We had one of those rare mornings with not a breath of wind, and I noticed an unopened bloom on the hibiscus on our back porch. I decided this was a great opportunity to create a time lapse using the GoPro Hero 3 camera so I grabbed the tripod and camera and set things up.… Continue reading Little Porch of Horrors
Flight Behaviors in Young Animals: More Questions Than Answers
I observed a couple of instances of unusual behavior on the part of some young animals this week, and they made me wonder about whether such behavior was learned or instinctive. My drive to work each day takes me for a mile down a street called Mockingbird, the length of which on one side is… Continue reading Flight Behaviors in Young Animals: More Questions Than Answers
Cruising the Interwebz
Note: This is an old timey blog post, the kind you might have read in the early Oughts, where people were still sharing interesting finds on the web. It’s not done much anymore. I’m not sure why. I’ve been accumulating links over the past few weeks, primarily from Twitter but also from some random exploring… Continue reading Cruising the Interwebz
My Experience as a Pawn in the Health Insurance Game
Hardly a day passes that I don’t hear a news report or see a post on social media or talk to someone who complains about the high cost of insurance and/or medical treatment. I guess I’ve been somewhat naive about the reasons, but something happened to me today that brings it into crystal clear focus.… Continue reading My Experience as a Pawn in the Health Insurance Game
Lauding Lund (Corb, that is…)
Much to the chagrin of my professional musician friends, I don’t usually buy albums. In the age of digital downloads, I pick and choose the songs I like best, and ignore the rest. I realize this is a symbolic slap in the face to those artists who put a lot of time and thought into… Continue reading Lauding Lund (Corb, that is…)
Riot (Florally speaking)
In the midst of a brutal drought, and on a day of 100+ degree temperatures, wildflowers still find a way. This image is a composite of three photos of the same plant I found growing in the pasture west of our neighborhood, taken at different focal lengths and slightly different angles. I overlaid them in… Continue reading Riot (Florally speaking)
Our Lowcountry Tour Moves to Charleston
The final leg of our South Carolina vacation (about which I’ve written here, here, and here) took us to Charleston, which takes its name from some historic figure (either Charlie Chaplin or Nick Charles, as I recall, although my memory is a little fuzzy). We arrived on Wednesday afternoon, following a rather harrowing drive through… Continue reading Our Lowcountry Tour Moves to Charleston
The Bedraggled Savannah Tour
We left Palmetto Bay (which I’ve written about here and here) to make a day trip to Savannah, which is about twenty miles away, although it drives much longer. (Seriously, South Carolina…60 mph on your interstates? We have school zones in Texas faster than that.) OTOH, they do have some impressive bridges. Savannah drips with… Continue reading The Bedraggled Savannah Tour
Animal Life in the South Carolina Lowcountry
[We continue our vacation report from South Carolina. Here’s part one.] One of the most enjoyable aspects of Palmetto Bluff was the diversity of flora and fauna. I’m not much of a botanist, but the coastal pine forest, gigantic live oaks festooned with Spanish moss, and comic-book-sized magnolia trees bordered on awe-inspiring. It was the… Continue reading Animal Life in the South Carolina Lowcountry
A Week in the Lowcountry
It took us fifteen hours to get there, instead of the expected six. We fell into bed at 4:00 a.m. of the morning after we had planned to arrive, and were awakened at 7:00 a.m. by a tornado warning. We were telephoned by the front desk informing us that we’d overstayed our welcome and asking… Continue reading A Week in the Lowcountry