coincidence? and beautiful things

Wednesday night during one of my several dreams, I had to solve a word game where every other word in a phrase was missing and I had to fill in the missing words and the phrase was a lyric from a Rolling Stones song…”you can’t always get what you want”. Thursday morning when I got in the car to leave for SHARE and started the engine, that song came out of the radio starting with that exact phrase. Whoa! And the really interesting thing is that that song and the rest of the lyric…”but if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need”…has always been one of my guiding mantras or life themes. 

Other song lyrics had a big impact too…”sometimes we live our lives in chains and we never even know we have the key” from Already Gone by the Eagles; “and in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make” from The End by the Beatles.

Others just from general wisdom like ‘what goes around comes around’, or from the Navaho story of Spider Woman about the importance of balance in your life and the danger of perfectionism; or from a sign in my friend Gene’s studio which said simply ‘PERSEVERE’.

But the one I probably focused on the most especially during trying times, days or years of struggle, was straight from my own head…’this is only temporary’, a distillation I suppose of ‘the only thing that stays the same is that everything changes’.

Three other things. I made cheese enchiladas with meat sauce for dinner last night. Finally getting the hang of it. This time and the previous attempt came out really good.

My night blooming cereus, queen of the night, bloomed last night for the fourth time this year. Only half as many flowers as the previous three blooms but this time I remembered and went out after 10 pm with my flashlight and breathed in the sweet scent on the air.

Sitting here this morning reading blogs, hearing Cat thumping around the door to the little bathroom, figured she had brought in an anole. Finally got up to rescue the little creature. She was in the bathroom peering between the door and the wall. I looked, and her persistence over at the old turtle pond paid off. Not an anole but a leopard frog, still alive. 

(picture off the internet)

Dammit Cat. Don’t know if she chased it into the house or carried it in through the open back door. I picked it up and it croaked, examined it for damage, didn’t find any, carried it back to the old turtle pond, put it on the edge and it leapt back into the water.

 

excellent results, more shop and garage work, local life

Well, aren't we happy about the results of the elections yesterday. It wasn't a clean sweep for Democrats but they did extremely well. Americans are weary of and rejecting the extremism and downright meanness of MAGA and the Republican party but according to Marjorie Taylor Green, republicans lost because they weren't extreme enough and republicans are too nice...talk about a disconnect from reality. Now democrats need to build on this momentum for the 2024 elections.

Instead of devoting whole posts to the political malfeasance of the group trying to force minority rule I think I'm going to just insert things as I come across them into ordinary posts. Unless of course I'm particularly inspired. So we'll see how that goes and here's today's item:

Trump and his MAGAts go on about how Biden is destroying this country and yet House republicans have introduced “a bill to cut more than 64% from [the budget for] Amtrak, as well as other significant parts of the country’s passenger rail system. Most of the cuts would come from the heavily traveled northeast corridor, which carries about 800,000 people a day and serves the region that produces about 20% of the country’s gross domestic product...In contrast, President Biden today announced $16.4 billion in railroad investment from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in the northeast corridor. It will rebuild century-old tunnels and bridges and upgrade tracks, power systems, signals, stations, and other infrastructure, enabling higher speeds on the route and cutting delays.” - from Heather Cox Richardson's newsletter Nov. 6. So once again republicans show how little they care about our infrastructure and the lives of ordinary Americans by devastating the budget for a system that people depend on to get where they need to go safely. They also voted to reduce the Transportation Secretary's pay to $1.

I'll probably put the political item at the bottom in future but I wanted to lead with the election results.

Last weekend I spent more time over at the shop adding to the trash pile and salvaging two metal shelving units that had been in the back storage area against the outside wall where the roof leaks and so they were very dirty and rusty. I sprayed them with Ospho to arrest the rusting and then used all my various leftover cans of spray paint to repaint them. Once I got all four (had already moved two) away from the wall I could access the crates and containers of all the clear textured glass from small pieces

to nearly full sheets plus some colored glass, bevels of all shapes and sizes, and all the glass jewels and lenses leftover from our commission architectural carved glass business. The jewels and lenses will go to a friend in Colorado but all the rest I posted on FB free for the taking. Two women showed up on Monday and between the two of them they hauled everything away plus the big crate and the ball mill and a box of craft use cookie cutters. Woo hoo!

Yesterday I cleared and rearranged the garage to accommodate bringing the plumerias and other tender potted plants in for the winter. Believe me when I tell you all that clear space was filled with recycling, a lawnmower, trimmer, leaf blower, chain saw, heavy extension cord and other boxes of miscellanea.

