Category: Nature

The weather people say we will stay below highs of 80°F (26°C) into next week, so the summer’s really warm weather is behind us.

The Dixie wildfire in Northern California has now torched 500 square miles.
More than 100 homes and much of the downtown of Greenville (pop. 1,000 or so) have burned down.

I wanted to see what the historic Gold Rush-era Sierra Lodge on Main Street used to look like, and found it on Google Streetview.

Here is a cute cat picture for Caturday, as ailurophiles like to call Saturdays.

The city of Seattle had 83 °F (28 °C) today.
It’s been steady as it goes temperature-wise, with no rain. (A smidge of rain fell early Tuesday morning).
We might see 90 °F (32 °C) on Friday, say the forecasters.

These beautiful hollyhock flowers are from 18th Avenue here on Capitol Hill.

Damselflies (Afr. waterjuffer) are similar to dragonflies (Afr. naaldekoker), but they are smaller and have slimmer bodies.
Most species fold the wings along the body when at rest, unlike dragonflies which hold the wings flat and away from the body (for that ‘airplane’ look).

Every year that summer that rolls by here in the Northern hemisphere now, I think: just let it be over (summer). When is it over (summer)? Of course: then next summer comes.

There’s the mega- forest fires, burning out of control under an extreme drought here on the west of the United States. Flooding in Germany, Belgium & The Netherlands, and now in China. Videos on Twitter tonight of dozens of cars washing away in Zhengzhou; a subway entrance collapsing; people trapped inside a subway train car, the water chest-high (12 people dead in the subway, reports Aljazeera).

 

It has been a tough summer for gardens here in the city, with that heat wave at the end of June.
The leaves on the long shoots of my little rose bush got scorched, but a beautiful red rose has bloomed on the lower one, in the shade.

The pair of northern flickers (Colaptes auratus) that I sometimes see here around my house, came by late this afternoon.

I found this display of two chatty dinosaurs on a rock by the sidewalk close to 18th Ave.

It was a very pleasant 67 °F (19 °C) when I went out for a walk today.

Just as efforts to create a blue rose have stymied growers and plant geneticists, so have efforts to create a red iris. The flower has almost no red pigment naturally.
– Barbara Whitaker in a report called ‘The Hunt Continues for the Holy Grail: A Red Iris’ in the NYT, in 2006

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Irises come in every color of the rainbow, but not in a true red. I found these ‘red’ ones here in my neighborhood.

It felt like summer today (76 °F/ 24 °C), but we will drop back to cooler weather tomorrow.

The shrubby peony plant has long been cultivated for its large showy flowers, and it’s easy to see why. This one comes out of my friends’ garden.

heath
/hēTH/
noun
BRITISH
an area of open uncultivated land, especially in Britain, with characteristic vegetation of heather, gorse, and coarse grasses.

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It’s the month of May, so the rhododendron flowers are blooming here on Capitol Hill. These plants belong to Ericaceae, a family of flowering plants, commonly known as the heath or heather family.

There was more rain today, bringing the April total to 0.95 in (24 mm). This is still far below the average for April (2.71 in / 69 mm).

I played a little tennis indoors this morning, mask on. My friend from tennis volunteers at the big vaccination clinic at the Lumen Field football stadium here in the city. He says they give 8,000 people a jab in the arm there every day, but could take it up to 22,000 if they could get more doses of vaccine.

There was light rain outside and cold weather, all day long (49 °F/ 9 °C).

I hesitate to say ‘Happy Earth Day’.
Of course we should celebrate Earth, but earthlings— our governments and corporations, that is— have to enact and execute aggressive policies to reduce green house gas emissions, and plastics production.

At least the Biden-Harris Administration is a force for good.
President Biden recently announced a new US goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 52 percent of 2005 levels, by the year 2035. In a virtual summit with more than three dozen countries, he urged other nations to do the same.
Every little bit will help.