Author: doug

A little (fast) snake

I think it’s a juvenile falsa crucera de hocico respingado, minus the red bit on the tail. Here’s my visual snake identifier: dbosk.com/snakes.

Fun note about my snake page: it’s simple, but serves a purpose ignored by the 1990s-style Serpentario site it links to – allow you to identify a snake you see. ¡Que concepto! I recently sent the code to them, saying they were welcome to it, and they replied thank you, we’re planning an upgrade to our site soon.

I don’t still have their email from eight years ago, but they said exactly the same thing then.

Reminds me of this t-shirt I probably should have:

My latest invention

Wife asked me to mash some garbanzo beans to make hummus. A potato masher is tedious and relatively ineffective. The electric hand mixer does a good job, but with the slight inconvenience of making an unholy mess if you’re not real careful. And slow.

All of a sudden I got an idea. An old plastic saucer, couple of minutes with the table saw, and…

…blast away on top speed, no problem!

Tire dunes

After the rain, wind: the darker wet sand was compressed by a motorcycle tire, leaving a ditch that was then filled with blowing dry sand. Which formed miniature dunes.

Strange to think: I have walked in this area thousands of times, but have never seen (or noticed) this phenomenon before.

Coincidence?

Some time ago, the little vertical plastic box atop this vent pipe blew off. The box went into the neighbors’ yard, and since there’s rarely anyone there, I didn’t bother to pursue.

The plastic grate landed in our yard, and I hung onto it. Until today. In a sudden urge to purge, I started cleaning out my work area, chucking this and many other useless things.

Then, carrying trash to the house, I see this on the ground.

Obviously not where it was meant to be.

An hour from now, I wouldn’t have had a replacement, but now that you mention it….

For some reason

A perfect circle in the middle of the road. Why? How? No clue. I don’t think it’s a rudimentary crop circle, but you never know.

In other news today, the first large lizard we’ve seen in years – easily two feet long. Syd practically tripped over it. I pulled out my phone and started a video … except I didn’t. Something about trying to hit the on-screen tiny video button in full sunlight. So I pressed the button to start and stop recording, and ended up with two snapshots of nothing, since it was moving through undergrowth. Well, next time. Stay tuned! But don’t hold your breath.

Wait … what?

Avocados are long gone. Buds emerging for the next crop.

So what do I find this morning but a freshly-fallen avocado, freshly devoured. Huh?

I didn’t get a picture of the bird, but when I first saw this, it was calmly eating, that far away, glancing up at me from time to time, as if wondering—as usual—who exactly I thought I was hanging around its feeding station.

The honey makers

Years ago I dug up a little nothing-special bush in the back yard and planted it to the right of the driveway, where it grew and grew, exploding with white flowers every spring. Then I found another, and planted it to the left, imagining one day an arch of flowers over the driveway.

This year we’re pretty much there, though the effect isn’t exactly as master-Japanese-gardener as I envisioned. In fact, both could use some serious pruning, but neither is getting it yet, because…

…the bees are loving them!