Cop Car's Beat

And Fred's trees came down

About a year ago, I told Fred that, the next time he had his chainsaw out, he might want to think about taking down two of his trees. They stood just outside his back fence; one, dead, the other, dying.

This evening, I am happy that I wasn't trying to get more photos of the garden spider. Had I been doing so, I would have been hit by one of the branches from one of his trees, as it fell. Instead, I was chatting with Hunky Husband, heard the commotion, and watched the upper parts of the trees fall. One tree snapped off at a fairly high point, fell onto the other tree, snapping it off (a bit lower, of course).

 

 

I haven't seen Fred - not sure he is in town. Sent him the photos via email.

Week in Review - 9/25/2020

Monday, 9/21/2020: Having decided to get down to the task of making more/better face coverings for Hunky Husband and me, I was disgusted with myself for having forgotten my lack of elastic for the ear pieces. Gah! I bought three yards of silk for the double inner layer of fabric, but failed to order the elastic. In case there is someone who missed the announcement: Walmart is trying to compete with Amazon as a "go to" online merchandise ordering website. However, there are items for which they have taken time to establish ordering capability. Such was the case with the elastic. It has, since, become available and I have ordered several yards of white and several of black. It is to be delivered during the first week of October. [Added note: The wild bird seed that was ordered at the same time was delivered on the 22nd.]

       

I still seek a source of two types of light bulbs - and - sanitizing hand wipes.

Tuesday, 9/22/2020: The Wild Turkeys and I are having a contest. They try to see how much of the mulch around our new trees in back they can remove, and how quickly, while I attempt to rake the mulch back into place during my daily outdoor chores. The photo, below, was taken in July; but, it shows some of the turkeys and points out the mulch that they love to scatter.

Wednesday, 9/23/2020: As I stepped outside to gather in this morning's newspaper, there were a couple of bat-like flyers tumbling over our front yard. I could not imagine that we had bats as large as these two appeared to be and, by the time I had taken another step, I realized that there were a number of these tumbling flyers. Aha! It is September. The Common Nighthawks are migrating south with their more-or-less wheeling movement. As happened, it was early enough that it was nearly dark outside, and it was foggy; thus, the birds were flying a bit lower than normally they would have been observed to do. Their tumbling flight was to catch insects around the street light that is near our yard, fueling their long flight to South America. I did not/could not have captured their aerobatic flight; but, YouTube came to my rescue. I recommend full screen for viewing this video (under 2 minutes).

 

 

Several times since moving into this house, I've observed migrations of nighthawks - following the same track each year as far as I can tell. Otherwise, seeing nighthawks in our little town is so rare that I cannot, reliably, recall any instances. I do recall (1940s and early 1950s) watching nighthawks dart about in the even smaller town in which my great-grandparents lived. They lived on a relatively busy street, across from a small hotel. As I recall, some of the nighthawks nested atop that hotel - on its flat roof. Their in-flight squawks are unmistakable.

 

 

Did I mention it was foggy? Thirty minutes later, as I left for my walk, I found that the "perfectly dry" outdoor surfaces were then "perfectly wet". During my walk, within 0.4 mile of the house, I experienced a "Seattle rain". The rest of my walk was dry.

 

I continued my fall cleanup in the yard by yanking out another tomato vine (this is the 5th one, so far, this year.) You can see how huge the plant was in the photo, below. It was late producing ripe tomatoes and sparse in production. It's fruit were tasty, however.

 

The fall yard cleanup continued with my raking cottonwood tree leaves and sticks - for the ninth day in a row. It has been only a couple of hours since I raked and, in the next photo, it is obvious that tomorrow will be another raking day. Unfortunately, I failed to snap a photo "before". The splice of two photos to provide a wide-angle look isn't perfect; but, close enough for government work!

 

 

Thursday, 9/24/2020:

On this, my late mother's 106th birthday, News for Nerds led me to a report at The Guardian, concerning the effectivity of impermeable face shields in protecting against aerosol distribution of the novel coronavirus.

 

Face shields ineffective at trapping aerosols, says Japanese supercomputer

Simulation using world’s fastest supercomputer casts doubt on effectiveness in preventing spread of coronavirus

Obviously, my dentist is ahead of the curve since she insists that all staff working on patients wear a surgical mask under the transparent face shield. I would also point out that dentists have used the transparent face shields "forever". I had always understood it to guard them against droplets of spray.

