Nature – Page 38 – Sheila365

Sister time (and a little football).

Last night my mom and I went over to Noreen and David’s for dinner. Colleen and Jake drove over and joined us. After dinner we all sat around just telling funny stories for a couple hours. It’s nice to laugh like that. Everyone in my family is a comedian it seems…

Instead of driving all the way back to Seattle, Colleen and Jake slept at my mom’s, as we were planning on going to Francine and Art’s in the morning to watch the Seahawks game… a rare treat for me, since in Texas all that is usually on the networks is the Cowboys or the Texans (ho hum).

When I went out the front door to get the paper I was greeted by this stunning view of the Olympics. They seemed particularly white today.

Francine whipped up some biscuits & gravy and mimosa’s — breakfast of football divas 🙂 Noreen and David came over after church and we all cheered and screamed at the refs until the Seahawks won in overtime. Awesome!

Ride through the ‘hood.

Went for a bike ride around the neighborhood today. There are a handful of pecan trees nearby that are on common grounds in the neighborhood. We stopped by to gather a bunch of pecans that had fallen. We have several pecan trees in our own backyard, but they don’t bear much fruit – at least not any of the years we have lived here. So it’s nice to find a few that we can harvest from nearby. They are very sweet this year.

Julie and I rented a movie from a nearby RedBox last night – The Amazing Spiderman. It was a good flick. Stop number 2 on the bike ride today was the RedBox to drop the movie off. Then we rode to Academy to see what we could see. Then we stopped by the local pet store to check out the birdies. This is one of two very friendly macaws that live there.

Squirrel-proof.

111512 — Catboat whirligig / windvane v 2.0.

Over 2 years ago I posted a picture of the catboat wind thingie that monte made me (here’s the original post). It had sails made out of ripstop nylon which I had sewn and installed on each little boat. It worked great, and I LOVED it. As the wind blew, the boats started turning and the sails tacked and jibed as they went around.

Then last summer, I posted a picture of it after it had been attacked by squirrels (here’s that post). One of them went nutso in the heat of the summer and ripped up the sails. And just like that my catboat wind thingie was out of service.

Til today! Monte made new sails out of copper sheets, and fastened them to the mast with copper bands and replaced the string mainsheets with little pieces of metal chain.

It’ll take a stiffer breeze to make it go round, but it’s back! I love the new, improved version.

Take that, varmits!

Day is done.

Just another B-dock sunset.

First to fall.

The cedar elms are the first trees to lose their leaves this year, in our yard. The red oak and post oak are starting to get some color. I’m hoping the chinese pistache turns vivid yellow again this year. It’s only done that once in the 6 years we’ve lived here. A girl can hope.

Ms. Monarch.

I went outside this afternoon between meetings and was greeted by a bevy of butterflies flitting around the lantana. I snapped this shot quickly. Bear with me, as it’s a bit fuzzy. I had to zoom in and tweak it a bit. My online butterfly identification guide tells me it’s a female Monarch butterfly. You go, girl!

Made it to the cove by sunset.

We raced the beer can today. This time Mark joined us on Nirvana. Wally & Joe sailed on Soul Healer, so we had another 320 to match up against. Lori & Doray sailed on Camelot, and Kurt & Kevin on Dancer. The winds were strong out of the south, which made for a fun sail. We didn’t come in last! Though, we very well could have if it weren’t for Camelot accidentally dropping the main on the last leg (argh!)

Afterwards, we dropped Mark off on E-dock and headed right back out to anchor up in Arky south for the night. We made it in time to admire another sunset in our favorite cove. Lovely.

Wally joined us after dinner on Zen, tying up to us for the night, and we chuckled our way through the evening.

Taking the day off.

My sister leaves tomorrow, so I took the afternoon off to play hooky with her. We started off buying beads at a bead shop to get supplies for making jewelry thingies. No pics of that – a project for another day. Then we headed to Zilker Park for a hike on the Barton Creek Greenbelt Trail. It was really lovely out. High 70’s and sunny. Perfect for a hike. The creek is mostly dry. We did see lots of flowers, butterflies and dragonflies.

