What are you doing today?

[Back in the fold18 3]

Got out later than I planned but rode 44 miles today and a miracle happened . For the only time ever so far I had a light tailwind coming back . It was glorious . Hazy and smoky from forest fire smoke drifting in from Spokane and the weatherman said our air quality was “ unhealthy “ but I thought it was fine . I stopped and ate my peanut butter sandwich I carry on long rides and looking down I saw a dead bat . That weirded me out !

 

[GaryE25 23]

It looks like an ideal day here, as the sun slowly appears this morning. In the low 20s, a light breeze, sun and clouds and no apparent smoke. I'll do some water changes, weed around the tomatoes, and take the dog out so she can check her pee mail.

Then a paddle on a clear weedy river so we can what the osprey are up to. We seem to have bumper crops of mosquitoes, horse flies, deer flies and bald eagles this year.

 

[jaylach64 180]

Since my pro baseball team isn't playing today I've been watching LLWS (Little League World Series) regional playoffs. I LOVE watching these 10-12 year old kids play!

If not familiar, 20 teams go to the LLWS; 10 from the USA and 10 from around the world.

 

[Back in the fold18 3]

Everyone is griping about the heat here on the banks of The Yellowstone but I don’t get it . 90 degrees is warm but it doesn’t really get cooking until early afternoon and the days are getting shorter so the nights are cooling off nice . Anyway , it’ll cool off soon enough and then folks will be griping about the cold . Actually , now that I think about it , maybe it’s a good thing that that’s what people are griping about . If there’s nothing more serious than the weather to talk about then maybe things are generally both hunky and dory .

 

[GaryE25 23]

The merlin bird identification by sound app from Cornell University has caught me. It's Pokemon Go for nature lovers. I just heard an early morning bird call that seemed different, so I stepped out back and checked it. It identified the calls of 11 species, including one it hadn't picked up locally for me before. I'd seen but not heard them as they migrate through. The semipalmated plovers are in town touring.

Over the past two days I've seen 3 new to me species because of this app. Before, if I saw and heard them, they were just birds. Now, what the hey is a sanderling?

The days are hot and the evenings cool, but the sunlight length is beginning to shorten. We might have another month of slipping away summer to enjoy, so I'm going to start one of my usual fishroom renos. I can't be satisfied - it seems I'm always going to moving things. As always, this plan is to reduce winter energy costs and improve sightlines.

Half the fun of that space is constantly changing it. I hope I never make it perfect.

I got up in the wee hours and noticed the motion detector light on, so I took a look out the window. There were five large raccoons retreating across the grass and giving the light filthy looks. I haven't seen that many that large together before. Usually it's a Mom and juveniles, but these seem to be full adults who stayed with Mom so they could play video games in the basement forever.

 

[MattW64 180]

Had a trip into town today with a complimentary heatwave. Found a number of stores I used to visit had gone out of business . To make the day worse, both trains to and from town were 40+ years old, with no AC and rush-hour traffic crammed into a sardine can. I think the sweat in that train alone could have cured England's drought problem.

 

[Essjay64 179]

I'm watching as outside gets a bit dimmer. The eclipse isn't total here, but at around 90% the light dimming should be obvious. The maximum is in 20 minutes from now.

Don't worry, I'm not silly enough to look at the sun as I don't have any eclipse glasses

 

[Back in the fold18 3]

I'm watching as outside gets a bit dimmer. The eclipse isn't total here, but at around 90% the light dimming should be obvious. The maximum is in 20 minutes from now.

Don't worry, I'm not silly enough to look at the sun as I don't have any eclipse glasses

I completely forgot about that ! I didn’t see anything or notice anything unusual .

 

[Essjay64 179]

Was the eclipse visible where you are? Totality was seen in Iceland and Spain.

Here it was as though a thin cloud had covered the sun, a slight dimming of light, but it wasn't cloud as there were still shadows.

 

[GaryE25 23]

It was expected to be partial here, but I was busy and lost track of the time. I didn't notice it, as I have with others. I'm disappointed. Eclipse lighting is always kind of eerie and cool to see.

Maybe I've gotten dimmer instead.

 

[Back in the fold18 3]

No matter . I’ve seen an eclipse before and it was cool but unless you see one in its full glory it isn’t anything overly special . They are calling for a meteor shower and I wish I could see that but city lights make that very difficult as does the forest fire smoke . The one full blown eclipse I did see in the 1970’s was cool because I heard birds will sleep during one and they did . I saw sparrows land in the trees and tuck their head under their wing . That was something to see .

 

[GaryE25 23]

Northern hemisphere problems. I woke up this morning early, as usual, but it was dark. Last night it was dark by 8. I used to say summer was when winter went out for a pee, but now, winter goes out for a smoke. We get wildfire dawns, with weird red brown skies.

This is a great time of year though, with cooler nights, usually a lot of sun and that long easy slide into November. Tomorrow I buy wood for a major reset in the fishroom. I'll crawl around removing a lower level on a 3 tiered 16 foot rack, after I move 20 or so tanks. I've planned this out like a work project, in sequence. After a week or so of working steadily, I should be satisfied with the results for oh, about 3 weeks.

I always tweak the set up, but this will be the biggest set of changes since I built the room 5 years ago. I didn't have a lot of time then as I was moving in with fish in winter, but I rushed things and made mistakes in planning I can remedy here. The fish in every tank will be visible from the centre of the room, and there will be no more narrow aisles from jutting out aquariums. Plus I'll reduce the window light using a combination of tanks and plants, which will in turn, I hope, reduce algae in one rack of tanks that's getting too much light all day.

Drop by if you need some 10 gallon tanks!

 

[Back in the fold18 3]

Northern hemisphere problems. I woke up this morning early, as usual, but it was dark. Last night it was dark by 8. I used to say summer was when winter went out for a pee, but now, winter goes out for a smoke. We get wildfire dawns, with weird red brown skies.

This is a great time of year though, with cooler nights, usually a lot of sun and that long easy slide into November. Tomorrow I buy wood for a major reset in the fishroom. I'll crawl around removing a lower level on a 3 tiered 16 foot rack, after I move 20 or so tanks. I've planned this out like a work project, in sequence. After a week or so of working steadily, I should be satisfied with the results for oh, about 3 weeks.

I always tweak the set up, but this will be the biggest set of changes since I built the room 5 years ago. I didn't have a lot of time then as I was moving in with fish in winter, but I rushed things and made mistakes in planning I can remedy here. The fish in every tank will be visible from the centre of the room, and there will be no more narrow aisles from jutting out aquariums. Plus I'll reduce the window light using a combination of tanks and plants, which will in turn, I hope, reduce algae in one rack of tanks that's getting too much light all day.

Drop by if you need some 10 gallon tanks!

Sounds like a fun project . Are you much of a carpenter ?

 

[Essjay64 179]

At long last!!!

Our younger son's motorbike has been in our garage since 2019. He just phoned to say he's on his way from work, he'll stay overnight and the bike is booked in for an MOT tomorrow afternoon. He'll need to tinker with it tomorrow morning but with any luck he'll be able to advertise it for sale and it'll be gone

 

[GaryE25 23]

Sounds like a fun project . Are you much of a carpenter ?

More like a carpenter ant. My skills are poor, but this kind of job is simple - cut, place, reinforce. I would put in a lot of thought before I made a stand for inside the house, though I could do that. But in a fishroom garage, there's something wrong if people look to the form and not the function of the rack. It's the tanks that draw the eye away from clunky, strong stands. Always overbuild...