A large garden spider is having her last fling of summer. It's to be in the low 90s (as high temperature of the day) over the weekend, then into the 60s during next week. It was in the mid 60s when I spotted this beauty, below. I never had the opportunity to show her back in a photo - only her front and side.

 

 

 

Friday, 9/25/2020: One of the items at News for Nerds, this morning, concerns helping people become addicted to Facebook. I understand that, just because one uses FB does not imply that they are addicted; but, there are frequently reports in the traditional media that might lead one to conclude that a non-trivial number of users are, indeed, addicted.

Former Facebook Manager: 'We Took a Page From Big Tobacco's Playbook' (arstechnica.com) 86

Posted by BeauHD on Thursday September 24, 2020 @11:30PM from the engaging-analogies dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Speaking to Congress today, the former Facebook manager first tasked with making the company make money did not mince words about his role. He told lawmakers that the company "took a page from Big Tobacco's playbook, working to make our offering addictive at the outset" and arguing that his former employer has been hugely detrimental to society. His analogy continued: "Tobacco companies initially just sought to make nicotine more potent. But eventually that wasn't enough to grow the business as fast as they wanted. And so they added sugar and menthol to cigarettes so you could hold the smoke in your lungs for longer periods. At Facebook, we added status updates, photo tagging, and likes, which made status and reputation primary and laid the groundwork for a teenage mental health crisis. Allowing for misinformation, conspiracy theories, and fake news to flourish were like Big Tobacco's bronchodilators, which allowed the cigarette smoke to cover more surface area of the lungs. But that incendiary content alone wasn't enough. To continue to grow the user base and in particular, the amount of time and attention users would surrender to Facebook, they needed more."

Tim Kendall, who served as director of monetization for Facebook from 2006 through 2010, spoke to Congress today as part of a House Commerce subcommittee hearing examining how social media platforms contribute to the mainstreaming of extremist and radicalizing content. "The social media services that I and others have built over the past 15 years have served to tear people apart with alarming speed and intensity," Kendall said in his opening testimony (PDF). "At the very least, we have eroded our collective understanding -- at worst, I fear we are pushing ourselves to the brink of a civil war." As director of monetization, he added, "We sought to mine as much attention as humanly possible... We took a page form Big Tobacco's playbook, working to make our offering addictive at the outset."

Farewell young flora

In our woods reside some fairly old trees - mostly walnut and hackberry, with one cottonwood at the point in the woods that comes closest to the house. Any trees that we have planted are, by definition, young in my book as our house was built in 1999. Alas, I've had taken out two more of those young trees. This time, as was the case for a couple of other trees taken out a few years ago, one was dead; the other was wind damaged.

Farewell, Sugar Maple:

in 2020...                              and in it's youth (2006)....  

As you can see, the poor tree did not ever reach its potential. During it's first few years, the wind blew the leader out of it. Another branch grew into that role. Over the years, it accumulated impact damage to its trunk and it became diseased until the bark sloughed off around nearly the entire circumference. Too, it probably didn't help that the siting was unfortunate, being too near underground utility lines, I believe. Well...we probably shant replace that tree but focus on the trees in back. It isn't as if the tree was/could have been situated to provide shade to our house. With the house canted at a 45-degree angle to cardinal directions (facing northwest) and the driveway situated to the southwest of the house, that just cannot happen.

The next two photos show how the tree looks with utility-marking flags dancing about it. As you can see, it is a very good thing to have utility line locations marked before taking out a tree that sits atop some of those lines.

     

     

Farewell, clump of Redbud Trees:

in 2020...           and in January, 2017....

I just threw that photo in there to let me feel cooler than allowed by August weather; however, that ice storm was the genesis of problems with that clump. Since then, whenever we've had a stiff breeze (50 mph or faster) the clump lost large branches and/or a trunk. In addition, I've had to remove several large branches/trunks to allow clearance for Neighbor Adam and Hunky Husband when they are mowing. When it rained, the large leaves retained enough water to weigh the branches down to within a couple of feet of the grass.

Here is the clump, in March, 2019: 

It just caught my attention: there are yellow and orange streaks of paint in the grass of the above photo, indicating that, although the flags had been removed, we had had the utilities lines marked within the past couple of weeks. The next photo shows the currently installed dancing flags near the redbud clump.

