Rule Breakers

Happy Holidays! 

Well, "Project Clean Up My Big Bunch O' Blog Drafts" went well when it came to reviewing and deleting, obviously not as well when it comes to completing and posting! Most of them turned out to require more time and effort to finish than my hibernating self has cared to expend, but here's one that was nearly done and that I had a lot of fun putting together. Hope it'll provide as many chuckles for you as it has for me! But should any of these tempt you to go forth and be naughty, remember: Santa's watching. :-)

No fair!

"Hell, there are no rules here. 

We're trying to accomplish something."

~Thomas A. Edison

Let's face it. Some rules are good and necessary, but some just seem made to be broken. 

Sometimes subtly...

And sometimes not...

And lest you think it's just dogs who are engaging in acts of civil disobedience...

Photo by Marcia M. Olinger, Caledonia, Michigan

Adding "please" and an emphasis on "not" doesn't always work either...

Then again, sometimes you're just better off complying...

SkyWatch Friday: An Apollo Picnic Under Mercurial Skies :-)

I find it nearly impossible to believe that we're on the brink of October's final weekend! Not only because of the month's speedy passage, but also because of its unseasonably balmy weather, more summery than autumnal.

Last Saturday's softly serene sunrise was both lovely and illustrative of our mild and gentle weather lately...

Knowing all too well that despite its delayed arrival wintery weather is inevitable, BW and I have been taking advantage of the beautiful days with bike rides and lots of outings with the dogs, while my friend Pam and I have been logging many miles on long walks, laughingly referring to ourselves as "Lewis and Clark" because of our explorations and adventures (and occasional need for a guide, given our shared lack of any sense of direction!) :-) The three of us even threw together a fun picnic on Tuesday. That morning, Pam and I walked the three miles to Sheridan's quilt shop, then hoofed it another 3/4 mile or so to the library to take another gander at this year's annual Fiber Arts Show entries (yep, post coming) and meet up with BW, who arrived in our car with the picnic supplies. 

It won't surprise those of you who know me well when I tell you that our picnic venue was the cemetery. :-) Not the main municipal cemetery, but the adjacent Bellevue Cemetery, home to a rather mysterious collection of columns from the 1930s. They used to support a wooden pergola which has long since succumbed to the elements that are also taking their toll on the columns. A local historic pamphlet that Pam bought at the library identified the structure-that's-no-longer-a-structure as the romantically pagan "Sun Temple." Despite the fact that our sunny day was morphing into an overcast one, it still made a great spot for a picnic lunch.

But before eating, Pam and BW decided to burn a few extra calories by helping to prop up this lone little puffer cloud… 

Pam gave it a gentle push with her finger so BW could hold it like a serving tray! 

We set up our picnic in the center of the "temple," so were encircled by the columns as we dined on our yummy feast of tempeh salad sandwiches, hummus, carrots, apples, bananas and hibiscus tea. All we were missing were a lyre, our togas, and Apollo...

Oh, wait! Look who showed up! And ate most of the hummus! 

(okay, maybe that was me. LOL)...

After lunch we headed next door to the large municipal cemetery and visited several of the more scenic and interesting sections and historic graves there. At one point, Pam looked up and saw this dragon in the tree above us!...

Though it remained a balmy 77ºF, the weather grew increasingly cloudy and blustery, until the skies to our north looked like this at 6pm...

Though teasing us with the promise of some much-needed rain, it turned out the clouds were just for show (and cemetery ambience). The night remained dry, and the next day was another sunny one. In fact, the lack of clouds has made for fairly boring sunrises this week, at least until yesterday when more nocturnal clouds made for an appropriately pumpkin-colored and picturesque dawn before clearing out later that morning...

For more picturesque skies by day & by night, beneath sunshine & clouds, 

and both autumnal & vernal from both sides of the equator, please visit...

Methinx it's a Sphinx!

