Friday, May 31, 2013

Burgers and Lone Stars

I was picking up a couple of hamburgers in New Caney yesterday, when I happened to notice a Montgomery County Animal Control truck parked next to me.  On the door of the truck was a big decal that said -

 LOGO_Blue_Flag

Really? 

I did not know that.

But, sure enough, if you check the history of the Texas flag, you will find that it was designed in 1838 by Charles Bellinger Stewart, a doctor/pharmacist from Montgomery and one of the signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence.

It was not the first Texas flag, not even the first Texas flag featuring a single star, but is the flag adopted by the Republic of Texas, and the one that flies over the state today.

texas flag

It is similar to, and may or may not have been based upon the Chilean flag first flown in 1817. 

chilean flag

For what it’s worth, the Chilean flag, La Bandera Estrella Solitaria, was intentionally  meant to resemble the US flag, and it was designed by an American.

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Dog$

For those who followed this case – and especially for those who didn’t – George Will, ABC’s token conservative, has written an excellent article for his Washington Post column:

Lord Byron was, according to one of his legion of lovers, “mad, bad and dangerous to know,” but he
also loved dogs, which explains his cameo appearance in a recent Texas Supreme Court opinion.

It answered an interesting question in a way that shows how courts can avoid creating opportunities
for trial lawyers.
The eyes of Texas were upon the state’s high court when it reaffirmed an 1891 ruling that because
pets are personal property, a bereaved owner of a negligently killed dog can seek only economic
damages, not emotional damages. A lower court had sided with the Medlen family, letting them sue

for “loss of companionship” after their dog Avery escaped from their backyard, was captured by
animal control officers and was mistakenly euthanized.
This created an interesting anomaly:
Wrongful death liability is traditionally defined legislatively and restricted to two fundamental
relationships — husband-wife, parent-child. The Medlens sought from the judiciary an essentially
legislative elevation of human-animal relationships.

The Texas Supreme Court, reversing the appellate court, ruled that this anomaly was just the tip of a troubling iceberg. In an opinion written by Justice Don Willett, the Supreme Court acknowledged that Byron, who knew about vices, was right that dogs are man’s best friend, possessing “all the virtues of man without his vices.”
Nevertheless, “pets are property in the eyes of the law, and we decline to permit non-economic
damages rooted solely in an owner’s subjective feelings.”
Otherwise there would be profound ripple effects in a nation with more pets than people. To begin
with, people treasure many more pets than just dogs — even cats. Should judges, acting as robed
legislators, decide which creatures should be given elevated status?
The Medlens argued that although Avery had no significant economic value, he had lots of “intrinsic
value” as a family member. The appeals court held that since 1963, Texas law has found that when
property, such as an irreplaceable heirloom, has little or no market value but has value in
“sentiment,” damages may be awarded on this basis. Dogs, too, are property, ergo damages can be
collected for Avery because of his sentimental value.
Texas’ Supreme Court decided to distinguish between dogs and heirlooms “such as a wedding veil, pistol” — this is Texas — “jewelry, handmade bedspreads and other items going back several
generations.”
Noting that the Medlens “find it odd that Texas law would permit sentimental damages for loss of an
heirloom but not an Airedale,” Willett rejoined that it would be even odder if Texans could recover
wrongful-death damages for the loss of a Saint Bernard but not for a brother Bernard.
Laconically noting that “the law is no stranger to incongruity,” Willett explained that “permitting
sentiment-based damages for destroyed heirloom property portends nothing resembling the vast
public-policy impact of allowing such damages in animal-tort cases.” The court performed something
like a cost-benefit analysis to answer the Medlens’ perplexity that they could seek sentimental
damages if a taxidermied Avery, rather than a living, panting Avery, had been negligently destroyed.
The court noted that the American Kennel Club, in a friend of the court brief joined by the Cat
Fanciers’ Association and other pet-welfare groups, warned against the unintended consequences of allowing “sentiment-based damages” for injured or destroyed dogs. They fear that “pet litigation will become a cottage industry,” bringing the danger of increased liability to veterinarians, shelter and kennel workers and even dog sitters. “Litigation would arise when pets are injured in car accidents, police actions, veterinary visits, shelter incidents, protection of livestock and pet-on-pet aggression.” As risks and costs rose, the results would be fewer free clinics, fewer shelters, defensive veterinary medicine leading to higher prices, and “families, particularly lower-income families, will avoid preventive care for their pets, not seek needed care for ill or injured pets, and be more apt to euthanize a pet.”
“To his dog,” wrote Aldous Huxley, “every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.”
It would, however, be expensive, in myriad social costs, to create a novel tort action for loss of pet
companionship. So Texas’ highest court has held that no Texas dog, however beloved, will be given
an exalted status akin to that of an heirloom pistol and thereby becoming the subject of imprecise,
arbitrary and potentially unlimited tort litigation.
By this judicial statesmanship, the trial bar was muzzled, for now, and denied a fresh arena for mischief. So Texas’ Supreme Court is, for now, man’s best friend.