The orange butterfly in the shot below stopped to let me take several shots.

1008125 — Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae).

Later on down the trail this swallowtail stopped to let me do the same thing.

1008126 — Eastern tiger swallowtail (papilio glaucus?).

I found a pretty good butterfly guide website to try to identify them. You might want to bookmark for future reference.

After the hike we stopped by Barton Springs Pool. Such a pretty place. The pool was beautifully clear.

Then we ran over to Sno-Beach for a must-have best-snocone-ever experience. You’d better hurry, they close at the end of October for the winter. Go out and get one!

Then. Back to Zilker to rent a kayak and tootle around Town Lake (ok, sorry “Lady Bird Lake.” old habits die hard). We paddled all the way to the South 1st Street bridge. On our paddle back we passed 3 UT Women’s Crew boats training.

The Austin City Limits Music Festival takes place this weekend. It’s a 3 day music extravaganza hosted in Zilker Park. Everything is setup and just about ready for the throngs of festival-goers. I took the opportunity to take a quick shot of the festival entrance, so I wouldn’t have to come down here with 75,000 of my closest friends to get the shot this weekend.

What a great Austin afternoon!

Tuesday at the chez…

It’s Tuesday already. Almost halfway to the weekend! The picture above is of Monte’s latest project… a homemade sundial. I think this is a prototype. But it seems to work pretty well. He’s aligned the center of the dial with magnetic North using a compass. Some adjustments will be necessary. Stayed tuned.

The zinnia patch has flower stalks that are over 4′ tall. We’re still harvesting them. This is today’s selection.

And, last one, this is a shot of 2/3’s of the flock as we settle in for the evening.

G’nite!

Fall florae.

We worked in the yard today. The rain yesterday is long gone and strong winds dried the grass enough to mow. The temps were lovely all day, in the 70’s. A rare treat for yardwork.

Soon enough all the color will disappear for the winter months. For now, though, Mother Nature still has a little left.

The rains have brought out bunches of these little purple flowers. They seem to be flowers that are part of the clover, but I’m not sure what they are.

The lantana bushes will be going to seed in the next month or so, when the weather turns colder. For now the bushes are going strong and still putting out lots of color.

In the wooded area in the back the yaupon holly boughs are covered in red berries. A feast for the birds.

Hot pink zinnie.

Yep. Another zinnia – hot pink. The zinnia patch still has some legs. Have great week!

Summer’s gone.

This is the last day of Summer 2012. I had a good Summer, I hope you did, too. My advice to you:

Brace yourselves for the coming Winter.
Savor your memories from this past Summer.
Listen to this Doors track: Summer’s Almost Gone youtube link.

Summer’s Almost Gone
Summer’s almost gone (x 2)
Almost gone
Yeah, it’s almost gone
Where will we be
When the summer’s gone?

Morning found us calmly unaware
Noon burned gold into our hair
At night, we swam the Laughing sea
When summer’s gone
Where will we be (x 3)

Morning found us calmly unaware
Noon burned gold into our hair
At night, we swam the Laughing sea
When summer’s gone
Where will we be

Summer’s almost gone (x 2)
We had some good times
But they’re gone
The winter’s comin’ on
Summer’s almost gone

Ohhhhh, nuts!

There are a hundred or so green pecans strewn about our backyard that the squirrels have raided, leaving the chaff. They sure are persistent little buggers.

Our lone rain lily bloomed!

091812 — Mother Earth’s “thank-you” for a several days of rain.

Better late than never, i always say. We only had one rain lily pop up in our yard, and it bloomed a day after all the others in the neighborhood. Another fringe benefit, though dainty and fleeting, of the recent rains.

I played around a bit with black and white to show off the bloom, but I left a spash of color in the middle.

…AND, Happy Birthday Mom!!! This pic is for you

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