Cop Car's Beat

The seeds are sown

BEFORE Seeding

TenderCare's lawn service team was scheduled to core-aerate and slit seed on Monday, 10/11/2021. Unfortunately for that scheduling, we received 2.61" of rain that day, starting at Midnight and ending at about dinner time. TenderCare rescheduled us for Friday, 10/15/2021. Now, understand that there are a couple of things driving us to have wanted to have the seeding done two weeks ago: 1) I had originally scheduled our sprinkler system to be winterized on the 20th, and the grass seed would need thrice daily watering for at least two weeks following sowing, taking us out to having the system winterized no earlier than 11/3/2021 - by which time we will surely have had temperatures that will risk freezing the backflow prevention valve assembly* and 2) Kansas State U Extension Service recommends sowing fescue seed no later than October 15, to provide the new grass the opportunity to mature to a stage less likely to be killed by fluctuations in winter temperatures.

The photo, below, is a paste-up of two photos that I finally thought to take Wednesday, 10/13/2021, showing the bare patches in the back yard that were left by the voracious army worms - after I had completed pulling out the Bermuda grass that was prominent in those areas. BTW: We received an additional 0.53" of rain on Wednesday.

The next photo was taken merely to show our daily invasion by "our" flock of turkeys. They came up from the creek bank just as I had come inside from taking the above photos and was closing the patio door.

Came Thursday, the 14th, I ran an errand, returning home to Hunky Husband's news that he had called TenderCare. He did not recall how he received the word (phone? text? email?) from TenderCare that they had scheduled winterization of our sprinkler system for the following day, regardless of the fact that I had asked them to change our scheduled date from the 20th to sometime the week of the 27th, after which I will need to water the seed/new grass by hand. They told him that they would not turn off the sprinkler system before seeding. That is good. However, HH's memory of what transpired is not always accurate these days, so I wondered what would happen on our re-scheduled seeding day of Friday.

Came Friday, the 15th, at 3:30pm, we had still not seen anyone from TenderCare. I called the office to inquire and was told, "You are on the schedule." We waited. No one showed. Now the office was closed and I had no idea what was happening. I decided that, if their team showed up, today (Saturday - usually a non-working day for TenderCare), I would let them seed. If they hadn't shown up by Monday morning, I would tell them not to seed - we'll do that next spring. Spring isn't the ideal time to seed a cool season grass, here; but, then, neither is it ideal after the 15th.

Thankfully, today, one of the TenderCare lawn service guys showed up, bright and early, to do our lawn. He had missed work, yesterday, and the remaining members of the lawn service team had been overbooked and could not possibly get the scheduled jobs all done. Since we are friends of the owner, I suspect that he chooses to take care of less sure customers, first, and that we were scheduled last. The guy who showed up had help, his bride of 19 years who is a member of TenderCare's landscaping team. As they were dragging two trailers behind the Tendercare pickup truck and one was filled with balled-and-burlaped bushes, I suspect that he would be her helper at their next job.

AFTER seeding

The photo, below, shows most of the bare areas in the back lawn, after core aeration and seeding. I immediately took up all of the flags that we had put out to mark locations of sprinkler heads and other obstructions that the workers should not hit with their equipment, and programmed the sprinkler system to do the thrice daily chore. Keeping my fingers crossed that our weather cooperates for the next three weeks, at least.

________________________________________________________

*To the best of my remembrance, we have had to pay to have the backflow prevention valve assembly repaired or replaced three times in the past 21 years. However, that's not the worst that happens. The worst that happens is that I get soaked with 32 degree F water, getting to the assembly to turn off the water, once the ice in the assembly melts and the water starts gushing forth. I have packed the assembly for resistance to low temperatures (we were at 35 degrees when I went for my walk, this morning, with frost on our roof and on the grass along my route.) Unfortunately, the last time the assembly was replaced, the new assembly's configuration makes it impossible for me to apply electrically heated tape to it. Grrrr....

Summary of the week - July 23

SATURDAY, July 17

Edging of street curb

I finished manually edging the street curb, this morning. The photos show the edged curb and the last load of sod that I removed in the edging process.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SUNDAY, July 18

Flowers for free

On the 11th, Bogie posted More Rain!, including photos of a few flowers that were blooming without her having planted them. She reminded me of a mystery plant that came up under a small mulberry tree that I had saved when having the trees surrounding it removed. I finally thought to take a photo, today. If you can identify the flower, please do so in a comment. I'm calling it a "wild tiger lily" because I don't know what else to call it. For the past three years, I've watched us (carelessly) mow down a couple of irises that I had laid at the base of the tree; thus, I've no idea how long this lily has been there. It has an interesting leaf habit that climbs the blossom stem. The third photo, below, shows what remains of the iris plants for comparison of the leaf configuration to that of the lily. The iris hasn't bloomed for having been mowed down so many times and I no longer recall what sort of iris it is - if I ever knew. I may have picked it up out of my trash heap of irises that were discarded when we sodded along what is now our neighbor's fence line.