Sounded a little like a combination of William Shakespeare and Dr. Seuss for a second there, didn't I? :-) 

I'm not talking about the Great Sphinx of Giza, but of a pair of White-lined Sphinx moths (Hyles lineata) who have been flitting and feeding amongst our beautiful blooming bee balm in the front flowerbed the past few evenings. The first evening we noticed them as we sat on our front porch enjoying the cool temps of twilight, we thought they were hummingbirds. They are about the same size as hummingbirds and feed in the same manner, and so are often called hummingbird moths. As it happens, there was also an actual hummingbird in the mix that first evening - which rather confused things for a bit! But he took off over our roof and hasn't been seen since. Apparently the moths have staked out the bee balm for themselves, at least when the sun goes down.

I took a bazillion photos, most of which were crap - these are the best of the bunch, and aren't as ideal as I'd have wanted (it was dusk, after all, and they do flit fast, the flighty little farts!), but they'll give you a good idea, I think…

Pretty sure the pair is a male (R) and female (L)

Most of my photos are of the male, he was the one feeding the most (surprise, surprise! lol) The Sphinx moths (there are about 1200 species, 60 in North America - our White-lined Sphinx being the most common) get their name from the sphinx-like rearing posture the Sphinx moth caterpillars assume when alarmed.

In addition to hovering like a hummingbird, they can swoop & dive like hawks - hence their other nickname, hawk moths. And they can fly 30 miles an hour! (See why getting good photos was such a challenge?!)

This photo of the female is really blurry, but I wanted you to see her curled proboscis (tongue). Sphinx moths are important pollinators that typically feed on flowers with abundant nectar at the base of elongated tubes (like orchids), and so possess a 10-11 inch proboscis. No other insect has such a feature. Interestingly, flowers that have evolved to attract hummingbirds usually have no scent (since hummingbirds can’t smell), while moth-pollinated flowers often emit a strong, sweet scent as the sun sets. 

In most of my photos, the moths' wings - which beat about 50 times a second - were an indistinct blur, so my favorites were these few that captured their colorful wings frozen in motion. I especially love the wing position in this one.

A day or two after I took those evening photos, I was burying chopped organic banana peel at the base of our rosebush (works like a charm as a rose fertilizer) when who should I catch snoozing inside the rose branches but one of our Sphinx moth friends! Repose in the roses by day, belly up to the bee balm bar by night - doesn't sound half bad! :-) 

References: 
Beyond Bones (blog of the Houston Museum of Natural Science): Sphinx Moths 
Silkmoths: Hyles lineata lineata
Butterflies and Moths of North America: Attributes of Hyles lineata
ButterflyZone: Moths with Longest Proboscis 

And finally, here's wishing my dear friend Joanne ("AdventureJo" in Interwebz Land) a very happy birthday on Monday! Jo and I have been friends for 32 years - longer than some of my blog readers have been alive! :-)

Happy birthday, Jo - you are indeed a ray of sunshine! Eternally youthful sunshine! :-)

SkyWatch Friday: Sunset Alchemy

A fierce thunderstorm, smoke from distant wildfires, the setting sun: alchemy that turned the skies to gold...

This post is in honor of my friend and neighbor Pam, whose birthday is today and who missed seeing this particular sunset this week. Happy Birthday, Pam! (Our handsome buddies wanted to join me in wishing you a very happy birthday - and they also wanted to know if there will be carrot cake. LOL)…

Our friendly neighbors pay us a visit over our back fence. 

Such beautiful beings… always a pleasure to see them, and a privilege to share their world!

2014 Sheridan Karz Club Rod Run, Pt 2

Sorry it took me a while to get here with the second batch of Rod Run photos, but the traffic was terrible! ;-) Anyway, here are the rest of our favorites from this year's hot rod/classic car show on July 5th. (You can see Part 1 here)...

A 1948 Buick Special 

(and a border collie who seems to be telling his human, "Let's go for a ride in that one, 

it matches my collar and leash!")

