The Romance of Mistletoe

Ah, mistletoe, the kiss-inspiring greens of the season. What are you and how do you grow?

"Mistletoe plants grow on a wide range of host trees, and commonly reduce their growth and can kill them with heavy infestation. Viscum album can parasitise more than 200 tree and shrub species. All mistletoes are hemi-parasites, bearing evergreen leaves that do some photosynthesis, and using the host mainly for water and mineral nutrients. Mistletoe first sprouts from bird feces on the trunk of the tree and in its early stages of life it takes nutrients from this source."

Wow. Who knew?

Remembering My Father

I think this may be the oldest photo I have of my father's youngest self, at 18 with his sister Mimi. I like thinking of him like this, not yet gone off to war. On December 19, he would have been 94 years old. Happy birthday, Dad. Sending love and remembrance out into the starry universe to you.

Morning Light to Balance Heavy Morning News

Just looking for something beautiful

full of splendid light

to balance the news of the day

You'll have to use your imagination to know the outrage and heartbreak we feel. Sometimes there are simply no words. 

Wordless Wednesday: When There Are No Flowers, There's Always Fungus!

Yuba River: Before And After The Rains

Summer 2009

December 6, 2012

Summer 2009

December 6, 2012

Not sure what to make of the bottom two photos. They are taken in the same place, but we're not sure where that rock on the right came from. It's not in the upper photo. The two photos are taken from a slightly different angle, but the difference between them seems greater than just perspective.

We've had a ton of rain. I think we've had more than 20 inches since October 1. It's about half of our yearly total. So, we're okay for a little dry weather, if some would come our way. 

Wordless Wednesday: Deliquescence

These are Coprinopsis lagopus. Hard to capture them in every stage of their very short lives. But, wow, they are an interesting fungus to have around.

Rain is wreaking havoc on our phone and dsl. We're still operating on dial-up speed. It's like the bad old days, only worse. We know how much better it could be.

The Storm It Did Blow In

 This post may or may not make it to your desktop. It's been rough these past few days with the "atmospheric river" of storms that blew through here. Between Thursday and Sunday morning we had eight inches of rain and lots of wind. It wasn't a hurricane, but it was absolutely a significant weather system. 

One of the things about living out in the country is the general iffy-ness of the internet. That has at least been true here. And when it rains, forget it, you're pretty much reduced to less than dial-up on  your precious 2.5 mbps DSL download speed. Today I clocked in at .05! Whee!

I took a few pics before Thanksgiving when we had our first little storm blow through. Then, the big storm blew in a week later and changed the scenery for good. There's not a leaf between us and winter now.

After the deluge, even with the sky still moody and gray, the sun burst through with a light that made us run outside and look in every direction. It was crazy beautiful.

For a moment, I greeted the sun like it was a harbinger of spring. It was that bright and welcomed. Then I remembered, we haven't even made it to solstice yet. Oy.