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Post by timothylane on Jun 15, 2019 21:05:42 GMT -8
I had a very bad cold once that left my breathing so blocked up that I felt like opening my throat to let the air in, even knowing that would actually be suicidal. Thank God for Nyquil, which cleared up the symptoms sufficiently to make it possible to sleep.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 19, 2019 14:13:48 GMT -8
We are well into summer in Texas and the weather today was clear and warm to hot. In the spirit of spring and summer, I thought I would post a photo of the Dallas Arboretum, which as I recall, I took on a May day some years ago.
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Post by timothylane on Jun 19, 2019 14:27:07 GMT -8
I recall we visited some sort of botanical garden on our San Antonio trip, though not which. I notice what looks like a large body of water in the background. Is that the Trinity River, or some lake, or what?
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 19, 2019 15:00:29 GMT -8
That is White Rock Lake. I have some other photos taken from a different angle which show H.L. Hunt's old house, which was a replica of Mount Vernon. Old H.L. would go out every morning and raise Old Glory up a flag pole, while his wife played the "Star-Spangled Banner" in the background. Once the flag reached the top, H.L. would pull the lanyard on a small cannon which was next to the flag pole. Boom, went the twelve-gauge blank which fit in the back.
It was something like the firing of the noon-day gun in Hong Kong.
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Post by lynda on Jun 19, 2019 18:10:39 GMT -8
That place in the garden is, to me, the perfect sort of garden. It has the beauty and order that would cause me to want to linger, combined with a comfortable casualness where one can feel welcome to spread a blanket and relax.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 19, 2019 18:29:39 GMT -8
As you, no doubt, can see a couple of people have done just that. I have a number of photos of the Dallas Arboretum which I may download to the site. My earlier photo with the blue glass birds was also taken at the Arboretum. It is a beautiful place which used to be the home and property of Everette DeGolyer, a wealthy geophysicist and oilman from Dallas. I spent the first two years of my public education in the Everette L. DeGolyer elementary school of Dallas.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 19, 2019 19:04:15 GMT -8
What a grand story about Mr. Hunt. My father would have liked that guy. That was his sort of thing to do as well. In principle. It's not recommended to shoot a cannon in the city but he would of if he could have. My father had a huge flagpole in his front yard. I believe it was Navy surplus or something. But this was not a residential flagpole. And he would fly one big-ass flag on it.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 19, 2019 20:23:17 GMT -8
Here is a photo of Hunt's house across White Rock Lake. I think that is the flag pole at the far right side of the house. (You have to be able to enlarge the photo to just see it.)
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 21, 2019 9:38:50 GMT -8
My one large rose bush (I must add more sometime) is in full bloom. It's just going to town. I thought this little grouping of flowers was nice: [A larger image can be found here.]
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 21, 2019 10:01:42 GMT -8
Again, a very nice photo. Nature has done a good job using dark green as a background for pink roses.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 21, 2019 13:56:50 GMT -8
As you can see, the bush is rather loaded at the moment: I wonder which animal or animals the thorns of a rose are a defense against.
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Post by timothylane on Jun 21, 2019 14:04:38 GMT -8
That's all one bush? It has an impressive range of bloom colors -- white, pink, red (though those may be buds that will later lighten), and maybe even some lavender-pink mix.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 21, 2019 14:43:17 GMT -8
Nice plant. That looks like a Knock-Out rose bush. We had one in the backyard, but it finally gave up the ghost.
I saw a vineyard in northern California which had red knock roses at both ends of each row of vines. It was quite lovely to see.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 21, 2019 14:47:22 GMT -8
All one bush, Timothy. I did "cheat" and gave it a little fertilizer a few weeks ago. (That is, I probably stopped starving it and gave it some badly-needed food.) I'm certainly pleased with it. The blooms give off a very subtle scent.
There is a little variation in color aside from the fact that the closed buds tend to be redder.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 22, 2019 13:25:51 GMT -8
Since we just had a pretty strong thunderstorm pass over us, I thought I would post another photo taken at the Dallas Arboretum on a sunny day.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 25, 2019 8:53:24 GMT -8
Garden Cats
Last night I was out in the garden doing nothing much but enjoying the fact that it stays light out so late.
I have two cats that wander the garden but they won’t come any closer than about 40 feet to me. Last night one of them came within ten feet of me and seemed not to give me any mind at all. I thought this was strange. And then the other cat, although it retained a further distance, also came closer than usual.