 

 

Milkweed

While showing Hunky Husband the free lilies, I took him by my miniature meadow in order to check out the milkweed plants. They are doing well. There was a caterpillar on one of the plants (and a nibbled leaf edge); but, as I read online, "That ain't no Monarch!"

 

 

Addition of 7/19/2021: No caterpillar, no cocoon, no chrysalis, no further nibbling of leaves. Perhaps a bluebird ate the caterpillar.

 

MONDAY, July 19

 

Tomato harvest

After giving our four Ninebark bushes a haircut this morning, I harvested tomatoes. The bowl on the left contains tomatoes from a couple of volunteer vines that came up between the garage and the crepe myrtle bushes, this spring, while the bowl on the right contains tomatoes off of a Jet Star vine that I bought and planted. Because of the wonky weather that we had in March-May, our purchased vines had no ripe tomatoes for July 4th - which is the rule of thumb for gauging success of growing tomatoes, around here. The Jet Star and one of the larger tomato varieties ripened up one or two fruits - one week later.

 

For a while, the volunteer tomato plants out-produced our purchased plants. There is still one purchased plant that hasn't set on fruit but has abundant blossoms. (I picked some of the tomatoes a bit under-ripe so as not to give our expected high temperatures this afternoon, and the critters, a chance to spoil them. The temperatures are to crescendo to about 106 degrees Fahrenheit within the next two weeks, making our temperatures more in keeping with expectations for July.)

 

 

Update of 7/24/2021: The one vine that I wrote had not yet set fruit is the Bella Roma and closer inspection, this morning, showed  one walnut-sized and two marble-sized green fruit have actually set on.

 

Tuesday, July 20

 

By 7:15am, I had taken my walk and bought groceries. By 8am, a batch of chocolate chip/pecan cookies had been baked - made necessary by HH's having finished off the sandwich cookies that he likes and by the little WalMart's not having any for sale, this morning.

 

Thursday, July 22

 

Fortunately, I accomplished all necessary outdoor activities before 9am, today - my walk, some yard work, and a quick trip to the little WalMart to purchase more wide-mouth jar flats (for jars of chili that I had ready to put up in jars for Elder Brother). The trip to WalMart was a bust. They had nothing but jars left for sale in the canning supplies area. It seems that canning supplies are in short supply due to COVID-19 shutdowns.

 

I had to re-use some of the flats that I had on hand. I've historically re-used flats when the food is for Hunky Husband and me; because, except for the rare jar of jam, I keep such canned goods in the downstairs refrigerator or freezer. I like to use new flats when someone else is getting the canned goods - even when, as for the chili, the person will similarly store the jars in the cold. EB may choose not to take the chili if that is his preference; but, with careful packing, he should be able to get them to his home at a low enough temperature. I did assure that each jar actually sealed. *ping*

 

The photo, below, shows a loose set of wide-mouth flat and ring, one pint of the chili, and one unopened box of standard-mouth flats. The standard-mouth flats will probably still be in the cabinet when I die. I pretty much have used the wide-mouth jars since an epiphany many years ago in which I realized it is easier for one with tremors to hit a larger target. (My circular error probable, CEP, isn't that small.)

 

 

The reason I was glad to get outdoor activities accomplished early was that the authorities started issuing air quality advisories (stay indoors) at about 10am. The smoke from the wildfires in Northern California wasn't pea soup thick; but, it has been hazy out there.

 

A piece about canning jar flat shortage, Where have all the canning lids gone?, was posted last August. I hadn't noticed, before, because I had plenty of the flats on hand until now. (I've used at least three dozen new flats since August.)

 

Milkweed

While showing Hunky Husband the free lilies, I took him by my miniature meadow in order to check out the milkweed plants. They are doing well. There was a caterpillar on one of the plants (and a nibbled leaf edge); but, as I read online, "That ain't no Monarch!"

