Mongrel and I went for our normal walk today. He was patient while I shot some photos and video during the golden hour of the day.
Sunset with Mongrel, July 18, 2018
Mongrel is a sweet boy. Well, as long as you are not another cat. In particular, another cat named Mary Jane. Otherwise he’s the most laid back and docile animal I know.
Around Mary the cat things change. She turns into the anti-Christ and he goes pretty nuts too. My thinking is that the relationship started out pretty rough and that just carried forward. At least for Mary it did and he doesn’t ignore her. When he was a kitten she would tear into him randomly; Swatting, biting, growling and the like. It was all good until he got older and stronger. When they meet now it’s quite a show.
It’s been an interesting week. Mostly good. Sometimes weird. Just trying to figure out where to point my rudder in the coming months. The path forward is not always clear.
Here are a couple of shots from today …
Looking east … long shadows.Panorama of the sunset.
I flew my winged camera to get a picture of the Virginia countryside just before a rain storm. I’ve annotated this image so you can get an idea of what you are looking at this time.
Virginia Countryside looking north from home
To the left is Harpers Ferry, WV where the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers come together and through the gap in the mountains there where I’ve marked “Potomac River”. This is where I go fishing most. Lots of small mouth bass there.
Lovettsville is the closest city and were we get our mail. And if you keep driving north you’ll run into Brunswick and Frederick, Maryland.
For being so close to such a major city like Washington DC the Virginia countryside 50 miles west of there is very rural. Don’t believe me? Call Comcast or Verizon and try to get Internet service out here.
It hasn’t rained in 10+ days until today. As I got back from my run today the skies started to turn a little on the dark side. I looked up the weather and saw this:
Thunderstorms brewing July 17, 2018
I’m standing at the blue dot on that map. The rain would soon come:
Thunderstorm arrival July 17, 2018
Then the rains came! The temperature dropped from the 90º’s to the low 70º’s. It’s very nice outside right now. And clear. That’s the fun part of these storms. It rains, the environment changes completely and all the night creatures come out. The frogs, for example, are now out like mad. The mama deer and her two new fawns also came out for a bit.
I came inside, grabbed some dinner and came into the radio room to chat with some friends. Mongrel finally joined me. First on my desk. Then on my lap.
Mongrel on my radio deskMongrel now on my lap
Soon it’ll be time to go to sleep! Actually, time to go to sleep now.
Most of the day was cloudy and spitting rain. That was good for me because I had a ton of work to do around the farm. From trimming trees to bush hogging our road it was a busy day on machines of various types.
We also sold our ping-pong table to someone who would provide it a good home. I hope his kids have fun playing on the board. The best part of the sale of this is that it’s taking up space in his garage now, not mine.
Tonight I was cooking a steak and out of nowhere a wasp landed and stung me on my nose. I used to think that getting stung on the temple was a bitch but now I think the nose is the worst. It’s been over an hour and my nose is still throbbing. I get stung a couple times a year so I’m becoming an expert on where being stung hurts the worst.
The day was pretty hazy and humid. I wear loose cotton clothes that cover all my skin. That makes working in the summer hot. When I got home I was soaked from head to toe with sweat. It was nice to take a shower and relax in the cool of the evening. It was 75º as the sun set tonight.
Speaking of sunset … here’s what it looked like:
Sunset July 15, 2018
At about the same time I turned the camera away from the sun to get the valley between the hills where we live. Looking to the left of the photo is Harpers Ferry where the gap in the mountain lets the Potomac river come through on it’s way to the ocean.
Looking towards Brunswick, Maryland.
There are lots of pastel colors this time of the day.
The moon and Venus are very close to each other today and tomorrow. I was too lazy/tired to go get my camera and take a picture of that. Hopefully they will be reasonably close tomorrow evening and I’ll get the photo then.
This sunrise was pretty good start to finish. Instead of posting on Instagram I thought I’d post it here without any edits.
I have programmed a Raspberry Pi to do these sequences each morning. It takes three per day. It’s a part of a larger project I’m working on that will take over a year to complete. This is a byproduct of that project.
It’s typical this time of year to have this low lying fog on the less windy days. Between the big season changes brings wildly varying temperatures causing the fog. We’ve had so much rain in the months of May and June which has contributed to the moisture content of the ground.
This morning, as I was having breakfast before work on my gazebo, I noticed our resident hawk hunting from atop one of my telephone poles. It turns out to be a pretty good vantage point for birds of prey to watch over the property for small furry creatures flitting about. So I got my camera out, powered it on, turned on all the servos to shoot from a distance of 400 or so feet away and then just sat there observing her behavior while she hunted.
To get these three photos took about 30 minutes. The time between just looking around and taking flight was less than a second. As soon as she jumped I took about 10 shots within a second. In that time she totally panned through the image crop. I tried to follow her all the way to the ground but she was obfuscated by the tower and tall grass.