Seen in the yard...the pink trumpet flower shrubby viney thing has outdone itself this late summer/fall despite the horrid heat and drought of summer.

The mist flower is blooming and slowly spreading.

I happened to notice the pink penta had been chewed to within an inch of its life and further investigation exposed this, the caterpillar of a tersa sphinx moth.

Rummaging through a viney leafy ground cover for fallen pecans I uncovered this beautiful southern leopard frog. It sat motionless...if I don't move she can't see me. Usually this guy leaps away before I even get sight of it.

The monarchs are starting to migrate through.

I saw very few butterflies this summer and so far the mass migration of over 20 different butterflies has not made an appearance like it did last year.

And Cat, totally owning the place.

cool enough to get some yard stuff done

We're back to having no rain again and everything is horribly dry. Consequently I spent the morning Monday moving the sprinkler around every 30 minutes and same yesterday and so far today. I did get most of the back flower bed weeded Monday. I'll be able to get more of that done now that I've watered and the dirt isn't hard as a rock. The orange cosmos are putting on buds as are the confederate roses but no flowers yet. I had the sprinkler in the midst of one stand of orange cosmos yesterday morning and it was filled with birds playing and bathing in the water, even a hummingbird was flitting around in there.

Later, I got the newly released 6' ladder (the one the chandelier has been suspended from) and used it to get high enough to pull dead fallen branches and dead canes out of the crepe myrtle with the climbing rose all intertwined and then used the ladder and hoe to drag more dead fallen branches and leaves off the roof next to it all. There's still a lot more up there but it's going to take someone getting on the roof and that won't be me. I'll dare a lot of things still. I'm limber, have good balance, still strong enough and I have been on that roof a few times. But I am also acutely aware that if I fell off, it would be devastating. Maybe if I went and got the 8' ladder from the shop...

The rest of this post is just some miscellaneous pictures.

Minnie and her dog buddies at the other end of the street.

A little brown tree frog sitting on the top of one of the wind chime tubes.

Another quick and easy one dish meal...orecchiette pasta, broccoli, garlic, italian sausage.

Porterweed bloom, hummingbirds and butterflies love it.

The mistflower is blooming and the bees are all over it, though not in this picture taken late in the day.

The confederate rose buds mentioned above.

more molds and little lives

We got more rain Thursday night, or rather early in the morning, which is good. Friday mid-morning in the 80s which was a much appreciated break from the mid to high 90s we've been suffering through except for one thing, the humidity. With the high temps and no chance of rain the humidity had been staying fairly low, mid 40s%. Friday it shot up to 91% before it dropped to the 60s%. This Saturday morning it's 83˚ and 89% humidity which basically makes it feel like high 90˚s. Can't win for losing. Even when the temperature is tolerable it still feels oppressively hot.

Yesterday 7 of the molds got steamed out. By that I mean the investment aka mold material, which is a plaster/silica flour mix, with the wax model encased is placed open end down over a pot of boiling water, the steam rises up and melts the wax out of the mold.

Once that's done I inspect the molds, clean them up, rinse them out and then do the volume measure so that I know how much weight of glass it takes to fill the form. I do that by weighing a container of water, pour some into the mold filling the form of the model and then weighing the container of water again. Subtract one from the other, multiply by the specific gravity of the glass, 2.5 in my case, and it gives you the weight of glass needed in grams.

I'm going to set these aside for a week or so to let the molds cure while I select the colors as well as decide to use transparent or opaque glass, frit or powder (I won't bore you about why these choices matter). Two more molds got made today, next week the last four.

Here's half the frivolous post, the little creatures who live here with us.

This honey bee seemed a little confused about which part of the flower she was supposed to go to as she explored the ends of several petals on the white orchid tree flowers.

This tiny gecko which couldn't have been longer than 1 1/4” head to tip of it's tail and looked to be just hatched was on the wall in the bathroom and we have no idea how it got there.

This little golden orb weaver is young, her body is only about 3/4”. She'll get much bigger.

Big Mama, our 32 year old red ear slider, felt it necessary to remind me she hadn't been fed today.

And last a little tree frog hanging out on the molding of the back door. I took this picture through the glass. First one I've seen this gray color.

 

miscellania and heavy karma

New AC is in and instead of the round condenser it's rectangular.

All those little peaches are ripe. I took some to my neighbor who babysits some of her grandkids and I also made this Monday night.

