It’s mostly quiet when I’m working at my day job, so when the ‘Pop!’ came, it sounded like a small pistol shot. Well, what I think a small pistol would sound like. Not a bird slamming into the picture windows. Not a particularly large squirrel jumping on the skylight. Not a frozen chicken falling off the counter.

There was something colorful at the gate. My fence boards allow movement to be seen on the sidewalk, and sure enough, someone was hurrying away. Odd. No UPS or FedEx truck or mailman. It was a package from my cousin in New Zealand, with tshirts for the guys in the family and some kiwi soap and shower gel for me.

More on tshirts tomorrow. It is past my bedtime, I have to get up before 6 a.m., and I’ve decided to cut way back on carbs again.

At the end of March, I found a dead bird in the side yard. Thinking it may have crashed into a window, I used a garden tool to pick it up, and seeing that it was whole and not wounded, I took some pictures, and posted one.

The curtains on that particular window are usually closed, so it didn’t make sense that the bird would fly into it. Now that I’ve done some reading, I realize that the bird, which looked like a lesser goldfinch may have been a West Nile victim. Next time, I’ll call it in, just in case.

It occurs when volcanic emissions combine with sunlight and air.

Invisible Worlds, Exploring the Unseen, by Piers Bizony. Excerpt here.

Traceshifter by Annie Woodford,
photo by Stephen Brayne

Some of her works come in kits, and have a spare, honed look. They look like tools for a surreal society.

Looking at webcams, but not able to tell. It’s a cold breeze out there, which usually means a big fogbank is sitting off the coast.

The striped bass bought Saturday probably should be cooked, but then I would have to think of something to go with it other than rice. I had my rice allotment for the week last night. The bag of Costco avocados were rock-hard two days ago, now they yield to the touch. I have freshly cut pineapple. None of that seems to go together.

But BLTs could use some A. I could make a fruit salad with the pineapple and the really sweet oranges I picked up yesterday. Maybe a potato soup. Avocado soup? I have two cartons of whipping cream that need to be used up before they turn into a solid.

After another garbage can full of photinia blossoms and honeysuckle undergrowth, I find large ants are living on the photinia. Most of the pruning was done looking up, so my eyes sustained the brunt of the fallout. I forgot that there has been bird activity in this part of the fence, but found no nest beginnings. They would need a miniature pair of pruners to get to a good spot.

Rampant growth in the yard due to all the rain, and now is the time to tie back the climbing roses, cut back shrubs. This will take many days. How long I can stay out there depends on the pollen load.

From the last bag of daffodils planted late, just now starting to bloom.

Seaforms, baskets, soft cylinders, putti, venetians.

The Porbeagle is just a fun-loving shark.

What might be perceived as ‘ball bouncing’.