Freddy

 

 

Turns out Freddy is a warm weather frog friend.  As the summer heat let up, he came home less.  Now we only see him once in a while.  The fountain is still full of water, but it looks kind of empty.

 

Wings

 

 

WingStop can deep fry up a batch of wings for you in 18 minutes.  My grilling method takes 2 ½ hours.  After prep (open air drying in the fridge to dry out the skin, then salt, pepper, and a spray of olive oil.  Chop in some green onions and jalapeno if you like.), the drummies go on the top rack of the grill

 

… and slow cook for tenderness with only one burner on low, lid closed, at about 250 degrees, for 2 hours.

 

Then, directly on the grill with all three burners on high to finish, stirring them around for about 15 minutes, until they look like this.

 

Tender and juicy; serve them up with anything, as long as there is ranch dressing with a squirt of Frank’s for dipping.

 

 

Betcha can’t eat just one!

 

Humidity

 

 

Here is what the local Channel 5 weatherman, Tim Smith, thinks about yesterday’s humidity.

He calls it the “Muggy Meter”.

 

Funny, but we don’t mind the humidity at all.  Today, cooler and dryer though.  Doors and windows open.  A no-air-conditioning day.  Haven’t been able to do that lately.

 

Early voting yesterday.  No crowds.  Easy parking.  Walk right up and walk in.  Exchange pleasantries with the folks managing the process.  Punch a few buttons.  Painless.  Satisfying.  Got our “We Voted” sticker.

 

A little on the humid side this morning

 

 

95%.

 

A butterfly picture Christie took while she was here.  Yellow on yellow.

 

And this one.

 

Got a notice from University of Colorado.  I graduated from college 50 years ago this year.

 

A clapper rail on the move

 

 

 

Moving away.  A secretive bird.  Spotted out in the open, headed back to cover.

 

A sneaky green heron

 

 

 

 

 

Ambush predator.

 

 

All good things

 

 

 

We had to let them go.

 

Before we did though, we took them for a walk in a local park: Frontera Audubon.

 

 

 

 

A week without Freddy!

 

 

The heat went away and so did Freddy.  Haven’t seen him.  Until this morning.  The days are warming back up and Freddy is back to chilling in his puddle.  Good morning, Freddy!

 

Tonight, he’s out on his lily pad.

 

Time for some nocturnal bug hunting soon.

 

Black-bellied Whistling Ducks

 

 

 

Doing what they do.

 

Looking confused.

 

I though this shot was kind of cool.  The duck came flying in from the right of the frame and plunked down in the water.  (He’s not floating, by the way, he’s standing.)  When he hit the water, he made a momentary mini meteor crater.

 

People don’t like the way they look in photographs

 

 

…because what they’re used to seeing in a mirror is reversed, and real life is not.

 

I never liked the way my singing voice sounded on playback.  Maybe that’s because the only way I ever heard my voice was from inside my own head, not the way it really sounds to everybody else!

 

 

More happy smiling faces

 

 

 

Christie and Andy came to visit!

 

Happy faces

 

 

 

A quick trip to the groomer for a brush-out and trim.

 

A cold, misty, rainy, blustery day

 

 

64 degrees outside when we got up this morning with the temperature sliding down to 54 during the day.  Poor Freddy.  He’s home, but it’s so cold for him he doesn’t even want to be in his puddle.  He’s tucked into the lee side of his fountain for protection from the wind.

 

 

A little warmer tomorrow, and back in the 80s by Thursday.

 

Today in physics

 

I disproved the toaster corollary to the “watched pot” rule!

The missing ingredient

 

 

I think we’ve found the problem with the Bronco’s offense.  Inadequate fan support.  We have the Bronco Blanket on the back of the couch.  There is dreaded Bronco Poncho wearing during the game.  But, still, something is lacking.  We’ve figured out the missing ingredient.  Jesse volunteered to wear a John Elway jersey!

 

I think this is going to do the trick.  Look for the Broncos to score a quick 40 points against the Chargers on Monday night, then coast through the second half.

 

Go Broncos!

 

There is a butterfly in this photo

 

 

 

Can you find it?

 

A little yellow thing.

 

 

And who doesn’t love a butterfly named Giant Swallowtail, Zebra Longwing, Peacock Pansy, Emerald Swallowtail, or Blue Clipper.  Well, this is not one of those.  This one is called, get ready for it, Southern Dogface.  It’s nice.  It’s a butterfly, but Southern Dogface, that’s a tough label to overcome.

