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Post by Gabbin on Jul 14, 2007 22:09:26 GMT -6
Nice stair pic there, Gams. I do like the hot chick there. So focused, that gal.
Welp, today I bought fireworks for next 4th. Hey, don't laugh, they are half price and sparklers were thrown in free. I like the auto ones. One auto's steering wheel falls off and it spins around.
Okie, who is hogging all of the rain of late, eh, eh? Huh, Siren?
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Post by Phalon on Jul 15, 2007 6:22:45 GMT -6
I'm not very focused of late, Gabs; Hocus Focus, I snap my fingers and what was that thought I had in my head? It's all a bit blurry. I'm still hot though.
It's been weird lately, the way this country is divided among the have and have nots. Siren has rain - too much of it, and we are dust-bowl dry; it's drier than I can remember it ever being. I read last week that we've only had 8/10ths of an inch of rain since mid-May. Feast or famine. It would be nice if all could be split equally. Are the powers in charge listening?
Siren, hope you haven't floated away and are standing on dry ground.
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Post by fallenangel on Jul 16, 2007 15:07:32 GMT -6
The temperature read 103 today. We have rain here lately more than I WANT. Ill send it to anyone who wants it. Course in a month it will be dry as a bone here.
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Post by Phalon on Jul 17, 2007 1:13:21 GMT -6
<jumps up and down in her seat, and raises hand, waving it wildly to get Yinyang's attention>
I'll take some, I'll take some!
I'll even trade some of this gorgeously cooler in the mid-seventies weather for rain.
Actually, it's raining now - it's the reason I'm not asleep. Pfft. Rain. Pfft, again. It's just a slow drip, drip, drip on the porch overhang that's keeping me awake. Annoyingly slow. Drip............drip..........drip....... Went out on the porch, hoping for raindrops that keep falling on my hand, and I'll I got was dust in the wind. The front walk is barely wet, and it looks like that's it for the night.
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Post by mabd on Jul 18, 2007 8:31:40 GMT -6
Family vacation pictures. I promise not to bore you all too much with the whole album. A view of Lake Michigan from the top level. Oh, homesick, homesick -- my lovely lake... Great photo Ms. "I-have-many- skills Phalon! Thanks. Maeve
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Post by Phalon on Jul 19, 2007 6:05:44 GMT -6
You're welcome. Always happy to share the lake - even if it is with a FIP, (although of the former persuasion).
Rain! The drip, drip, drip of the other night turned into a downpour about an hour later, then changed over to a nice, lulling shower that lasted until morning. Drinking my coffee on the front porch early in the morning, I had a visitor! My front garden toad who I haven't seen all summer, sat basking in the rain. I told him, "Hello; good to see you - it's been a while", before he hopped off into the undergrowth.
We received an inch on Tuesday, and another tenth of an inch last night. It may be too little, too late, but it sure feels damned good.
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Post by Siren on Jul 19, 2007 8:05:04 GMT -6
Hey there, Gams! Ah, that's double good news - the rain and your toad. Very glad for you! So, was the little toad none the worse for wear? While mowing my back lawn last week, I found 2 young toads in the grass, each about the size of a silver dollar. I gave them each a squeeze and a kiss, and set them free among the purple jew plants in the flowerbed.
After 2 years of drought, Oklahoma is now having the wettest year on record. We had 20+ consecutive days of rain, which is just mind-boggling. Today makes day 6 without rain, but there's a chance tomorrow.
We've seen some surprising results from all this rain. My canna blooms are almost as high as the top of my kitchen window, with the most lush foliage they've ever had. After being dazzled by my mom's hibiscus blossoms, we got out the tape measure - they're 8 inches across. Her "Sundowner" rose had 16 blooms on it at once. And her tomatoes are the biggest, prettiest in my memory. Plants that didn't bloom at all during the last year or 2 are making up for lost time.
