it's saturday

my how time flies. picture sharing day again and we have another batch of great views of tiny slices of life and grand vistas of our planet. thanks to all who were gracious enough to contribute.

from bruce in japan:

"Attached is a shot of the edge of one of my waterlily pots (which contain many medaka, the Japanese killifish, and the first fish in space!). The flower is Nymphoides indica ("gagabuta" in Japanese), and the butterfly it's being visited by is a "Yamato shijimi", a Pseudozizeeria maha."

garapata beach, big sur, california

from tara

from dawn:
male spotted towhee

from lisa:

"These are photos of Harbor Seals being released back to the ocean. There is an organization in Westbrook, Maine called Marine Animal Lifeline, a non-profit group that rescues abandoned and/or ill seals and rehabilitates them. When they are well, they are released back into the Atlantic near Portland, Maine. It is a truly amazing sight to see these animals be set free. I have seen two releases this summer. The first was in late July when they released 10 seals, and this release, of 3, was in August. Some of the seals head for the water immediately, and some hang out on the beach, not quite ready for the big ocean. It can take 45 minutes to an hour for some of them to get into swimming water."

from pam:

Attached photo taken late afternoon through a train window at Wengen in 1962. Scanned from a faded Kodachrome slide and restored.

Country: Switzerland . Town (lower right): Lauterbrunnen (?Clear Springs?). One of the deepest valleys in the world, carved out by the Weisse Lütschine river. 72 waterfalls. ( The highest, Staubbach Falls , 305 m., gushes out of a cliff on the right.) The mountains in the background are the Mönch and the Jungfrau . Despite the thousands of tourists who congregate to visit the surrounding mountains (think The Eiger Sanction, On Her Majesty's Secret Service), the valley itself is serene. On our quiet riverside walks along the flower-filled valley, we marveled at the waterfalls; listened to the lowing cattle, sweet birds, the running river; imagined living on one of the ancient farms; and met only friendly farmer folk.

these are grapevines at limerick lane winery, where our friend peter works.

taken by Holly in the hills above Lake Sonoma looking west across the coast range towards the Pacific
from laurel

from seavu:
"This is picture of a spot called Thunder Hole in Acadia National Park, Mount Desert Island, Maine. The spot is so named because the tide "thunders" when it hits the rock at this point overlooking the Atlantic Ocean."

from dave at birdtlc:

"Here's a picture of Cindy, Bird TLC Rehab Director tube feeding an
eagle that I'm holding."

a picture of waimea canyon on kauai, hawaii from my brother gary.

from kathy a:

"we live at the bottom of a hill, very close to an old rock quarry. like a lot of houses in the neighborhood, we have short retaining walls crafted 60-some years ago from rock. this past winter, there was a lot of rain. we had a nice crop of moss on the rock walls, which made me unreasonably happy."

village creek state park in arkansas, from yankee transplant

Love Minus Zero

On Wednesday, we walked the last significant minus tide occurring during daylight hours for the year 2006. There will be others, but all will be in the dark of night.

For comparison, this photo is a +8.2 tide taken August 18th, Wednesday's high tide was +8.4

This is Wednesday's -1.4 tide

To give you some idea of the difference in the tides, Roger would be completely underwater in this photo. Click on the photo to see him.

We hope to post photographs on Saturday. Please send us your favorite photos that depict the beauty of our earth. Saturday's photo theme as always: "Good Planets are hard to find." Send to newdharmabums at yahoo dot com.

(Words x O) + Butterfly =

Butterfly

No Words

...but a sunset.

the tomatoes of september

how time flies. here it is the first sunday in september and time for the tomato report, our responsibility as a participant in the great tomato race, sponsored by the multi-faceted dr charles. it is fun to look back to last year's september post, wherein we whined about cool weather and few ripe tomatoes. not this year.

tomatoes out in the garden

holy seedlings batman! tomatoes ripening outdoors! these were started under the cloche, but they have been out in the raw fresh air for almost three months. this is the upside of a hot summer with no rain for more than three months.

tomatoes in the greenhouse

we have been eating ripe tomatoes from in there for two weeks now. we will have enough soon to freeze some.

tomatoes on the plate

salt and pepper. chopped basil. drizzled with olive oil. (i just love that word.....drizzle) mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!

bonus squash picture

that is a hubbard squash. the vines are spread out quite widely from two squash hills, with lots of flowers. so far there are only two fruits forming, but they are big.

Good Planets are hard to find

update in front: our general title for saturday's post came from a song by steve forbert titled, of course, good planets are hard to find.

Again we have been absolutely blown away by the beauty in the photographs that people have sent to us. We feel so lucky to be able to share their sights and insights with you.