 

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Surf Gator

gatorbeach2

When you go into the surf at Galveston, you need to be aware of a few things – riptides were particularly strong this past weekend, for example, and you know that you will share the water with crabs, seaweed and the occasional shark or Portuguese man-of-war. 

What you don’t expect to see swimming alongside you is an alligator.

This five-foot gator was found last Sunday at Bermuda Beach on the west end of the island.  Bathers called 9-1-1, and a game warden came and got him.  The gator was removed and released somewhere on the mainland.

Biologist Lindsey Howell researches sea turtle nests along the Texas coast, and says she comes across alligators washed out by the rivers or perhaps looking to get rid of parasites, before they end up on the beach. "Typically, I find them on the Bolivar Peninsula, washed ashore over there. They're sunning themselves, they're trying to warm up. That, or they're injured or ill and they're looking for where they came from, back for their fresh water."

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Hot Topic

Is Global Warming a scam? 

Yes and no – climate change certainly exists, but it is hard to deny that charlatans have made fortunes exploiting manufactured fears.

Here is one of the best (and most comprehensive)articles I’ve seen on the subject -  Click to Read

Monday, May 27, 2013

Cat

cat

We have been seeing a strange  cat between our house and the next-door neighbor’s for the last week or so, but last night it came up to Honey and asked to be fed.

It’s a pretty cat; white with a gray cap on its head and a gray tail.  It has a vocabulary that indicates that it is almost certainly part Siamese.  It’s a sweet cat that likes to rub on your leg and likes to be petted.  It was almost starving, but otherwise seems healthy. It’s a young thing -I’d guess she’s something less than six months old.

We can not keep it.  I don’t think our dogs would stand for it.  Even feeding it outside the fence is unfair since we will be leaving soon on an extended trip.  I hope we can find it a home.

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Python

As I reported way back in February of 2012 , pythons are becoming a major problem  in Southern Florida.  The story made the news again last week:

A Miami man pulled an 18-foot Burmese python out of roadside brush and wrestled with it for 10 minutes before cutting its head off with a knife.

The 128-pound specimen turned out to be the biggest Burmese python ever captured in Florida, besting the previous record by more than a foot, wildlife officials said.

"I was pretty exhausted and I didn't want to get bit," Jason Leon, 23, said of the decapitation that ended his struggle with the massive constrictor.

For his trouble, Leon got thanks from the the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, which considers Burmese pythons an invasive species that wreaks havoc on the state's ecosystem.

 

2013-05-21T200946Z_01_TOR308_RTRIDSP_3_USA-FLORIDA-PYTHON-jpg-as-Smart-Object-1-600x396

The serpent’s spine is being kept for a museum, but the skin has been returned to Leon.  I wonder if he has a wall long enough to display it.

Saturday, May 25, 2013

A Comment on Comments

I have recently been getting dozens of comments every day on my blog. 

Unfortunately, most of them are spam – links to websites and/or services that I have no interest in promoting.  To counteract this problem, I had set my website defaults so that all comments had to be reviewed and approved before they would actually show up on the site.

That makes things easier for you, the reader, but the sheer volume of unwanted crap clogging my inbox is beginning to be a pain.

So…..

If you post a comment now, you will see one of these word-match boxes.

comment

If this actually works as well as advertised, I may be able to allow comments to go directly to the blog.  Meanwhile, I do value your opinions and solicit your comments – hopefully, this extra step won’t keep you from participating.

Friday, May 24, 2013

Solar Impulse

Solar Impulse Plane

The Swiss-made Solar Impulse plane landed in Dallas in the early morning hours on Thursday, breaking the distance record for a solar-powered flight on the second leg of its coast-to-coast odyssey across America.