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Post by Phalon on Jul 21, 2007 0:20:12 GMT -6
We found a toad - silver dollar sized too - today...in the office at work. Poor thing was covered in dog hair. My boss got down on her hands and knees under the desk trying to catch the hoppy guy, who did not want to be caught. She finally did and let him loose in the garden, where I'm sure he'll be much happier.
In other critter news at work....
For the last two weeks or so, I've been watching a mother green heron and her two fledglings. Gawky things; they were clumsily learning how to fly. Amazing how fast they learn though, and soon they were flying across the pond, taking off from the banks as I'd drive past in the Gator. Gawky in their not-yet-adulthood on the ground, but now graceful in the air. Finally, I remembered to bring my camera, and shoot - I haven't seen them in the last couple of days. I wonder if they've moved on. Hoping the three-legged coyote who roams through the nursery on his route, didn't get them.
Glad for all your rain, Siren - glad for your garden. Shoot - wish mine had some of those tomatoes! I have officially given up completely on the vegetable garden. Pfft. We finished the little bit of beets that made it through the drought, heat, and wind. I'll cut the broccoli tomorrow - a quarter of the size it should be by now. Then the whole disaster is finished. Lay some mushroom compost and top-soil, cover the whole thing in a layer of straw to keep down the weeds, and forget about it until next year.
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Post by Phalon on Jul 21, 2007 21:23:59 GMT -6
All of us went on the trail this evening; a motley looking crew we were. A passing cyclist took inventory our strange little group: Two cyclists, and fishman, and a skier. As if this was an oddity, or something.
Both girls were on bikes; Hubs took BP fishing, who has been asking to go for weeks, while LX rode her bike along side me skiing. No glide music to set my pace and keep me going. Chitter-chatter all the way. And then she sang; this is not help.
Meanwhile, back at the fishing spot: No catches, bites, or nibbles either. Chitter-chatter the entire time. And then she sang; this is not help.
And though I always tell the girls not to pick the flowers, Hubs handed me a bunch of sweet peas he'd picked when we got back go the van. What a bad example. But sweet.
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Post by Scrappy Amazon on Jul 22, 2007 14:34:35 GMT -6
All you people and your talk of rain...Monsoon season here and up until a couple of days ago...nary a drop of water. I took these on my way home last Saturday. And not 20 degrees to the left...same time..
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Post by Siren on Jul 23, 2007 7:59:24 GMT -6
Ohhhh, Scrappy - those pictures are grim. Looks just like it did here last year - and would again, if not for a freaky jet stream this year.
My dad reported another side-effect of the rain this year - an abundance of baby bullfrogs. Daddy said that when he walked down to the pond yesterday, baby bullfrogs were hopping everywhere. Is making for quite a chorus this year. My mom says there was even a fat baby bullfrog in one of her rain buckets, who was so full of the mosquito larvae swimming around him, he couldn't eat any more.
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Post by Phalon on Jul 24, 2007 0:19:01 GMT -6
Do things seem to get almost instantly green and start blooming, Scrappy, after the monsoons are over? I've seen time-lapsed photography taken of the desert after the rains, and it is amazing...and very beautiful, the way things come to life.
Wishing the little bit of rain we had last week had the same effect here. My yard...and much of this area, looks like the straw-colored browness in the first picture....
....which reminds me - off to the useless fact file.
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Post by Phalon on Jul 25, 2007 21:59:10 GMT -6
All that rain dancing I've been doing has finally paid off! But shoot - is it too much to ask that it held off until we got off the beach! Yes, it is. I'll take it however, whenever I can get it, and be damn glad for it....the rain, and not whatever we happened to be doing at the beach, (which I'm always damned glad for).
No, no - no minds in the gutter tonight; it is filled to capacity with rain.
I took the girls to the beach this afternoon; we met a friend and her visiting nephews there. No sooner did we drag our stuff from the bluff, down the stairs, across the beach closer to the shore, then the first drips started. It'll pass, we said - it always threatens, but never produces. We spread our stuff out, the kids made for the water, Bbbbbrrrrrr - in and out in two minutes, and they dried off, only to get soaked two minutes later. Packed our stuff, crossed the beach, up the stairs to the top of the bluff we went.
