Sunday, April 29, 2012

Yard Work

Before. The yard after two weeks of rain. It was mowed down before the rain. As you can see by the oak tree near the retaining wall it's three blocks down to the grass.
 After. See how many blocks there are below the oak tree to the grass. I have the lawn mower set to cut about 8 inches above the ground.
A nice view of the trees and road. One of those nice warm days and all you hear is the sound of insects flying through the air.

Deer Friends and ...

 Grazing on the road. The deer know the sound of my car and know I'm inside so they don't move when I drive up. Any other car the deer will run off.
The girls here for dinner of fresh greens.

 Baby Sprout having dinner.
 Little Sprout with mom in the background
Little Sprout with mom in the background sitting down.

Here kitty-kitty-kitty

Daddy Cat getting some rays, lounging in the sun.
Happy Kitty. Must have some trust if he closes his eyes while I'm taking pictures.
 Daddy Cat has a unique orange nose which is a lot bigger then the baby kitties. It's also got shorter hair then Tiggers Baby.
Momma Kitty lounging on the cedar fence
Big yawn and big stretch, it's hard work being a kitty

Flowers of spring

 Lots of pollen. Getting close on yellow. It's amazing all the detail flowers have.
 Field of Yellow. The walkway if full of yellow and the bees are out. There are several types of bees and pollenators that visit the flowers.
 Little Blue Flowers. These little guys seem to come from no where.
 Amazing how compact the flowers are before opening over time to bring in the insects besides bees. I noticed that bumble bees like these flowers and another flower that hangs upside down.
Iris flowers are amazing in that they come up in threes. They have three flowers facing three directions. I don't know if that's to catch the wind. Insects have to crawl over the pestels to get into where the good stuf is.

Click on the pictures if you want to zoom in. The full size is 2000x3000, so you can get in close.

Foxy Girls

 Sprout seeing if it's okay by mom to come up and play.
 Puppy Girl, the mother watches as Sprout plays with Dieter.
 Dieter kitty comes out to play with her friend the little Sprout.
Little Sprout gets a close up. It's really cute how they sit and wait for me to come outside to see them. I've been seeing my little friend for a couple years now. Sprout is just the baby from last year and I think there's aa new puppy back at the den. When I first saw the mother I thought it was a cat that had been coming around. It was sitting off in the shadows and I called to her and motioned with my hand to come over and join everyone and she did. I'm really surprised to see how smart the foxes are. They seem to understand voice commands. Maybe it's just me and my bond with the wildlife they understand me. I try not to take flash pictures because it blinds them, so I take as few as possible. When Sprout was smaller it didn't have the black specs in it's fur, it looked white and yellow only. The other night I had the whole group here all three of the foxes, Mom, Dad and the kid. It really amazes me how the kitties act with the foxes and raccoons because they get close and rub on each other. The kitties are about the same age as Sprout. So, it's like kids playing with the same aged kids. EVen as I limp around my pain seems to go when I'm out with my forest friends.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Baby Fox

Wasn't expecting this tonight. I little baby Gray Fox.  It's at least half the size of mom. Very nervous or I should say cautious. Has the unique markings of the fox. Had to take this shot through the security screen. They aren't suppose to be this far north but the worlds changing. It's going to be adapt, migrate or die.

One of the most impressive Star Trek's is on tonight. Two cultures meeting for the first time trying to communicate but use two different means of talking. One referring to times in history, events of what has happened in the past. A language built on past happenings and their stories. Then there's us. How did we look to them.

"Timba, his arms wide."
"Welcome my Friend"

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Oh no not another computer

There goes another computer. Not sure what all went wrong with the 650MHz computer but it said the hard drive cable wasn't there. I replaced the cable and still said 80 wire cable wasn't there. Tested hard drive on this computer and it couldn't see it. That could be because this computers even older then the other computer. Also found out on DIMM was partly bad. Could only see 130 megs out of 256 megs. Was rather depressed yesterday not as depressed today but don't feel all that great with things falling apart. I tried getting on line with this computer but it's been hit and miss. As I've been testing out the other computer and this one I noticed the one that failed power supply gets way to hot. I have the cover off and it should be even cooler but it's baking hot.