The super-light, super-wide plane rose from its runway at Phoenix's Sky Harbor International Airport at 4:47 a.m. Mountain Time on Wednesday with Andre Borschberg, Solar Impulse's co-founder and CEO, at the controls. He guided the plane through Arizona, New Mexico and West Texas.  The plane took off at sunrise in Phoenix, and landed at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport well after the sun went down, at 1:08 a.m. Central Time on Thursday.

The flight took more than 18 hours, setting a pace that didn't break any speed records. You could have driven between Phoenix and Dallas in less time, and most commercial jets make the trip in two hours or less,  but the 830-mile (1,336-kilometer) trek set a new distance record for a single solar-powered flight. Borschberg set the previous record, 693 miles (1,116 kilometers), last year during a Solar Impulse flight from Switzerland to Spain.

The Solar Impulse project began in 2003 with a 10-year budget of 90 million euros ($115 million), backed by Swiss sponsors. The plane is designed to demonstrate a host of clean-energy technologies, ranging from lightweight carbon composites to the 12,000 photovoltaic cell solar-cell system that powers the plane's  motors. The airplane is as light as a typical passenger car, but its wingspan matches the width of a jumbo jet.

On Wednesday, the plane ranged as high in altitude as 27,000 feet, soaking up the sun's energy as it went. "The more I fly, the more energy I have aboard the airplane," Borschberg said.

After Dallas-Fort Worth, the plane is scheduled to move on to St. Louis, and then to Washington, D.C. The final leg of the trip, from Washington to New York, is expected to come sometime around the Fourth of July.

Borschberg said the coast-to-coast trip will serve as a warm-up for a round-the-world, solar-powered odyssey in 2015.

 

Thursday, May 23, 2013

LNG

LNG Terminal 2

That’s a picture of the Freeport, Texas LNG terminal as viewed from the campground at Quintana County Park.  We sat in the shade of our 5th wheel and watched that big ship fill up with gas a couple years ago.

News from Washington this past week means that the terminal is going to get busier.

The Energy Department on Friday conditionally approved a Texas company’s proposal to export liquefied natural gas, only the second such project allowed to move forward amid a production boom that has led to glut of domestic natural gas.

The action would allow Freeport LNG Expansion L.P. to export up to 1.4 billion cubic feet of liquefied natural gas per day from its terminal near Freeport, Texas. The DOE said granting such a permit for shipments to countries that do not have free trade agreements with the U.S. was in the public interest.

Energy companies are seeking federal permits for more than 20 export projects that could handle as much as 29 billion cubic feet of LNG a day.

A drilling boom has lowered natural gas prices while boosting production by one-third since 2005. Natural gas production reached an all-time high of 25.3 trillion cubic feet last year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Fireboat

fireboat

The Port of Houston is getting three new Fireboats this year, and the first of them is on the way.

These 70 foot vessels will allow firefighters to remain on-scene for extended periods of time and the cabin contains a primary care facility where EMTs can care for the injured.  The boats are highly maneuverable – can turn in just three boat lengths – and they are fast.  The quad diesels can push the boat to a maximum speed of 45 knots, three times as fast the current fleet’s fastest boat.

Built by Metalcraft Marine, the top manufacturer of high speed craft for fire departments, the Coast Guard, etc., the boats will get a pretty thorough shake-down cruise on the way here.  The boats will travel under their own power from the plant in Kingston, Ontario, across four of the Great Lakes to Chicago – then down the Mississippi and across to Galveston.  For the trip, the first boat will be captained by Ron Peddle, one of Metalcraft’s owners, and the five-man crew will include three from the Port of Houston Authority Fire Department.

The first of the three boats on order should be arriving here about the first of June.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Facebook vs Tornado

MOM

If you want to see an example of how social media can actually work for good, this is a good one.  Following the devastating tornado yesterday afternoon, there was a Facebook page set up to post recovered pictures, documents, etc. – and it is working! 

Check it out at TORNADODOCSPICS

By the way, the page shown above was found miles from Moore, but it has been identified and is being returned to a grateful owner.

Monday, May 20, 2013

Twisters

tornado

Looks like we are well and truly into tornado season, what with the deadly twisters last week at Granbury, Texas and more touching down last night near Oklahoma City and near Wichita, Kansas. 

