and into pictures of october

And into October flowers, at last. I saw this one somewhere in our neighbourhood, but I don't remember exactly where - somewhere between here and the bus stop down on Bothell Way.


Untitled (Yellow Flower)

And the first leaf of the season, as well. I have some flowers left, but not that many. Most have more colour than this, but this was the first interesting leaf I found to have fallen, back in late September, so I thought I'd go ahead and kick off the season with it. I took a few more pictures today on the walk to the shops. Before the year's over, you might be looking at pictures of chickens...


First to Fall

Finally, I bring you the Dakota Spork:


The Dakota Spork

I know that's not what they think it says, but that's what it looks like to me.

Today's (Saturday's) miles: 2.2
Miles out of Hobbiton: 502.2
Miles out of Rivendell: 42.4
Miles to Lothlórien: 424

( And now, your moment of quiz )

not just for me

The climate has turned another notch; we've had the same block of suet outside for a couple of weeks now, and birds have come regularly and nibbled small bits off and flown away - but in the last two days, the rate has climbed dramatically, with probably half the block vanishing in two days, and small fuzzy brown birds hanging out by it all the time, often hoping down into the little subcage that holds the suet block itself and just gorging. We'll have to replace that more often, soon, and buy new bricks more often.

I don't know must of the little birds I see; the finches and the larger birds, of course, are easy to identify - northern flickers, stellar's jays, the occasional crow coming by and chasing off everyone else. But while I want to call some of the other ones "sparrows," I don't know whether that's actually what they are.

No sign of any hummingbirds recently. Nothing's been at the feeder for a couple of weeks. I suppose most of them have migrated, like they do, but last winter we at least thought we had one stay around here for the year. I've replaced the water again anyway, tho' I do kind of feel it's a bit of a waste.

I don't think it's really in a very good spot, as far as the little birds are concerned. I suppose I should move it to someplace more visible. It's a great spot from my standpoint - a place with lots of good watching opportunities. (That's why I've never moved it.)

The recent clouds lifted a bunch, mid-morning, revealing a lot of new mountain snow. It's lovely, of course; snow is one of the best things in the world, and snow on mountains is particularly beautiful. I'm really glad we can see them again, now that we live here. If I get into grad school, and we have the money, I'll replace the big old CRT monitor in the office with a modern LCD flatscreen and do homework there, just so I can look at the mountains more often. ^_^

An odd thing about the news-parody/comedy shows this weekend - all these reliably funny people aren't really being, well, funny. I mean, they're doing their usual sorts of material, but it's falling flat, even with the studio audiences. Maybe once the indictment came down, it stopped being funny and started being serious.

Whatever. The important thing is that I finished carving my pumpkin and figured out a shadow-projection trick with Paul so we'll have some spoooooooookyness for trick-or-treat tomorrow. Mmmmmmmm, yay candy!

( Quizzie )