Immature katydid photographed at Blandford Nature Center this past weekend.
Category: Photography
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Viceroy
A Viceroy butterfly; distinguishable from a Monarch by the curved black stripes on the lower wings. Photo taken at Blandford Nature Center in late May.
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The Long, Slow Days of Summer
The day of our Festival performance, June 3, started out on a less-than-promising note. Waves of hail and rain alternated with beautiful sunshine and 75-degree weather.
While we warmed up for the show we hoped we would get lucky. There was a decent-sized crowd, all told, considering what the weather had been doing all day.
But, our luck did not hold out. we ended up underground in the entrance to the county building, along with a captive audience. So we decided to perform anyway. Unfortunately, after the first tai chi form security closed us down, saying another storm, this one including golfball-sized hail, was on its way in. So we called it a day.
The next morning I wandered down to festival again, and listened to some music, and took some photos. Tom Otterness has sculptures up all over town, all of which are quite nifty.
Blues on the Mall kicked off its 2006 season on Wednesday, with Kenny Neal providing the tunes.
Thursday morning, while I was working from home, the local cottonwoods did their thing.Summer is no time to spend in front of a computer.
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Tumbling Down the Walls
This afternoon I took a trip back to the farm to enjoy a picnic and watch our barn get knocked down. After many years of entropy the thing had finally decayed past the point of usefulness, and into the realm of being a danger to those around it.
Many years ago adjustments had been made to its structure to allow more storage space, and these adjustments had ultimately weakened the frame.
Notice that the whole end of the barn is hanging in space, with nothing but the roof beams preventing it from tumbling down.
This is the view from inside, showing how cock-eyed and beat-up the structure is.
This beam, and the one it butts into on the left, are the only things holding the barn up at this point.
Local demolisher-of-large-buildings Herbie Van Aiken provided the bulldozer and told us it wouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes to bring the thing down.
Herbie lined up on the beam he said was the keystone of the structure and, after digging up some sod, gave it a push.
I was looking for a position to take some good shots when I heard CRACK and got my camera up just in time to see the barn come down in a huge cloud of dust.
The demolition took about five minutes.
Another push on the main beam brought down the stubborn remnants.
And all this without touching the silo or pump-house which share a foundation with the barn.
My brother Kurt exploring the wreckage.
And my mother finally has the view to the south she has always wanted. -
Nature and Such
This afternoon, having nothing better to do, I hied me over to Blandford Nature Center wherein I discovered much nature.
Up until about a year ago one of the main attractions at the Center was a rescued fox. About a year ago the fox passed on, and a new tenant has recently moved in:
This bobcat is about four years old and was raised as a pet until it became too much for its family (and neighbors) to handle. It is quite fearless around humans and so, out in the wild, would not be able to fend for itself, and would probably have had to survive on a diet of garbage and small yappy dogs.
I do have to say, though; he is an absolutely beautiful animal.
Since the bobcat was not interested in what I was doing, I wandered around and looked at the other rescued animals. I immediately discovered something else new:
The turkey vultures are expecting. That thing to the lower right of the bird is one of their two eggs. Which just goes to show, everyone is beautiful to someone. Especially in the spring.
Onward and inward. Every inch of the park was teeming with life.
Some of the photos just seemed to compose themselves:
On the way back out of the park one of the attendants was preparing to feed the cat. Like any other cat, he sat at the door and waited impatiently. Once the door was open, he hissed at the attendant and swatted her in the leg.
Note that this is NOT a small animal. He didn’t use his claws, however, and for his rudeness the attendant squirted him with a water bottle. Now, I have seen this tactic used on house cats with a great deal of success; but a 40 pound bobcat? Who’d’a thunk? Next time I am on safari in Africa and a lion charges me, I am going to squirt it in the face with a water bottle. It should keep me perfectly safe!
I watched the cat eat for a minute, then discovered why it was angry at the center employees:
Jeez, what a slap in the face.
On the way out of the park I was surprised by one more Piece of Nature™:
I guess this one hadn’t learned the “crawl quietly through dead leaves” trick yet.
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Ice Jam
The fish ladder. Right now there is no evidence that it is anything other than an odd concrete sculpture.
Miles and miles of this.
The Sixth Street bridge.
The Brassworks Building, from the fish ladder. The dam is directly underneath the power lines.
Eastbound (lower) and westbound (upper) I-196.
The Titanic.More photos of the ice jam can be found here.
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300
Without realizing it, yesterday I posted the 300th picture to the River Project . Three hundred down, 66 to go (I get an extra one for Leap Year).
