Miscellaneous

Beaver Attacks Woman

Photograph taken on Friday, May 03, 2019 by Henry
Beaver Attacks Woman

Beaver Attacks Woman

We spent most of the day on the road today, driving up to Massachusetts to visit Dorothy for the weekend and see her senior art exhibit tomorrow evening. It was four of us, Cathy, me, and our two moms (Dorothy’s grandmas). We didn’t have traffic problems to speak of until we got onto Interstate 95 around Boston. Then it took us two hours to go 25 miles. We met up with Dorothy and went to the art building where the final preparations are under way. I’ll post a picture of Dorothy’s art tomorrow. Today, here’s Dorothy pointing out an article about a woman being attacked by a beaver.

Categories: Gordon College, Miscellaneous, People | Tags: , , , , | Comments Off on Beaver Attacks Woman

Lily of the Valley

Photograph taken on Tuesday, April 30, 2019 by Henry
Lily of the Valley

Lily of the Valley

The lily of the valley (Convallaria majalis) is starting to bloom. This is a great, little ground cover once it gets itself established. That can take a little while and they aren’t cheap when you buy them from the garden center a few pips at a time. They also have a tendency to “migrate” in the garden. In our back yard they are around the two smaller maple trees that we still have. Over the time we’ve been here they have expanded and died out in the central part of the bed. I wish you could make it “turn around” and head in the other direction but short of digging it up and physically turning it around, that’s not really possible.

The flowers don’t last very long but while they are blooming they are really pretty. Note that all parts of the plant are poisonous, containing cardiac glycosides, so don’t try to use them as a salad green. I don’t think that’s something I’d have thought to try anyway.

Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Lily of the Valley

Tulipa acuminata

Photograph taken on Saturday, April 27, 2019 by Henry
Tulipa acuminata

Tulipa acuminata

The fireflame tulips (Tulipa acuminata) are coming into bloom. These interesting tulips are listed as species but they are not actually known in the wild and are probably some very old hybrid whose origin is lost in the mists of time. Either way, they are quite beautiful, with the pointed petals. They generally have mostly red petals with yellow towards the base but this variety, from McLure and Zimmerman, are almost entirely yellow with a little green running down the spine of the petals. Every year I wonder if they will come up and so far, they’ve not let me down.

Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Tulipa acuminata

My Friend Jack

Photograph taken on Monday, April 22, 2019 by Henry
Colorado Spruce Stump

Colorado Spruce Stump

Have you met my friend, Jack? That’s him in this photo, in the yellow. He’s a stouthearted lad with a lot of strength. Getting this stump out of the ground was not going to be easy, no matter what. Cathy said I should pay someone to do it and maybe she was right. I had dug all around it a few weeks ago and cut the major roots a little way from the trunk. In years past I demonstrated simple machines to second graders, showing them the brilliance of levers and pulleys. It would have been silly of me to try to get this stump out using brute strength (to say nothing of the fact that I don’t have anything like enough brute strength for the job).

On Saturday I went back to work on it, working smarter and not harder. I dug a hole under the largest root and put my hydraulic jack under it. With various pieces of stump under the jack, I was able to work that end up. Then I started moving around. This evening I got the last side up and sawed the last of the roots that was holding it down. The whole thing is pretty heavy but I was able to get it up on its side. I couldn’t have done it without my good friend, Jack.

Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: , , , , | Comments Off on My Friend Jack

Opera Glasses

Photograph taken on Friday, April 05, 2019 by Henry
Opera Glasses

Opera Glasses

I don’t know for sure but I think these old opera glasses belonged to my Uncle Ralph and his wife, Aunt Florence. Technically my great uncle and aunt, because he was my grandfather’s brother. Assuming that’s where they came from, I have to assume also that they went to the theatre from time to time. I can’t say that I knew them well. They lived in New Jersey and he died when I was only ten years old. He grew up in the west, having been born in what is now a ghost town in a mining area of Nevada. After earning an undergraduate degree in Utah, he went to St Johns College in Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar where he earned a B.A. degree and a year later a B.Sc. degree.

Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: , , , , , | Comments Off on Opera Glasses

Rockville Cemetery

Photograph taken on Wednesday, March 27, 2019 by Henry
Rockville Cemetery

Rockville Cemetery

I stopped at Rockville Cemetery on the way home today. With the weather turning warmer (relatively) and the sun out, it’s very tempting to be outdoors as much as possible. My job, of course, keeps me inside most of the time and it’s been fairly busy lately, with lots of revisions and bug fixes. That’s meant that I haven’t been out during the day too often. With the time change it’s light later in the day and that gives me more of a chance to get out after work.

Rockville Cemetery, on Old Baltimore Road, is a nice, relatively quiet place. The eponym of my high school alma mater is buried there. The graves of Walter Johnson and his wife Hazel are in a very shady spot under a pair of mature spruce trees. Generally it’s hard to get a good picture of them because it’s so shady but when I was there today the sun was slanting under the trees’ lower branches and lighting up the grave markers. This photo is from another part of the cemetery, though. I really love big, old, white oaks (Quercus alba) and this is a nice specimen.

Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: , , , , , , | Comments Off on Rockville Cemetery

Embroidered Robe

Photograph taken on Monday, March 25, 2019 by Henry
Embroidered Robe

Embroidered Robe

On Saturday we stopped at the storage locker and brought some things home to go through. That included a clothes rack and one of the items on that rack was a large, hooded robe all covered with embroidery. This photo is a part of that embroidery. Neither Cathy nor her mom know where it’s from but probably Cathy’s dad bought it somewhere. It’s in pretty new condition but it’s too long for either Cathy or her mom to wear (and not really their style, in any case). The embroidery is pretty, with flowers and plants in orange, yellow, and pale green.

Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: , , , | Comments Off on Embroidered Robe

Old Phone

Photograph taken on Thursday, March 21, 2019 by Henry
Old Telephone

Old Telephone

I’m not going to pretend that most of my followers have never seen one of these before, because it hasn’t actually been that long since there were rotary phones in every house. In the 1960s, mom took Ralph and me to the New York World’s Fair and we got to time ourselves dialing our home phone number on both a rotary dial phone and a touch tone phone. Needless to say, the difference was pretty significant. I remember how you hated having to dial numbers with a lot of 9s or 0s in them. We also talked to each other from different booths on a video phone. That took a little longer to pan out, but now, that’s here, as well. The phone pictured here is probably from the 1950s or possibly the 40s. On the other hand, I suspect it still works.

Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: , , , | Comments Off on Old Phone

Camel Pendant

Photograph taken on Wednesday, March 13, 2019 by Henry
Camel Pendant

Camel Pendant

There was a lot of stuff in Cathy’s mom’s house, including a surprising number of things that Cathy had never seen. The jaguar skin that I posted a picture of recently was one example. This gold pendant in the shape of a camel is another. Specifically, this is a dromedary, the one-humped camel (Camelus dromedarius), currently existing only as a domestic or feral animal, having been first domesticated in Somalia or the Arabian Peninsula about 4,000 years ago. There are two species of two-humped camels, the Bactrian camel (Camelus bactrianus) and the wild Bactrian camel (Camelus ferus), which until recently was assumed to have descended from feral domesticated Bactrian camels. Genetic studies have shown it to be a separate species.

Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: , , , , | Comments Off on Camel Pendant

Dorothy

Photograph taken on Saturday, March 09, 2019 by Henry
Dorothy

Dorothy

Dorothy drove down for spring break with five of her friends, arriving around 11:00 last night. Today we drove up to Pennsylvania for the day. When this trip was planned they talked about camping but as the date approached it was clear that wasn’t going to be realistic. When we got there, there was about six inches of snow on the ground. We were able to get a fire going and cleared off the log benches so we could sit around it. We took a few short walks but mostly stayed close. It was cool but the sky was clear and there was no wind to speak of so it was very pleasant. Dorothy set out a beach chair and did some reading. This isn’t the stereotypical spring break but everyone seemed to have a good time.

Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: , , | Comments Off on Dorothy

Waltham Crescent Street Watch

Photograph taken on Friday, March 08, 2019 by Henry
Waltham Crescent Street Watch

Waltham Crescent Street Watch

We got this watch out of the safe deposit box recently to show Cathy’s cousin and his wife. It belonged to Cathy’s grandfather, Benje’s great grandfather. It was made by the Waltham Watch Company and is a Model 1892. This is the second version of the model, with the serial number next to the barrel bridge. It’s not in perfect condition but it’s still very nice and we keep it in the safe as much to keep it from being knocked around as anything else. I believe this watch was manufactured in or around 1896, based on the serial number. Because it was made as early as that, when D. B. was only 12 years old, it may have belonged to his father before him or of course he could have bought it used.

Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Waltham Crescent Street Watch

American Robin (Turdus migratorius)

Photograph taken on Wednesday, March 06, 2019 by Henry
American Robin (Turdus migratorius)

American Robin (Turdus migratorius)

I took a few pictures as I walked across campus to a meeting early this afternoon and then a few more on the way back. On the way over I saw a flock of native sparrows bopping around in the underbrush and took a few pictures but really they were too far away to get anything worth posting. I also took some pictures of the ripples on the stream that flows through the property. On the way back I looked for the sparrows but they seem to have moved on. There were, however, a few American robins (Turdus migratorius) pulling worms out of the grass. Although they are migratory, we have them year round here, with those that migrate from New England and Canada only making it this far south for the winter.

Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: , , , , | Comments Off on American Robin (Turdus migratorius)

A Little Light Snow

Photograph taken on Sunday, March 03, 2019 by Henry
A Little Light Snow

A Little Light Snow

There was snow in the forecast for this afternoon and this evening and we got it. Someone had said that we’d be getting two feet of snow, but nothing approaching that was ever in any official forecast that I saw. We got somewhere under a half inch and that only on grassy areas. The roadways we were on never had any accumulation. It’s also supposed to be colder this week, with temperatures in the mid 20s or even down into the teens one or two nights this week. The forecasters on the radio are breathlessly telling us about the “bitter cold“ weather we can expect. I’m sorry but I can’t get too exercised about temperatures around 20°F. I wouldn’t describe that as warm, of course. It’s cold, but definitely not “bitter cold.“ I’m happy with anything below zero being described as bitter. I might even grant “bitter“ status to single digit temperatures. But not low to mid twenties. Sorry.

Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: , , | Comments Off on A Little Light Snow

House Closing

Photograph taken on Thursday, February 28, 2019 by Henry
House Closing

House Closing

It’s hard to believe the day has finally arrived. Well, actually it hasn’t. The day is tomorrow but I went over to my mother-in-law’s house today to get the very last thing out (a dehumidifier from the basement) and to take one last set of pictures. I could always stop out front and take pictures but it won’t be the same. As of noon tomorrow this house will belong to new owners. We don’t know a lot about them but they sound like a nice family and they seem really excited to be moving into this house. I certainly served Cathy’s family well and was a good home for 50 years. But time marches on and things change. We’re glad it’s going to a young family and we wish them every happiness. While change can be hard, and getting to this day has been a struggle, this particular change is a blessed relief.

Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: , , , , , | Comments Off on House Closing

That Can’t Be Right

Photograph taken on Wednesday, February 27, 2019 by Henry
Flat Tire

Flat Tire

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I met some friends from work at Uncle Julio’s for happy hour. It hadn’t been a particularly happy day and I decided I would benefit from socializing as opposed to coming home and reading or more likely dwelling on my frustrations. Shortly after everyone got there my phone rang. It was Cathy saying she had a flat tire. She ended up taking an Uber to where she was going and I picked her up from there a little later.

We went to work together today and I attached a pump to the flat tire to see if it would hold air at all. Almost immediately I notice the head of a screw in the treads and figured it wasn’t worth the effort. It wasn’t going to hold air. Around lunchtime I went over to her building and put on the spare. I would normally joke that the tire was only flat on the bottom but as you can see, it held its shape pretty well. This was taken with the tire in the back of the van. I was happy to find that the spare had air.

Just one of those things.

Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: , , , , , , | Comments Off on That Can’t Be Right

Rio Pond

Photograph taken on Tuesday, February 26, 2019 by Henry
Rio Pond

Rio Pond

I’m not really a big Happy Hour celebrant and I don’t do a lot with people from work outside of work hours. Nevertheless, I went out with eight others from work today and enjoyed myself. It had been a particularly rough day, with a problem on a system I’m developing that I could not figure out. It made no sense and nothing I did seemed to make any difference. Finally I gave up and figured I’d have better success looking at it again in the morning. Then I went out and took some pictures, including this one, before meeting my friends in Uncle Julio’s for an hour or so. I’m pretty pleased with this picture, showing the pond at the Rio as well as Copper Canyon Grill and various other buildings behind it.

Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: , , , , , | Comments Off on Rio Pond

Frowny Face

Photograph taken on Monday, February 25, 2019 by Henry
Frowny Face

Frowny Face

This is part of the pattern on a jaguar skin that we found in my in-laws’ basement. It was in a barrel that had been sealed and managed to survive in reasonable condition. We figure that it’s been there since the mid 1960s and have no idea how long before that it was actually brought here. Cathy’s grandmother lived in Peru for many years and brought quite a few animals back as well as some furs. Among other things, she had a pet ocelot, a coatimundi, and a vicuña as well as many birds. The Coati ended up in the National Zoo, I believe. We have the skin from Perla, her pet vicu&#xn1;a. Obviously a jaguar is a whole other matter and as best we know, she never had one as a pet. I certainly isn’t something we expected to find and we’re not sure what to do with it. Since it was brought here, quite a few laws have been enacted prohibiting or limiting sale of such items. Probably most significant is the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which was passed in 1973. It is “an international agreement between governments. Its aim is to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival.” It also limits the sale of animal parts owned prior to implementation. Not that we want to sell this and it’s not really in top condition, in any case. As you can see from this picture, trade in furs of endangered species makes jaguars sad.

Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: , , , | Comments Off on Frowny Face

Storage Locker

Photograph taken on Sunday, February 24, 2019 by Henry
Storage Locker

Storage Locker

We have two storage lockers with things from Cathy’s mom’s house. This is the first of the two and it’s a bit disorganized. That being said, there’s a lot of stuff in there and organizing it would be a pretty big job, probably an all day job. At one point I pulled a bunch of stuff out into the hallway and put together two sets of shelves along the right hand wall. That helped because there are things that can’t really be stacked on top of and the shelf space is much more efficient for those things. That’s not to say that everything that should be on the shelves go move, of course. The boxes in the middle of this photo have books (towards the bottom) and china and other kitchen and dining ware (towards the top). There are also a few slides in boxes through the ten by ten foot room. You can see some of them in the plastic bins and also the Kodak carousels against the back wall.

Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: , , | Comments Off on Storage Locker

50 Watt LED

Photograph taken on Friday, February 22, 2019 by Henry
50 Watt LED

50 Watt LED

I mentioned recently that I’m planning to attempt to retrofit a Kodak Carousel slide projector into a slide digitizer. I’ve begun to make purchases towards that end. I already have a few projectors. The most complicated parts, which are anything to do with electronics, will be replacing the light source. The 300 watt halogen bulb is very bright and very hot. LEDs generate some heat, as well, but not as much. This is the light source I have picked. It’s 50 watts and should give me a nice, even illumination. I’ll put some pearled glass between it and the slide, to further even things out. I also bought a heat sink with an attached fan and a driver for the light that runs on household current.

Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: , , , | Comments Off on 50 Watt LED

Snow

Photograph taken on Wednesday, February 20, 2019 by Henry
Snow

Snow

The forecast was for snow and freezing rain overnight and the local school systems had already cancelled classes for today as early as yesterday evening. Nothing was coming down when we went to bed, just after midnight. When I got up this morning there was maybe as much as half an inch on the ground. I took a few pictures then out the front door. A little later, just before 9:00 AM, I took more pictures out the back door, including this one. By that point there was maybe a little more than two inches on the ground. By the time I’m actually posting this, about 2:00 PM, the snow has stopped falling and there is about five inches. I’m fortunate in that I can work from home without any trouble. I’d much rather take a day off and go for a walk in the snow, but they like me to work for my pay, so I work.

Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: , , , | Comments Off on Snow