Kathryn writes:
"The mushroom photo (which I call A Toad's Perspective) was taken in central New York (near Syracuse, where I grew up) at a nature refuge called Beaver Lake."

"The jellyfish photo was taken when I visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium."

Beth in Pensacola Florida sent this blooming bay tree down by the stream bed.

Miriam B sent us two photos from her visit to Vancouver Island:
A narrow opening in the Plumper Islands, as seen from Weynton Passage.

Resting group of orcas in Queen Charlotte Strait near Malcolm Island.

Dawn sent a photo of this Douglas Squirrel, one of many in her backyard.

Susanne wrote to us from Vienna and sent us this photo from Nepal that she calls "Joy."

"So rarely do the pictures that make us smile contain humans. Most of my screensaver pictures meant to induce feelings of peace and harmony at work are coastlines and ocean ... all devoid of human beings. But this is one that I took in Nepal 3 years ago - by chance I walked past a house that had a fairly newborn calf - on the lap of a young girl who was just soooo thrilled with it - she fairly beams with joy."

RCWBiologist sent us this photo of a red-cockaded woodpecker. He wrote:

"Another shot from my work. I consider myself to be one of the luckiest people on earth as far as my job goes. Of course when I first started as a biologist I wanted to be in the field all the time. As I have matured as a biologist I realize that what ultimately saves species are the laws that are written that we all must abide by. If it wasn’t for the Endangered Species Act, so many more species would be extinct today that aren’t, and many more would be in peril. I am lucky enough in my present position to write some policy regarding threatened and endangered (T&E) species.

This picture is of a just banded endangered red-cockaded woodpecker or RCW as we call them in the southeast. This is one of the T&E species I am so fortunate to work with. I love this picture as it symbolizes to me the paper work (including laws, science, data collection, etc...) that must occur to save all species in peril. The picture was taken in South Carolina at a State Park I worked at in Cheraw."

Kathy A sent us these two photos.
She photographed the young crow, not yet ready to fly.
Her husband photographed the Desolation Wilderness in the high Sierra.

Pam of Tucson sent us this photo of a butterfly. She wrote:

"Can't imagine why this incredibly beautiful and definitely un-plain butterfly is called a Plain Lacewing, (aka Cedthosia penthesilea methypsea). The photo was taken last year at Butterfly Magic, a seasonal exhibit in the tropical greenhouse at the Tucson Botanical Gardens."

Seavu sent two photos:
The first is of orchids at Longwood Gardens, a former DuPont Family estate about an hour outside of Philadelphia, PA.

The second is the Maine coast at Ogunquit, taken in August, 2005.

We love having this opportunity to showcase photographs taken from around the world. If you like these, please consider contributing to our gallery next week. A deep heartfelt thanks to everyone who sent photos. We do live on a spectacularly beautiful planet. Thanks for reminding us.

Photos have been displayed in the order they were received.

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this post was assembled by the wondrous robin while i was braving the broiling sun to paint trim and fashion flashing. i survived. the trim is white. the flashing is installed. the pictures are great.

tomatoes tomorrow!!

we're busy

we aren't just sitting around watching the banana plant grow. we have blogs to read, weeds to pull, flowers to water, winter veggies to plant, and, oh yeah, the ongoing shingle-the-house project.

why is the doofus tilting his head back so far, causing a bit of neck strain?



bifocals!


what fun stretching up over the kitchen greenhouse window. don't drop that prybar!

another bit of the ugly blue siding gone. that's as high as i work on ladders and a plank. i know. there is one step higher. it doesn't look that far up, but my head is about ten feet off the ground. i have learned to relax enough to dance a bit up there, listening to my beloved kpig streaming to me over the internet from far santa cruz. we have to rent scaffolding for the gable ends anyway, so i'm not pushing myself to get up on the teetering top level. my head will be about 24 feet off the ground to finish off the top of the gable end .

the shingles you see above already installed, indeed virtually all the shingles up to six feet on the walls, were all stapled in place by robin, who, of course, took the pictures of me up there.

i get to have some fun. there are two 45 degree corners and i did them in this wraparound style. the other corners have vertical trim.

we aren't ignoring the news. we saw the clip of crazy don rumsfeld calling us, and 60% of the population, intellectually and morally confused appeasers to fascists because we see the war on iraq as a mistake of epic proportions, and we applauded keith olbermann's commentary on crazy don's wacko view of democracy.

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keep sending those pictures that you would like to share. we'll post them on saturday. we are amazed by the images we receive. e-mail to newdharmabums at yahoo dot com.
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tomato post this sunday for the great tomato race! be there or be square.