Goodbye 2010

It's been a good year.

The Juncos Are Coming, The Juncos Are Coming

I don't necessarily notice when I'm seeing the first Junco of the season, but there are at least a few here. What that means is that they have arrived here for the winter. This is what they consider flying south for the winter. Ooh! It's going to be cold here again, I presume. And they come here for the warmth. I think I would travel to one of the actual southern states for the winter if I was a bird.

That was going to be it for today on the blog, but I found an interesting website all about birds. It's from those good people at Cornell Lab of Ornithology and is called "All About Birds". You should check it out. You can see great photos of birds and hear their typical voice. Really cool.

10/10/10

I've been waiting for this day for a while now and it almost got away before I posted. I was supposed to post at either 10:10 a.m. or 10:10 p.m. or better yet, both morning and night. I'll have to settle for at least getting a post up on the tenth day of the tenth month of the tenth year of the century. sigh

It's been busy around here, always lots to do. Of course that's better than having nothing to do. Weather has been beautiful, record warmth recently. Temperature hit 90 degrees if I remember correctly. Wow.

If only it could be like this on Halloween when all the little ghosts and goblins are out.

Colbert at Congress

This is about Colbert at Congress. This is not about Colbert for Congress. That may happen in the future. It could! He could run for Congress. I think there would be a good chance of him winning.

Moving on.

He was testifying about immigrants who are farm workers in our country. He has done this work for a day and thus is an expert. Here's a link to watch Stephen as he testifies before a Congressional Committee. He brought all the respect and maturity you would expect from him when he talked, as a regular American, to the members of Congress, staff members, press and anyone else who was lucky enough to get in the room before it was full to capacity.

Watch and listen to Stephen Colbert in Congress.

Hurricanes

My gosh but the hurricanes seem to be piling up this summer and fall. It seems every time I turn on the news, we've gone up a letter in the alphabet. I was hearing about Hurricane Danielle and already they are talking about Karl, Igor and Julia. I think I would get kind of tired of all those hurricanes if I lived in or near a coastal region. Yes we have hail and tornadoes and blizzards here, but they don't seem to be as bad.

Now That's a Ring Tone!

As you may know, I'm cleaning.

"But wait a minute!" you all shout at the same time. "Didn't you do that when you were in college?"

Yes, that's right. I did. But, it's time again to clean. Time to add to the recycling center. Time to donate to Salvation Army. Time to let go of some things and pitch them out for good.

It was all sort of a domino effect that's been building. Tired of painting the house so get siding that doesn't need to be painted. As long as that's being done, might as well get new windows. As long as that's being done, might as well get a larger window in basement. That meant moving electrical wiring out of way. It also meant cutting some of the paneling away. And eventually, well, it means the whole room needs to be gutted and started from scratch.

So, all the stuff that has been piling up and stored in the spare room needs to be sorted. Every once in a while there's a surprise to be found. Sometimes a peanut, sometimes a photo, sometimes even something with nice memories.

Wizard of Oz

Google had a nice logo today. It was of Dorothy, Toto, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion heading to the Emerald City.

It's the 71st Anniversary of the movie "The Wonderful World of Oz". I wonder what it will be like on the 100th Anniversary of the Wizard of Oz movie. Will there be a really big extravaganza? Or will people just not care anymore?

If someone is reading this on the 100th Anniversary, please leave a comment and let me know how it turns out.

8 - 9 - 10 11:12

It's late at night on August 9 and you know what that means. This post was posted on:

8 - 9 - 10 at 11:12 p.m.

You know how much I like numbers and this would qualify for a nifty number sequence.

That's all. Nothing earth-shattering (luckily). Just some fun with numbers.

Oh, Happy Birthday to a certain someone.

Book-It

Tonight, SNL was a repeat with Jon Hamm and Michael Bublé. I enjoyed that one. The commercial was Will Forte as Tarkie Fenzington, the Closet Organizer. They also had a sketch where he was at a bar talking to some guy who recognized Forte as the Closet Organizer Guy. But that's not important. What is important is that Will Forte was wearing a "Book-It" T-shirt in this sketch. Book-It is a program developed by Pizza Hut Restaurant to encourage and reward kids for reading.