The only good thing to come from this devastation is that it has reminded me of an old friend, one I haven’t seen or spoken to in almost forty years.  His name is Rick Temple, and we worked together at 3M in the early 70s.

The twisters reminded me of Rick because he announced one day that he had figured out that Tornadoes are attracted by Aluminum.

I asked him what made him come up with that theory, and he said “Have you ever seen a news report on a tornado that didn’t hit a trailer park or a small private airport?”

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Jerseys Tell A Tale

Jersey-foul1

This couple - with their matching jerseys - was recently spotted at a Milwaukee Brewers game.

You might think “Aaaaw.  Isn’t that sweet.” but Jeff Greenwell of Last Angry Fan  points out that the guy seems to be carrying her purse – “probably because that’s where she keeps his cojones.”

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Does This Light Make Me Look Green?

Our 5th wheel trailer has lots of lights inside, and most of them use 12 volts.  The few 120 VAC fixtures use such low wattage bulbs that they are almost useless.

Most of the 12 volt lamps are wedge-base bulbs like this

uwx-10124

They are not very efficient, and actually seem to generate more heat than light.  Turn one on for a few seconds, and you will have to wait a couple minutes before you touch it – I have brands on my fingertips to prove it.

The folks who “boondock” a lot have long sang the praises of replacing incandescent lights with LEDs, but until this week I had avoided making the change – mostly because of the initial expense, but also because it seemed like too much trouble. 

Until recently, the only viable replacement for those bulbs was a printed circuit board mounted with LEDs.

led board

Installing these boards required modifying the light fixtures slightly and mounting the p-c board with double-sided foam tape.  Prices have been dropping lately, but they are expensive – when I first started looking just over a year ago, they were about $10 each, and most of our light fixtures would require two of them.

Monday, I found an acceptable alternative, an LED light shaped more-or-less like the bulb it is designed to replace, and priced at only a dollar apiece.

led 20

This 20 LED lamp is a straight one-to-one replacement for the incandescent bulb.  Just pull out the old bulb and plug one of these in its place. 

When you do, you only have a 50% chance that it will burn, but that’s not as bad as it sounds.  LEDs are diodes, after all, and a diode only conducts electricity in one direction.  If the new light doesn’t burn, simply pull it out, turn it over and plug it back in.

The light they produce is slightly brighter than the incandescent bulb they replace – noticeably brighter when one of each is in a two-light fixture – and it is  much whiter.  Although the LEDs themselves are yellow when off, and I chose the “warm white” version, it still appears almost bluish white when compared to the yellow-white of the old incandescent bulb.

These lights consume almost no power, they don’t get hot and they are supposed to last for thousands of hours – dozens of times longer than the incandescent bulbs they replaced.

Friday, May 17, 2013

That's a 5th Wheel

Well, there's Camping, and then there is the RV lifestyle.  Then there is something like this.

Take a look at Will Smith's 5th wheel trailer.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Day Off

victim2

Feeling a little under the weather – nothing terrible, but it feels like it might be the onset of a cold or flu – so I’m giving myself the day off.

Feel free to write a guest column in Comments, or take the day off too.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

More Mystery Bird Stuff

Sort of a follow-up to yesterday’s post. 

In researching our latest mystery bird, I went to The Hummingbird Forum, where I found a discussion on other birds using the Hummingbird feeders.  From the discussion there, I see that this activity is not as uncommon as I thought.

One reader said that Cardinals do not drink the sugar water, but do regularly drink plain water from the “Ant Moat” on her feeders.

cardinal on feeder

And a Canadian member even posted a picture of a Black Squirrel with a sweet tooth.

squirrel - hb feeder

Closer to home, Kevin in Baton Rouge says he has seen

Orioles (including Baltimore, Orchard, Bullock's, Hooded, Scott's, Audubon's, and Altamira)
Ruby-crowned Kinglets
Orange-crowned Warblers
Myrtle Warblers
Carolina Chickadees
Downy Woodpeckers
Red-bellied Woodpeckers
Red-headed Woodpeckers
House Finches
Painted Redstarts

And Sue in Houston listed

All of the winter warblers: Yellow-rumped, Orange-crowned, Pine, and Wilson's.
Titmice
Chickadees
Baltimore and Orchard Orioles
Ruby-crowned Kinglets
House Finches
Downy Woodpeckers

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Mystery Bird II

A year and a half ago, I reported on a Mystery Bird on our Hummingbird feeder.  Turned out to be the first and only Baltimore Oriole I have ever seen in Southeast Texas.  He was here for less than a week, and I haven’t seen him since.