Don't know what it is but it seems I'm dropping more things which makes me mad. Almost tripped on carpet area rug something I've never done before and that didn't make me feel good either. I managed to stay upright and on one leg and didn't have a controlled crash. Something about computers failing and life all the sudden just sucking. I just feel overwhelmed. This computers doing a little better with a little more ram but I need much more for it to really work good. I have Ubuntu on this computer and Novel openSUSE on the other. I've been testing out as many type of Linux to see how they feel and look. I think I put openSUSE on the other computer because it was the only thing that worked on it from all the different copies of Linux I had.

Not sure why the blog is working today because it wasn't yesterday. I couldn't sign in and it just sat there waiting. Got farther on this page and with another Google page  Just drive me crazy when things don't work. What I hate is when it does and doesn't work and nothing makes sense.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Sprockets playing cute on the warm concrete getting rays









I'm not buying into that cute crap.

You can click on the pictures to zoom in up to th full size. ( 2000 X 3000 )

Sprout, my baby fox and friend

Sprout getting a bite to eat.
Sprout coming for a treat to eat.
Little Sprout and Tiggers playing together
 Tiggers baby, less then a year old. Was born in late spring early summer last year. She plays like a wolf, runs over to what I throw and looks at it.
No flash. would have been better if I was using Photoshop and my fancy filters. I'm real limited with F-Spot program that keeps track of my photos in a data base. That's Sprout in the front and Puppy Girl in the back, the mother of this almost one year old. She has another baby in her den which I hope to see soon. They are looking off at Tiggers playing with bugs or flowers. Just fantastic little friends.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

So Much Rain... too much rain

Looking North up the creek at the cherry blossoms and water.
Moss covered retaining wall. Cherry trees with the blossoms. Willow trees are in bloom too. That's down in the creek near the cherry trees. I put tarps up over the back porch and side deck to keep the kitties dry and keep the late afternoon sun off the house in the summer. 
Takes a good rain for the creek to flow like this. For a while I thought it was going to be a weak winter and not much rain. This last storm really brought a lot of rain and raised the water table to the point I have wet concrete in the cellar. It's amazing how the grass grew in everywhere even where the water flows. When I first moved in here the water flowed all year round but now it's only in the winter time after a hard rain.
Another view of the creek from the front porch. Before this storm I was going to mow the grass in the creek because it looked like it was the last of the storms and I wanted to knock the weeds down before they went to seed.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Linked-In, spyware and address book theft

Hope you didn't get an email from me saying go to this site or to sign up for "Linked-In" because I didn't send that email to you. I did sign up to "Linked-In" until I figured out they planted spyware on my computer and took my address book. Then they started sending me letters asking if I knew these people. Since I know people from around the world it's not random that several names show up together it was "Linked-In" sending my own names back to me. "Linked-In" also was using my mail accounts when I was off line, without any internet to send mail out signed by me with my email account. Microsoft turned the accounts off because of the high volume of mail other then the pattern of mail I'd be doing. I kept wondering why a company would steel names. Then it dawned on me they are going for public offering and need to look like they are a thriving business. Doesn't matter if the names they have are valid accounts. Since it was a machine using my address book it tried sending emails to phone numbers. Those went undelivered and tipped off Microsoft. I have a few friends that are upset at me because of the spyware with my name attached to the emails. "Linked-In" even hijacked my blog and was making posts but I put a stop to that. So why did "Linked-In" come from no where to having a public offering. Is it about take the money and run on an over rated company? Now to figure out how to remove social groups from Hotmail online. I didn't put them there and don't use them. I hope if you get a email from a friend that your friend really sent the email to sign up to "Linked-In because most likely the mail list or address book was stolen and if you open the email up that you will get spyware that steels your address book and email accounts and passwords.

Monday, April 09, 2012

The Glowing Orb

There's that orb in the night sky again. Keeps showing up every 28 days. There must be some sort of conspiracy . Soon as the sun goes away then it gets dark outside, amazing.

Friday, April 06, 2012

The Magic Hour

The old shed. The wood is cut but not finished milling because it came from the lumber mill. The planks are 1 inch thick. If it was milled finish it would be 3/4 inches thick.

The little shed in the lower left center is the old well pump house. Nothing like early morning light, it's so soft and the colors are soft like, sort of a pastel look. That old well house is being eaten by moss and slowly falling apart.