Thanks, Will for showing your support for reading. In appreciation, everyone go out and get a book to give to a kid to read.

Baby Blue Jay

There have been so many blue jays around lately. I'm assuming that most of them are babies because they have been so vocal. If I understand bird-talk correctly, they are saying "Feed me. Feed me." This little guy was actually on the bird bath last year, so he is now an expert at all things Blue Jay. I've probably even seen him hanging around the bird bath this year and maybe even eating some peanuts during the winter.

Happy 4th of July

But then why am I posting on July 5th? Well, we were very busy yesterday and besides that, it rained here yesterday and the fireworks were postponed until today.

A few days ago we ate breakfast at Perkins. Typically they have a large American flag flying at their restaurants and the sky was such a nice clear blue that I took a few pictures. Plus it was very windy so I could get good photos of the flag showing all the stripes and nearly all of the stars.

I just spent a little time looking at Wikipedia's entry about the Flag of the United States. It is quite interesting. There is an animated section that shows how to fold the flag. There are pictures of all the different flags through the years. Did you know that at one time there were 15 stripes? I didn't know that.

Happy Canada Day

Today is Canada Day, so Happy Canada Day to everyone up in Canada and Canadians everywhere. Some years back we wanted to escape the crowds of July 4th for our vacation. Plus we wanted to go somewhere where the restaurants wouldn't be closed as they often are on July 4th. We should have done our homework. We were in Canada on July 1.

Canada Day has been called Canada's birthday. Everything was closed. Now we know better and so can you if you read a little bit here at Wikipedia about Canada Day.

I don't know if this photo shows the typical Canadian couple, but it was two people we saw in Montreal back in May of 2006 while we were visiting the Montreal Botanical Garden. The girl's hair was quite red, in fact, I'm willing to wager it wasn't actually her natural hair color. But it really looked nice on her and made for a good photo opportunity. Happy Canada Day to the two of them also.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Yesterday we did some walking around the new Twin's Ballpark - Target Field. Games were being played by high school teams, so that was kind of special for them and for their families. It was a beautiful day to be out walking or watching baseball. We saw a few of the Light Rail cars go by while we were there. I actually managed to take a video of this with my camera and not ruin it by sneezing or having someone walk in front of me.

Bad Weather - Ouch

Half of this tree landed across the street in this neighborhood. Hopefully it didn't damage the house across from this one. The road was either blocked or very slow going in the morning. One thing's for sure, they won't have as many leaves to rake in the fall.

I took this photo in early afternoon so this shows you how quickly everyone got out and cleaned up the tree, branches and twigs. Other than the obvious missing branches, tree trunk stumps, and some missing sidewalk squares, you wouldn't realize how many trees were damaged or destroyed. Our neighbor read in the paper that 2000 trees were affected!

Bad Weather, No Parking

This tree did a lot of damage to the fence and yard, and possibly some damage to the house. Or perhaps it is more than one tree, or this tree caused a domino effect and brought down other tree branches. I do wonder what it sounded like when the tree hit the ground, but I don't actually want the chance to ever hear it. Do you notice the No Parking sign? Look further down the street. Typically the signs are about six feet tall. This one was pushed down into the ground by the weight of the tree. Perhaps if it had fallen from a little bit different angle, it would have bent the sign post. But this sign is going to be difficult to take out. Yeah, I know, they probably have the proper equipment to yank this sign right out of the ground and replace it with a new one that is the correct height.

Bad Weather - Something's Gotta Give

The tree split off and most likely blocked the driveways for a while in the morning. As you can see, when the tree got uprooted, it took the sidewalk section with it. The people in the house in the background suffered no visible damage to the actual house. The homeowner said that if the tree had to come down, it came down in the best place. His wife then reminded him to stop talking to all the passersby and keep raking.