1933 Dodge 5-Window Coupe 

According to its accompanying info sign, this teal beauty is all steel and all Mopar, with rare dual horns. (The teal color and those wonderful "arooga" horns were what won me over!) When this was a brand new car in 1933, it was sold in Kalispell, MT. It now resides in Billings, MT, a mere 444 miles away. So I expect it has low miles. ;-) 

BW admiring a boss '57 Chevy Bel Air

1956 Mercury Montclair Hardtop Coupe

These odd tubes in the Mercury really drew my attention. They led from these ports in the rear deck to larger ones in the car's ceiling just above the rear seat, and I had fun coming up with unlikely uses for them. Since they reminded me of the pneumatic tubes you use at drive thru banks, I thought maybe it was a way for someone locked in the trunk to send an SOS to someone in the front seat. :-) 

As I struggled to both figure them out and photograph them, the owner wandered over and explained that the tubes are part of the car's very rare factory air conditioning (which only 1% of all 1956 Mercury Montclair's had!), drawing air from outside vents (you can see the chrome intake vent on the rear fender in the first Mercury photo) and sending it through the tubes to air vents above the front seat. I'm guessing from some of the info I found online that the a/c compressor and condenser were in the trunk, but don't quote me! (I still like my idea of using it to send messages from the trunk to the driver, lol).

1957 Ford Sedan Delivery

The truly beady-eyed and sharp-memoried among you may recognize this car from my 2012 Rod Run post. However, it has been jazzed up quite a bit in the two years since… you can see the graphics on the hood better in this photo, but check out these incredible murals (all painted FREEHAND by the artist!!) on the sides...

and on the tailgate, featuring Mount Rushmore and Devil's Tower...

1934 Ford 3-window Coupe 

2006 Ford Mustang Shelby GT-H

Our friend and neighbor John, VP of the Karz Club as well as the owner of this Shelby GT-H, briefs BW about some of its attributes. If you click on the photo to enlarge it you'll see the "Hertz" badge; yep, that Hertz, the car rental folks. They collaborated with Ford and Shelby Automobiles to commission 500 of these high-performance cars for customers in select cities whose heart's desire it might be to rent a race car to get from the airport to their business meetings. :-) 

Fast as that 325hp V-8 could go, anyone driving one of those bad boys better be watching out for these...

Wyoming Highway Patrol's Restored 1954 Buick Patrol Car 

Beside it is a contemporary one… if I were pulled over by the WHP, pretty sure I'd prefer it be by the '54 Buick (which has its own Facebook page!) Especially if I had to ride to the hoosegow in the back seat. :-)

Speaking of vehicular outlaws… when we saw this '88 Lincoln Town Car in the lineup, we burst out laughing. Just a couple days earlier we had passed this car, with its menacing matte black paint job, on one of Sheridan's streets. BW had done a double take and said, "What the hell was that?" To which I'd answered, "Why, The Death Car, of course!" Seriously, if the Grim Reaper has a driver's license and too much originality to be caught dead driving a hearse (nyuck), this HAS to be his ride!...

1988 Lincoln Death Town Car 

I got another good laugh when I read the "Special Features" section on its Rod Run entry tag, and again when I had a little fun with it in the photo editor…

(What, no mention of chains or scythe?!) 

Perhaps, like me, this has put you in an early Halloween mood, in need of a bit of orange to go with your black. And now that you've seen the Grim Reaper's car, perhaps you're wondering what The Great Pumpkin drives. Why, this naturally! Perfect for cruising through the pumpkin patch...

"Porky," a 1949 Chevy Custom Pickup

We loved this truck! Such a cool color (note the subtle fender flames) and fun shape!

I've tried and tried to get a list of this year's award winners - or even just "Best in Show," but to no avail. I'm still trying, and if I eventually succeed I'll add a note to any of the cars on these posts that may have won an award. 

Anyway, that does it for this year's Rod Run. But you might enjoy some of these old car commercials from the 1950's (when we apparently had much longer attention spans!) The first ad was my favorite. Love the cheesy acting and the subtle-as-a-flying-brick prodding to make everyone envy and admire you by owning their product. Hey, who had time for subliminal messaging when marketers were too busy convincing you that their car could practically fly you to Mars? :-) 

Coming up soon(ish): photos from yesterday's 2nd annual Garden Tour: from horsepower to flower power!  :-)