 

 

Addition of 7/19/2021: No caterpillar, no cocoon, no chrysalis, no further nibbling of leaves. Perhaps a bluebird ate the caterpillar.

 

MONDAY, July 19

 

Tomato harvest

After giving our four Ninebark bushes a haircut this morning, I harvested tomatoes. The bowl on the left contains tomatoes from a couple of volunteer vines that came up between the garage and the crepe myrtle bushes, this spring, while the bowl on the right contains tomatoes off of a Jet Star vine that I bought and planted. Because of the wonky weather that we had in March-May, our purchased vines had no ripe tomatoes for July 4th - which is the rule of thumb for gauging success of growing tomatoes, around here. The Jet Star and one of the larger tomato varieties ripened up one or two fruits - one week later.

 

For a while, the volunteer tomato plants out-produced our purchased plants. There is still one purchased plant that hasn't set on fruit but has abundant blossoms. (I picked some of the tomatoes a bit under-ripe so as not to give our expected high temperatures this afternoon, and the critters, a chance to spoil them. The temperatures are to crescendo to about 106 degrees Fahrenheit within the next two weeks, making our temperatures more in keeping with expectations for July.)

 

 

Update of 7/24/2021: The one vine that I wrote had not yet set fruit is the Bella Roma and closer inspection, this morning, showed  one walnut-sized and two marble-sized green fruit have actually set on.

 

Tuesday, July 20

 

By 7:15am, I had taken my walk and bought groceries. By 8am, a batch of chocolate chip/pecan cookies had been baked - made necessary by HH's having finished off the sandwich cookies that he likes and by the little WalMart's not having any for sale, this morning.

 

Thursday, July 22

 

Fortunately, I accomplished all necessary outdoor activities before 9am, today - my walk, some yard work, and a quick trip to the little WalMart to purchase more wide-mouth jar flats (for jars of chili that I had ready to put up in jars for Elder Brother). The trip to WalMart was a bust. They had nothing but jars left for sale in the canning supplies area. It seems that canning supplies are in short supply due to COVID-19 shutdowns.

 

I had to re-use some of the flats that I had on hand. I've historically re-used flats when the food is for Hunky Husband and me; because, except for the rare jar of jam, I keep such canned goods in the downstairs refrigerator or freezer. I like to use new flats when someone else is getting the canned goods - even when, as for the chili, the person will similarly store the jars in the cold. EB may choose not to take the chili if that is his preference; but, with careful packing, he should be able to get them to his home at a low enough temperature. I did assure that each jar actually sealed. *ping*

 

The photo, below, shows a loose set of wide-mouth flat and ring, one pint of the chili, and one unopened box of standard-mouth flats. The standard-mouth flats will probably still be in the cabinet when I die. I pretty much have used the wide-mouth jars since an epiphany many years ago in which I realized it is easier for one with tremors to hit a larger target. (My circular error probable, CEP, isn't that small.)

 

 

The reason I was glad to get outdoor activities accomplished early was that the authorities started issuing air quality advisories (stay indoors) at about 10am. The smoke from the wildfires in Northern California wasn't pea soup thick; but, it has been hazy out there.

 

A piece about canning jar flat shortage, Where have all the canning lids gone?, was posted last August. I hadn't noticed, before, because I had plenty of the flats on hand until now. (I've used at least three dozen new flats since August.)

Residential electrical service entrance

Earlier this month, a comment string on the posting, More from News for Nerds - Heat pumps, led to another posting, Determining electrical service requirements - for the non-professional, with an abundance of comments. I do not intend to extend (I like that phrase; ) the discussion in this posting, but merely wish to provide a place to document some of the information and sources that I ran across during the earlier exchange. In no particular order, I include the following items.

City of Derby, Kansas, Underground Wiring in Residential Subdivisions 

I've made previous mention of utility supply lines of various sorts' being delivered to our homes by underground installations, and below is an excerpt pertaining to electrical and telephone service supply from our city's Subdivision Regulation, Article 7 Installation of Required Improvements (Download Article 7__201304041240165680).

Overhead Power Line Service

If the electrical service is delivered via overhead power lines, as has been the case in about half of the homes in which I've lived, the electrical service entrance is through the roof or through an exterior wall - above grade. 

The graphics, below, are from a simplified presentation at Electrical Academia, and illustrate some of the routing and terminology having to do with conducting overhead power line electrical service into a residential dwelling. The graphic on the left shows a "mast service drop"; on the right, a "clevis service drop".