Interestingly enough, a few houses down was another tree that made it through the night and through the storm. It had a large red painted dot on it. That means it is destined for cutting down. Too bad it couldn't have toppled instead of this one.

Bad Weather Makes Weakest (Chain) Link (Fence)

This tree tipped over at its base. It may be that the roots girdled the tree and tipping over was inevitable. Tree experts and city foresters will tell you that many trees have been planted wrongly. See next post for more on that.

This tree landed on a chain link fence. It did not do much good for the fence. I think there may be some damage to the house also. You can see different views of the base of the tree trunk. It would be interesting to have the city forester look at these different trees and speculate on why some trees toppled while others held their ground.

At least the two boys found that a tree is much easier to climb when it is close to the ground!

Bad Weather - Tipsy Tree

This tree tipped over at the base. I'm not sure, but it might be a Linden tree. We used to have a Linden tree. It was about this size, maybe a little bit bigger. One night, one windy night, it tipped over. Just like this one. Most likely it was root bound. For future reference, when you buy a new tree and plant it, the roots should not be confined inside a burlap root ball. They need to be stretched out or cut so that they don't eventually girdle the tree at its base.

I only did a quick Google search, but here is some information from the University of Minnesota about the correct way to plant a tree. Pay special attention to the section with Figure 3. Cutting pattern for rootbound container stock.

Later in the day on Friday, this tree had been cut back to the point that it was just a trunk with a few short branches at the top of the trunk.

Read the next post for lots more information about the storm.

Bad Weather

We were promised bad weather for Thursday night by all the weather gurus and we got it. It turns out that there was a tornado in the northwest part of town that was responsible for the worst of it. Some homes suffered a lot of damage. Roofs are gone, garages separated from houses.

Our part of town was luckier. There were downed branches and trees all over, but not the extensive damage that was caused by the tornado. On the way to work, people often had to figure out quick detours because many roads were blocked off.

I will digress here just a little bit to say, "People, the street is blocked off with barriers!" We watched about ten cars drive through on the green light and weave their way past the saw-horse barriers that had been put on a street. Large branches were easily visible and yet they drove through the barriers. In about fifteen seconds, they all had made a U-turn and were heading for a different route. "People, the street is blocked off with barriers and you can see tree limbs, huge tree limbs in the street!"

Anyway, some people had to call co-workers for rides to work because they could NOT get out of their driveway. All day long you could hear chain saws. By late afternoon, most streets in our area were cleared. Some of the trees were trimmed just enough today for traffic to get by and the rest of clean-up will be tomorrow, but I was amazed at how quickly and efficiently it all got done. Our neighbors were out in their yards doing clean-up. People down the street sawed off the parts of the tree that were blocking the sidewalk. The street cleaners were out getting the smaller twigs and leaves out of the street so that they don't clog the storm drains. Insurance claim cars were driving in the neighborhoods. It's like well-oiled machinery.

Rain Rain Go Away

Yes, I understand. We are the water planet out of the eight or nine planets in our Solar System. (Sorry Pluto.) But I am getting tired of the constant dribble and drizzle. Everyone's grass is getting so long. I worry that the beans I planted will rot and I will have to replant again and it will take that much longer before I have beans to eat.

Of course, for me, it is just an inconvenience. Luckily we have had just steady light rains for the most part. Down in Oklahoma and Arkansas they are having flooding with property damage and loss of life. So we don't really have it that bad at all. Just the natural tendency of people to complain about the weather all the time. If it's hot, we want it cooler. If it's raining, we want it drier. And if it's hot and dry, we want cool, wet weather.

This photo shows the grass next to our garage. I counted over 140 mushrooms where we usually have none. Wednesday is what I hear for an appearance by the sun.

"Gentlemen, start your lawnmowers."

Powell Gardens

I think I enjoyed the various metal sculptures and trinkets scattered throughout Powell Gardens. This reminded me of the child's game of Jacks, although these large spheres don't look anything like Jacks.