After reading about the high price of tomatoes and so no tomato sauce this year, my friend Debbie brought me these from their garden, not pretty she said but they taste good. Guess what I did yesterday and what I'll be doing today.

I also did the week's grocery shopping, put up 7 ears of sweet corn that my neighbor gave me from his brother's farm, and made a pizza for dinner. Needless to say I was very busy yesterday and did not work on the box.

I got my summer hair cut last week.

Random thought from the other day...This country is engaged in a big karmic adjustment I think. If countries have souls of a sort, this country was brought into being through genocide and slavery and repression (which continues to this day). The US is too far down the rabbit hole now, not just guns but weapons of war and violence, we increasingly turn our murderous tendencies on ourselves unable to accept that all people are created equal and have the same rights. We are frozen, incapable of, unwilling to stop it. Who and how much do we sacrifice before the debt is paid? Can the debt be paid? That doesn’t mean we of good heart should give up the fight. That’s part of our karma.

Republicans are pretending to care and negotiate in committee on some common sense restrictions like raising the minimum age to 21 to buy an assault rifle (banning them won't even be considered) and institute a waiting period, ban high capacity magazines, expand background checks to private sales, and institute a 'red flag' law, none of which will prevent anyone from buying these weapons but may prevent mass shootings and yet, these very same republicans will vote against any bill that makes it to the Senate even though the vast majority of Americans are in favor of more regulations. After Matthew McConaughey addressed the nation at the White House press conference on gun violence, a Newsmax reporter accused him of grandstanding.

The January 6^th Committee is starting their public hearings tomorrow and Fox has said it will not air them even though they aired Benghazi ad nauseum. Republicans have announced they will launch counter programming and already have their disinformation machine and Trump's staunch allies churning out lies that the committee is illegitimate. They seem determined to keep citizen against citizen, to destroy the rule of law, and to grind our democracy into dust.

So I don't end on such depressing thoughts as those here's a few picks from around the yard.

Hairstreak butterflies were migrating through. They are so tiny, this one about 3/4”.

Thirsty bees drinking from the small pond full of parrot feather.

A little tree frog on the side of the house.

 

good stuff, bad stuff

OMG, it is so fucking hot and dry and way too early to be this hot and dry. Last Wednesday was the last day to burn, but only if you had to, had a hose close, and did it in the early morning before the wind picked up. Marc burned on Wednesday. Friday I emptied the wheelbarrow of a mountain of weeds that had piled up and the mountain of cleaver that has been sitting on the driveway since I pulled it all up onto the burn pile. Was going to empty the full truck bed of fallen branches that have also piled up but the truck wouldn't start. Great. So now Marc has the battery charger hooked up. So, foiled in that chore, I finally folded up the giant tarp that helps protect the tenders in the garage in winter, swept most the leaves out that have blown is, and put the recycling containers back to their summer arrangement. This little bit of activity had me sweating buckets.

OK, now to the topics at hand.

Good stuff...

Are these not the sexiest, most voluptuous flowers you've ever seen?

The rock rose are coming into bloom.

I don't know what these are, I dug up a small clump in the easement beside the sidewalk in front of the elementary school at the end of my street back when I lived in the city, but they definitely don't seem to mind the dry and the heat.

Purple coneflowers (even though they are pink) and gardenia.

Minnie still doesn't know what to make of this moving rock.

Tree frog hanging out on the yellow trumpet flower.

Don't know what this is exactly but it's missing a back leg.

Bad stuff... (I have no idea why the formatting is indented for the first 6 entries and can't undo it.)

Arizona senate candidate calls for condoms to be banned in all states

Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn calls for contraception ban except for married couples

Mitch McConnell floats a national abortion ban and promises to do it if republicans take control of the House and Senate

Missouri GOP banning Plan B and IUDs and is a debating a bill to ban women from traveling out of state for abortions

Louisiana GOP declaring life begins "at fertilization" and seeks to make abortion a homicide and the use of an IUD murder

Tennessee GOP law makes it a felony (with a $50K fine) to receive abortion medication via mail

Arkansas GOP trigger law will ban abortion with no exceptions and make it a felony to obtain an abortion

North Dakota GOP Gov. Kristie Noem pledges a special legislative session to pass new abortion restrictions

Oklahoma GOP passes Texas-style abortion "Bounty Hunter" law

Ohio GOP debating two trigger laws that would immediately ban abortion once Roe is overturned

