Gathering place

Seen during a recent walk at an area park.  In one narrow grassy passageway between unmown areas, there's a groundhog, a rabbit, and closest to the camera, a squirrel.

 

Time for catching up

A cosmos and a pollinator in our back yard annual garden, taken about noon on the 11th.  More images to come; this has been a busy month.  The sedum in the front yard has had all kinds of pollinators, and it's also the season for coreopsis and asters, which you'll see in good time.

Spotted earlier today

At the hospital this afternoon for my wife's follow-up visit with a specialist.  We got there early enough that there was time to roam around the floor.  

I found that we were in the right place to use the glass-enclosed bridge over the road.  The bridge connects to another building on the hospital grounds, and contains several small tables that go along with a mini snack bar.

The view was good from the bridge, and at one point a spotted lanternfly landed on the outside of the glass.  I decided to take the picture because I remember how we were informed they were invasive and had no predators.  We were called upon to smash every one of the insects, which I resisted.  

This one being on the outside meant it was safe from humans, if not necessarily from predators, since as it turns out there are some.  Nature!  There's just no stopping it.

Reasons to be cheerful

Seen just before the end of a 20-minute walk around the neighborhood.  Thankful I can do it without any physical difficulty.  Other guys I know haven't been as fortunate.  

"I owe it all to clean living and a Happy Heart."

Seen any good cats lately?

 Here are a couple of them.  From left:  Harris and Troy, two of the Heated Rivalry kittens who currently live at Tabby's Place.

Afternoon Glory

Hedge bindweed, seen last Saturday afternoon while I was putting waiting time to good use, walking around an out-of-town park.    

 

At last

In spring this year, I scattered seeds from a packet labeled Wildflowers that I'd bought at Walmart.  The cornflowers were numerous, and other styles and colors showed up as weeks went on, but not until today did this orange flower make an appearance.  If Google's AI is to be believed, it's Calendula, or the pot marigold.  Two tiny insects found it just the thing.

Getting off the ball

From a video seen on Xitter.  Rory McIlroy helps remove an insect from his golf ball during last week's PGA Tour playoff.  That's two in two weeks.  

On the ball

In 2022, the sports photo of the year award went to this image of Naomi Osaka as she moved a butterfly to safety.  

This past Sunday, another butterfly achieved 15 seconds of fame during the St Jude golf tournament in Memphis.  Sam Burns's birdie putt rolled by the hole and, just as the ball stopped, a rider hopped on.  CBS didn't replay it, so I recorded it off the screen the old-fashioned way.  

A distant encounter

Taken at the edge of a nearby park where I've seen deer before.  The digital-zoom grain in the image shows I wasn't very close to them, but seconds later, they disappeared into the trees.

Field report

 From my walking app:  "1.22 mi walk / Thursday, August 6 at 9:51 a.m.

"Getting out in the morning instead of evening due to coming heat and humidity.  Three rabbits, two goldfinches, several barn swallows, and a few chicory flowers along the road in the nearby park. Possibly a killdeer cry from a stony area in the park.

"A house along the way has a for-sale sign in its front yard.  The yard also has little yellow flowers all over it.  I'm a fan of wildflowers, so I like the way it looks.  It's unique in the development.  I do wonder, considering the elevated price tag, how a potential buyer might view a house with a front yard full of what they consider to be weeds.  Considered taking a picture, but decided that standing in front of someone's house taking pictures might be seen as suspicious, even if it is for sale.

"A couple of houses down, a butterfly bush more than a foot tall has sprouted from a crack along the curb.  Pretty purple flowers, though."

Looking back

I knew it had been awhile, but nothing since mid-July?  And I've been taking pictures all along, I just haven't felt they were stuff I wanted to share right away.  Here's one from this past Sunday afternoon, so see if you don't agree.  It's something I wanted to have a memory of seeing, but not something I thought would be a post I couldn't wait to make.  

I'll go through the other snapshots and put up two or three of them. 

 "I don't fill every minute of every day with purpose and joy, but I do all right." - On retirement, July 2026.

In the back yard this afternoon

A new volunteer

Here's a recent addition to our back yard.  Google Lens says this is Moth Mullein (Verbascum blattaria), an introduced biennial weed.  The Missoula County Department of Ecology and Extension has it on their Noxious Weed Watch List, which doesn't surprise me in the least. 

The same, only different

It's another recent blossom of the same kind of flower shown in the previous post, except this time the image was taken late in the afternoon, and with a camera instead of a phone.  Definite improvement.

Another newcomer, and another

 

In early spring this year, I picked up a packet of flower seeds and planted them in our back yard.  Most of the flowers that have come up are cornflower, although a few other types have shown up as well.  This one just appeared yesterday, and the name Google identified it by is listed on the seed packet.

