RAINING CATS AND DOGS

The cats are enjoying rich pickings in the stubble field, working hard as per their contract!

Bennie

Sparky having a yawnCats Nap in the Conservatory

In all fairness it was pouring with rain when I took the photographs, and they had both worked hard and notched up a few rodent kills.

The dogs snoozed the morning away too, but as soon as I suggested a walk in the field they perked up. I was thrilled to watch the way they enjoyed themselves, recapturing a little of their lost youth and enthusiasm for life - even Pip, who thinks that a stagger to her feeding bowl is quite enough exercise, thank you.





So, Jonny, all that worry last week when you asked me not to take Pip to the vets (to be put to sleep) before you left was unnecessary. She has perked up yet again and is still having a bit of fun now and then, so don't worry. She's fine.

Toby bounced around until I feared for his paws - he is half labrador, half whippet, and has the delicate little feet of a whippet, which get cut easily. Pip managed to get up to an impressive trot and for half a minute she was almost cantering - she is mainly terrier and has large, all-terrain paws.

It is so chilly that we lit the Rayburn at lunchtime, and now Toby is slumbering in front of it and food-motivated Pip is under the kitchen table.

PipToby

I spent some time working on clearing out my pantrybut I daren't show you the other side of it until I have cleared and tidied it! I also started a sewing project, so the day was not entirely wasted.

George is the only one to have put in a decent day's work - he has painted the architrave of the kitchen/hall door, worked in the wood and the garden and oiled the idigbo front door, which now looks spectacular.

Paseo del Bosque Recreational Trail

For today's ride, I wanted to ride the Bosque. Plans were to ride South past Central. I did not ride that section in when I was here. And, I did not want to have to climb back up from the river to my motel. So, loaded the bike on the car and drove to the parking lot near Montano and Coors.
Rode East to and over the river and headed South. I was able to ride as far as Mountain. At that point the trail was closed. Another rider cam back up the closed section and reported that is it dirt surface. htat would not have problems except that I was riding my hybrid with skinny tires.
Followed the detours though neighborhood streets, which took me to Central at the river. i figured, "Great" from here I can ride on south on the river trail. No deal. The trail was closed (pavement removed) south from Central.
So, Rode back north on the Bosque. At I-40, i noticed a bridge along the Interstate crossing the Rio Grande. Its a nice bridge. Took several photos. Maybe it will end up on a future calendar.
Back over the river to the Bosque, and rode that trail up to Alameda (where the trail ends). I forgot how far it was from Paseo del Norte to Montano. I had consumed by bottle of G2, and had some water left. Sucked on a shot blok from Alameda to the car.
A good ride - just over 21 miles. Today's photo is on the Paseo del Bosque north of Montano.

Stop thief!

Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus)
Chicken food thief!
Actually I don't begrudge the blackbirds or grackles a little chicken feed. But I have started to wonder about the possibility of melamine in the layer ration.

KeelEazy revisited: How did it hold up?

Two and a half months ago, we wrote about applying the new KeelEazy strip to one of our boats as well as to the Delphin, a plastic boat in the Geneva Kayak fleet. We found it was quicker and easier to apply than a traditional fiberglass keel strip, and we promised to report back later in the season.

Alec, pulling his boat up on a break wall.

We don't primarily paddle in a rocky or barnacle-encrusted environment, but we don't baby our boats, either. We land on sand and gravel beaches, pull out boats up on rocky break walls, and travel to places where we do a little rock gardening. That's why we are interested in having keel strips on our boats; they offer needed protection.

We can't completely account for the abuse that the Delphin endured over the past couple of months, but it was definitely paddled on the Yorkville whitewater course.

How did they hold up? The strip on Alec's composite boat has done pretty well. It peeled a little bit in the area that had to be cut out to accommodate the skeg, and it buckled a little bit on the rocker in the stern. (As we wrote in the original post, the weather was very warm--above 90 degrees; the ideal temperature for applying it is 70 degrees.) The areas where it peeled or buckled attracts small pebbles. But it has protected the keel and hasn't peeled at either end. It's gotten a little scratched and gouged, but it has held up admirably.

The area where the KeelEazy had to be cut around the skeg peeled a bit and attracted sand and pebbles.

Although the KeelEazy buckled near the stern, the wear on the strip was comparable to the wear on Sharon's fiberglass keel strip.

The small strip we put on the Delphin didn't do so well. (We had only a few extra feet, so we couldn't apply a full keel strip.)

We applied the extra length to the keel of a Delphin in the GKC rental fleet.

Two months later, the KeelEazy had peeled off at the end and was gouged all the way through. (The impact of whatever happened was strong enough to gouge the boat as well.)

We ran our observations by Chris Mitchell at KeelEazy, who suggested the following:

• If your boat has a tight radius on the stem (the portion of the keel where the boat curves up toward the deck), the strip may buckle. In that case, cut it and fold the flap over; you can use a drop of Super Glue if necessary to adhere it.


• Plastic boats will generally accept the KeelEazy well, provided they don't endure serious abuse. He's put strips on the bow and stern of whitewater boats to protect them, too.


• It's a good idea to use a solvent to clean any boat prior to installation; alcohol (which we used on our composite boat) or acetone (one plastic) work well. Mineral spirits will leave a residue.


• Because KeelEazy is a thermal plastic, avoid stretching it too much in the heat because it will seek to return to its previous shape when it cools.


• If you have trouble with a section -- as we did with the skeg area -- try cutting that section out and replacing it before you replace the entire strip.

