Oh yes. Bucket list ticked. The pictures do not do it justice. I wept when we got there, and for Ariel’s liberation and Prospero’s speech at the end. Everybody did.
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Star Walk 2 is a free app that I used when trying to learn the constellations and I still often use it because of the seemingly infinite amount of stars I see in the sky. It’s free though they have a version that’s like $5.99 a year or something with more info and features.
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Star Walk is what I use also. It always amazes me to be able to wave my phone around and see whatever is out there the phone is pointing towards. If the moon is over Australia, you can point it at your feet and see that too.
If you have a reasonably dark sky, Jupiter is bright one toward the east right after sundown, with Saturn usually the 2nd object you can see before the rest of the stats come out. Since the planets are is the same plane, you know Saturn is going to be in that arc across the sky the sun and moon follow also. Right now,Venus and Mercury are close to the sun, and the other visible planet, Mars apparently rises after 11 pm, so have to stay up late or get up early to see it.
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Or just wake up randomly in the middle of the night like I do. Thanks!
I haven’t thought of that play in a long time. Full Fathom Five is hitting rather hard right now.
Thanks! I’ll see if I can get if for my android phone. I got an sd card to try to make memory issues more managable
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Another first bloom, this one very tiny. An oxalis from a friend who insisted I take one when I remarked on the little seven finger hands of foliage.
A twofer, nifty little oxalis and my always eager to help collie.
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This big vine is the star of the garden at the moment. You’d be surprised how much growth I take off every year to keep it from spreading twenty feet in every direction and to keep the flowers closer together. Podranea brycei, a tropical vine also known as Queen of Sheba vine.
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Sunset tonight, with a road cut to the other side with 500 million year old trilobite hash layered in the greenish layers
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Came across this funny video. It’s definitely something that I see happen. The bulk of people are not that interested in small talk centered around theology or science. I often see peoples eyes just go into that I don’t care mode when talking. But you know the person is a good fit when they enjoy it and bring up tidbits of their own.
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On Thursday I passed 10,000 pictures with the microscope. Here are 8,000, 8,500, 9,000, 9,500, and 10,000.
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Better to spill on yourself, rather than on the boring friend.
I am afraid I have often been the boring friend.
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(@LM77 ; - ) My wife even thinks they’re cute – the terrifyingly monstrous, deadly and intimidating pseudoscorpion. 
I see one probably not more than twice a decade. For scale, the corner is a light switch cover plate on a wall surface painted with a roller brush:
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I like how this lichen or whatever it is kind of looks like a bloody flesh wound xd. Instead of body horror it’s botanical horror.
I’m not sure of the species of this mushroom but it’s a woody one and it reminded me of a heart.
I was petting a bee.
Some sort of moss I’m thinking. Sometimes some of the complex lichens though looks like moss to me. I know almost nothing about moss and lichens.
Some sort of rusty orange lichen. Maybe stardust lichen but I could be wrong for sure.
Some kind of white lichen.
Christmas lichen.
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Yes! I love a pseudo-scorpion. Now there is an arachnid that does not get enough love if you ask me. Very cool share, Dale.
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I learned about them, when I found one (how!? It’s so tiny? Miraculous that I ever saw the thing!) and wondered, “Now WHAT is THAT?!!!” Did some digging around. What do you like about pseudo-scorpions, @LM77?
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Where to start?
- They’re so tiny and yet look like a mini-scorpion in all but the tail. Very cute.
- They’ve clearly got a successful thing going… the oldest PS fossil dates to something like 380 million years ago.
- They’re beneficial to humans, predating many of the insects we hate, clothes moth larvae, booklice, etc (Pseudo-Scopians… Champion of the Librarian and Defenders of Libraries everywhere.) Another example of how ‘bugs’ can live without us, but we can’t live without them.
- Oh and they are excellent hitchhikers, attaching themselves to other insects for the purposes of travel (phoresis). Check out this picture:
Source
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Love the bee photo! I love how unconcerned they are about us, as long as we don’t threaten them. It’s always fun to deadhead my salvia plants and buddleias, when they’re around. We’re just working side-by-side.
I found one on a plant once, that I thought might be dead. It must have stayed out too late after curfew and got caught by the cooler temps. I held my hands under the leaf it was on, to see if I could warm it. It worked, and it flew off. I take inspiration from my gram’ma, who would scoop them up and hold them, too.
Very cool lichens! I’ve only recognized a few around here in mid MIchigan. A pale grayish green with cool edges that reminds me of Battenburg lace like these samples from my Google search:
Sorry. I’m sure that sharing photos of lace in this Forum must be against some sort of community guidelines.
Here’s the lichen I have in mind from MSU (Michigan State University’s Extension Service website):
This site is a cool USDA lichen learning site. Keep following the links to the next pages at the bottom of each page.
Your shaggy lichen with yellow “blooms” is really cool. At first I thought it was a moss in bloom, until I zoomed in.
If you don’t have any lichen ID books of your own, they are out there. My library has them for Michigan, or the Great Lakes region. There must be some that cover your part of the U.S. Very cool.
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My new best friends! Not only am I a librarian, but I’m a serious knitter, and my investment in Wool Stash, as well as finished work, is something I guard carefully. Having these little friends around in larger groups sounds very desirable!
Hmmm. Maybe I should attempt to raise pseudo-scorpions!
We don’t want to forget, though, that at least one poet has made book lice appear “cute.”
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