January 6, 2024 Disappointment hurts more than pain. Albanian Proverb

The first upload for January 5 was “random beauty”. This is before we had the privacy fence when vines had something to attach to. It added an additional bit of natures “beauty” to the yard, to the neighborhood.

The next upload for yesterday was “cheer”. For me this image of my
grand daughter-in-law holding two of my great grandsons is a cheer and happiness and all good things.

The third upload for yesterday was “anything black and white”. I shot with the camera set on black and white even though shots of Sweet Pea with no background showing are close to black and white on their own. She is considered white in color though there is a bit of blond or tan in her fur.

On the 5th of the month I have a forth photo of the day upload. The one for yesterday was panoramic. I am still practicing with the panoramic setting on my camera, not having much lunch....yet. But this one came close to a panoramic at least in effect. 

Life today. Well, the most common feature of a winter day showed up this morning....snow. We didn’t get as much as some parts of the US as a matter of fact, this being a few hours later, the snow is mostly gone except around the edges. The cold temps have stuck around though. After I had taken a couple of shots I realized I still had the function set on black and white. I set it back to “standard” (color) to retake a couple of images. 

Sweet Pea and I got our grocery curbside pick up done and put away. Even though the weather wasn’t conducive to my kind of photo excursion we went by the park to see if there happened to be anything interesting to capture. A few things popped up but nothing to write home about. 

My first upload for today is “free”. Free choice I guess. So I chose this one that I shot today of the shelter house in the park as the snow was falling. 

We had one of the twins for a little while this morning. She didn’t seem to be as active today as she usually is and her twin wasn’t with her so that cut down on the energy too. 

Once I got the groceries put away I decided I would take a little time to explore the church web site since we now have some updates and better capability to move around. I was able to delete four full pages that are no longer connected with us. I also noticed there are areas I will have to go back to for further updating. 

I have started taking down the Christmas decorating. I move more slowly now than when I was younger. So taking the tree down as with many other household tasks are done in sections. That some times takes a few days to get completed. 

My second upload for today is “something tiny”. Sometimes I surprise myself with subjects that pop

into my head. The subject of this one is not the whipped cream it is the Nestles chocolate chip morsel. 

The word today is thankful. The unthankful heart... discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings! Henry Ward Beecher.  Thankfulness makes much of little, Charles Spurgeon.  Thankfulness is the tune of angels, Edmund Spenser.  A thankful heart is the greatest virtue, Marcus Tullius Cicero.  Be thankful for the thorns and thistles, which keep you from being in love with this world, and becoming an idolater, Charles Spurgeon.  A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love, Saint Basil.  When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength, Tecumseh. You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late, Ralph Waldo Emerson.  A good man will take care of his horses and dogs, not only while they are young, but when old and past service, Plutarch. The heart of the giver makes the gift dear and precious, Martin Luther.  

My third upload for today is “street food”. The meaning is probably something I would have picked up from food truck. I didn’t see one close by so I picked something as close to that as I could....fast food....sort of street food when we pick up in drive through by my way of thinking.

The article. I like I am sure many other people have been in awe of the towering redwood trees so lets take a look at this article. The opening.... “enormous, spectacular trees, some reaching nearly 400 feet, the tallest plants on the planet”. I like the way they put it “snugged up against the rugged Pacific coast”, from southern Oregon down into California. Apparently they are at risk (as people are in this time in history) after growing and surviving for over a millennia. Their number is down from half-million trees to about 70, 000. They are a work of nature living by evolution and “responding to environmental pressures, genetic drift and mutation”.  Here is one of the many facts I learned from this article “they even have two kinds of leaves that help the trees adapt to both wet and dry conditions”. The “intense pressures” of warming and the change in climate “are speeding things up” toward their demise. “The coast redwood is an ecosystem with enormously broad consequences for other life forms”. There is natural life “below and within and about them”. One of the creatures is a “Aneides vagrans, the wandering salamander, which usually spends its entire life high in the canopy, but sometimes must jump out to escape predators”. It may fall a full two minutes before it lands on the ground. It is unhurt in the fall due to its shape and large feet with long toes. One mention of a unique experience is that a Sitka spruce that was 8 feet tall was growing off the ground within one of the redwoods. The trees are nesting sites for the huge California condors with wingspans of “nearly 10 feet”. Tiny birds also find “secret interstices of these trees”.There is a species of fern that grows on the tree that normally lives in large bodies of water. The article says no one knows how they got into the trees. Now the trees are being harmed by less moisture that stresses the trees and fire dangers. Also when a flood does occur it erodes the “trees’ footing”. On the other hand there are signs that they do seem to be trying to adapt. There is a new species of lichen on the trees that seem to be thriving. The author, a teaching professor, Environmental History, has a smaller species of redwood growing outside his window and says it is “perhaps 100 feet tall – puny by comparison to their northern brethren”. It is his hope that it and other like it will “continue to be shaped by their immediate environments”.

Hamburgers and potato salad for dinner. 

Joy

                                        substantial trash pickup