In July we planted parsely in a strawberry jug hoping caterpillars and then butterflies would come and visit, and they did. This is a two-inch long swallowtail caterpillar, who had about ten brothers or sisters or whatever and they ate our parsely up, which is what it was there for anyway. We saw a few of the swallowtails themselves. (They're black with yellow ornaments and look like Stealth fighters only smaller.) We're happy to have them as guests, and when my camera is working again and a swallowtail visits us, I'll snap a photo and put it here for you to enjoy. Until then, this is a pretty nifty caterpillar, in my book.
Friday, August 11, 2006
Swallowtail Caterpillar on Duty
In July we planted parsely in a strawberry jug hoping caterpillars and then butterflies would come and visit, and they did. This is a two-inch long swallowtail caterpillar, who had about ten brothers or sisters or whatever and they ate our parsely up, which is what it was there for anyway. We saw a few of the swallowtails themselves. (They're black with yellow ornaments and look like Stealth fighters only smaller.) We're happy to have them as guests, and when my camera is working again and a swallowtail visits us, I'll snap a photo and put it here for you to enjoy. Until then, this is a pretty nifty caterpillar, in my book.
Farewell to Brookfarm
This is the New Hampshire house that Dick built seventeen years ago. With Carol's help, and a few subcontractors. We gave up this castle in the boonies around June/July 2006 and moved to South Carolina. See other pic. Brookfarm sits in the center of NH, 1200 feet above sea level on 37 acres of registered tree farm (specimens of maple, oak, birch and white pine not Xmas trees). A ten-acre pond lies in the valley 400' beneath the house, accessed by a mile or so of winding tote road groomed for easy culling of the woods. There we harvested firewood and occasionally valuable crop trees. In these woods lived moose, deer, black bear, bobcats as well as feral tomcats, squirrels, racoons, spiny hedgehogs, seven-striped chipmunks, voles, not to mention all the flora that go with a mature, mixed-hardwood and softwood New England forest. Farewell Brookfarm. May you do as well without us.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
New York Times Plays Cheap and Shabby
If you go to the NYTimes website (http://www.nytimes.com) and spend a few minutes browsing the front page you may choose to look at an article, only to find that part of an ad flashes out and descends on the text you are trying to read. Is it distracting? No, it's downright frightening. It's more like having someone burst a paper bag in your face. A water-balloon whammy, is what it is.
For example MotorollaQ, whatever that means, has a blackberry that gives you the raspberries. A PDA swells up, hops out of the ad's frame, and descends on the article itself to virtually fill up the screen before you. Is this journalism? If it is, the NYTimes can look forward to an even shorter future than its managers anticipate.
I subscribe to a NYTimes special service called Times Select, in order to get at "restricted" OpEd pieces and Times columnists' offerings. It's too late for me. I spent my $49.95 to find out this year whether the service was worth that much money. I can plainly tell you that the NYTimes has not only violated good taste. It has also dropped its commitment to inform the public in non-sensational ways. They have, in short, gone crass. For a nickel or a dime.
As a result of this insult to the readership, I recommend not reading the NYTimes on the Web. Pick another paper till that one descends into bad taste too. Then pick another and another. Eventually some newspaper will make a stand (the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun?), and make a profit from it.
In the meantime, I wish the publisher of the NYTimes many sleepless nights, till he/she straightens out a tasteless, demeaning rag and restores it to the integrity the paper lost on its imagined way to bankruptcy court.
For example MotorollaQ, whatever that means, has a blackberry that gives you the raspberries. A PDA swells up, hops out of the ad's frame, and descends on the article itself to virtually fill up the screen before you. Is this journalism? If it is, the NYTimes can look forward to an even shorter future than its managers anticipate.
I subscribe to a NYTimes special service called Times Select, in order to get at "restricted" OpEd pieces and Times columnists' offerings. It's too late for me. I spent my $49.95 to find out this year whether the service was worth that much money. I can plainly tell you that the NYTimes has not only violated good taste. It has also dropped its commitment to inform the public in non-sensational ways. They have, in short, gone crass. For a nickel or a dime.
As a result of this insult to the readership, I recommend not reading the NYTimes on the Web. Pick another paper till that one descends into bad taste too. Then pick another and another. Eventually some newspaper will make a stand (the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun?), and make a profit from it.
