This is, technically and compositionally, a horrible photo. But - wow, look at my cat's markings! The black lines from his head to between his shoulder blades look like the tip of a fountain pen. Katman has, as yet, not failed to amaze me with some motion, antic, or just simple expression of his 'catness'.

I'll take Places, Alex, for $2000

(Friday update: Oh, my gosh. Turns out I am smart enough to figure out how to scale the html code to appropriately size the images! Watchout, blogworld...)

I've often wondered, or suspected, if something like this was out there. Today, I serendipitously found it while responding to a comment on one of my flickr photos. How lucky! My mind sees the world (outside of memory context) in this way, and while passports and lists are great for identifying visited places, this works best for my primitive thought process. Now I can start planning, from a clear mental image, where my next adventures should be.



create your own visited states map



create your own visited countries map

And now, for something completely different.....

That title really only works when read with John Cleese's voice in mind. So, I've decided to update the blog with some yard photos. Well, really, they're not even of the yard - they're more of a work and flower detail. This one I really like - it's part of a gerber daisy plant that I have in a planter along the front porch railing. It's interesting because this plant - one plant - has generated yellow, orange, and red gerber daisy flowers over the last few months. Almost prolifically so. I don't pretend to know enough about plants to understand how one can generate blooms of different colors other than to assume some fantastic genetic mutation has taken place. But this flower is intriguiging - it seems to be having a color identity crisis. Is it red, orange, or did it just become so flustered in its growth that it started off as orange or yellow even, only to mutate into a mottled reddish color? And hey - is that a worm right on the head!!!?

In an interesting tangent - I noticed fireflies in the yard tonite. How great. In Texas, they have pretty much become non-existant; driven out by fire ants. The fire ants are burrowers who feed on lightning bug larvae. Thank goodness there are no fire ants in Ohio. Mostly because the world could live without fire ants, but also because there should be a little flying lightning magic in everyone's yard. That the world could do with more of. As John Couger Mellancamp Cougar whatever he's called today says, "but my bed is in a small town, oh, and that's good enough for me."

Ay, carumba! Recent roofing repair job scaffolding. The roof is fully repaired now on that side - apparently the previous owners opted to extend the roof line a little further than the rafters, but put up shims to hold the roof edge up, not bothering to extend the rafters. On top of that they applied no sheeting - just shingles, and those in one spot left a small gap just before the roof edge. Fresh extended rafter edges have been added, rotted material stripped out, double-ply sheeting added to match the thickness of the existing layer (at least that was done right!), new shingles, and starter shingles all around were added during this project. The most interesting thing about it was that, somehow, in the eaves, we found a number of little treasures: a love note, folded in a manner circa early 1980's was especially sweet. There was also a bottle of "Sperm Sewingmachine Oil" dating to the late 1800s (the oil from the brains of sperm whales was a high quality lubricant back in the day). That bottle had the cork intact, though was empty. I've seen others that look like it on e-bay, minus the cork, going for $30. There was another bottle that looked like it might have been an aftershave bottle with a neat cap with small cork internal dispenser intact - approximate age, early 1900s; approximate value, $20, and a few other interesting bottles. There was also a jar of Resinol, which is still available as a skin cream product for rashes, etc. In the time frame of the jar style that I found in the roof, the concoction contained cocaine (love the alliteration). Approximate time frame was early 1900s, approx. value, $20. The best find was an old hand-forged horseshoe with nails intact, bent flat - this had wear indicative of actual use vs. household decoration, which it has since become, above the wood stove. While each of these little treasures was an interesting find during the project, unfortunately, if auctioned off right now, they wouldn't come close to paying for the roof work. How great would it be to have some remodeling work done, find a treasure, and learn it was worth the cost of the remodeling - or more! One can always dream....now if I can only find some treasures, somehow, under the furnace when that gets ripped out!!! 

This is one of the verbena plants out front that, thankfully, is not only coming back to life, but resuming flowering activity. This one and the one on the other side of the steps suffered severe dehydration while I was on vacation somehow despite several days of rain. 

This is one of the favorites in the yard - a yucca plant. I have no idea how it lives here - they're a southwestern desert plant - but even in the winter snows the leaves above snow level remained green. Now it's got four stalks loaded with buds that are just beginning to open. Now, if I could only get a young aspen tree for the back yard.... 

I'm not sure what kind of lillies these are, but they just sprouted up this weekend, and just opened today.  

I'm not sure what these plants are, but the little flowers are star shaped. When you cut a few stalks to put in a vase with some water, the flowers apparently get stressed and do a hari kari dive for the floor. But even in their suicide attempts, they make a pretty spread. 

Mint - it grows in several place in the yard. Which is great, because I cut it to make mint tea, or my favorite, fresh mojitos! 

One of the wildflowers in my experimental wildflower patch. 

One of the wildflowers in my wildflower patch. 

Earlier this year, I bought three bags of wildflower seeds that were supposed to be indigenous to this region. I scattered the contents of all three bags in this area around the cherry willow tree, watered them in good, and let them go. Now, they're knee high. There are several more types of wildflowers blooming every day. There should be - I dumped approximately 60,000 seeds into this area. At least it's no longer bare dirt! 

Looks like I have better luck planting things in the ground than keeping them in planters and making them reliant upon my watering skills. 

These are the petunias that mom planted in the back yard planter when my parents visited. There are other little plants in there with tiny flower buds, and I suspected that they may have been intentional from previous year's plantings, so left them - but for all I know they're weeds. 

The Storm, She's-a-Coming!

Yesterday we had an interesting storm roll in. I was on my way to Lowe's (heading North) to buy a new window unit a/c, so I could at least have some working a/c in the house (central unit's out too). While in the store, I literally started to speedwalk to get my shopping done so I could get into the truck before the downpour. It looked imminent. This storm was unlike some of the exciting spring storms we've received - granted, it was forewarned with lots of weather alerts for hail and high winds, but it was completely still and silent in its approach. Looking at the clouds from underneath, the sky was almost black, and it was like watching water boil from the underside of a glass pot. I have since learned that those were mantiss (sp?) clouds, more evident in later shots. Turns out, as threatening as the appearance of these clouds were, I had plenty of time to get to the truck, get home, take the purchases inside, grab the tripod and camera, and head into the yard to grab some sky shots. And, I was not the only one doing so. All along my drive there were lots of people outside, watching the sky. Which was reassuring - it meant that the awe I experienced watching this one roll in was not reserved strictly for newcomers.