The joke was on me - one potato, two potatoes....

Every March, as I was growing up, my dad planted potatoes on or about St Patrick's Day. I have no idea when/how those potatoes were harvested - lost in the mists of my mind. Me? No, I've never planted potatoes. I often do find potatoes growing in our planting beds - from the green garbage that I have buried there. Each week, rotating locations, I so bury our green garbage. This morning, when my spade brought up a shovelful of dirt to leave a hole into which I should insert the week's green garbage, I espied a tiny potato. Several weeks earlier I had pulled the vine, but had not dug down to see what it was leaving behind.

When I came in from working in the woods, I took the handful of potatoes that I had unearthed to the kitchen sink, cupping the potatoes between my hands as the water ran over them. The photo, below shows the small pile of potatoes that I then deposited on the counter.

When the potatoes hit the counter, I heard a "clunk". See the funny-looking, tiny "potato" that is on the left, next to the potato that is nearest to the camera? It is a rock. I needed to have paid more attention to my harvesting!

Brown-eyed Susans

Last year I scattered some brown-eyed Susan seeds in my miniature meadow (mm) in the back yard and planted a few potted blanket flowers. Inexplicably, I can find no photos of last year's mm, despite my belief that I had posted such photos last year. Oh, well. This year, a crop of brown-eyed Susan popped up in my mm, by which I was pleased. Early on, the first couple of times that Hunky Husband mowed our grass this year, he avoided one plant out in the middle of our "out back" because he thought it might be a flower that I had planted. Hmmm...eventually, it became obvious that it was a displaced brown-eyed Susan. I happen to like brown-eyed Susans from the plants that grew wild in our cow pastures WIWAK. The photo, below, shows the lone plant in the foreground and my mm in the background.

Had the brown-eyed Susans not come up this year, my mm would have been pretty barren once the daffodils wound down. A few blanket flowers came up, but they were so stunted that one would not know they were there unless one did a close inspection. Those few have already gone to seed (photo, below). Other than the rose and tomatoes which I purchased earlier this year, I've not broken isolation to buy seeds/plants.

The news - June 28, 2020

There is good news and there is bad (but not unexpected) news.

Bad News - The dishwasher drain pump is not working.

It took me 15-20 minutes to empty the water (well, as much as possible) from the washer, last night. No, the drain line is not clogged - the drain pump is not turning on. Odds are that the pump needs replacement, rather than that the controls are screwed up. Twenty years ago, I would have replaced the pump, myself. This time, since the dishwasher has outlived the average life expectancy by several years, anyway, I shall just do the research to see what brand of dishwasher to use to replace it - and - let someone else do the replacement. That should take care of dishwashers for the rest of Hunky Husband's and my lives.

 

Good News - The "large red cherry tomato" (that's how the label from the nursery reads) plant had a couple of ripe fruit on it, this morning.

This being Sunday, it was "water the new trees with the hose" day. While the long hose is soaking one of the trees, the short hose (hooked up in parallel with the long hose) is soaking one of the rose bushes or one of the three largest tomato plants. As I was watering the last tree, I moved the short hose to water the center tomato plant. When I bent down to place the end of the hose, I espied red! I reached around the vine and plucked the cluster of five tomatoes to bring inside. I shall have a home-grown, ripe tomato for dinner, today.

Usually, success with tomatoes is measured in these parts by having fresh tomatoes for dinner on the 4th of July. After a questionable start in late March/mid April (this plant is from the mid-April planting), I count the tomato crop as a success - even if it has been too hot for tomatoes to have set on during the past month. Speaking of the heat: I had gone out to water the trees, yesterday; but, the humidity was murder - the heat index made it feel like 97 degrees Fahrenheit - too much for me! Fortunately, the humidity decreased late yesterday and this morning is bearable.

And then there is Weird - Eastern Phoebe

I've seen birds spread their wings and tails to soak in sunlight; I've seen birds take dust baths; but, the phoebe pulled something, just now (Noonish), that looked like it wanted to soak up sunlight, but I cannot imagine it when the temperature is this hot (90ish). I shot a photo of it through the window. It was only there for 1 or 2 minutes.

