Category: Bigus Macus

Camera Girl and I journey today to the southernmost border of New England where the smoldering ashes of what was once Gotham City color the horizon with a somber palette.  But we will be celebrating family and life and all that stuff.  This week will be Camera Girl’s greatest challenge.  She will be besieged by teeming hordes of berserk descendants desperately trying to fend off thoughts of the impending school year.

It will take all her powers to occupy these desperate young’uns and divert their attention from the impending horror.  Of course it will really help if somehow we can avoid torrential rains for the week.  That will provide us with so many more options for activities than being stuck in the house with the boob tube and my feeble wits.

But once the week is complete, it really will be fall.  And it’s been a very strange summer.  So much rain and so little sun has destroyed the vegetable garden.  Other than some tomatoes and what looks to be a decent crop of eggplants it has been a disaster.  I think we’ve gotten one zucchini and so far no butternut squash.  And while we’ve gotten a few red razzberries from the plants I put in last year and the plants have increased and spread, I can hardly say they have been a success yet.

And as far as the blueberries, whereas I managed to get a few handfuls of berries last year, this year the birds perfected their technique of picking the fruit precisely before I myself judged them ripe enough to eat.  And it was a bumper crop.  I guess if I’m really serious about eating any of this fruit I’ll have to start using netting over the plants.  Who am I kidding?  I’m too lazy to do that.

And likewise, the rain put a serious dent into the flowers in the yard.  The butterfly bush died back to the ground because of the lack of snow cover during the coldest part of the winter.  It sprouted from the roots eventually but was a mere shadow of its size and bloomed very late.  And many other plants were late and stunted.  The only pleasant surprise was the Inula helenium (elecampane)  that I put in last year.  The stalks were seven feet tall and there were plenty of bright yellow flowers.

Also there were very few butterflies this year.  Probably the sparse snow cover again.  Well, complaining won’t do any good so best to just move on.  I’ll just chalk it up to experience and hope that this year we get more snow.  Wait, more snow?  What am I saying?  Oh well.

So fall in Dunwich is a busy time for me.  We’ll be pretending to re-elect First Selectman Cthulhu which is always a painful process involving the loss of several bureaucrats in his entourage when he becomes aggravated and therefore hungry.  My part in the process is also, let us say, delicate.  I’m required by tradition and statute to second the motion for his unanimous re-election by acclaim.  If I hesitate by more than a split second after the original motion is exclaimed my fate will be sealed.  Therefore I have perfected the “echo method.”  As the motion is being spoken I echo the words coming out of his mouth almost simultaneously.  It sort of sounds like that scene in the movie “Pride of the Yankees” where Gary Cooper is saying, “But today … today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth.”  And so I can keep each word going just that little time extra needed to detect the last word and begin my sentence without any noticeable pause.  Actually quite ingenious.  It’s quite remarkable what fear can do for your IQ.

Well, it’s time to get going.  The sun is shining and nothing has burned down or exploded in the news yet so I can wish everyone a nice day with at least the hope that it’s possible.  Adios amigos.

Updates

Bigus Macus

It was down in the mid-sixties with low humidity this morning in Hampton Roads. It will be hotter tomorrow, but I’m ready for Autumn to start. I’m getting the fireplace cleaned and inspected this week and I need to cover the firewood for the start of the season.

TomD

Meanwhile, down here in the Florida Panhandle, fall hasn’t yet appeared on the distant horizon as we’re looking at a white hot week: in the 100’s with saturating humidity. It has been like this for a month, there is a big and stable high pressure system camped out in the middle of the country.

What we need is a tropical storm to come through and bust this weather stasis up. A similar pattern seems common in late summer and will just stay until pushed out by a big system.

Unlike California, tropical storms are common enough down here as to not overly upset us.

A few years ago, I decided to see what it would be like to ride my road bike (bicycle) in a tropical storm (wind only at that time). At one place where there’s about a 100’+ 5% grade hill to climb, the wind was pushing me up the hill at over 20 mph.