Rust Feather

It was such a beautiful day today and I had gotten to work a little early. So, I decided to leave a little early as well and spend a few minutes taking pictures around my building. I walked in the woods and took pictures of tree leaves sprouting on a few trees as well as some other assorted pictures. Back in the parking lot I noticed the rust stains on the outside of a large dumpster that’s been parked in our lot for a long while now (to support construction that seems to be going on forever inside). Most of them are surrounding places where the metal has been struck and bent, particularly from the inside. This one reminded me of a feather.

Afghan Gun Barrel Inlay

I’ve been meaning to take pictures of this for a while now and today was the day I finally got around to it. Cathy’s parents have a few old muskets from Afghanistan. One of them had detailed inlay on the barrel as well as mother of pearl inlay on the stock. The metal work on the barrel is my favorite part of the gun, however. I couldn’t get a picture of all of it without the actual details being way too small to make out, so I decided to post this close up shot. There is some Persian writing on the barrel, as well, also inlaid in brass (I assume it’s brass, anyway). I asked a friend what it said and he translated it as “Made by Fateh Khan, son of Sher Muhammad Khan Babakarkhel.”

Paperweight

We’ve been at Cathy’s mom’s a bunch lately and this morning the sun was shining through her living room window onto a table covered with a wide variety of paperweights. Many of them are glass while others are metal or stone. This is a glass paperweight, but I guess that’s obvious. In addition to the colored glass stripes on it, there are embedded bubbles, which are really pretty in the direct sunlight. It’s hard to see in this picture, but I particularly liked the way the bubbles acted as lenses, showing the other paperweights on the table.

Light Snowfall

It’s early March so it’s certainly too early in the year to be thinking that we are done with snow for the winter. Today we got a light fall of snow. It wasn’t enough to affect traffic particularly and in fact it didn’t stick to the pavement at all. By early afternoon it was pretty much gone entirely. But it was quite pretty this morning, sticking to all the branches of trees and bushes. I guess I’m looking forward to the flowers of spring and to the bees and insects of summer but I’m not particularly looking forward to the heat that accompanies them. But you cannot have one without the other.

Boy and Water Buffalo

We spent much of the day at Suburban Hospital today but were finally able to get someone to sign release papers and we came home to Cathy’s mom’s house at about 2:30. I fixed dinner and we decided we should spend the night here. That meant that I needed to find something to photograph here for this little blog of mine. In the dining room, on a sideboard, is this little figurine of a water buffalo with a boy sitting on its back, playing on a flute. I’ve always liked this little pair of creatures, with the buffalo half submerged in the wood-like water of the sideboard.

Mouse Trap

I’ve just put down two mouse traps. Cathy and I were watching the TV this evening and all of a sudden Cathy started screaming. Well, not quite screaming but close. To the right of the TV, climbing on the bricks around the fire place, was a fairly large and quite healthy looking mouse. There he was, bold as you please. I’ve been aware that we have mice for a while and I bought some traps a few weeks ago but hadn’t put them out. I have now. I’m using peanut butter as bait and we’ll see how it goes. I’ve had mice that could take peanut butter off traps without tripping them, but generally the trap wins.