Powell Gardens

I will be posting photos and commentary from various gardens this summer. Today I will start with my first photo from Powell Gardens in Kansas City. There was a small greenhouse area attached to the main building. It was, how do you say.... very humid in there! I would imagine in winter these plants would be especially nice to see.

Check out the website for Powell Gardens. From May 29 to October 3 there will be Big Bugs at the Gardens. I do mean Big. I wish we could have seen these bugs, but we will have to be satisfied with all the normal sized bugs in our own yard.

Happy World Metrology Day

Metrology as in measuring things. Also important is Standards. It would do no good to say something is three meters long if we all used a different standard for how long a meter stick is. Our world would be pretty messed up if we didn't have standards of measurement.

Let's say you want to buy some property in Florida. You are told that it is 40 acres and will cost a pound of gold. Sadly for you, the acre that the seller is using is only the size of a cereal box. However, luckily for you, the pound you are using for gold only weighs as much as a marshmallow.

So, standards are good and insure that we can carry on all kinds of commerce, use medicine to heal us, know how long it will take to drive to Florida and back (to view your property), and more uses than you could count in an hour!

When is it Actually Spring?

Most people around here say that seeing a robin is the first sign of spring. I disagree. I have seen robins in December, drinking at our (heated) birdbath. Some of them stay for the winter, opting not to make the long flight south. It is one of the signs of spring, but not the only one.

Some also would say that when the juncos leave and fly north is a true sign of spring. And yet still today there are juncos around. Dandelions are up, at least a few of them. The grass is greener. Trees are starting to bud out. Magnolias are in bloom.

But what I used to consider the real sign of spring was a centipede in the house. We saw one just a few days ago. It was a young one, hiding unless you knew where to look. Let's just say that he went swimming and leave it at that.

The final sign of spring for me was seeing my first earwig outside. This is not a sign I relish. I do not like them as you may know if you have been reading and following closely. He was outside in the sand that moments later was swept up by the street cleaner. If I saw one, then I am quite sure there are thousands more hiding out under leaves or planters or mulch.

Earwigs are a sign of spring that I could do without.

Happy Pi Day

And yet another Pi Day comes and goes. Where are the cards from Hallmark for this occasion? Why is it not a national holiday? I guess the best we can do is to think of circles, diameters and circumferences on St. Patrick's Day and make that suffice for our celebration.

Of course I shouldn't complain. I could have baked an Appl Pi and I should have. I have no good excuse.

Everybody will just need to celebrate as best they can. Maybe next year I can send out Pi cards to all my friends and family.

Lift Bridge Cover-Up

No, that's not my clever title. I found it over at a really neat website with cool webcams and great photos. It's Duluth Harbor Cam. The Cover-Up he's referring to is the planned painting of the bridge. Not a fun time to be working on the bridge, but in the summer when the bridge is going up and down as ships arrive, well you can see how that would be even worse.

You can watch some short time-lapse videos of scaffolding and poly wrap being put up on the north tower of the bridge. It's really interesting to watch. And as I remember how I struggled trying to untangle Saran Wrap to put over a cake pan of cinnamon rolls, I am impressed how effortlessly it seems to be done. The scaffolding is being done by Scaffold Service, Inc St. Paul, MN. The painting will be done by Rainbow Painting Co.

Spend some time looking at this website, including the archives, and more info, (on right margin), and Northernimages link (at the top). It's just like being in Duluth except without the cold and the wind.

Hoar Frost

We had three nights of foggy weather and therefore three days of hoar frost. The trees were all so beautiful. I wish I could have taken photos of all the lovely landscapes I saw as we drove to Twin Cities or just shopping around town. Some of the best views were in places that it would have been too dangerous to stop and snap a photo. But here is one just to give you an idea of the friendlier side of winter.

Happy Palindrome Day

01.02.2010

The Strib had a short, short article noting that today is a palindrome. So everyone go out and celebrate.

Oh, and also... Happy New Year!