 

 

 

 

 

Dealing with restoration of electrical service following damage due to a disaster

It is a sticky wicket, figuring out whom to call when disaster strikes a home, damaging the electrical service entrance. During my volunteer disaster relief work, in coordinating with governmental agencies, I have been party to several conversations concerning what various levels of government can/cannot do, what utility companies can/cannot do, and the responsibility of the home owner (who may engage a qualified electrician) in restoring electrical service following a disaster. It got very frustrating for the stressed home owners.

The following table of responsibility is from Basics of Residential Electric Service Drops (thespruce.com). 

How [sic - should be Who] Is Responsible For Fixing the Service Drop?
	Power Company	Qualified Electrician
Overhead wires running from pole to house	X
Service bracket attaching service wires to house	X
Electric meter	X
Weather head that attaches to service cable		X
Service cable from weather head to meter box, then to service panel (circuit breakers)		X
Meter socket		X

More from News for Nerds - Auto emissions, Bit Coin cost, & USA Fossil fuel use

Volkswagen, BMW Fined $1 Billion For Colluding To Make Dirtier Cars (theverge.com)123

Posted by msmash on Thursday July 08, 2021 @02:02PM from the closer-look dept.

Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler spent years illegally colluding to slow the deployment of cleaner emissions technology, says the European Union, which is dishing out fines as a result. From a report: The EU's executive branch hit the Volkswagen Group (which owns Audi and Porsche) and BMW with a collective $1 billion fine on Thursday for their role in the scheme. Volkswagen Group must pay $595 million, while BMW will pay $442 million. Daimler, however, evaded a $861 million fine of its own because the automaker revealed the collusion to the regulators.

The scheme described by EU authorities is separate from the Volkswagen Group's massive Dieselgate scandal, in which the company installed software on its diesel vehicles that helped fool environmental regulators into believing they were compliant, when in reality, they were polluting far more than the legal limit. Dieselgate ultimately led to nearly $40 billion in fines, buybacks, and legal fees for the Volkswagen Group. Daimler also installed software on some of its diesel vehicles to cheat emissions tests and has paid billions of dollars in fines. BMW was careful to point out Thursday that, unlike the other companies it was caught colluding with, it had not cheated emissions testing.

 

Bitcoin Power Plant Is Turning a 12,000-Year-Old Glacial Lake Into a Hot Tub (arstechnica.com)69

Posted by BeauHD on Tuesday July 06, 2021 @11:30PM from the hot-tub-time-machine dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The fossil fuel power plant that a private equity firm revived to mine bitcoin is at it again. Not content to just pollute the atmosphere in pursuit of a volatile crypto asset with little real-world utility, this experiment in free marketeering is also dumping tens of millions of gallons of hot water into glacial Seneca Lake in upstate New York. "The lake is so warm you feel like you're in a hot tub," Abi Buddington, who lives near the Greenidge power plant, told NBC News. In the past, nearby residents weren't necessarily enamored with the idea of a pollution-spewing power plant warming their deep, cold water lake, but at least the electricity produced by the plant was powering their homes. Today, they're lucky if a small fraction does. Most of the time, the turbines are burning natural gas solely to mint profits for the private equity firm Atlas Holdings by mining bitcoin.

Atlas, the firm that bought Greenidge has been ramping up its bitcoin mining aspirations over the last year and a half, installing thousands of mining rigs that have produced over 1,100 bitcoin as of February 2021. The company has plans to install thousands more rigs, ultimately using 85 MW of the station's total 108 MW capacity. [...] The 12,000-year-old Seneca Lake is a sparkling specimen of the Finger Lakes region. It still boasts high water quality, clean enough to drink with just limited treatment. Its waters are home to a sizable lake trout population that's large enough to maintain the National Lake Trout Derby for 57 years running. The prized fish spawn in the rivers that feed the lake, and it's into one of those rivers -- the Keuka Lake Outlet, known to locals for its rainbow trout fishing -- that Greenidge dumps its heated water. Rainbow trout are highly sensitive to fluctuations in water temperature, with the fish happiest in the mid-50s. Because cold water holds more oxygen, as temps rise, fish become stressed. Above 70 F, rainbow trout stop growing and stressed individuals start dying. Experienced anglers don't bother fishing when water temps get to that point.

Greenidge has a permit to dump 135 million gallons of water per day into the Keuka Lake Outlet as hot as 108 F in the summer and 86 F in the winter. New York's Department of Environmental Conservation reports that over the last four years, the plant's daily maximum discharge temperatures have averaged 98 in summer and 70 in winter. That water eventually makes its way to Seneca Lake, where it can result in tropical surface temps and harmful algal blooms. Residents say lake temperatures are already up, though a full study won't be completed until 2023.

