Categories
Critters

Girl Doves are from Venus Boy Doves are from Brooklyn

The weather has warmed enormously and all of the birds are out busy making new birds, including the mourning doves. In fact, my window is open and I hear one right next to my window, with that sad, soft, mournful cry.

This afternoon I opened the curtain out on to the deck, just in time to see two doves finishing their reproductive duties. The male dove flew down next to the female on the deck guardrail, and they both started preening their feathers.

Then an odd thing happened. The female started gently pecking at the male’s neck, rubbing her head underneath his beak. The male started to rub back, but then stopped and fluffed it’s feathers out and moved away from the female a step.

The female started again in a rather touching, intimate display of postcoital grooming. The male just looked at her, and again moved away.

The female moved towards the male and again started grooming him. This time the male ruffled its feathers a last time and took off, leaving the female alone on the guard rail.

I am not going to anthropomorphize this behavior. I am not going to anthropomorphize this behavior. I am biting my tongue, hard, with what I’m not going to say. I am not going to anthropomorphize this behavior.

Categories
Critters Plants

Baby greens

I haven’t been in much of a mood for cooking lately, usually making do with soup, eggs or rice and vegetables, and cottage cheese and fruit. Inspired by Joe’s recent writing, though, I decided that the roommate and I needed a really decent meal tonight.

At the store, sirloin steak and sour cream were on sale, so that set the main dish: beef stroganoff, with lots of sweet Vidalia onion, and mushrooms. The baby greens also looked good, and I picked up a radicchio, as well as a curly endive and Belgium endive. To complete the salad fixings, I added vine ripened tomatoes and snow peas.

I can’t do a good vinaigrette to save my life, so I also added a bottle of Newman’s Own Balsamic Vinaigrette.

At home I made a lemon cake, which seemed a nice desert on a rainy day. While it was cooling, I browned the steak and then sautéd the onions and mushrooms before adding water, dry sherry, and tomato juice. While these simmered for two hours, I crisped the greens, and frosted the cake with cream cheese frosting.

Just before dinner, I sautéed the snowpeas in olive oil and a small bit of garlic, until they were bright green and still slightly crisp. I tore the small lettuces into pieces, added the snowpeas and sliced tomatoes, some small, crusty pieces of french bread, and then tossed it with the vinaigrette.

I served the stroganoff over egg noodles, with the salad on the side, cake for desert. I think my roommate liked it, if him going back for thirds is any indication. I had more restraint–I only went back for thirds on the salad. Zoë, however, was a real pig and had four helpings of the baby greens.

Categories
People Photography Plants

A purple crocus podcast

I had hoped to have my annual post on the state of Etech finished today, but while working on it I found myself starting to take it far too seriously. This just won’t do. Time to take a break and return to it when I control the topic, rather than the topic control me.

In the meantime today is Spring, or at least, Spring for me. The weather was warm and the daffodils, tulips, and other flowers were in full bloom. The Magnolia is just now starting too bud, and the Missouri witch hazel ending its cycle, leaving behind a most wonderful fragrance.

I walked Botanical and grabbed some sunshine and photos. Though I know you’re all tired of flowers and that sort of thing I’ll still add a couple to this writing, just to break up the words. Between you and me, I like seeing something besides red, yellow, and orange on the page from time to time.

Walking over the bridge in the Japanese Garden, the koi fish followed along in hopes of getting some of the fish food you can buy from gumball-like machines at either end. While I was dropping food into hungry mouths, a fairly large group of people approached and several exclaimed in surprise when they saw the fish. They had strong southern accents — more mountain than plantation — and evidentally had never seen koi before.

A couple of women and a young girl ran down the hill to the stream that fed the lake and dropped down for a closer look, while one guy, who seemed out of place, walked around with a quarter in his hand, trying to break into the chatter and laughter.

Another guy yelled down the women, “Watch out, Hannah. That sucker’ll jump out and take your head off!” I finished my feeding and my photos and started to pass the increasingly loud group when the same wit yelled out, “They are the ugliest things I’ve ever seen.”

I glanced at him when I passed, this guy with pasty white arms, sparse straggly black chin whiskers raggedly covering blotched, pink chin and cheeks; matted dull, black hair under an old baseball cap, and huge gut falling out from under his too tight and too short gray t-shirt.

Botanical isn’t the only place with the sights of Spring. Tonight when I went downstairs to get a bottle of water, I noticed Zoë at the window, intently looking out. I peeked through the glass and saw several young bunnies hoping about, grazing on the grass.

And the daffodils are up. Life is good when the daffodils are up.

Speaking of bunnies, thanks to Scoble, I found what I *wanted from the Easter Bunny, a podcasting kit. No, seriously.

A couple of folk pointed out to me today that there’s a rumor going around that Burningbird isn’t Shelley Powers, an American woman. No, Burningbird is none other than Jonathon Delacour, an Australian gent.

I don’t know where these rumors start, but I decided to nip this one in the bud before it spreads too far. I thought I would record a podcast, and you all could hear my softly feminine voice with its distinctly American accent.

