Sunday Pictures*

The lamp, he is angry.

I take a lot of pictures.  With digital being so easy and storage so cheap, why not?  I don't see myself as some great photographer or anything, but it is a nice feeling when you get a good picture.

I don't feel I have a lot to say right now, but I do have pictures.  This is just a few pictures I took over the last week.  Let's see how this goes...

*Picture links updated, thanks BW!

August This-And-Thats

Things have settled in to late summer around here.  Flowers are past their peak, football is starting and I've not been posting much of anything recently.  These are the times this kind of post is made for - with a twist this time.  This will be a more visual This-And-Thats than just a normal bullet-points rundown of different thoughts.  Just a few things I've been up to, so, with that, let's get on with it, shall we?

• I found the spider that had been making the massive webs between the garage and the porch.  After that picture in the last post we saw him working on another web, pictured here.  And the other day I happened upon his lair when cleaning up, so he had to go.

• A few weeks ago there was guano under our bat house behind the garage.  Our first sign of a bat using it since it was installed.  There's been none since, unfortunately, but I am encouraged as we are seeing more bats and more often this year than last in the evening skies.  This is a short video from Friday night by the fire showing some bat activity in the area - with an appearance from a plane taking off, of course.

• Yesterday I finished the edging of the walks out front.  Now, I know it's been a few years since I've done it, but the sod had already crept several inches over the pavement again.  It doesn't help that the walks in this older neighborhood are generally lower than the turf, especially for us.  Still, it was very gratifying to clean it up, even if it won't last forever.

• While taking pictures of the edging I took an inadvertent picture of the house.  This reminds me that I trimmed the arborvitae last weekend, and also swapped out the front light bulb.  The arborvitae has grown quite a bit in the last 10 years, and while I think it's kind of a pain to have I do like that it gives some character to the front of the house.  My (OCD) fear is that as it grows bigger it will get harder to keep looking good.  And for the light I got one that is LED and is supposed to not attract bugs, but what I really liked about it is that it has a sensor so it turns on and off at dusk and dawn by itself.  As for the bugs, it does appear there is less bug clutter on the front of the house now, but time will tell.

• August 20 will be one year since the great deluge of rain that gave Madison and western Dane County, especially Black Earth, all sorts of flooding issues.  The Yahara chain of lakes is finally closer to "normal" levels - except Waubesa - and still way too high for all, but that's where they've been kept for several years now.  If we receive any sort of deluge like last year the same thing would happen again.  I do know there are plans being made to help prevent all that rainwater being diverted straight to the lakes, and other plans like dredging to ease the flow of the Yahara River between the lakes.   Link for below screen capture is here.  Interesting article here, I've read it once quickly so I should re-read it soon.

I think that's more than enough for now, I've had my say.  Thanks for reading, see you soon.

Fungus and Spiderwebs

Just a couple recent and interesting pictures I happened upon.  First, the little ceramic gnome we've had for years holds a little ceramic mushroom in his right arm.  Here he is surrounded by a few other forms of fungus among potted plants showing signs of late summer on the large, rotting tree stump.

Also, when I went out to the garage the other day I almost ran into a rather impressive spiderweb, going from the garage to the ground and all the way to the house and/or porch.  I tried to get several pictures, but it's hard to get a spider web without a dark background.  I held my arms up high to get this one.