I wasn’t sure what was happening. But then while doing some cleaning-up in the corner I saw a family of raccoons. I tried to shoo them away but they were absolutely fearless. I threw rocks at them. They didn’t flinch. I thought about getting my BB gun and giving them a little more inspiration to leave, but decided not to fuss with it.
Clearly the cats had other things on their mind and I was way down on their threat list at that moment.
I don’t believe in feeding animals to try to make them your friends. This would not be real love. It would be like socialism for animals. They’ll take the “free stuff” but one should not confuse proximity with affection. I like cats and dogs and they like me. But if a cat wants to be standoffish, that’s his or her business. I won’t try to buy his affection.
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Post by timothylane on Jun 25, 2019 10:09:13 GMT -8
I had a card once of a cat looking at the camera with an utterly trashed room (even a hassock was overturned) behind it. The caption was: "Cats are resourceful creatures. When left alone, they can always amuse themselves."
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Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 1, 2019 18:21:57 GMT -8
Gibbnonymous stopped by this afternoon and I showed her some of my pruning efforts of the plum trees. She had given me some tips earlier. I just thought she’d like know that the one small tree I showed her is now completely out.
I pruned it back severely (and she had seen the state I had left it in) hoping to kick it into a thrive-and-survive mode. But as I had showed Gibbnonymous earlier, the entire stump of the tree easily wobbled when I pushed on it. So tonight I pushed on it some more and it easily gave. I knew the whole thing would have to come out, but I figured it would be a pain in the ass trying to cut it off at the stump at ground level. (It’s embedded in a patch of ivy so digging it out would cause too much destruction.)
I cut some of the upper branches and stump off to haul them off first and make the whole thing lighter. Then basically, like Clark Kent, I lifted the entire remaining stump out of the hole. That’s how rotten it was.
The tree next to it (one of the three remaining now of the original six) also shows signs of deepening rot. I’m going to lay off pruning it any further. But perhaps (perhaps?) one of those smoke trees could go where the plum tree was. What do you think?
And thanks for the Christian tapes. (She’s trying to convert me, but I think I know to much to even be saved by J.B.’s universal salvation.) But I will give the video a view, at least the good parts.
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Post by lynda on Aug 1, 2019 21:12:56 GMT -8
It's always a pleasure to drop by Bradville for the garden tour, and hiking tips.
Good job getting that tree out without getting hurt, Brad. I agree with your idea of planting the smoke tree in that spot. It will take a couple years for it to get some size, but I will look great in that space.
I finally made it Beyond The Blue Gate around 2:00 today to see for myself the breathtaking view of the Olympic Mountains Brad posted the other day. The evergreen panorama stretched for miles out across the Hood Canal lowlands and up into the Olympic range. There is very little snow remaining on the east face of the mountains, and it looks like The Brothers peaks will be snowless by the end of summer, if not sooner. This will be my first time seeing the mountain totally exposed in the half century that I've been keeping tabs. It was in the low 80's today, under a spectacular blue sky, and the 10mph breeze kept me comfortable. It took me 4 times longer to make it up the hill compared to Brad's typical climb, but I just started hiking again after a few years off.
Let me know, Brad, what you think about the geology revealed in the movie I brought over. Maybe you will discuss here, some of the arguments regarding the Biblical flood and what the geological record seems to indicate regarding the rock formations, climate, and the time it took for drastic ecological changes as a result of the flood.
As a side note, do you know that a complete Mastadon skeleton was found in a bog not far from here? It was found with a spear tip made of Mastadon bone between its ribs! Keep your eyes peeled, because you never know what you might find on one of your hikes.
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Post by timothylane on Aug 2, 2019 6:03:47 GMT -8
A friend loaned me a book on the Flood that suggested it resulted from the end of the Ice Age and pointed out similar flood stories all over the world. There was some complex physics involved that I don't know enough about the field to evaluate. I would have liked Grant McCormick, my friend with a degree in physics, to check it out. The idea is that the flood wasn't totaled -- some areas were high enough not to go under -- and didn't cover everything all at once.
A more common theory is that this refers specifically to the Black Sea filling up after the Mediterranean was connected to it by the creation of the Bosporus and Dardanelles. This would have flooded a lot of land that was previously occupied, but some people would have survived, and flood legends would have developed among them. Of course, this wouldn't explain flood legends developing in the Americas or eastern Asia or whatever.
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