 

Giant Swallowtail

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just in case you were wondering

 

 

Freddy is fine and happy in his puddle.  He leaves every evening and comes home every morning, except when he doesn’t.  But most days we get to say good morning to him.

 

Good morning, Freddy!

 

I’m still wondering

 

What was it that she and Billie Joe was throwing off the Tallahatchie Bridge?

A quiet day in the yard

 

 

 

Except for the Great Kiskadees.

 

They’re never quiet!

 

 

Investment returns

 

 

Let’s say we have $1,000 invested in the stock market.  The price goes down 50%.  Bummer.  A day later, the price goes back up 50%.  Cool.  We just made our money back.  Right?

 

Nope.  It’s all about the base.  In dollar amounts, we lost $500 by losing 50% of $1,000 on the way down.  But on the way back up, we only got back $250 by gaining 50% of the $500 base the price had fallen to.

 

Over the long term, the stock market has always trended up, in spite of its short-term fluctuations.  When the market is on the way back up after a loss though, we need to see much better percentage gains than the losses we saw on the way down for us to get back even to where we were before.

 

We are going to get back even to where we were before, right?

 

 

Fun fact

 

 

It’s not uncommon for people to not like the way they look in photographs.  They’re fine with how everyone else looks, but they’re just not happy with their own appearance, even when everyone else tells them they look good.

 

Turns out there is a solid reason for this.  How we see other people is not the same as how we see ourselves.  People are not symmetrical.  One side of a face looks different from the other.  We see everybody else as they actually are.  We only see ourselves when we’re looking in a mirror.  We think we look like the mirror image of ourselves and when we see the true picture, it doesn’t resonate.  Amazing but true!

 

Listening devices

 

 

We’ve tried turning the television volume up to “way too loud”, and bought sound bars enhanced for dialog.  It can still be hard to follow all the speech on television though, ranging from “doesn’t matter” like football games, to “impossible” for British programs.  I’m okay with normal programs, but it’s a little harder for Judy.  We have a couple wireless Bose headsets that help a lot, but still not quite enough for Judy when characters are speaking in British.

 

Judy’s latest hearing aids however, have a cool feature.  They can be set to Bluetooth the television sound right into the hearing aids.  That works!  Clear and understandable.  The only drawback is that if the sound is beaming right into Judy’s head, and still audible from the television, there is a slight lag which makes the sound unintelligible for her again.  If she is watching television by herself, no problem.  If I’m in the room too, I don’t hear anything.  Except, we still have the Bose headsets.  Turning down the sound in the room for the television doesn’t affect the sound in the headset, so Judy tunes the sound to her hearing aids (controlling them with an app on her smartphone), we turn off the sound in the room from the television, and I put on the headset.  Now we get to watch our new favorite British crime program, New Tricks, and understand every word. 

 

(If you were going to ask, our British discovery is a lot like the old series of “The Closer”, or “Major Crimes” solving crimes.  Nice ensemble.  A collection of characters we always enjoy dropping in on, and bonus, it goes on for 12 seasons!)

 

 

Butterflies

 

 

A butterfly kind of day.

 

 

 

Queens, on milkweed.

 

I imagine

 

 

I imagine that someday I’ll repeat that backpacking trip brother Bill and I did all those years ago.  The second day in, we rounded a corner and unexpectedly came upon The Eagle, a feature in the Indian Peaks Wilderness that I had never heard of and wasn’t expecting.  It took my breath away.  We camped on the edge of a high-country lake at the foot of The Eagle, Lone Eagle Peak, that night as the only campers there.

(Not my photo, but it captures the spirit.)

 

In the occasional moment of lucidity, I consider that carrying a backpack over steep terrain at high altitude to spend the night at a remote backcountry lake may actually be a little beyond my remaining capacity.  The trailhead is at 10,000 feet.  Pawnee Pass is 12,500.  Lone Eagle Peak is on the other side.

 

But then I think “Naah.  I could still do this!”

 

Citrus

 

 

Remember I sent out those pictures last February of a freshly planted orchard of citrus trees in bags.  Rio red grapefruit trees.

 

Those bags look like a lot of extra work, putting one on every tree to protect them from harsh heat, freezes, and probably from insects too.  They seem to be working.  These trees look like they’re developing really well.

 

But at some point isn’t enough enough?  These trees are about to burst their bags!

 

What is it going to take for the orchard owners to let them out?  A public outcry?  Do we have to demonstrate on the street (dirt road)? 

 

Free the fruit trees!