I saw my first garter snake and two snapping turtles near my local pond.
WisCon May 23-25 2025, online only
A feminist sci-fi and fantasy convention
$25 or pay what you can
Visit https://wiscon2025.sched.com
Guests of honor: ANDREA HAIRSTON; NAOMI KRITZER
Want to volunteer? Email Personnel@sf3.org
( poster )
A feminist sci-fi and fantasy convention
$25 or pay what you can
Visit https://wiscon2025.sched.com
Guests of honor: ANDREA HAIRSTON; NAOMI KRITZER
Want to volunteer? Email Personnel@sf3.org
( poster )
(![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
full_metal_ox posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
common_nature Apr. 20th, 2025 03:31 pm)
full_metal_ox posting in common_nature Apr. 20th, 2025 03:31 pm)Taken on 16 July 2023 at 19:27 US Eastern Daylight Savings Time.
Bunnies are of course going to favor weedy green lawns over elegant stone yards punctuated with waxy sculptural ornamentals. This one looks like an Eastern Cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus); Marsh Rabbits (S. palustris) (1), tend to have shorter ears, and my neighborhood strikes me as a bit too far from the water to attract them during the dry season.
It’s on alert, reacting sensibly to the arrival of a member of the deadliest of the Thousand, and so this was the only shot I was able to get before it went PATWINNNG! under the seagrape bed (the round-leaved shrub at center right, bordered by white river rocks.)
(1) Today I Learned the scientific name of the Lower Keys Marsh Rabbit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvilagus_palustris_hefneri
Yes; that Hugh Hefner funded endangered rabbit research, and was commemorated accordingly.
Bunnies are of course going to favor weedy green lawns over elegant stone yards punctuated with waxy sculptural ornamentals. This one looks like an Eastern Cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus); Marsh Rabbits (S. palustris) (1), tend to have shorter ears, and my neighborhood strikes me as a bit too far from the water to attract them during the dry season.
It’s on alert, reacting sensibly to the arrival of a member of the deadliest of the Thousand, and so this was the only shot I was able to get before it went PATWINNNG! under the seagrape bed (the round-leaved shrub at center right, bordered by white river rocks.)
(1) Today I Learned the scientific name of the Lower Keys Marsh Rabbit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvilagus_palustris_hefneri
Yes; that Hugh Hefner funded endangered rabbit research, and was commemorated accordingly.
Meadowfoam and mimulus out on the Ranch in Northern California.
(pilottttt posting in common_nature Apr. 19th, 2025 08:58 pm)
pilottttt posting in common_nature Apr. 19th, 2025 08:58 pm)They have recently appeared in our city on the pond near the Japanese Garden.
For more information (in Russian), see here.
Tags:
Set off to follow the path through the oak woods in the rain. Only a gentle rain at first, not cold. Not much light this morning, but still the oaks and the birches bright with new leaves, and the woods full of the song of robins, blackbirds and thrushes.
( Come and get rained on )
(full_metal_ox posting in common_nature Apr. 18th, 2025 01:16 am)
full_metal_ox posting in common_nature Apr. 18th, 2025 01:16 am)I sure do!
I’m something of an astronomy nerd; you have to understand that the great solar eclipse of 8 April 2024 was something I’d been counting down to my whole life. In my native Dayton, Ohio, I’d gotten to witness the strange begrimed 40-watt sunlight (1) and dappled crescent shadows of the partial solar eclipses of 10 May 1994 and 21 August 2017, after having gotten a fleeting confirmatory glance through SolarShields under welder’s goggles: the exercise was a bit like hunting basilisks or Medusa.
Another point is that I’m acutely homesick for the seasonal markers of the place where I spent 90+% of my life: the violets and wild chives and flowering crabapples, and the two equinoctial yellows of Moraine honeylocusts: neon chartreuse foliage in the spring, and in the fall flaming saffron—turning to orange piles of cornflake crunch beneath the feet. Even the lawn weeds here are unfamiliar.