Catching up - 6/19/2020

Fresh Paint

             

The house is looking fresher these days - not from the front, but definitely from the back. Cecil, the handyman, painted the three sides of the house that comprise rough cedar siding (although, one of those sides is nearly as much brick veneer as siding). The back side of the house faces southeast and the garage side faces southwest, so those two sides really take a beating from the sun and from the prevailing southwesterly winds. The whole house had been painted when it was built in late 1999, of course, and again in 2008. The front of the house, facing northwest, is nearly all brick-faced and gets little sun and wind, so I decided not to bother the environment by having it painted this time.

With the heat as bad as it has been, Cecil was smart enough to have himself and his helper here at 6:30am to work until a bit past noon each day - plus - the first day, Cecil worked for a couple of hours in the afternoon on the side of the house that faces northeast - in the shade. They were so quiet that we never knew when they were here or when they were not.

100' of hose - Front Yard

200' of hose - Back Yard

It seems that all I've done for the past few weeks is water, water, water. Except for one day, the temperatures during the past two weeks have been in the mid-to-high 90s (Fahrenheit) and I don't want to lose our new little trees. On Sundays, I water all of the trees that have been planted within the past 18 months - plus - rose bushes and the three largest tomato plants. That is accomplished by stretching out the back yard hose and setting it to water the base of each of 13 trees for four to twelve minutes, depending upon when the tree was planted, how large the tree is, and the species of the tree. The roses are watered using a separate 75' hose, for four to six minutes each, depending upon how distracted I get in watering the trees. Wednesdays, the three trees that were planted in May get two 9-quart buckets full of water each, and each rose or tomato plant gets one bucket full each. The front hose is used to water the tropical plants that are summering on our front porch, the plantings along the front of the house, and the plantings on the far side of the driveway. [I note that, since 2:00am, today, we have received over one inch of rain - and the heat is supposed to abate somewhat for today and tomorrow. Yay! I shan't need to water plants this weekend. The rain stopped for a bit a couple of hours ago, but it is again coming down. The sump pump has been activating every minute or two since I woke at 2:00am.]

Note that in the left, bottom area of the above photo there are small (tropical) airplane/spider plants coming up beside the sedum. Last fall, I gambled that those plants would come up from roots that had over-wintered for several years now and did not re-pot any of the plants to over-winter inside. Not only did the "established" roots over-winter; a root from a plant that had established itself from a potted plant that I had put into my basement escape window well (see the photo, below) did as well. The window well root took so long to come up that I had given up on it; but, there it comes.

The photo, below, shows the tropical plants that I am summering in the window well this year. Too small to show up in this photo, the airplane plant is in the far corner.

First visitor since February

For the first time since February, we had someone inside our home: Elder Brother (above photo from a visit in 2018). As paranoid as he is (and who wouldn't be who had experienced two heart attacks and about five cardiac arrests?) we felt that he would be as safe as anyone to invade our spaces - and that we would be a much greater risk to him than he to us. EB had phoned a few weeks ago to let me know he would be birding in Kansas. (He had promised me to always let me know, rather than visiting Kansas without letting me know.) I had consulted Hunky Husband, and we had invited EB to stay with us for a night or two - with the proviso that, should he die of CORVID-19 after catching it from us, he wouldn't haunt us.

EB drove in just after 4:00pm, on a Friday, and left at 8:00am, on that Sunday. We enjoyed his stay, but none of us left the house in the time that he was here. Normally, we would have eaten one or two meals out; but, we had pizza for dinner, Friday; leftover pizza for lunch, Saturday; and I put together a chicken salad for dinner, Saturday evening, with EB opting to have a shredded turkey breast sandwich, instead. We had soft-serve ice cream (vanilla with fresh, sweetened strawberries for EB and me and chocolate with chocolate syrup for HH) for the two meals. EB always has the same breakfast, to which he helps himself: bowl of shredded wheat cereal and four ounces of orange juice. He also helped himself to the treats (photo, below) scattered around the house - dark chocolate coated almonds, brownies, etc. EB eats very little and has always been so thin that it is painful to look at him when he doffs his shirt; but, he's a big boy (84 years old) and can take care of himself, I think.