We needed this in the worst way. I am down to the bare basics - the bouquet on my kitchen table is made up of parsley gone to flower, and the large, prickly cone-shaped orange centers of coneflowers, (echinacea) - no petals because the damned Japanese beetles ate every last one. Very pretty actually, I think.
It rained all afternoon and is still raining. My garden breathes a sigh of relief. But what is good for the garden, is not good for the growers. The farmers can not catch a break. The tomatoes, just coming on, will crack on the vine, and the blueberries, at their peak, will drop from the branches. Harvests will be halted because the fruit and fields will be too wet. Such a life they lead to supply us with the fruits of summer.
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Post by Scrappy Amazon on Jul 27, 2007 22:02:41 GMT -6
Ohhhh, Scrappy - those pictures are grim. Looks just like it did here last year - and would again, if not for a freaky jet stream this year. It' wasn't really as bad as it looked. That was actually a mixture of very light rain and a small dust storm. But on a lighter note we have actually been getting a fair amount of monsoon rain this week. Do things seem to get almost instantly green and start blooming, Scrappy, after the monsoons are over? I've seen time-lapsed photography taken of the desert after the rains, and it is amazing...and very beautiful, the way things come to life. Short answer...yes. You can almost hear the plants perking up. An hour after a good monsoon rain, providing it hasn't been one of those with 90 mile an hour winds, and everything is green. At least for a short time cause it's hard to find green things in the desert that aren't cactus...
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Post by Phalon on Jul 28, 2007 23:11:16 GMT -6
With the rain we had this past week, the grass has really perked up: a dull green with patches of vivid color, instead of the crunchy brown it has been. Any pictures of the greening of your desert, Scrappy? Cactus are cool; they don't need much water, and even I can grow them inside without them dying of thirst - occasionally; the last two bit the dust a couple of years ago, and I haven't had the urge to replace them and commit planticide again.
We have a native cactus here - nothing like what you have there; this is a low-growing spreading thing, with pretty yellow flowers in early summer, and teensy barely visible spines which get stuck in your hand for days because you can't see them to get them out. Very painful, and I warned that grown man customer not to touch it, which, like a child he promptly did just to see what would happen.
It's called Michigan cactus, because we like to tack our state name onto everything: Michigan holly (elsewhere it's winterberry), Michigan white pine (Eastern white pine everywhere else), Michigan Lefts, (when you U-turn and go right to turn left), and Michigan rummy (a card game that I've no idea how it differs than other rummy). Michigan cactus is "prickly pear", and people skin it somehow and eat it. I've had it in a salsa-type dish and it was pretty good.
Today was spent just lazin' down the river in a canoe; eight miles through the Allegan Woods, as it is known here - a state forest preserve. The river was down due to the drought, and some of the fallen trees and stumps, once covered under feet of water, looked like giant petrified pieces of drift wood now that they are exposed.
The water was shallow in a lot of places, and we got out often to wade, (hard to actually swim in knee-deep water). It was cool, but not frigid like the Lake; it felt so good after sitting in the aluminum canoe, baking in the sun.
The weather was perfect - mid-eighties with low humidity. Too hot, and late in the day for furry critters, (I was so hoping to see the river otters playing). Not to mention our singing, "Rowing...rowing...rowing down the river" to the tune of "Proud Mary" probably scared every well-bodied animal away for miles. And yeah, so we weren't rowing, but paddling didn't sound quite right, (eye-roll)
We saw lots of turtles sunning themselves - mostly just average everyday turtles, but there was one spiny soft shell turtle we spotted, which was cool, and I only knew what it was because I'd seen a picture of one in the canoe rental office before we hit the river. All kinds of birds: kingfishers, cedar waxwings, goldfinches, wood ducks, and an eagle.