Until a couple years in advance—by which time it was too late—I had not anticipated that, by the time the total solar eclipse at long last came to Dayton, I would be gone; behold the southern Gulf Coast of Florida’s experience of the Grand Portentuous Celestial Event.
( Continue. )
I’m something of an astronomy nerd; you have to understand that the great solar eclipse of 8 April 2024 was something I’d been counting down to my whole life. In my native Dayton, Ohio, I’d gotten to witness the strange begrimed 40-watt sunlight (1) and dappled crescent shadows of the partial solar eclipses of 10 May 1994 and 21 August 2017, after having gotten a fleeting confirmatory glance through SolarShields under welder’s goggles: the exercise was a bit like hunting basilisks or Medusa.
Another point is that I’m acutely homesick for the seasonal markers of the place where I spent 90+% of my life: the violets and wild chives and flowering crabapples, and the two equinoctial yellows of Moraine honeylocusts: neon chartreuse foliage in the spring, and in the fall flaming saffron—turning to orange piles of cornflake crunch beneath the feet. Even the lawn weeds here are unfamiliar.
Until a couple years in advance—by which time it was too late—I had not anticipated that, by the time the total solar eclipse at long last came to Dayton, I would be gone; behold the southern Gulf Coast of Florida’s experience of the Grand Portentuous Celestial Event.
( Continue. )
(petra posting in thisfinecrew Apr. 14th, 2025 08:22 pm)
petra posting in thisfinecrew Apr. 14th, 2025 08:22 pm)When the Supreme Court has made a decision, as it has in the case of the wrongfully-deported Abrego Garcia, the response from the Executive cannot be "Nah." If there is no check on Trump, even in the case of his hand-picked court saying he's wrong, the Constitution is no longer functional.
( Letter for your Representative, written by a friend who wishes to remain anonymous )
Mods, can we get a "deportation" tag?
( Letter for your Representative, written by a friend who wishes to remain anonymous )
Mods, can we get a "deportation" tag?
Tags:
Across the footbridge into a landscape of water and rock in the Welsh hills.
Nant Gwernol in Welsh means Gwernol Stream and it's a pretty spectacular stream!
( More pics! )
Nant Gwernol in Welsh means Gwernol Stream and it's a pretty spectacular stream!
( More pics! )
Wonderful color on the moon last Saturday. Several photos came out like the one below, just a bright ball of light. But we did get a few pics of the color, and I like the way the branches framed it.
( Read more... )
Tags:
I finally got a new camera - just in time for spring to hit. Most of the trees around here don't have any leaves yet, but a lot have started to blossom. Here's a couple of closeups from the last couple of days and weeks, as well as two pictures that show off how good my new camera is at making things look a bit moody:
First up, Purple-leaf plum blossoms:
( More under the cut )
First up, Purple-leaf plum blossoms:
( More under the cut )
We had a trip to north Wales last week to the coastal town of Tywyn (pronounced 'tow' as in truck- win)
Our first full day in Tywyn was a bit mirky although mild enough.
We set out for a walk on the northern coastal side of the town to the hamlet of Tonfanau.
Mist over the hills:
( See more: )
Our first full day in Tywyn was a bit mirky although mild enough.
We set out for a walk on the northern coastal side of the town to the hamlet of Tonfanau.
Mist over the hills:
( See more: )
I took some pictures around the yard today. These show the house yard. See the House Yard, South Lot, Savanna and Prairie Garden, and Back Toward the House.
( Walk with me ... )
( Walk with me ... )
It's definitely spring here now and on my walk this afternoon I spotted these stunningly bright yellow flowers huddling in the (dry) grass of a neglected front garden. They're Pheasant's Eyes (Adonis vernalis) and this garden is the only place I've ever seen it. It's a very rare plant in the wild here in Sweden but there's supposed to be cultivars around even though I've never seen any myself.
Click to enlarge:
( one more photo... )
Click to enlarge:
( one more photo... )
.