I was putting my camera away when I noticed she was back on top of the pole with her catch. With a little patients I got the hunt, the kill and the meal (a small rabbit).
The hunt …The kill …The meal … a small rabbit.
When I got home last night I noticed a new swift nest of mud and feathers under the deck by the basement door. They are skilled at putting a nest where creatures like Mongrel can’t get easy access to them. I have a thermometer under there that they have attached their new nest. I suspect they will have new birds up there soon.
The swifts are fun. When I cut the grass they fly all around me catching all the bugs that try to make an escape. They are skillful fliers and very curious about everything around them. They seem to fly close just to get a look at me when they are not catching bugs.
Swift tolerating my presence.
Most of the angels I know or have known have broken wings.
Garden angel. Broken like the rest of us.
Oh, and I’ve been wondering at times when I know it’s windy that I do not get any wind indiciation on my sensors. I figured out why the other day! A meadowlark has decided that he/she can sit on top of the sensors and, without moving, can get a 360º view of everything around it. Ha.
It’s been a while since I have posted so I’m going to drop a photo or two from the last couple of days. After doing some work in the yard having not done so for 7 days we cleaned up and went for a drive mapping out some new roads around home. As is often the case, we were blocked by a passing train. This one hauling 150 cars full of coal headed to Washington.
Coal train headed to Washington, DC.
It has been raining like crazy around home. On Sunday evening it rained 10 inches near here and subsequently washed out many small bridges where we were driving closing most of the routes we would normally take for an evening stroll. At first we thought it was official maintenance of the roads but quickly learned it was mother nature reclaiming what is hers.
Switching gears… I don’t like crows, in particular, but I liked this photo from a long lens against a cloudy sky. Probably because of the high contrast.
Crow
And, finally, these bluebirds, two of so many on our property have made a nest near the well head. Every year this time the bluebirds are very active. They don’t go anywhere during the winter so they tend to stay close by. They have unmistakable markings that you can see in this photograph. Every year I say I am going to put up more bluebird houses because there are so many nesting pairs. I need to get out there and build them.
Bluebirds
I put all this stuff near the well head to keep farmers from running it over when we harvest the hay which you can see getting tall in the background. It does not interact well with farm equipment. Usually the farm equipment is the loser of any battle with only minor scrapes on the well. Concrete and steel are a formidable competitor to anything other than concrete and steel.
It’s still cold at night and cool during the day. Right now its 35º at midnight and we have a fire going in the fireplace keeping the house warm. The fire keeps the house warm without running the air conditioners. At this temperature, anyway.
When I got home today and walked out in the back yard and notice two things immediately. First there were all these geese flying north in big “V” formations. One after the other. The second was the grass is turning green again.
The ground is still super soggy with all the rain and snow we’ve had recently. That must be helping it all start to look like spring. I’m hoping we don’t have any hard freezes from now on since the flowers will be up soon and the trees will start to leaf out. I’ve seen that kill a number of trees here.
I hope it’s warm and sunny where you are at too. Have a good day!
Saying goodbye is never easy. Some are harder than others.
Where did the time go?Saying goodbye to Olivia.
I wouldn’t be so bad if she weren’t 1,500 miles from here and could pop in anytime she wanted. It’s back to work for all of us in the coming week. The holiday is about over and time to get back at life.
Gloria is off to a wedding. Helen and I are home with the cats. The cats want to be in someone else’s home. Well, two of them do anyway.
After getting up at 4am I think I’ll go to bed early tonight. Or not. Depends on what I get involved with between now and then. Ha. It always depends.
In spite of it being only 19º today we ventured out for a drive in the countryside towards Shepherdstown, West Virginia. It’s a pretty drive on any given day but most days you want to get out and check things out. Not today really. It was sort of nice to stay in the heated car. But we got out anyway.
Helen at the frozen rivers edge.Olivia cozy in a thick jacket on the C&O Canal path.I think we’ll stay out of the water today.
We had brunch at The Mellow Moods Cafe in town. I’d never been there before. They had a egg and cheese sandwich on sour dough bread that was pretty darned good! And a black iced tea to go along with it. The girls had some chips and guacamole and we were off to the next place.
The girls went in to “The Good Shop” to see what kind of things they couldn’t do without in there. We came out of the mostly unscathed. There are a few shops in Shepherdstown that are fun to visit, have some pretty cool stuff in them but I rarely buy things except for food. One of my favorite restaurants there is Betty’s. I think it’s appropriate they don’t have a web site and still get 4 stars. I like eating there. The service is good and people are always nice to me. Typical “home” cooking.
Helen and Olivia doing digital stuff.HelenChatting at lunch
We came back home via the Shenandoah River bank on the West Virginia side of things. It’s a pretty drive and there are some cool places to get out and visit but no one was really into that because of the cold.
The air temperature is headed down to single digits tonight so we’ll be close by the fire together. Two of these guys are off on airplanes tomorrow to be in other parts of the United States. It’s a bummer to see them leave but so glad we got this time together as a family.