In the meantime, I wish the publisher of the NYTimes many sleepless nights, till he/she straightens out a tasteless, demeaning rag and restores it to the integrity the paper lost on its imagined way to bankruptcy court.
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Losing Fidel
I don’t think about national concerns, unless I’m prodded by the newspaper. Maybe to make this blog current I should comment on newspaper clippings, the way Fidel Castro does in six or eight hour harangues before the people of Cuba.
There will be less of that from now on, of course. He’s just undergone surgery for a bleeding stomach and his kid brother Raul at 75 is exercising the powers of president. Folks in Miami are packing their bags already, hoping to return to Cuba under a new government when Castro dies. A good number of Miamians want their homes back. The folks now living in those homes in Cuba fear the return of expatriates, since the only homes some current residents know belong to those expats with the packed bags.
It’s hard to choose sides in a quarrel like this. Maybe all the folks who have homes now should stay where they are, either in Miami or Havana, and quit planning to repossess stuff that belonged essentially to forbears. Maybe that sounds harsh, but it does avoid needlessly putting folks on the streets.
The folks who went to Miami have had US residence and a great number of services provided them. The folks who stayed in Havana have known poverty and hunger and perhaps paid for their suffering big time.
My sympathy is on the side of those who stayed in Cuba. The folks who went to Miami have had the privilege of voting as a bloc to elect Republican presidents, and by confusing the electoral process, given us in effect the war in Iraq. They hoped the war would be waged against Castro's Cuba. George’s aim was a little off.
There will be less of that from now on, of course. He’s just undergone surgery for a bleeding stomach and his kid brother Raul at 75 is exercising the powers of president. Folks in Miami are packing their bags already, hoping to return to Cuba under a new government when Castro dies. A good number of Miamians want their homes back. The folks now living in those homes in Cuba fear the return of expatriates, since the only homes some current residents know belong to those expats with the packed bags.
It’s hard to choose sides in a quarrel like this. Maybe all the folks who have homes now should stay where they are, either in Miami or Havana, and quit planning to repossess stuff that belonged essentially to forbears. Maybe that sounds harsh, but it does avoid needlessly putting folks on the streets.
The folks who went to Miami have had US residence and a great number of services provided them. The folks who stayed in Havana have known poverty and hunger and perhaps paid for their suffering big time.
My sympathy is on the side of those who stayed in Cuba. The folks who went to Miami have had the privilege of voting as a bloc to elect Republican presidents, and by confusing the electoral process, given us in effect the war in Iraq. They hoped the war would be waged against Castro's Cuba. George’s aim was a little off.
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Zeus Done It. Cronus' Kid.
“Zeus is the ruler of the gods and the god of the sky and the god of weather and the sky.
“He was the son of Cronus. But Cronus fearing that one of his children would over through him so he swallowed each of Zeus’s brothers and sisters. So Cronus wife gave him a special herb so he barfed up all of them then, they revolted against him and he died.”
Quote found at
http://library.thinkquest.org/TQ0310708/myweb/zeus.htm
This sounds like mayhem. I was looking for someone to blame for the four days of what feels like 110 degree heat lately (> 8/1/2006), and was tired of cussing out the TV weather people, none of whom merit more than a glance. I googled “weather god” and as you see above I got Zeus, and a lot more about Cronus and family. I don’t want to check out the meaning of all the references to he and him in this quote, or consider whether he through up or just barfed. The Net would lose more than it would gain by editing. I’m now happy blaming Zeus. Ready for my best shot? Here 'tis.
Especially for hurricanes, shame on you, Zeus.
“He was the son of Cronus. But Cronus fearing that one of his children would over through him so he swallowed each of Zeus’s brothers and sisters. So Cronus wife gave him a special herb so he barfed up all of them then, they revolted against him and he died.”
Quote found at
http://library.thinkquest.org/TQ0310708/myweb/zeus.htm
This sounds like mayhem. I was looking for someone to blame for the four days of what feels like 110 degree heat lately (> 8/1/2006), and was tired of cussing out the TV weather people, none of whom merit more than a glance. I googled “weather god” and as you see above I got Zeus, and a lot more about Cronus and family. I don’t want to check out the meaning of all the references to he and him in this quote, or consider whether he through up or just barfed. The Net would lose more than it would gain by editing. I’m now happy blaming Zeus. Ready for my best shot? Here 'tis.
Especially for hurricanes, shame on you, Zeus.
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