This year we have a new bird sucking up the Hummers’ sugar water.  I’ve seen him a couple mornings, but haven’t been able to get a picture. He feeds just after sunrise while the feeder is still in partial shade.  His chest is a brilliant yellow and he is about the size of a canary.  His back is a light greenish tan. 

So far, I have not been able to positively identify this year’s visitor, but an on-line search reveals that the most likely culprit is

Prothonotary Warbler

The Prothonotary Warbler.

This Warbler is native to Southeast Texas, but more common east of here along the Sabine River.

Prothonotary, by the way, is an English word that has been around since the 1400s, and means chief clerk of the court.  How a bird got stuck with that name is a mystery, but one source says that during the Inquisition, clerks in the Roman Catholic Church  wore bright yellow robes. 

The bird  likes wooded swamps and other bottomland forests, and is one of only two Warbler species that build their nest in holes in trees. Their primary diet is bugs, but All About Birds says that they will supplement their diet with nectar.

Monday, May 13, 2013

Dingy Debbie

A few miles from home, on FM1495 between the Boggy Thicket and New Caney, there is a small cinder-block building with a sign identifying it as the Casey’s Ridge Civic Club.  I suppose it is possible that the Casey’s Ridge homeowners may actually meet there occasionally, but the truth is the place is a beer joint that has Karaoke Nights and live bands on weekends. 

Several years ago, my daughter Cheryl and I were driving past and noticed a portable sign out front that said

Dingy Debbie

We both started laughing, but for different reasons. 

I read dingy as ding–y, as in ditzy, airhead, etc.  Cheryl read it is dinge–y, as in old Debbie could really use a good bath.  As we compared notes, Cheryl said “Hey, it’s Casey’s Ridge.  Either one applies.”

We laughed all the way home, and when we got there we had a hard time explaining why neither one of us could quit chuckling.

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Water Sign

The title has nothing to do with astrology – no Cancer, Scorpio or Pisces. It doesn’t refer to the Zodiac at all. 

In this case, we’re talking about a real water sign – a sign made out of water.

Authorities in Australia were having trouble with over-height trucks trying to enter the Sydney Tunnel in spite of several flashing signs along the roadway.  Their solution was a gizmo that creates a waterfall at the tunnel entrance with a huge stop sign projected on the surface. 

STOP!

The good news is that it actually works!  So far, nobody has ignored the sign.

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Big Wet Oops

Last month, an advertising agency staged a photo shoot at California’s Moonstone Beach – Sun, Sand, Surf and the 2014 Ram pickup.  What could be better?

But…..

Somebody forgot to tell them that the Pacific Ocean has tides.

ram in ocean

Somehow, I don’t think Chrysler is going to pay to have these photos in their ads.

ram in ocean moonstone beach

ram moonstone

Friday, May 10, 2013

Road Rage

There is a video that has “gone viral” on the web this morning showing a bicycle race that went horribly wrong. 

The race, between two monkeys and a bear, was part of the “Wild Animal Olympics” at the Shanghai Wild Animal Park.  The event has been a staple at the park for years, and the target of animal rights groups for about as long.

I had several - including some totally inappropriate -  reactions to the video; more were about humans than monkeys or bears.

What do you think?

 

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Not In My Dining Room!

owl on hb feeder

One of our Owls decided this morning that the hanger for one of our Hummingbird feeders was a perfect place to perch. 

Needless to say, the Hummers disagreed.  They zoomed around him, even hovered inches from his face, but the Owl simply ignored them. At one point, he even tucked his head under his wing and appeared to go to sleep.

Finally, after deciding that
     A. They were not going to chase him off, and

     B. He wasn’t much a threat,

They actually landed on the feeder and fed with him sitting inches above their heads.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Owlets

owlets2  5-7-13 owlets 5-7-13

We saw this year’s crop of baby owls this morning.

When I first stepped outside, there were four owls – mom, dad and the two young ones – together on a limb, but by the time I got my camera, the parents were gone.  The pictures above were about as good as I could get.  The juveniles were in deep shade with the rising sun behind them when I took these shots.