The tree with white on it is an apple tree that was knocked over on December 3, 2008. The snow was so heavy it broke the roots. I trimmed it up and painted the trunk to keep it from over heating in the direct sun light. There are still ropes that I used to hold the tree in place. I used a lot of rope, webbing, levers to pull the tree back up. I cut about half the tree off to lighten it up so I could pull i up. It took about three days. Two days working on the tree, trimming it. Another day was clean up and bring the tools and bi-pod down to the house. It was also the first time I got a pinched nerve in my back which kept me laying down for a month until I got to a doctor for prednesone a steroid that reduces swelling. I couldn't believe the amount of pain I was in. I couldn't do anything because moving just caused more pain. To get up and out of bed I had to roll out. I got myself into what looked like a sitting position laying on me side. I'd bring my feet to the floor the same time I brought my body up. That was the fast version of getting up but took a while to figure that out. At first I was rolling over letting me feet touch the floor laying on my stomach.  From there I'd push with my arms to get me moving upward and would work my feet under my body. I as in a squatting position. Then all I had to do is push with my legs to get fully upright.All this while trying to keep my back from bending. I really didn't know what to do at the time. After a few weeks of the pain not lessening I went to a pain clinic. That lasted through 2009 and 2010. I got surgery in February 2011. I had more pinched nerves over that period. I can't believe all the pain I went though and all the time I lost. I think I put off surgery partly because of fear, since I had two back surgeries 20 years earlier. Compared to the first two this one was a lot more. I had the first part of the surgery on February 2 where they went in through my stomach. February 4 was 15 or 19 hours and they put little bone spaces in with titanium rods bolted to my spine and hips I gained 5 inches which I had lost over time as my disks wore down. It's not over just yet, I'm still recovering one year later. Next is to get my knee fixed. Doctor says I need a metal knee replacement. So won't be doing any running now and in the future. Everyone says I'm doing great but at times I don't feel it. I'm just going through some stress. I should be grateful I'm up and walking around even if it's with a painful limp.

Spring Growth & Deer Friends

Shades of Yellow. I really like the deep yellow in the center of the flower, it's so rich. Flowers started coming up in January when we had the warm spell that was like summer weather. Then it started raining and snowing. This pattern started about 5 years ago. The blossoms would start coming out then be hit with a hard rain or snow storm knocking the blossoms off the trees. That made it real bad for fruit. I'm sure it has something to do with climate change. It's also effecting summer month where we have more over a hundred days back to back. There's no delta breeze which normally would bring moist cool air up the foothills and up the mountains. San Francisco is the only opening in the West coast where clouds move through freely. The clouds normally would travel due East but the last five or so years they make contact with the foothills and mountains farther to the North of Highway 80. Talking with people that have been here their whole life, they say the snow was greater before the 1950's. In one area they said they would get snow to the third wire on a barbed wire fence. Near Auburn at Forest Hill they get two feet of snow and it's a big deal because lately it's only been a few inches. Before they would get three to four feet every winter. Last year they got a couple feet and many of the new comers thought it was a lot but the old times thought it was nothing,

Standing on her back legs the deer is eating the tender green sprouts. I was surprised at how long she stood there eating.
Nibbling on the greens, my deer friends like sweet leaves. They are sure fun to be with. To walk around with each other. They follow me to the fruit trees to get apples and plums. They proved to me that they are smarter then people give them credit.

Kitties on an overcast day

Momma Kittie laying on velvet green. She finds that moss on the old tree stump comfortable to lounge on.

Daddy Tiggers here to lounge and play with the kitties. For being so wild I'm surprised I got this close. Daddy kitty is so big and baby Tiggers is still growing into it's body. When you mix Daddy kitties long hair and Momma kitties extra long hair, you get a baby kitty with a lion like hair style.

What's interesting about the kitties is they seem to get along with all the wild animals here that are about the same size. They really like playing with the raccoon's. Sprockets gets all affectionate at the sight of some of the raccoon's. The baby raccoon's confused plays with Sprockets after seeing if it's okay with Mother Raccoon. I've never seen cats like these guys. The trees they climb and how they play. One evening as  it was getting dark, Sprockets took off running from the walkway near me to the first tree and went up about 10 feet. Then turned and ran to the next tree and climbed it too. She kept doing that through the trees always climbing up about ten feet and running between the trees as fast as she could until I couldn't see her. It was like she was showing of for me.