Cardinal flower blooming everywhere - one of my favorite native wildflowers.
And tonight there is the most beautiful full moon, brightly lighting the sky.
Shoot! A full moon? And I work tomorrow.....another of those full moon days when the weirdos come out.
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Post by Scrappy Amazon on Jul 30, 2007 0:46:56 GMT -6
Any pictures of the greening of your desert, Scrappy? I'll see what I can do.....everything turns dirt brown again shortly after the rain....or at least mud colored. Um...no...they're not. When we moved into the place we're at now...the first thing we did was rip all of it out and burn it....
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Post by Siren on Jul 30, 2007 17:50:08 GMT -6
Your river trip sounds grand, Gams. I haven't done anything like that since college.
We're leaving next week for a few days in Colorado, visiting my cousin. She runs a little guest ranch in a valley surrounded by mountains. A creek runs right alongside the house, and my nieces and I spend most of our time there, playing in it. I enjoy cleaning out the limbs and leaves in it, and the girls wade and build little dams. We love it. There's a river branch at the end of the property, but the water is too cold to swim in. We'll probably take a little trail ride (on a hopefully arthritic and near-sighted horse with only one speed - slow), and walk some trails, too. It's wonderfully relaxing there, and my cousin is the most warm, welcoming person. We can't wait to go.
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Post by Phalon on Aug 7, 2007 6:26:52 GMT -6
We went from hot, dry desert to health club weather; it's a sauna right now. It's rained the last three days. Not constant rain, of course, because between rain showers, it needed to get miserably hot and humid so I can feel like a slow moving slug with a mess of humidity-induced wild hair.
Talking with my favorite North Carolinian this weekend, and she mentioned what a mild summer they've had until this past week - not many days this season in the high nineties or reaching into the hundreds. It made me laugh; it's all about location, location, location. I would be a puddle of ooze if I had to endure her "mild weather"; it gets into the upper eighties and low nineties, and I melt.
I am like that red maple - or maybe a dogwood when I growl and bare my teeth, and though my bark is rough, it is worse than my bite. Both species of trees are native from the north to south of the United States, but you can not take a tree from the South and transplant it in the North, or vice-versa, and expect it to thrive without, perhaps years, of acclimation.
Our unusual continued hot weather, (locationally, relatively speaking), is leaving me wilted, (except my hair, which is perky in ways uncontrollable).
And off I go to spend the day working in a sauna.
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Post by moonglum on Aug 7, 2007 14:02:57 GMT -6
We've just had our first drop of rain in a week, today. Thunder storm as I drove home, the type that has given us all these flash-floods lately. It didn't last long but a lot of rain fell. Sunday the temp hit 31c ( what's that in old money?) And yesterday 30c.
I' personally like to thank the men who invented nylon overalls, nylon hi-visibility jackets and steel-shod safety boots.
On a lighter note though, I don't have uncontrollable hair. Army No 2 cut, for the use of; every summer. Winter I let it run wild!
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Post by Phalon on Aug 8, 2007 23:29:37 GMT -6
No rain here today - nice, since it was my day off work. Humid though, and my hair behaved accordingly.
Today was "Just BP and Me Day", or her version of "Just Mom and Me Day". LX got hers last week - a day long shopping for school clothes excursion and lunch. BP is cheaper. We stayed in town, and went to the toy store, had ice-cream, and did the beach.
After that, I had a hair appointment...after which my hair behaved for approximately two minutes until I walked out of the salon into the heat again. I did not opt for the Army No 2 Cut, (or the No 1); I let it run wild throughout the year, no matter the cut. Shorn to be wild.
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Post by moonglum on Aug 8, 2007 23:35:34 GMT -6
Clear skies here too.
We are looking forward to the end of this month. Going up to Yorkshire to see our granddaughters.
'Shorn to be wild'. Boll.
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Post by Phalon on Aug 8, 2007 23:42:46 GMT -6
I'm looking forward to the end of the month too. School starts again. Can you hear parents everywhere breathe a collective sigh of relief?
