|
|
|
ladder conversation
Friday, September 4 2009
I hung the bat box this morning, having Gretchen come out to confirm that, with all due regard to æsthetics, I was hanging it in the right spot under the peak of the roof on the house's small south-facing elevation. While I was up on the ladder, Gretchen asked how bats would know to move in. It was a reasonable question, I suppose, but I was up on a ladder and told her it was best to defer such questions for later. It's best not try to carry on a conversation while up on a ladder for the same reason it's preferable not to talk on a cell phone while driving a car. The answer to that question might be another question, such as "How do pirates know where to plunder?"
In the afternoon I staged another raid of plunder on the bluestone quarry a quarter mile down the Stick Trail, bringing home a particularly large slab for the bench in the greenhouse. I'd been unsatisfied with the arrangement of bluestone I'd arrived at a few days ago, but the great thing about bluestone arrangements is that they promote Darwinian selection, gradually evolving towards better arrangements as less-than-ideal parts are replaced by the person in charge of maintenance (me), acting as the force of selection, the artist, or the meddlesome hand of God, depending on your perspective. Today's bluestone load was so heavy that I could only move it fifty to a hundred feet at a stretch. When I'd finally gotten it to the head of the Stick Trail, I was drenched in sweat and gasping for breath.
Researching the layout of the Constellation of Orion for the bat box the other day, I'd again found myself sucked down the rabbit hole of Wikipedia's interlinked astronomy entries. Orion is dominated by a number of red and blue supergiants, all of which have short lifespans and exotic properties, and it's easy to go from reading about them to researching stars generally, particularly those near our solar system such as Barnard's Star and Proxima Centauri, relatively-cool red dwarfs that are expected to remain basically unchanged for trillions of years.
The bat box.
Eleanor in the first floor office. That tinfoil-covered pipe behind her caries fluid up to the rooftop solar panels.
Sally in the dining area.
Our garden. Note the enormous brussel sprout plants.
This year's tomatoes.
Marie, aka "the Baby"
More of the Baby.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?090904 feedback
previous | next |