Much the same with this one, which I photographed on Monday.  Google says it's Clarkia amoena, and Clarkia amoena appears on the seed packet.  Maybe more of them will appear later, but for now we've only seen one of each.

Keeping busy

"Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death."  -- Roger Waters

"Can't we talk about something more pleasant?"  -- Roz Chast

"It was a good day." -- Ice Cube

In fact, it was a good day.  Fair and comfortable, with cumulus clouds across a bright blue sky.  PG and I drove a little, walked a little, enjoyed two good meals together.  I learned some things, accomplished others, made dessert (vanilla pudding from scratch), and practiced a piece until I could get through the first third without error at 75% speed.  

Oh, and this.  I was driving on a side street when I spotted a cottontail rabbit in a yard to my right.  The rabbit began moving in the same direction I was driving, and I momentarily lost sight of it behind a parked car.  

Just in case, I slowed down, and a second later, the rabbit hopped across the road in front of me.  It was barely visible in front of the car hood, and if I'd been going faster, the close call might have been too close.  Didn't anyone ever tell it about hrududil? 

Out in the country

Yesterday, Pat and I drove west just to get out of the house and stop scrolling.  In a few minutes, we were in rural farmland, and she enjoyed the scenery.  

At one point, we approached a traffic circle I hadn't used before, and I took the time to make sure I knew where traffic was coming from, how much of it there was, and that I would be safe getting into the circle.  A split-second before I applied the gas pedal again, the car behind me honked impatiently.  I'd expect that in the city at a red light, but at a traffic circle way out in the country?  What is it with these people? 

At the former Farmer Brown's Market out past Kutztown, I stopped at a Dollar General and got some snacks.  The parking lot was across from a working dairy farm where Pat and I once saw a newborn calf in a field.  I remember there were two adult cows, and they stared at us with a look that seemed to say "This doesn't concern you.  Keep moving."  

Before leaving the lot, I didn't bother consulting the map app before turning onto a road I hadn't traveled before.  It was headed north, so I knew at some point it was going to run into I-78, so no worries.

Shortly before reaching the interstate, I saw a sign for a covered bridge, and pulled off the road to get a snapshot of the Dreibelbis Station Bridge.  Hadn't heard of it, so a nice surprise for both of us.

Something to remember

Several years ago at age 65, and faced with the results of blood tests that indicated how close I was to being a full-on diabetic, I got serious about losing weight.  

The physician's assistant who gave me the warning I didn't need -- my parents and both older sisters had been obese and had developed adult-onset diabetes, so I knew -- told me I could do something to improve my test scores, but, she tossed off, I'd have to lose 10 percent of my body weight.  I believe "tossed off" describes it; it wasn't as though she said it with hope in her voice or that she sounded at all optimistic that I could do it.  Kind of an unspoken "...as though you could do that."

Maybe it was reverse psychology on her part, but if it was, it worked.  I'm sure I would have done it anyway, but her spoken skepticism was just that much more incentive.  "I'll show you" has led to good outcomes.  

No medication was necessary.  I just did what it takes, the simple "eat less, exercise more" that is harder than it sounds, because that phrase leaves out "no sweets, no fats" and other fun stuff that had inflated me to 253 pounds.

Back then, I could have told you how long it took, but I've forgotten that part.   But at my next annual Medicare appointment a year later, I weighed in at 228.  A year after that, I could say to her, "I dropped 25 pounds and have kept it off."  She didn't say anything in return.

More recently, I've fluctuated, as low as 220 after a low-grade URI, and as much as 233 after high-grade stress eating.  The annual Medicare physical is two months away, and I want to go in there as close as I can get to that low number.  I've been eating less and either walking, rebounding, or both, and this morning, I weighed 228 again.  Reading the scale gave me a good feeling, and it's one that I understand I have control over going forward.

I can't believe I haven't used this before, but now I just ask myself, "Are you hungry?"  Usually, the answer is "No," which has led to two meals a day instead of three, one in the morning sometime after coming downstairs, and the other in mid-afternoon, between the traditional lunch and supper times. 

There's a heat advisory in place for the area, so elderly folk like me shouldn't go for the usual evening walk.  Before the temperature reached the 90's, I did some gardening and dug up some stuff for replanting elsewhere, which was sufficient physical activity for the day.

Putting my time to good use

My wife and I were about to leave the house for a ride this afternoon.  I went outside into warm sunshine, and while I waited for her I looked at the bush just outside the garage door.  This insect flew into the picture and landed on a leaf, and I snapped four or five quick shots before it left.