So what do we think? If you aren't willing to spend the time to apply a fiberglass keel strip, which is a significantly messier process, the KeelEazy is a good option. It really takes only 15 minutes and no special tools. In the two-and-a-half months we tested it, it proved as durable as a traditional keel strip. Either can be damaged, of course. A traditional keel strip can then be repaired; the KeelEazycan be removed and replaced.

Tim Keller Writes on Counterfeit Gods

The human heart’s desire for a particular valuable object (human affirmation) may be conquered, but its need to have some such object is unconquerable. How can we break our heart’s fixation on doing “some great thing” in order to heal ourselves of our sense of inadequacy, in order to give our lives meaning? Only when we see what Jesus, our great Suffering Servant, has done for us will we finally understand why God’s salvation does not require us to do “some great thing.” We don’t have to do it, because Jesus has.

Maple Zoom

One more abstract image showing a slow shutter speed combined with zooming the camera lens while recording the exposure. I have experimented with this in the past, but hadn't done any shots like this in quite a while. Then I noticed my friend Shawn Thompson (http://shawnthompsonphotography.com) post this type of shot on his facebook page, which inspired me to go out and try it again. I found a nice patch of red leaves to experiment with and after several attempts I finally got an image that I like.

SNAIL OR CORKSCREW?

This floral combination on the metal arch is really pleasing me right now, although it sure is not what I’d planned. Earlier in spring, the Lady Banks yellow rose threw her yellow-blooming canes onto the arch from the left side. Now the native coral honeysuckle and what’s probably a Snail vine are growing up from the right side. In March, I was delighted to find the vine, supposed to be annual here, as inexpensive little plants from the Travis County Master Gardeners’ booth at Zilkerfest/Florarama, labeled as Vigna caracalla.
Before the fest, I’d been mining garden sites for information on Corkscrew and/or Snail vine, and found many heated and conflicting opinions. Some insist that Phaseolous caracalla refers only to Snail Vine, a related but separate genus, producing lavender, scentless blooms. They say that Vigna caracalla is the scented plant that is seen at Monticello. Other online experts were just as positive that Phaseolous was an outdated name, that the species was moved into Vigna, and that the scent and color were a result of selection, with both the fragrant and non-scented versions sharing the same name.
Naturally, I was hoping that mine would turn out to be the fragrant white one with blushes of yellow & purple, and thought it would look wonderful with the honeysuckle.
Just as naturally, both of mine turned out to be the lavender one with no fragrance. And the ants adore it. Although this snail vine may not have the scent and color of the corkscrew vine, growing it on the arch lets me see its intricate shape at eyelevel.

Afternoon Shadows, Badlands National Park

Here is one more shot from the Badlands. Taken on the same trip as the last two night shots I posted, this one was taken in late afternoon near Sheep Mountain. The long shadows really intrigued me on this formation and I had to work the scene quite a bit to get just the right composition that I was looking for. I love the fact that there are animal tracks leading into the scene from the lower left :-)

Skywatch - St Andrews Beach

If you can't go skiing, you might as well go to the beach - one of the advantages of living on our small island. When my husband and his friend were thwarted in their attempt to reach the ski slopes last Saturday, they set off on a mystery tour and ended up in St Andrews, on the east coast. If you head straight out across the sea in the direction of the moon you'll fetch up at the northern tip of Denmark.
I'm getting my family well trained. My husband saw these clouds and thought of me.
See other Skywatch photos at the Skywatch Friday site.

Dusty

I'm still getting used to the new camera. There are a lot of buttons.

And the print in the owner's manual is very small.

Last night when I was trying to take a picture of the peppers Hubby had strung up, the camera refused to operate, and kept flashing an odd symbol at me.
About the time I started suspecting that the symbol meant, "You're an idiot," I realized that it was actually telling me, "You took the memory card out of the camera and forgot to put it back." Which I suppose amounts to the same thing, really.
So, which picture of Dusty looks best on your computer? Or can you tell a difference? Does it matter? The first one is straight out of the camera and the other two are lightened a bit.

Home, Heart, and Holidays

Not that she didn't enjoy the holidays: but she always felt-and it was, perhaps, the measure of her peculiar happiness-a little relieved when they were over. Her normal life pleased her so well that she was half afraid to step out of its frame in case one day she should find herself unable to get back. The spell might break, the atmosphere be impossible to recapture. Mrs. Miniver by Jan Struther

In the beginning

I can't even remember the last time I was able to shoot a sunset... I've been missing sunsets lately because my work schedule has me working during the "magic hour" when the light does wonderous things. SO, here is a sunset image from late October, 2007. I like to call this image "In the beginning" because when I viewed it for the first time on the computer screen it had the feel of being prehistoric... harking back to the days of single-cell life forms... kind of a "dawn of creation" feel, if you will. I don't know if it's the color of the sky, or the rocks on the shoreline, or a combination of the two, but that's what I think of when I view the image.

In The Garden

Some fall photos in my overgrown garden. The morning glory took over the iron table and the hanging flower bucket, but I like it that way!

Basement flair

The New Town of Edinburgh is new in relative Scottish terms. Built between 1765 and 1850, it's an area of gracious neo-classical streets and squares, of townhouses and spacious flats. Very desirable.
When I'm walking through this area I like to look down, into the basement area below pavement level. This is a UNESCO World Heritage site, but it's very much lived-in. I love the juxtaposition of high end property and basic Scottish thrift, above. Why use a tumble dryer when you can put up a clothes line?
And gardening? Just use a basket.

We have several of these wicker hampers kicking around at home. One is in the loft, one in the garage, one at the allotment. I think I should liberate them from their dull storage duties. I'd draw the line at leaving my guitar outside as decor, however.