H Honey, honey... Buzz Kill

It's not just all about the honey, but wait for it, honey, honey.

The bees have been hit hard in last few years. This CBS News story covers it well. The 'skeptical' interview is amusing, but judge for yourself, that's not what this post is really about.

Building a Hive. Just add bees.

Since we shouldn't have chickens or goats, we're planning on raising bees. Red1 and Mrs. SF Daddy have spent months working with the main bee dude in Georgia learning how to be proper beekeepers. We got a sad email that instead of being able to pick up their bees this month they'll need to find another source if they want to start this year.

The cute beekeeper suites and hives are all ready to go into production, but the health of our bee colony was compromised and now we'll hive to wait a little longer. Ouch. Poor little fellers.

While we wait, remember the Archie's?  Sure, but what's with the weird dog with the crush on the girl in the kissing booth? And why do the guys look so angry just before they get kissed?

Sugar, honey, honey.

C - Old Lady Cats, Lucy and Ethel

Pet This
Ethel in the outdoors.

...and they lived happily ever after, until Lucy had enough.

Feed This.
Lucy being very patient.

That's what we're calling them these days. Our old lady cats, Lucy and Ethel. Sisters born in the science  cabinet in a middle school Mrs. SF Daddy used to teach in back in the 90's! Still spry kitties. Today is a shorty post because the internet needed more pictures of cats.

The kids don't really get the joke about Lucy and Ethel, but our grown up pals do.

Publicity photo of the I Love Lucy cast: William Frawley (Fred Mertz), Desi Arnaz (Ricky Ricardo), Vivian Vance (Ethel Mertz), Lucille Ball (Lucy Ricardo). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

B is for Boxers in More Ways than One

"B" is for boxers. You know like the dog.

The first dog I ever lived with was a boxer.

She had no tail so she wagged her whole body. She was a licky dog. She was always licking her muzzle nervously, more so when she was excited to see you.

Image via Wikipedia

"B" is also for boxers. You know the shorts, you may wear under your grown up pants.

I know a few ladies who like to sew and they've taken to sewing me and my brother-in-laws boxers every year for the holidays.

So far, I've collected boxers with bowling pins, coffee beans and mugs, and stars.

Here's the pattern my lovely mother-in-law uses:
First Choice Boxers

Flower Power

Every year we watch the cardinals and their babies at our bird feeders in the backyard. They have a nest somewhere close.

This spring we started a row of amazing flowers along the front edge of our yard. These are much more interesting than that strip of grass was.  We've seen more birds, caterpillars and butterflies than we've ever seen in our yard. Little yellow finches nibbling at the flower seeds. Blue birds swoop through.

We use the worms from our yard to turn our kitchen scraps into compost and then turn that into the dirt in the flower beds and around the bushes.

We planted 2 peach trees, 2 apple trees, a fig tree, blueberries and even a pomegranate! Yum. So our awesome new shrubs and trees will feed us people too.

This summer we certified our yard with the National Wildlife Federation. When we read the qualifications, they seemed to be describing our place! A friend of ours nearby certified their yard a while ago and I always thought it would be cool to have our own certification number! We ordered the yard sign too.

nwf.org Garden-for-Wildlife - Create-a-Habitat
"creating a certified wildlife habitat to discovering wildlife in your neighborhood and sharing the findings, there are many ways you can make a difference."

Listen to this interview! All the great things to do in your yard! We've been doing it and it's so rewarding.  http://ow.ly/2w3Tq

Geoengineering or the Genesis Wave?

Image by ozgurmulazimoglu via Flickr

Real research is going on to determine if we should really start shading our Earth to cool it down. We are living in Science Fiction Horror Shows. It's crazy-hot. Your damns are bursting. Lakes are disappearing. Sink holes are swallowing your car, your horse, your house.  {You made up the one about the horse, right?} {Yes, but...}

The alligators are working together to plot against us.

The bears are so #melgibsonmad that they are tearing up your car for a pb&j sandwich.

A new modelling study shows that deploying a stratospheric sunshade to cool the planet would have hugely varying consequences for different regions. What's more, although the sunshade could be tuned to adjust global average temperatures or rainfall, it couldn't fix both at once.

Geoengineering fix won't suit everyone - environment - 18 July 2010 - New Scientist

 

 

Related articles by Zemanta

• Geoengineering fix won't suit everyone (newscientist.com)
• Engineering a cooler Earth. (sciencenews.org)
• An evil atmosphere is forming around geoengineering (newscientist.com)
• Sink Hole in Guatemala (manolith.com)

LA Times photo essay on the oil spill.

Gulf oil spill - latimes.com

Still alive but almost unrecognizable, a sea gull is paralyzed by oil on the beach at East Grand Terre Island in Barataria Bay, La.
(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times / June 4, 2010)

This is why photography is so important. All the debate, all the prayers, all the plans, all the finger pointing, all the regret, all the best intentions. They all stop here. For this image. For all of Ms. Cole's images and the other photographers documenting this epic event. Thank you.

I can see the impact we have on our world.

Blind river dolphins, reclusive lemurs, a parrot as fearless as it is lovelorn ... Douglas Adams' close encounters with these rare and unusual animals reveal that evolution, ever ingenious, can be fickle too -- in a University of California talk that sparkles with his trademark satiric wit.

Mr. Adams caught me off guard with his first comments about the lemur. Mr. Lemur is an old friend of mine and one the old pals will remember from a video we did about 20 years ago. Not to worry, it's safely stored on some ancient videotape somewhere in a box. Soon to be a pile of brittle bits of plastic.