hail the Progress Moon!

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Filed under Forever Home, Photography