We have been hearing them, or I should say that Honey has been hearing them, for the past month or so.  They communicate with a high-pitched screech that Honey finds as irritating as finger nails on a chalk board. 

Most of time, I can’t hear it at all, but I certainly can today.  No wonder she has been complaining about it for weeks!

The young ones can fly quite well, but are afraid to try, and their landings are still pretty clumsy. 

If this is really their first day to venture from the nest, they have waited longer than usual.  They are already about half the size of their parents and about twice as big as young owls we have seen in previous years.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Black Widower

black widow

It has long been general knowledge that the female Black Widow spider (Micaria sociabilis) eats her mate after sex – that is, after all, how she got her name – but now there is a scientific study showing that males are just as likely to eat females.

A team at Masaryk University in the Czech Republic studied how different pairings of the spiders interacted in a lab, making sure the creatures were well-fed to rule out hunger-driven cannibalism.  They found, among other things, that size and age both matter – the typically larger males from the summer generation often eating older spring generation females.  What's more, not even virginity or big body size, often considered signs of mating quality for spiders, could save the older females from male cannibalization.

Unlike the females, who are said to eat less-than-satisfactory partners after mating, cannibalistic males tended to eat the females at first contact, before they ever mated.  That seems to me to indicate that the female Black Widow is the more intelligent of the two; at least she is getting a meal and getting laid.

 

Monday, May 6, 2013

WD-40

220px-WD40_english

Go to any site that deals with auto mechanics and chances are you will find a debate over WD-40 – Is it a solvent or a lubricant?   Actually, it  is a little bit of both. 

Originally designed as a Water Displacement  product (40th formula) by Norm Larsen in 1953, WD-40 has never been patented; primarily so the actual formula could remain secret.

This miracle in a spray can has hundreds of uses far beyond what is listed on the packaging – everything from bug spray to stain remover.  Some even swear it helps their arthritis!

For a list of some of the uses, check this article from Readers Digest.

Sunday, May 5, 2013

WILTED FLOWER

wilted

Thoughts on a Wilted Flower

Her beauty once defined perfection,

Accepted the awestruck affection

Of every creature passing by,

The Hummingbird and Butterfly.

But now her bloom is past its prime,

The victim of unfeeling time.

The beauty of each petal ceases,

Colors fading, lined with creases.

What does she think as she stands there?

Does she know? Is she aware?

Behind the faded bloom a pod -

The next year’s flower, a gift from God

Saturday, May 4, 2013

Weather

icy blooms

 

This National Geographic photo from Northwest China shows flowers in a garden after a late-season ice storm hit last month. 

Here at the Boggy Thicket, the weather has been almost as strange.  Our azaleas bloomed almost a month earlier than usual, then April saw a new cold front every Thursday for four weeks in a row.

The last one got May off to a chilly start with a record-tying low yesterday, and this morning’s low - 43° – was the coldest ever for the month of May in Southeast Texas. 

Hopefully, our chilly days are over – today’s high is supposed to reach the upper 70s.

 

Friday, May 3, 2013

Jay Bird

baby jay

Here’s a look at the latest baby at the Houston Zoo.  It is a Plush Crested Jay that hatched just over a week ago (April 23) – the only one to hatch from a clutch of eggs.  The South American bird is considered a vulnerable species.

Admittedly, it doesn’t look like much right now, but if the zoo staff’s hand-feeding project is successful, it will grow to be a beautiful bird.

plush crested jay

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Missed Opportunity

day lily

Our first Day Lily of the season opened yesterday, just in time to greet the month of May.

That isn’t it, but it’s very similar. 

I kept thinking I needed to grab the camera and take a picture, but I kept getting side tracked.  Now this morning, true to its name, the flower is history.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

May Day Swimsuit Edition

eastessence

Looking at news on the internet this morning, I came upon an ad for a big sale of swimsuits for the modest Muslim woman. 

Okaaaaay…..

  • That much material is going to require some serious swimming ability.
  • The model is brazenly displaying both her face and her totally bare feet.
  • I doubt that you’ll ever see this on the pages of Sports Illustrated.
  • Still, it would draw stares at Galveston beach.
  • There are a lot of Non-Muslim women who might look better in this than what they do wear.

If you’re interested, you can see more at Eastessence.com