  Left-to-Right: plain M&Ms, lemon cookies dipped in dark chocolate & almond pieces, and pecan candy made from left-over dipping chocolate

At our ages (and with the state of EB's health), HH, EB, and I find that our risk factor is not as worrisome to us as the thought of our not getting to see one another. It should be understood without my saying so that HH and I went into isolation for 14 days after EB's visit. OTOH, EB went on to spend a few nights in motels in Kansas and Texas, his intended locales for birding. EB also isolated himself when he arrived home from his journey.

Birds Fledged

The wren nest among the foliage of a house plant that is summering on the front porch has one egg left in it - abandoned AFAIK. It was probably not viable. The second brood of five house finches in the miniature swing on the front porch all left (the two laggards are shown in the above photo), and a second brood of bluebirds was fledged. I don't expect any more action in the nests during the heat of the summer. I was properly amazed at that second brood of bluebirds since we have been in the mid-to-high 90s during all of June (but for one day when it was 89 degrees Fahrenheit).

Strawberry Moon

We had few strawberries, this spring, my having ripped out our strawberry patch in order to plant HH's roses; but, I did get to watch the Strawberry Moon rise. As you can see (photo, below) the moon had to rise to about 20 degrees above the horizon to clear the tall trees along our creek.

Cherry Crop 2020

I posted a photo of our North Star Cherry tree abloom this spring, here, and posted about the cherry crop of 2019, here. Today, I'll post photos supplied by our neighbor down the street showing the cherries that she picked yesterday, and this morning, from our little tree. She, Wonderful Hostess, had invited us to attend an outdoor pot-luck-style barbecue that she is holding in her spacious back yard this evening. In telephoning our regrets (my not having felt well for a few days, the horrible heat spell we are having - about which she didn't know when she planned the shindig, and our old-people-reluctance to tempt fate in even an outdoor setting), I mentioned to WH that our cherries had suddenly all ripened a couple of days ago and that she should pick any that she cared to have. WH took me up on the offer and you can see her bounty, below. Of course, we were totally oblivious to her presence at our tree; but, she emailed that she had disturbed the birds at their breakfast, this morning.

Yesterday's take:

 

This morning's take:

Hunky Husband just came in from his morning jog. He wouldn't be much wetter had he jumped into a swimming pool. I was smart enough to get an earlier start - carrying buckets of water to the dogwood trees. (I wasn't early enough to catch WH at her cherry picking, though!)

ADDITION OF 6/7/2020 2:01PM  - Payback

Wonderful Hostess left me a voicemail several minutes ago, letting me know that she had left us goodies on the front porch. Have you ever seen a finer looking cherry cobbler? (I'll note that WH was sharp enough to use a double, disposable, pan for the cobbler.) I can hardly wait to taste it; but, must wait, of course.

Wonderful Hostess included a thank you note in which she lamented that she misses being a farm wife as she had been for 30 years - before moving to town. She is a wonderful neighbor who has provided a sparkplug to our community since moving in last year. We are so happy to have her here.

Week in Review - 6/5/2020

Health: For a few days, I kept having a new "symptom" to think about each day. As of this morning...no symptoms. I lived through 'em all and I'm pretty sure they had nothing to do with COVID-19 or any other virus. I think it was a combination of age/heat/food choices/hydration. The age and heat are still with me, but I've been doing better on the food choices and hydration for the past week.

Heat: The heat has about knocked me out. After doing yard work (mostly deep watering our nine newest trees - requiring uncoiling, dragging about, and re-coiling 200' of garden hose) a couple of days ago, I was beet red. That's not unusual for me when the temperature is over 80 degrees F, let alone when it is in the upper 90s. I come inside; drink a cup of water; splash water all over myself; swab my face, arms, and legs down with alcohol; and sit under a (ceiling) fan for 20-30 minutes. * The two, new dogwood trees were looking wilt-y, so I daren't wait until morning. Otherwise, I've done yard work in the morning when it has been cooler. I still get hot, but not beet red. (I think it would be nice if I could perspire!) Hunky Husband even found it hot. He was dragging when he came in from his jogging this morning.  (Maybe he just walked this time?) HH perspires enough for the both of us.

Politics: A long-time lurker has emailed to ask, once again, why I try to refrain from political discussions on my blogs. The Dilbert cartoon (above) in this morning's Wichita Eagle (I would provide a link, but it is behind a pay wall) pretty well sums up a major reason. I'm sure that I could be the person in the red shirt or in the blue shirt, in that cartoon, depending.

