brainstorming

Deafening Silence

I was up at 6:30.  Convinced the Girl to take Fudge Stripes for the game they were playing in class, which got me out of having to leave the house to get a bag of candy.  Yeah!  Fudge Stripes for everyone!  I do not regret buying those 5 packages when they were on sale at Cub, even if they are temptation personified.

After watching the buses leave with my precious cargo aboard, I settled down on the couch with the morning news, eventually closing my eyes.  (I was just resting them. Uh-huh.) 

Within five minutes I was awakened by a deafening silence.

My closest neighbor is a couple acres away, and as you can imagine, we have little traffic.  (Two cars!  In a row!  I wonder what's going on?)

Yet, our digital lifestyle apparently generates a lot of background hum.  Because when the power goes out, the absence of noise is really loud.  It can wake a person right up......from resting their eyes, of course.

It's not all that unusual to have a blip.  But when the blip goes 10 minutes, I make the obligatory call to the power providers, the men of the red trucks, feeling all the while that surely every neighbor has already called, and of course they already know there's a problem.  Hmmm.  They're working on the lines, but any outage should only have been a minute or so.

A call from the office.  Yes.  Silence here too.  Have called the men in red trucks.

Within about 40 minutes, a red truck appears, first at the neighbors, then finds its way up our drive.  Ahhh.  The problem is quickly discovered.  Fried squirrel.

The squirrel left with the red truck or I would have taken a picture for your viewing pleasure.  The driver said something about dinner.  Pre-cooked!

Last week was Must Accomplish Everything Week.  This week is Decompression Week.  Though we will be at the Hewitt Beinart debate tomorrow, Thursday.  Decompression has left me particularly lazy, obviously consuming more blogginess than I have cared to produce.  There's a ton of cool stuff to read about out there.  Have you noticed I'm not much of a blogger?  Oh well.  It doesn't keep me awake nights.

Just now I was accused of Breaking the Truck, which falls into the category of High Crimes and Misdemeanors.  I must go now to Deny! Deny! Deny!

Update Feb. 9:  Corrected day of Hewitt - Beinart debate.

Night Critters and Driving

I'd worked about 40 hours straight on a project. (Yes. I do this. I know. It's weird. Just take comfort in the thought you didn't marry me, ok?) Teetering on the edge of hallucinations I decided I better wrap it up and head home at about 3:30 AM last night.......then remembered we were out of smokes. No way I'm getting up in the morning to no smokes. (Still planning to quit though. It's coming. Smoking = bad!)

So I head to the garage instead of the house. Jump in the van and I'm off to the nearest town with an all night gas station, (in fact the only town with an all night gas station within 30 miles.)

Now I was teetering on the edge of hallucinations. You know, when you start seeing stuff move out of the corner of your eye then swivel your head and nothing is moving? This doesn't happen to you? Guess it's just me.

But none of the following were hallucinations. Promise.

About 2 miles from home I spot fair sized road kill on the center line. I don't quite catch what it is because simultaneously on my right I spot a deer running in the ditch next to the car. Luckily she keeps her head, (legs and guts), and stays in the ditch.

I make the eight miles to the gas station with only one more roadside deer companion. We're doing great!

Write the check and realize it's one of my best friend's birthday today. (I actually remembered to call her tonight. Yeah!)

Headed home, I point the car out of the lot and the lights hit Street Kitty, who startles then scampers off.

About halfway home I see something black and moving just as it disappears under my van. Hit brakes! Keep going. Your brain takes a minute to register that brakes would be useless, so you just get that reflex tap on the brakes before you move on. I'm happy to report there was no tell-tale bump to indicate I had hit Black and Moving object.

What is that smell? Oh man, Black and Moving was apparently a skunk with its own reflex reaction to having a moving object pass over it's head at 60 miles per hour.

The scent lingers with me most of the way home. I wonder if Black and Moving managed to spray the bottom of the van.

Turn towards the house and the headlights illuminate the center line roadkill. Ahhh. Now I see. One less porcupine in the woods today. Meanwhile the right ditch deer is now a left ditch deer and has resolved herself that I don't plan to aim the vehicle for her presonally. We both handle encounter two of the last half hour with calmer nerves and a little more class as a result.

I made it home but left the van in the driveway in case Black and Moving did actually spray the vehicle. That's one garage air freshener I can do without.

Won't be bloggin much tommorrow. See you when I see you!

Beware the night critters.

Bear Sightings - the Evidence

Here is a picture of the bear in my mother in law's back yard last summer. I'd say he's about 20 feet from her back door, (which she is standing at in order to get the shot.) You can see the bird feeder that probably drew him in.

Her cat also recently brought home a friend. Said friend had a nice shiny black coat with a white stripe down the back. He reportedly wanted to share from kitty's dish. Oh my!

Bear Sightings

There's evidence of quite a few black bears in our neck of the woods. We've had bird feeders taken out. My mother in law had one visiting her back yard last summer and was more concerned about getting the pictures than her safety. (Rumor has it that when our Minnesota neighbors have a problem bear, they trap it and drop it off on our side of the bridge. It should be noted that we have no evidence this is true.) However, I hadn't sighted many personally, until the last couple weeks.

