More Owls

I went again this evening to see the owls.

The babies were more active, coming out to the end of the tree limbs and thinking about flying.

The would bob their heads, carefully measuring the distance, stretch their wings, and then change their minds.

Dusk fell.

The single parent owl that I saw tonight left.


The owletss thought some more.

And finally, bravely, one glided across the path to a eucalyptus tree on the other side.

It wasn't a very thick branch, and he didn't like it much, but he wasn't quite ready to leave, either.

So he bobbed and weaved, and then settled down to a thoughtful hunch.

He was still there when I left.

A second baby made some careful passes between trees closer to the building. The third went so far as to hop from one branch to another.

They really are quite young--someone loaned me a pair of binoculars, and I could see the down still poking through the feathers.

I'll be visiting them again.

One of Those Links People Send That You Then Send on To Others

It's the (takes a deep breath) "Star Wars (John Williams Is The Man)' - an a cappella tribute."

Why I Keep Reading Terry Pratchett

He keeps including bits like this:

"The question seldom addressed is where Medusa had snakes. Underarm hair is an even more embarrassing problem when it keeps biting the top of the deodorant bottle"

From Soul Music by Terry Pratchett

And Bunnies!

 

Nope, he was nowhere near the owls. He just felt like running.

A Day With Owls in It

So I've had a rough couple of days, days with bits I could definitely do without scattered through out them.(1)

And I did what I always(2) do on rough days. I went to the library(3) and then for a walk in the park afterward.

And I saw the owls.

I heard about them a bit over a year ago, but the person who told me about it knew only that they were "around" the library and she "thought" they came back every year, and there is a lot of area "around the library," so I had never seen them.

This time, though, I ran into a small group of people waiting for the fledglings to try their evening flight, and, with help, was able to spot the fledglings in one tree and one of the parent birds watching on another.

They are hard to see. Turn away for a moment to watch an oriole or admire a butterfly, and the owls become bark on a tree, or bits of light and shadow near the trunk. I had to keep rediscovering them every time I looked away.

I took very few pictures because just a few minutes in, the camera ran out of batteries, and when I went to put spares in, I realized that those were the spares(4).

So I stayed and watched.

The owls shifted their feet and turned from tree to bird and back again. A hummingbird flew to the fountain for a drink of water. Butterflies drifted down from the eucalyptus tree. An oriole took flight.

And, eventually, I got tired and hungry, and went home.

The owls never did more than fly cautiously from one branch to another while I was there.

But the night looks better now.























(1) Like broken glass. I could've done without that.

(2)"Always" meaning "always when I can and when I have the sense to do it."

(3) Please to note that references to library visits do not necessarily indicate that I've had a bad day. I go to the library when I am blue, it is true. I also go when I'm happy, just happen to be in the area, have books due, have books on hold, am with someone else who is going, or because I feel like it for no reason at all.

(4)One of the other watchers there, someone who helped me spot the owls more than once, did have a camera with batteries, and she has a website, so if you want pictures that definitely show owls that you can tell are owls, take a look. She hasn't put tonight's pictures up yet, but it looks like the owls will be here, and the orioles might end up here. I know she got at least one good closeup of an owl peering down, and she may have caught one of the flights.

Dust of Snow (Robert Frost)

DUST OF SNOW

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.


Robert Frost

Confession Time

I am over 18. I am a gamer. Not only do I play games, I write them, and, worst of all, I wear jeans (and wear them while writing). Apparently, this makes me part of the decline and fall of America1, though I might be able to ameliorate the situation if I put on a string of pearls and/or gave up voting.

1It's important to be a part of something, don't you think?

Secrets of Disney's Glorious Gardens by Kevin Markey

This wasn't the book I wanted.

It's got great pictures and some interesting snippets about the gardens, but it wastes a lot of space giving generalized gardening advice on the grounds that, if you follow it, you too can have a garden like the Disney gardens!

This is disappointing for several reasons. In the first place, if I had wanted a book of general gardening advice, I'd have gotten one. As it happens, I own several, as it happens, and I occasionally even do what they suggest, and sometimes, what they suggest is even helpful.

In the second place, I have no illusions about my ability to create a garden just like Disney's. I haven't got several hundred acres, I haven't got several hundred gardeners, and I haven't got the dedication. I tend, for example, to go to Disneyland instead of weeding (Except during blackout dates; these last couple of weeks have seen a lot of weeding & feeding & trimming).

And, most importantly, I wanted to read about the Disney gardens--most specifically the Disneyland gardens. I love the landscaping and was looking forward to reading more about the specific plants they have in different areas and the types of tricks they use to keep them looking good. For example, I was fascinated to see spider plants used as exotic jungle flora in the Jungle Cruise. I'd love to find out more of what they're growing in there, and I'd like confirmation for my belief that the bromeliads in the park are real.

I'd be less unhappy if this didn't appear to be the only book anyone has written about the Disney gardens.

Guards! Guards!: The Broken Hourglass Ongoing

So, the first quest I wrote for The Broken Hourglass has been coded! At least, half of it is.

It would've been done sooner had I remembered the half-dozen or so guards stationed around the barracks--Qwinn and I spent a couple of days with him saying "Please send me something for the guards to say," and me saying "I sent it" and him saying "Oh good!" and then asking again for guard dialog, much to my bewilderment.

Finally, he thought to say, "No, the other guards, at which point I went back in and looked and saw that, sure enough, someone else had stationed some guards there, at an earlier point, and they do get to serve as necessary folk later on in the game, and I did need to write for them.

I'd noticed them, in a vague sort of way, a while back, and then forgot about them in a single-minded effort to get the quest done. That left 6 speechless guards standing around in an otherwise talkative city. So, with the specific set of guards located, I got their "On guard duty" lines written, some for before Important Things that I cannot elaborate on happen, and some for after, and that should be that.

*Makes note to self to watch for random figures wandering through the quests.

I figure he'll be asking me for clarification on the other half of the quest any day now--and I've another quest to revise (Oh, and did I mention, another one written? In case I haven't--and even if I have, because I'm pretty happy about it--I finished writing another one, and sent it off to be queued up for coding). So, progress is being made.

Do you know this plant?

I went to the Getty last week & fell in love with a plant.

Well, I fell in love with the museum, really, but I can't plant it in my front yard, and I can put the plant in--if, that is, I can figure out what it is called.

They didn't have it in their book at the information desk or the published book on the gardens. I'm halfway through the list of plants-in-the-garden, and I'm still not finding it.

Help?

Doctor Who and Cats Combine

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Factory Shapes

I want, one of these days, to be able to get inside the fence so that I can take lots of pictures of the shapes and what they do to the light. In the meantime, though, I'll settle for accross the parking lot.

I Love It Here

AKA You're Only Paranoid If They're Not Out to Get You

Because the solution to being paranoid is to make sure that everyone else's paranoia is fully justified.

Or something like that.

More on "Chivalry"

There's actually a recording of Neil Gaiman reading "Chivalry" here, though it is not downloadable, which is a pity.

Also, a warning: The reading by Jane Curtin, which I linked to earlier is quite good, but it is paired with a fairly ordinary psychological tale of jealousy etc ("What Happened Between Us") that, most unfortunately, comes first and isn't on a separate track. The good side to this is that the reader is male, so it's fairly easy to fast forward to the end of the story to get to "Chivalry."

Serendipity Is

Absent-mindedly putting a pan lid on top of the crockpot because the lid is hot and the crockpot lost its lid a while back and is thus a perfect spot to get it out of the way for a while, and then finding out that the pan lid is also a perfect fit for the crockpot, thus solving two problems with one thoughtless move.