Ohio GOP trying to reinstate a fetal heartbeat law stuck in the courts

Idaho passing a law authorizing civil lawsuits against abortion clinics/providers, Idaho rep wants to ban Plan B and possibly IUDs

West Virginia leaving in place a 19th Century anti-abortion law that makes obtaining an abortion punishable by up to 10 years in prison

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio introducing federal legislation to punish private companies that provide travel benefits for women to obtain abortions in states where they are legal

Kansas GOP leading a push to remove abortion protections guaranteed to Kansans by their state constitution

GOP Senator Mike Braun says interracial marriage should be left up to the states on whether it's legal

This stopped being about banning abortions and went straight to controlling what women can and can't do with some states trying to prevent pregnant women from leaving the state. While they claim the high ground, forcing women to give birth, they apparently are fine with women dying as a result of withholding life saving care. These same people are angry that the Biden administration is sending formula to the mothers and infants we are holding at the border who have zero resources available to them, these same 'pro-life' people apparently think those babies should starve to death.

And if that's not scary enough, there's this:

Candidate for Michigan governor Ryan D. Kelley says those on the left want to “push this idea of democracy,” but that “in every instance” democracy ends up as communism. This rhetoric is how the right will justify their rule even as the minority voice in this country. They're not even pretending that they're in favor of democracy.

And this:

The Texas Supreme Court allowed the state's child welfare agency to resume investigations of parents and doctors who provide gender-affirming care for trans youth, overturning a lower court's decision.

In addition to Florida's 'Don't Say Gay' bill, Louisiana is passing it's own bill outlawing any discussions of sexual orientation or sexual identity.

New Hampshire Republican controlled senate passed a bill requiring public schools to not only 'out' trans youth to parents, but to report kids who aren't masculine (sissies) or feminine (tomboys) enough as well.

The right wing religious wackos are determined to take this country back to it's suppressive and oppressive culture, ruled by their interpretation of their religion, imposing it on us all, demonizing anyone and anything that doesn't conform to or fights their indoctrination, separation of church and state be damned. You know what to do in November. First, don't forget any of this stuff; second, don't let anyone else forget; third, VOTE BLUE.

more flowers, more days in the life

The wind finally died down late last Friday I think and when it did the humidity came back with a vengeance. Had to turn the AC on for two days...in April. Lots of sweating while I did whatever I did out in the yard. Mostly I started watering since...no wind to speak of, moving the sprinkler every 45 minutes or so. Everything mostly got a good dousing. I woke  Monday to cooler and drier air so thank the powers that be for that.

So, watering, digging up sprouting pecan trees, poison ivy, wild grape vine, and briar; swept the deck of the oak tree blooms, tossed some zinnia and pink cosmos seeds some of which are already sprouting, moved all but one of the plumerias in pots to their summer locations which involved sinking the pots of the biggest with a tendency to fall over in the wind but still have to plant the two biggest ones that go directly in the ground, pruned off the dead branches of the spirea which is struggling. I'm sure there were other small tasks over the last three days. The one plumeria in a pot that didn't get moved is being donated to the garden club plant sale. I was told it was white when I bought the small thing but it turned out to be pink and I don't need another pink one. I can make pink ones all day long since their branches are easily rooted.

After doing some maintenance on my ingrown toenail a few days ago and again Sunday night and really painful and tender, I finally called the doctor's office Monday and I have an appointment this Friday to get it taken care of. Am and am not looking forward to that. I'll be glad to have it taken care of but not looking forward to the process.

Aaaand Tuesday the wind was back and a bit chilly. Tuesday is my grocery shop day but it's being put off while we wait for our new credit cards. Last month's bill showed four bogus charges and further review showed one of them repeating for the past couple of months. None of the charges were extreme, ranging from $8 to $30 some odd and all connected to Amazon. Third or fourth time over the years we've had to get new cards.

I didn't do much of anything yesterday, finished my book, just wasn't feeling that great, a little afib and upset stomach but by evening it had all settled down and I feel fine today. Currently overcast and still very windy. I think I'll work on the sketches today.

So just a couple more pictures of the wildflowers around (though I wish I could get a picture of the medians between the north/south sides of the highway because they are filled with evening primrose from dark pink to almost white)

Indian paintbrush

Queen Anne's lace and clasping leaved coneflowers

and stuff in the yard

and a few encounters with the local wildlife.

baby praying mantis

She has blue eyes!

Minnie enjoying the sun on the deck