As I always believed during my working days, just because something can be done doesn't mean that it should be done. Similarly, as was quoted in an article headlined Ill-considered posts lead to lost jobs amid protests, crisis in this morning's paper, "You don't need to always say something." There are times when one must speak up; but, one must address the right audience when speaking up. I choose, in my blogs, to remain silent and be thought a fool, when it comes to politics. (Apologies to the late President Abraham Lincoln.)

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

* I am reminded of a time in July, 1980, during a long string of triple-digit temperature days, when I had taken a TR-182 [turbo-charged, retractable gear Skylane] prototype out for an operational test flight. It was 104 degrees F, that day. After refueling (using a step-ladder) and parking the plane, I walked into the experimental hangar and stuck my head under the circular-troughed hand washing station to cool down. The mechanics found me a sight to behold, I'm sure; but, they were kind enough not to give me a bad time. They were good people.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

ADDITION OF 6/5/2020 11:30AM - More from Slashdot.org

Does this posting (below) mean that we Yanks are, in general, hypochondriacs? Perhaps I had no "symptoms" (see, above) at all? I was just fooling myself!

COVID-19 Pandemic Causes 42% Drop In ER Visits Nationwide, CDC Says (upi.com) 74

Posted by BeauHD on Friday June 05, 2020 @06:00AM from the striking-decline dept.

schwit1 shares a report from UPI: Visits to hospital U.S. emergency rooms have dropped by more than 40 percent so far in 2020, compared to the same period last year, according to figures released Wednesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC researchers compared total visits so far this year to the same five-month period in 2019. The number of ER visits declined from a mean of roughly 2.1 million per week between March 31, 2019, and April 27, 2019, to a mean of 1.22 million per week during the "early pandemic" period of March 29 to April 25 of this year, according to the CDC. ER visits declined for every age group, with the largest proportional declines in children 10 years old and younger at 72 percent and children 11 to 14 years old at 71 percent, the agency said. Researchers found the largest declines in ER visits occurred in the New England states at 49 percent, as well as in the mid-Atlantic region at 48 percent. That region includes New York and New Jersey, which has been the epicenter of the U.S. COVID-19 outbreak.

ER visits related to abdominal pain and other digestive problems fell by more than 66,000 per week from year to year, while those among patients reporting musculoskeletal pain -- excluding low-back pain -- dropped by more than 52,000 per week, according to the CDC report. Visits for "sprains and strains" declined by nearly 34,000 per week, and those related to "superficial injuries" fell by nearly 31,000 per week, the researchers said. Conversely, ER visits for "exposure, encounters, screening or contact with infectious disease" increased by nearly 19,000 per week from 2019 to 2020, the analysis found. Specifically, some 18,000 ER visits occurred per week across the country for COVID-19 symptoms through the end of May, the researchers said. The researchers say more research is needed to determine whether the decline in ER visits could be attributed to "actual reductions in injuries or illness [due] to changing activity patterns during the pandemic" lockdown, or if Americans simply delayed or declined emergency care.

Three more trees

Three guys came out from Hillside Nursery, yesterday, to plant three new trees that I had asked nursery employee John to pick out for me and send. As always, I knew that John would be better at picking out trees than would I. Since as far back as 1968, Hillside Nursery has been happy to fulfill orders that my family members have phoned in and John has been helping me for at least 20-30 years (he says that he is 10 years my junior although I would have guessed 20).

Two of the trees were more Prairie Pink Dogwoods. Three dogwoods are shown in the photo, below; but, the center one was planted one year ago and bloomed so beautifully this year (see here and here) that I had to give it some siblings. I'm looking forward to next April!

The third tree planted is a pink crabapple. We used to have one; but, I had it taken out a couple of years ago, when I replaced several trees and bushes with sod (see here). This (below) is the new tree.

I'm hoping that the new crabapple will be as pretty as the one I had taken out - shown, in 2012, below.

While I'm at it, I'll show a few of our irises - the kind that has nearly completed its bloom period.

And, lastly, an update on Hunky Husband's red roses, the buds of which were shown here.

Mr Lincoln:

Oklahoma!: Although the photo makes some of the petals appear to be bruised, the dark parts are really deep red and velvety.