 

America Used Fewer Fossil Fuels In 2020 Than It Has In Three Decades (theverge.com)76

Posted by BeauHD on Tuesday July 06, 2021 @10:02PM from the pandemic-side-effects dept.

Americans gobbled up fewer fossil fuels in 2020 than they have in three decades, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). The Verge reports: Consumption of petroleum, natural gas, and coal dropped by 9 percent last year compared to 2019, the biggest annual decrease since the EIA started keeping track in 1949. The COVID-19 pandemic was responsible for much of the fall as people stayed home to curb the spread of the virus and used less gas. In April 2020, oil prices nosedived below zero because there was so little demand. The U.S. transportation sector alone used up 15 percent less energy in 2020 compared to the year before. Higher temperatures last winter also helped to cut energy demand for heating, according to the EIA. As a result, greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels plummeted to a near 40-year low.

That downward trend will have to continue in order to stave off the climate crisis. Upon rejoining the Paris climate agreement, President Joe Biden committed the U.S. to slash its planet-heating pollution in half this decade from near-peak levels it reached in 2005. That's part of a global effort to keep global warming from surpassing a point that life on Earth would struggle to adapt to, a global average temperature that's roughly 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. To hit that goal, there should be no further investments in new fossil fuel projects, according to a recent landmark report from the International Energy Agency. The oil and gas industries are already feeling the crunch from lawsuits and activist investors forcing them to move faster toward more sustainable forms of energy.

More from News for Nerds - Heat pumps

Seven years ago, having been plagued for several years with minor leakage from the air conditioner coolant line that is embedded pretty much inaccessibly within the house structure, we had our Heating/Ventilation/Air Conditioning (HVAC) system replaced with a high efficiency system. It was pricey, but worth the change. The new system is much quieter, provides much more consistent temperatures, and (yay!) uses a heat pump, the natural gas furnace being on standby for really cold episodes. Unfortunately, instead of acting as auxiliary heater for the first winter, the furnace provided primary heat. This escaped my notice because I don't spend much time in the part of the house in which the status display is mounted (I probably wouldn't have noticed, anyway) and, as it turned out, Hunky Husband wasn't paying any attention to the readouts or to the utility bills. Fortunately, the technician who did our twice-yearly checkup of the HVAC system caught it. The wrong chip had been installed in the heat pump unit controller, outside. The reverse heat-flow mode had never been activated.

BTW: You may be interested in Bogie's posting about installation of her new "mini split" ductless HVAC system.

The item, below, is from the News for Nerds website.

Can Heat Pumps Change Demand for Air Conditioners Into a Climate-Change Win? (nytimes.com)266

Posted by EditorDavid on Sunday July 04, 2021 @05:34PM from the forget-the-furnace dept.

The New York Times reports:As global warming fuels deadly heat waves across the country, more Americans in places like the Pacific Northwest are rushing out to buy air-conditioners for the first time. One common concern is that a surge in air-conditioning could make the planet even hotter, by increasing the need for electricity from power plants running on coal or gas, which produce emissions that drive global warming.

But some energy experts, as well as cities like Denver and Berkeley, California, have recently started exploring a counterintuitive strategy: Soaring demand for air-conditioning might actually be a prime opportunity to reduce fossil fuel emissions and fight climate change. The idea is simple: If Americans are going to buy air-conditioners anyway, either for the first time or to replace older units, why not convince them to buy electric heat pumps instead? Although the name can be confusing, an electric heat pump is essentially an air-conditioner that is slightly modified so that it can run in two directions, cooling the home in the summer and providing heat in the winter. That extra heating function is the key to helping tackle climate change. During the cooler months, heat pumps could warm homes far more efficiently than the furnaces that run on fossil fuels or electric resistance heaters that most households currently use, which would cut down on carbon dioxide emissions. Existing furnaces would only need to be used as backup on the coldest days of the year, since many heat pumps work less efficiently in subzero temperatures.

