Yoicks

No, I did not give up blogging for Lent; just had a little touch of Murphy.

Because it is cold and rainy today, here's a teaser for summer's coming attractions:

If it's a butterfly bush, why is the crop so small? Should we fertilize?

One of the compensations for a long, hot, humid summer is watching butterflies dance overhead on a summer evening.

(Oh, good grief, it's raining harder. Yes, we need it....)

Narrow Way

The illusion of being in a quiet park is ruined by the end of the fence on the far right, and the glimpses of parking lot through the trees.

It Never Snows Here

We hardly ever get snow here, but since it's leap year and we were predicted to have a warmer than normal winter, of course it had to snow. (Twice). The first one was a bit of a surprise, since we weren't supposed to see any snow at all, but there was a chance of freezing rain later.

So when I walked outside to go home that Wednesday afternoon and saw snowflakes, I had one of those brain-lurching flashbacks to the last time they predicted no snow. Okay, it probably wasn't the very last time, but Snowjam is the reason I have kept food and long johns in my filing cabinet at work for more than twenty years. (Never. Again.)

Here, thousands flee in terror from the oncoming juggernaut of unpredicted snow at rush hour:

If you have very good vision, you might be able to see a tiny blurry thing that I think is a snowflake. Really, it was snowing a lot harder a couple of minutes before I took this picture, but by the time I got my camera out and turned it on and charged the CMOS chip...oh, never mind.

It snowed off and on all the way home, and melted on impact. When I got home, it wasn't snowing, but by the time I got out of my car it had begun.

This is a magnolia, and that is a snowflake. Do I have to say how very wrong that is?

Within a few minutes, it was actually starting to stick to the ground. Umm, that wasn't supposed to happen....



Here the intrepid photographer takes an action shot of a showflake landing on the car:
On my deck, it had begun to sleet. This looks like nearly half an inch of “no accumulation expected” has accumulated. Okay, more like a quarter inch...but it's ice.

Wow.



Fortunately, even though we were completely unready for a bread, milk, and toilet paper emergency, no loss of life was reported. The power stayed on, we stayed home, and the next day the roads were (still) clear.

It snowed again on Saturday. This time lots of big drama and preparation for no big problem. However, the kids next door to me built a snowman which had not completely finished melting a week later. (This is the South; snow that lasts 48 hours is...is...words fail me.)

Anyway, that could be it until next Leap Year. We'll see.

New Kanji

Tokyo, Japan: Forensic linguists in Japan's Ministry of History have announced that a new Kanji symbol has been discovered. Experts say that it is pronounced “bahkohn”. The meaning is still to be determined.

UPDATE: This discovery is now suspected of being a hoax when linguists were unable to provide any proof of the new symbol. This reporter is following the story closely and it smells...good.

Worthless Furball #3

Yes, this is my cat. She's on the couch here, but usually she likes to sit on my counter and shed hairs in my food prep area. The lady I adopted her from had a dog as well, and the only way to feed the kitten and be sure the kitten got to eat was to put the kitten and her food on a table. So in addition to the normal cat instinct to take over high places, she's trained to hop onto the table at meal times. It doesn't help that my mother thinks pet animals should be hand fed from her own plate at dinnertime.

However, we're not thrilled about little kitty feet on the dinner table. I've gotten very good with a squirt bottle, and will fire a few rounds into her flank before going for the ear. My mom, when she has had enough, will fire a warning shot directly in the face. I don't think it's deliberate.

Worthless Furball #2

he’s not my cat, but he is a sweetheart—a fluffy friendly kitty who doesn't like being picked up and cuddled, but will tolerate it. Better than my cat does.

Water Snake!

They call the wake behind a ship a “water snake”, which makes more sense if you see what one looks like when the ship isn’t on cruise control (the “Iron Mike”). I love to stare at them stretching out to the horizon.

What do you look at to relax?