Musings of a minor megalomaniac
Not a big fan. Don’t find them amusing at all, and I’m originally from Pennsylvania! They dig big holes that can cause all sorts of problems. The long walk home with a bent motorcycle wheel was one thing. Complete destruction of an undermined garage floor was another. I did enjoy watching the dogs tear one to pieces one day, but other than that, screw Punxsutawney Phil – giant eastern woodland rats with shovels. The prairie dogs handle those chores out here.
At least 7 inches of new snow fell here by the end of the day yesterday. I managed to shovel the whole place front and back by making it into an all-afternoon affair. Twenty minutes at a time, 4 sessions starting just before noon with hour-long rest breaks in between got it done. Snow-Joe shovel with an extra handle I got a couple years ago makes it possible. The lumbar feels pretty strong on the Z axis now, but any deviation invokes increasing discomfort, pain and paralysis.
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My only question is what the FUCK was somebody doing driving down the road in Danville, PA with a hundred un-secured lab monkeys in the back of a truck? Probably our luck similar fuckwit-type stuff maybe somebody in Wuhan was getting up to a few years ago?
No, not here – it’s been disturbingly warm and dry down here at the base of the mountains. But the resorts are open and snow is piling up. Last week was good for them. Hopefully it will continue and Colorado snow will return to being a “good” thing for everybody downstream.
I was afraid the sky’s color gradient might not come though, but the Pixel™ did not disappoint. That view across the backyard last week was a bit more pronounced in reality, but the cameras are just hitting really well nowadays. Those maple trees got several sessions of radical pruning in recent years to save the blue spruce, which probably almost died from being overshadowed before I realized what happened.
The quest for latest first snow on record officially ended last week, missing the record by 1 day at Denver International. But we haven’t had enough to measure here for months. I suspect that is the story in many places around the region. It’s been one or another level of drought for decades now in various locations statewide, based on the non-cyclical weather patterns we’ve been experiencing.
I would typically be down to once-a-month watering sessions on the trees, grass and bushes around the house in prior years. You need to do that in this dry climate to avoid “winter kill,” where even hibernating plants and trees can die from dried out roots. Still on weekly watering at the end of the year. Seems to be transitioning into a year-round activity at that baseline rate. Should be interesting to see what’s still alive around here in the spring.
‘Twas mid-December and the North Pole was hopping,
As Santa was doing some holiday shopping.
But he soon found out that he couldn’t get squat;
Everything that he wanted was scalped by a bot…
It never surprises me to see the fawning adoration leveled at our mountain places by various journalists. Telluride is one I’ve never actually visited yet. Two or three times a year I’ll head up to Pinewood Springs just to buy a CO Cherry Co. pie and enjoy the ride. I’m sure I’ll make it to Telluride one of these days.
Maybe they should break it down by category. For example: best patriarch, strongest mode of oppression, scariest tenet, least believable teaching, etc…
Pundits are referring to it as a “bottle-neck” at the ports. Potential fallout from a plethora of interrelated factors driven by an uncontrolled pandemic, while significant portions of production were shipped overseas to save labor costs over the past 50 years seems unsurprising. Logistics can have alot of moving parts that don’t respond well to unexpected changes.
As hopeful idealists peer into numbers showing infections declining, the lagging long-term effects of public health stupidity are just beginning.
Summer heat still inundates the front range, but we saw first snow of the season in the high country last night.
Randall’s on a roll…
I feel ya, man.
Beginning with that lower BBQ portion of the patio to show the re-work after ants completely undermined it. That was part 3 of 3, basically re-laying the whole thing from the deck, along the garage down to the BBQ. I managed to get one piece done each of the past three years, on a job that would have taken 3 days before malpractice crippled me, January 2019. This time around I mixed generous quantities of two different types of insect poison in the ground underneath. It appears to be a good solution, with very minimal ant activity noted since completing the top portion two years ago.
Water Lettuce covering the pond surface has a twofold purpose. The fish get something to nibble on and more importantly, it keeps the water temperature 5-10° cooler than it would otherwise be under direct sunlight. The past couple years I noticed the water getting too warm, even under shade from the trees and garage over half the day.
The big floating planter in the middle is also a functional piece, helping keep the Herons and Raccoons at bay. Between that and the lettuce, fish have a fighting chance to evade the predators. This was the first year we haven’t lost any to the hungry wildlife. I waited for the Blue Herons to finish their migration this spring before putting the fish out, so that obviously helped, but the coons are a constant threat. I ran off a herd of them not long after dark just a couple weeks ago. The three biggest ones from a family of probably ten or so was stalking around the edge of the pond trying to figure out how to get the goldfish when I walked out one night.
I might end up running all three basement tanks this winter to house the goldfish. There’s at least forty of them now, with a handful approaching a foot long. I’ll call around to the pet stores looking for adoptive homes before then, but not optimistic. Goldfish are fairly common, so interest in taking them off my hands will probably be low. Maybe I’ll start stocking the creek…
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…prices too. Starting to look like cashing in on the non-existent seaside wet-sand real estate around Miami back in the 80’s and 90’s might not have been such a good idea.
They knew it was bad years ago. If anybody running that management company does not end up in jail it will be another total travesty.
Late Update 27 AUG 21: “The white color just stuns me,” Aghayere told the newspaper. He added that instead of seeing aggregate material mixed into the concrete, “it’s just homogenous,” which is likely indication of saltwater damage.