Most manufacturers already offer heat pump versions of the air-conditioners they sell, but they're typically about $200 to $500 more expensive to make. So, the idea goes, policymakers would have to step in with subsidies or regulations to make adoption universal. But if done right, proponents say, households would see utility bills either drop or stay largely unchanged, and they would even enjoy a more comfortable heating experience.
The Times spoke to Nate Adams, a home performance consultant who proposed the idea in a recent paper written with experts at Harvard University CLASP, a nonprofit formerly known as the Collaborative Labeling and Appliance Standards Program advising governments on energy efficiency. "Working with energy modelers, Mr. Adams and his co-authors estimated that, if two-way heat pumps become the standard option when people installed new central air-conditioning, they would be in 44% of American homes by 2032, up from just 11% today. On average, those homes could cut their fossil fuel use during the colder months by at least one-third. And, as states move to clean up their electricity grids by adding more wind and solar power, the climate benefits from those electric heat pumps would increase..."

"Homes and offices account for 13 percent of the nation's annual greenhouse gas emissions, with much of that from oil or natural gas burned in furnaces, hot water heaters, ovens, stoves and dryers. While the United States has made major strides in reducing pollution from power plants, building emissions have barely budged since 2005."

Summary of the week

The ears have it - 6/14/2021

Hunky Husband had an appointment with the audiologist. The upshot of the appointment was that he chose to have Dr Combs set his hearing aids on "fully automatic". Trying to make adjustments was not working out for him. No more than HH currently wears the hearing aids, it isn't that big a deal. I must say, though, that I'm enjoying that HH is now (mostly) wearing his hearing aids when he watches TV in the evening. (Not so, during the day; but, one thing at a time!)

At times, HH's TV has been set to such a loud volume that, even though my den door is closed, I cannot hear my own TV over his. Note that, in the photo above, the charger sits on a note that I had written HH a couple of weeks ago to remind him to keep the lid open while charging his hearing aid batteries. Dr Combs recommended this as a means to check that everything is proceeding normally with the charging - by observing the blinking green light on each unit, during charging, or a steady green light when fully charged.

Note to Bogie: I showed your dad the hearing aid controls information in the format that you suggested (which reorganized the information and added the bit of info about the beeping that I had previously omitted) the other day. He didn't recognize the difference. He kept saying that it was the same information as on the previous table. It was mooted by his going to the "fully automatic" mode, anyway; but, I appreciated your input. Thanks for taking the time and making the effort.

Outlook and my teeth - 6/16/2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was not too pleased upon learning that, seemingly, a recent update to Outlook has changed how it operates a bit. Just how, I've not determined. The effect is that I missed my dental appointment on the 15th and had to re-schedule for the 16th.

My usual practice is to set up important appointments in the Outlook Calendar with first notification occurring 18 hours prior to the appointment so that I am reminded the evening before the appointment. The first notification that I received of the dental appointment on the 15th was when I came in (hot & grimy) from doing yard work and was notified that my appointment was past due. Picking up my phone to call the dental office, I noted that they had left me a voicemail about my not being there.

In setting up my appointment for the 16th, I was doubly positive to set first notification for 18 hours prior to the appointment. However, as had occurred on the previous entry, the default of 15 minutes was actually set on the appointment. Of course, with the kerfuffle, I did make it to the appointment on the 16th. I saw the dental hygienist (Lacey, who cleaned my pearly whites), the owner of the practice (Dr Carol Ysidro, who said she just wanted to see me because it had been at least a year since we last spoke), and Dr Omar (Dr Omar Barakeh who adjusted a few of my teeth to improve my bite). My teeth have been shifting a bit since Dr Omar installed the permanent bridge.

The lawn and my "miniature meadow" (mm) - 6/18/2021

Edward, of TenderCare Lawn and Landscape, came by this afternoon to check out our irrigation system. This is a mid-season service that the company offers. Having spent time weeding in the side yard, this morning, I decided to check out my mm that sits between our back lawn and the far back grounds, to see how the milkweed plants are doing. The above photo shows the mm's status.

The lacy-looking white flowers are Annual Daisy fleabanes, I think. I didn't plant them, but neither did I pull them when I saw them growing. The daisy-like yellow/brown flowers at mid-height are Brown-eyed Susans that I seeded a few years ago.

The multi-hued little flowers lurking in the shade of the towering Brown-eyed Susans and Wild asters are Blanket flowers that I planted from pots in 2019. At the left of the photo, one can see that the milkweed plants have grown little since I stopped babying them. Perhaps they are thirsty. The mm is just out of reach of the irrigation system unless the wind is from the north.

As an afterthought: The yellowish long leaves sticking up at the edge of the bare dirt, toward the right edge of the photo, is what's left of one of the Narcissi that surround the mm and a few of the trees that I've had planted in the edge of the woods. The Narcissi have shriveled, fallen, and been mowed down for the season.

