Day 14825

Hey there. Hi there. Ho there. I'm being all covert and such, trying to post a blog entry without Michelle finding out! She's either watching some TV or fell asleep...can't tell, as her back is to me.

So, today was just one of those days where we got to do a variety of things, got exhausted, and just felt like we managed to not waste a day. It started at 7:30 this morning when I went to the nursery to pick up some organic mix for the raised planters one of the Goobers & I built for the front yard. We had overestimated how many cubic yards of soil we needed, so we got to pick up some medium sized tree bark with the funds we had prepaid. The soil just barely fit the 3 planters and the bark was just sufficient to cover the ground around the planters. It looks good and it feels great to finally be finished with my portion of the project. Miss Blu gets to do some planting now.

After a cold shower to get rid of the dust and cool down, we headed out to Whiskeytown Lake for an afternoon of swimming, sun-worshipping, kayaking and fishing. We caught 2 small largemouth bass and a hand-sized bluegill. Not a great haul, but we had enough action to keep it interesting. The real treat was the new kayak. Ok, so it's not-so-new. In fact, I got it used almost a month ago. Anyway, today was it's inagural voyage and Oh-My-FSM, is it fast! It was just amazing how quickly one stroke of the blade was quickly able to move that kayak! Gonna have some real good trips in this thang!

Next, we came back home for another cold shower. Did I mention the heat? It got to 108 today. Just enough to suck the energy right out of you. Anyway, after the shower, we grabbed some quick grub and went to see Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest. It was a good 2-1/2 hours long, but worth it. In typical sophomore fashion, it was not quite as good as the original, but still worth paying $2.75 for a box of Original Dots!

All in all, we had a good day and now I'm dog-tired as well. Time to crash!

G'Night, folks!

Day 14818

As BluEyes mentioned on her blog, we enjoyed a pleasant day in Lassen Volcanic National Park. She suggested that I renew my blogging (Ahem, by my own free will) by posting some pics we took during the day.

I think I got my interest in wildflowers from my mom, who loves to garden. We used to occasionally spend an hour or two around the house I grew up in planting, watering, and weeding the gardens. I recall those memories as being quite peaceful and pleasant. Anyway, I took several photos of wildflowers today and what follows are some of them.

This first one reminds me of cotton candy. It was the size of a clover plant, but with fuzzy pink flowers. The bees, wasps, and dragonflies were all over these while I shot, but the best photo had no insect life.



The mostly blue flower in this next photo is my favorite. I don't know what this flower is, but it has a very unique shape. The purple-ish back end of the flower does not connect directly to the stem of the plant. Instead, the flower is attached to the stem in the middle. It is sort of oriented like a capital T.



This photo was obtained by pure luck. As we were cruising along, I would say to Miss Blu, "Stop!" whenever I saw something I wanted to shoot. One time, there was just no place to immediately pull off, so we coasted further up the road. The shot I intended to take was a flop, but to the left of us about 75 feet away were a cluster of 4 of these. Again, I don't know what kind of flower this is, but I have seen them before in Arizona. I thought they were from a yucca plant, but a search online yields an entirely different looking flower. I've got to pick up a book on wildflowers!



So, not everything we saw was pretty. This last photo was of a stream that appeared to have more mud and volcanic ash flowing in it than water. It was just a bunch of nasty smelling (from the high content of hydrogen sulphide) grey slop! The scary thing was that back in the day, this immediate area used to be a resort spa! It was called the Supan Sulphur Works. People actually paid money to take baths in the geothermally heated pools, which helped cover up their B.O. with the lovely scent of Deviled Eggs! These people probably also purchased really cheap land in Florida!



Well, we had a great day and I'm glad I got to share it with Michelle! Check out her site to see more pics.