Summer is fun; I'm just kidding about looking forward to its end, (except the sigh of relief thing), and will miss its passing. But fall...Fall is my favorite.
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Post by moonglum on Aug 9, 2007 15:52:54 GMT -6
I like autumn too. I also like winter! Summer and spring are too unpredictable in this country. They seem to be forever competing to see which can outlast the other, either a long spring and short summer or vice versa. But then autumn appears as if to say 'enough is enough, let's have some order to life'. And the world changes from either bright green or burnt umber (depending on the length and intensity of summer!), to soft browns and gold. The sun stops being a death-ray and starts doing it's proper job of lighting the world ready for the artist, or photographer, to capture nature at her best. I like to sit beneath a tree at that time of year. I'll stick my finger in my ear and think, 'Isn't life wonderful or am I just ear-waxing lyrical?'
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Post by Phalon on Aug 11, 2007 4:35:09 GMT -6
Ah yes, sitting beneath a canopy of golds, oranges, and reds, while ear-waxing lyrical.....
Let's Ear it For the Boy....
Tommy can you ear me? Tommy? Tommy?
....and that good old-time favorite....
Fifteen miles down the Eary Canal
Ear-waxing lyrical is most definitely better than ear-waxing sentimental, because who the heck could be sentimental about ear wax? Then, Moonglum, is when I'd start to worry.
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Post by moonglum on Aug 11, 2007 14:12:35 GMT -6
'Sentimental about ear wax. Lol. I've just started reading The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson, and the things eight/nine year old boys got up to in the fifties.
Well you know what they say.....'ear today, who knows what tomorrow'.
It's been another hot day today, up in the high 20's. I dont think we brits are meant to endure these near tropical temperatures, it's too hot. I wish we had a place big enough to have a pool. We've lost all our tomato plants to blight. It's widespread this year apparently. Ah well, next year.
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Post by Siren on Aug 11, 2007 19:47:34 GMT -6
Hello, gang - glad to see all the visitors to this thread. MG, you and that legendary American ax murder suspect, Lizzie Borden, would've gotten along well. She gave her mother 40 wax, so they say. I just got back in town from a week in La Veta, Colorado. It was sooooo beautiful and green and cool there. Took numerous photos. Will share a few when I get time to download them. It was cool enough there to wear a jacket, most mornings. This afternoon, we returned to near 100 degree temps in Oklahoma. So thankful that my sis stopped by to feed my kitties and water my plants. The cats, like their owner, are overfed, and could probably have lived on their body fat till I returned. But the plants would've been done for had they not been watered. They look surprisingly well, despite the heat. Will tell you more about the trip when I post the photos. Glad to be back!
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Post by moonglum on Aug 12, 2007 4:01:12 GMT -6
Welcome back Siren.
Murderous puns indeed. LOL
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Post by Phalon on Aug 12, 2007 7:39:50 GMT -6
Ooooo, Siren's back! Glad to see you, Chicka-Booka. Sounds like you had a great time, and looking forward to seeing your vacation pictures; I love pictures. Remember those old slides people used to take of their vacations? Mom has tons of them from days gone by, even before us kids were born - and an old slide projector and screen to boot. I never tire of watching the old family slide shows.
Gotta run. My skis are begging to be used, and I wanna get it in before it turns head-exploding hot and humid.
Moonglum, you axed for those murderous puns, ya know.
Later, My Sweets.
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Post by Phalon on Aug 14, 2007 5:58:13 GMT -6
Yesterday was beautiful - a down-right fine day to be working and playing outside.
And that's about all I have time for this morning.
Enjoy the day today - whatever the weather may be.
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Post by moonglum on Aug 14, 2007 12:51:15 GMT -6
The rains have returned bringing winds with them.
However for almost the last week, there has been a ray of pure sixties sunshine coming from a nearby harbour. Ahh, sweet nostalgia.
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