Weather notes for the week

It has been hot, hot, hot - and it isn't even summer, yet. The NPR station was announcing that their studio thermometers (in Downtown Wichita) were showing 103 degrees Fahrenheit. The hottest I saw, myself, was 103 on my car (but it changed to 100 when I turned down-sun) and 100 on our front porch. It is supposed to be hotter, today. It is 96 on our front porch. On my drive home from visits to the gym, this week, I've been swabbing down my carotid arterial areas, etc, with the wet wipes that I have been carrying in the car for COVID-19 precautions for the past 15 months. When one cannot perspire, it really helps cool one down.

Bogie, how's it doing up there in New Hampshire? You've been having really hot weather for an area that is supposedly "cool". You were hotter than were we, by about 20 degrees during May, I think.

More from News for Nerds - New Normal (climate-wise)

I added the yellow high-lighting. CC

NOAA Unveils a Warmer Climate 'Normal' For the US32

Posted by BeauHD on Tuesday May 04, 2021 @11:30PM from the warmer-than-ever dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Axios:The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration revealed new standards on Tuesday for what an average or "normal" U.S. climate looks like, showing average temperatures in the U.S. rising significantly. Updating these standards is important for helping shape government policies and what your local weather forecaster says the "average" high temperature is on a given date.

NOAA releases climate averages for the preceding 30-year period every 10 years. The "climate normals" released Tuesday cover 1991-2020 and indicate that the U.S. climate has warmed, and also become wetter over time. NOAA noted that parts of the U.S. may also get drier, due to climate change. "The influence of long-term global warming is obvious," per a press release. The new normals may shift how the climate is described for particular parts of the U.S. With the changes, Fairbanks, Alaska is no longer considered a sub-Arctic climate, but is now termed a "warm summer continental" climate.

Moving along

Wonderful Weather (2/17/2021):

By Tuesday (2/16/2021) morning we had accumulated about five inches of snow since Friday. During the previous night, our outside air temperature (OAT) equaled the -17F OAT that I recall having experienced in Kansas in about 1960. The Current Results: Weather and Science Facts website tells me that, as recently as February 10, 2011, we reached -17F, again. How soon I forgot. The website tells me,

"These records were observed at Eisenhower National Airport and go back to 1954. The lowest temperature measured during that time was -21 degrees Fahrenheit (-29 Celsius) on February 6, 1982."

Lowest Wichita temperatures in recent years

Min °F	Date	Min °C
2	March 05, 2019	-17
-2	January 01, 2018	-19
4	December 31, 2017 +	-16
-10	December 18, 2016	-23
0	January 07, 2015	-18
-5	January 06, 2014	-21
3	February 23, 2013	-16
7	December 29, 2012	-14
-17	February 10, 2011	-27
0	January 09, 2010	-18

Not living in this area during 1981-1989, I missed out on the -21F  OAT in 1982. I was living on the Gulf Coast of Florida's panhandle at that time.

Finally this afternoon, I got around to tackling the snow on our driveway. I do, after all, need to drive to the grocery store tomorrow. (Kudos to WalMart for automatically having rescheduled my pickup from Tuesday to Thursday when their online scheduling system was overwhelmed such that we customers could not reschedule for ourselves. One assumes that everyone with a scheduled Tuesday pickup was pushed back to days expected to be exhibiting better weather/street conditions.)

I never spent more than 11 minutes at a time and only went out thrice. My muscles are not accustomed to that sort of exercise, now, and I hate it when I cripple myself because I'm too stupid to pace myself. I'll do even more shoveling tomorrow morning - after it warms up a bit, but before my appointment at WalMart's little store.

The first photo (below) shows the results of my first two ventures out. That bare concrete is where my car will be required to back and turn to the street (to the right).

Next, I cleared some of the concrete in front of the garage doors that hide Hunky Husband's and my cars.

Emergency Supplies (2/17/2021):

Yesterday afternoon, a tiny package was delivered by FEDEX; but, today, FEDEX brought me a really important, heavy box: 14 pounds of safflower seed and 10 pounds of shelled peanuts for our birds. Yay!

Old Photographs (2/18/2021):

One of the photos that I scanned, today, was of my mother's basketball team. She attended country schools during her grades 1 through 10, then had to transfer to a larger school in a town down the road a piece. Whether she also played basketball in 11th or 12th grade, I'm not sure; but, I also scanned photos of the elder of Mom's two younger sisters with her basketball team from the larger school.

