The Texas Firebush

 

 

It grows this big.

 

I give it a good whack back each year so it can have a fresh start each spring.  I thought I’d give it a break this year and only cut it back to waist high.

 

It didn’t appreciate the consideration.  It only wants to grow back right from the ground.

 

I had to get out the loppers and remove more dead stuff.  Now it won’t take long for the rest of the old stalks to disappear inside the new growth.

 

The Esperanza is looking happy with these warm days and cool nights.

 

Even Mighty Mouse is going for it.

 

But he still needs a tomato tower around him to make sure no lawn mowers accidentally mistake him for a weed.

 

A disagreeable point of view

 

 

A law school student in Florida wrote a paper espousing an unpopular belief; that our original constitution, when it said “We the people…”, only meant white people.  From there, the paper went on to describe how everything should be now, based on that interpretation.  Apparently, the paper won an award, not because it was right, but because it was well written.  There is outrage that a paper with that premise could win an award, even if it got a good grade.  An interesting debate: Should a person be recognized for writing something disagreeable if they do a good job writing it?  So many threads to pull on there.

 

 

Darn that Mazda

 

 

 

All these years, and it still won’t break so we can replace it.  Well, after 13 years we finally gave up and traded it in for a newer used car.

 

We found what we wanted on Carvana, and they offered us a fair trade on the Mazda, so we took it.

 

A 2023 Model 3.

 

It looks good in our driveway.

 

Clay-colored thrush

 

 

 

Same size and shape as an American robin.

 

Only different in the color.  And the range.  American Robins are ubiquitous in the U.S. and Canada, only occasionally visiting here in the Valley in the winter.  Here though, and in Mexico and Central America, the Clay-colored Thrush is a year-round resident.

 

Long-billed Thrasher

 

 

 

 

 

He’s a mimic, like a mockingbird.  We get serenaded with elaborate treetop songs.

 

White Ibis

 

 

With a couple brown immatures.

 

 

And a whole mess of other birds.

 

Snowy egrets, white ibis, white-faced ibis, some northern shovelers and mottled ducks in the background.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s that time again

 

 

For the biannual annoyance.  Daylight Saving Time.

 

Time doesn’t change, we do.  We can’t spring time forward, we can only move our clocks to something that doesn’t represent what time it really is.  If the justification is to get people to work earlier, or kids to school earlier, just tell them to be there at seven instead of eight.

 

For the argument that it is necessary to continue the clock switch because interstate commerce requires it, Arizona and the adjacent states didn’t collapse when Arizona opted out of Daylight Saving Time in 1968.