I also thought about taking a photo of my breasts, and posting it as proof of my sex, but for all I know, Jonathon has **man breasts, and could do the same. Wouldn’t it be the pits if his were better than mine?

Catching up on my reading, Phil pointed out that Google is looking to relocate to The Dalles, in Oregon. Great location, absolutely gorgeous area, finest wind surfing in the world, but Phil’s explanation left me equally surprised:

Great Googly Moogly. To build a data center, Google has to belly up right next to a dam, with a big ol’ river to use for water cooling? That’s more computers than I can imagine piling up together.

Geez, not even Bill Gates has his own dam and power station. I can see it now: the next time a major weblogging meme hits, Portland suffers a blackout.

And on that, more than past time for bed.

*Well, I really wanted a standards-based Internet Explorer, but the Bunny wouldn’t stop laughing so I had to change my wish.

**Note, I have nothing against man breasts — as long as they aren’t better than mine.

Categories
outdoors Photography Places Plants

Purple crocus

Today is Spring, or at least, Spring for me. The weather was warm and the daffodils, tulips, and other flowers were in full bloom. The Magnolia is just now starting too bud, and the Missouri witch hazel ending its cycle, leaving behind a most wonderful fragrance.

I walked Botanical and grabbed some sunshine and photos. Though I know you’re all tired of flowers and that sort of thing I’ll still add a couple to this writing, just to break up the words. Between you and me, I like seeing something besides red, yellow, and orange on the page from time to time.

Crocus

Walking over the bridge in the Japanese Garden, the koi fish followed along in hopes of getting some of the fish food you can buy from gumball-like machines at either end. While I was dropping food into hungry mouths, a fairly large group of people approached and several exclaimed in surprise when they saw the fish. They had strong southern accents — more mountain than plantation — and evidently had never seen koi before.

A couple of women and a young girl ran down the hill to the stream that fed the lake and dropped down for a closer look, while one guy, who seemed out of place, walked around with a quarter in his hand, trying to break into the chatter and laughter.

Another guy yelled down the women, “Watch out, Hannah. That sucker’ll jump out and take your head off!” I finished my feeding and my photos and started to pass the increasingly loud group when the same wit yelled out, “They are the ugliest things I’ve ever seen.”

I glanced at him when I passed, this guy with pasty white arms, sparse straggly black chin whiskers raggedly covering blotched, pink chin and cheeks; matted dull, black hair under an old baseball cap, and huge gut falling out from under his too tight and too short gray t-shirt.

Botanical isn’t the only place with the sights of Spring. Tonight when I went downstairs to get a bottle of water, I noticed Zoë at the window, intently looking out. I peeked through the glass and saw several young bunnies hoping about, grazing on the grass.

And the daffodils are up. Life is good when the daffodils are up.

Bright Daffodils

Categories
Environment

Save ANWR

If you check out my Yahoo Search Bytes that I put into my sidebar column on the front page, you would see that one search is for all videos related to ANWR, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I picked this as a topic because a vote is forthcoming that would keep ANWR drilling within the budget bill, rather than as a separate bill.

The reason why ANWR was added to the Budget bill is that this bill only requires a simple majority; a bill making an exception to the rules governing national wildernesses that would allow drilling in ANWR requires a 60% majority in Congress to pass. Because of this more stringent restriction, bills to drill in ANWR have been defeated in Congress for several years now–something those who have added to the budget bill are all too aware.

The ANWR addition to the budget bill is a bad decision. The projections of income to the government from drilling in what is truly our last American wilderness have been inflated — studies have show that rather than the billions we expect to get, oil companies are paying no where near the leasing rates estimated in the bill.

In addition, all the oil companies who have been a part of the Arctic Power alliance (which brings you this weblog) have dropped out except Mobile. The demand isn’t so high that we can expect some form of windfall from the profits.

More importantly, ANWR is an extremely fragile environment that could be permanently damaged by the development necessary to support these operations. It is the type of land that speaks to our souls; to the spirit that lives in each of us, demanding places in this world where no man, or woman, has set foot. Whether we ever visit these places or not, we need to know they exist.

At a minimum, whatever amount of oil exists underneath ANWR should be held in reserve for a future time when oil has become scarce. At least then, the petroleum necessary for the medical and industrial communities could be supplied until alternative sources are found. And if it’s never needed, the land can remain as we have it now–untouched, and wild.

Besides, if this drilling is really the good thing those who support it say it is, then wouldn’t allowing it survive as a bill of its own? Rather than be snuck in the back door in the Budget bill?

Loren Webster points to an online campaign being run by John Kerry to hopefully convince the necessary number of senators to vote for stripping the ANWR proposal from the Budget plan. Regardless of your views of Kerry, and whether you’re Republican or Democrat, Libertarian, or Green, if you would rather see the debate about ANWR be above board and out in the open, rather than snuck in through the back; and if you agree with me that we as a people need to have our wildnerness in order to survive as a species, sign the campaign, leave a comment, contact your own senators.