A few weeks ago, I was in town at a friends and stepped out onto their front steps to indulge the nicotene habit. It was probably 10 pm. Next to their driveway, about 30 feet from where I stood, they have a line of trees. Suddenly, I heard what sounded like large branches snapping and thought to myself, "If that's a dog, it must be big!"

Out of the tree line and onto the street stepped Momma bear, with three cubs in tow behind her. They trotted off across the street into the woods. When I reported the sighting to my hosts they mentioned their garbage cans had been scavenged recently. I think we discovered the culprits.

Today, the Girl and I were driving to town when another black bear crossed the road in front of us.

Unfortunately, I've gotten out of the habit of carrying the camera with me. Drat!

Duck, Duck, Goose!

These were taken a few weeks ago while trying the new camera. Not to be confused with city geese, these are small town geese. (Click for larger image.)

As you can see, these guys had plenty of company.

DC

More Herons

I'm liking the new camera.

DC

Fly Away Home!

Yes, October is the time to share scary stories dear reader. This one reeks of deception and an attempt at world domination. Be afraid! Be very afraid!

I know that you see this...........

....and you have visions of warm summer days, gardens sporting freshly turned soil, running through fields in the innocence of your youth.

But, I warn you now, it is the core of their evil plot. This is an imposter!!

This is not the gentle ladybug of your youth. It is the swarming, insiduous Multicolored Asian Lady Beetle.

This "ladybug" bites.

This "ladybug" stinks when you smash it.

This "ladybug" wants to move into your house, bringing thousands of its relatives along for the ride.

This "ladybug" swarms around your doors on warm sunny days and attaches itself to your body. Crawling in your hair, on your back, where ever they can cop a ride.

Even more alarming, (cue black helicopters), I have evidence that the U.S. government, was complicit in aiding these pests in their plot to take over our fair nation. Read for yourself:

"The U.S. Department of Agriculture made several releases of the multicolored Asian Lady beetle throughout the eastern United States in an attempt to introduce the beetle into North America as a potential biological control agent."

Biological warfare! (And you thought I was overreacting.)

It's time to bring their misdeeds into the light. They may think their evil plans for world domination have gone unnoticed, but I am here to scream it from the rooftops, (or from the weblog.)

They may climb the walls of my home. They may swarm the UPS driver, in an effort to disrupt commerce. They may try to find and crawl over my toothbrush, but I have not yet begun to fight!

Ladybug! Kill! Kill!

I have taught the battle cry to the younger generation.

Ladybug! Kill! Kill!

We will not tire!

We will not falter!

We will not fail!

DC

Morning Visitors

We had some early morning visitors last week. This doe showed up with a pal to munch on the lawn for a bit. She was nice enough to let me get outside on the front porch to snap this shot, until someone made a noise inside the house.

And Jack Frost stopped by to warn us he was planning a power grab in the near future.

(Click to enlarge.)

DC

Presto: Instant Photographer

OK. I have to explain something. I am not the picture person in the family. Nosirreee Bob. I'm not the one that you trust with the family photos. Never shown any talent for it. Have never been one to carry a camera. I generally walk around oblivious to my surroundings. Trust me on this. "Walking around with your head in the clouds" is a phrase I heard at least once a week growing up.

But, I have taken the majority of the pictures on this blog, (I think all of them with the exception of these birds.), including three now, count them, three, sunsets. (Click photos for larger images.)

(BTW. Are there any birders out there who can identify this heron type bird for my curiosities sake?)

So what is up with stuff like this?

There are two things to which I attribute these strange goings on. You'll be relieved, I know, to hear that neither has anything to do with Karl Rove.

First, the digital camera. Let's face it. I'm not patient or organized enough to handle film that requires developing. Then, if you get it developed, you have to get a disk and mess around with that. But, with the digital camera you slip out the memory card, plug it into the cable already attached to the back of my system, and Presto: Instant Photographer.

Second, when I started to blog, I grabbed the digital and dropped it into my purse, (OK some might call it luggage, but that's another conversation altogether), just in case I were to pass by something interesting while out and about, (well at least something I found interesting anyway.) I'm thinking it's probably making me take a closer look at my surroundings.

Exhibit B. Nature Girl is not a name that anyone would ever consider suitable to describe me. You have my solemn word on that.

I'm also compelled to explain the sunset thing. I could probably count on one hand the number of sunsets I've noticed in the last year. So how do I now have pictures of three of them in less than a month? You have The Girl and The Boy to thank for that, I'm afraid. All three were taken when I was in transit from point A to point B, C,D,E, etc. while transporting them to and from various activities.

By the way, none of the photos are retouched in any way. (Maybe that was already obvious....lol.) The sky was literally pink all the way to the horizon this night, for all of about 2 minutes, when I happened to be on the road into town.

The Family is starting to get used to me suddenly pulling over to the side of the road while simultaneously digging through my purse to grab the camera. Whether anyone else is enjoying the shots or not, I'm thinking it's an OK thing for me to notice what's going on past my windshield occasionally.

DC

Outside my window

Just thought I'd share the sunset with you, taken in my back yard a few minutes ago. (You know the drill. Click the picture for larger image.)

Two sunsets. No sunrises. Has anyone picked up on the idea that I'm not a morning person yet?

DC