In the photo, below, my mother is holding the ball because they lined up by height and she was the shortest. I remember a few of these players, and the coach, from years later when I lived in that area. In fact, my first year or two were spent in a house whose yard abutted the schoolyard. I suspect that the "uniform" bottoms were bloomers - with elastic at the leg opening which is pushed up on the thigh. At least, our gym uniforms in the 1950s had elasticized legs that pushed up - a bit shorter than the ones shown.

ADDITION of 2/24/2021:

Joared gave me a thought. In seeking a photo that showed the gym clothes that my own generation of girls wore in high school, I had searched my yearbooks from 1954 and 1955. Aha! I have a yearbook from 1956 (with which class I should have been graduated had I not skipped 11th grade). The following image is a scan of a page from the 1956 yearbook which illustrates, nicely, the outfits that we wore in the mid 1950s. Since I attended school with these girls for several years, I know knew nearly all of the girls in the two photos. The girls who were seniors when the photos were taken, and who have survived, will be celebrating their 65th year reunion, this year.

Turkeys Making Tracks (2/19/2021):

Each day, early of a morning, our neighborhood's turkey flock left more tracks through the snow. We could follow the flock's movements after-the-fact, up and down and across our street; but, the most interesting patterns were left in our back yard.

Finally, a "clear" sidewalk (2/19/2021):

Now that we've finally reached an OAT that is above freezing, I deigned to clear the snow from our front walk. A man walking down the street to retrieve his mail from the mailbox cluster asked, "Would you like for me to do that for you?" I thanked him and explained that it was good exercise for me. Really, it's more fun than work since I limit what I do at one time - this stint's being limited to 14 minutes. (Working my way up.)

It is a waste of time to clear the sidewalk: no one uses it. I can't blame them. It is so much shorter to cut across the yard from the street to the front steps.

More from News for Nerds - Snow flake photos in high resolution

My morning walks have been particularly interesting this week. For one thing, it has been cool enough and, at times, windy enough to thin out the herd of dog walkers and such. Wednesday, it was snowing. It wasn't a heavy, large-flaked, blizzardy type, but a delicate sprinkling of tiny, sparkly flakes. I could not, however, see them to the fine detail that Nathan Myhrvold achieves in his photographs. I'm impressed.

"Yellowknife Flurry," a photograph by Nathan Myhrvold, captures the intricate structure of snowflakes. (Nathan Myhrvold / Modernist Cuisine Gallery, LLC)

The Highest Resolution Photos Ever Taken of Snowflakes (smithsonianmag.com) 43

Posted by BeauHD on Thursday January 28, 2021 @09:10PM from the never-before-seen-detail dept.

Photographer and scientist Nathan Myhrvold has developed a camera that captures snowflakes at a microscopic level never seen before. Smithsonian Magazine reports: Myhrvold, who holds a PhD in theoretical mathematics and physics from Princeton University and served as the Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft for 14 years, leaned on his background as a scientist to create the camera. He also tapped into his experience as a photographer, most notably as the founder of Modernist Cuisine, a food innovation lab known for its high-resolution photographs of various food stuffs published into a five-volume book of photography of the same name that focuses on the art and science of cooking. Myhrvold first got the idea to photograph snowflakes 15 years ago after meeting Kenneth Libbrecht, a California Institute of Technology professor who happened to be studying the physics of snowflakes.

In simple terms, the system Myhrvold developed is comprised of one part microscope and one part camera, but with a number of parts that work in tandem to complete the arduous task of capturing an image of a snowflake, a subject that's not only miniscule (most snowflakes measure less than a half-inch in diameter) but also quick to melt. In fact, a snowflake's tendency to disintegrate was one of the biggest challenges Myhrvold had to overcome with this project. His solution: equipping his 50-pound camera system with a thermoelectric cooling system, a carbon fiber frame and LED lights, which give off less heat than standard lights. Every single part of his Frankenstein-esque device, which stands at about five feet in height off the ground when placed on a table, was built using materials that are less likely to cause melting or sublimation of the subject matter.

Myhrvold also had to figure out how to physically capture a snowflake. (It's not quite as simple as hoping that the perfect snowflake just so happens to fall into your mittened hand.) He quickly learned that catching them on a glass microscope slide wouldn't work; glass is a known insulator. But an artificial sapphire slide, made of the same crystal material as one would find in a high-end watch, had a lower thermal conductivity ratio than glass, making it the perfect material to gather specimens. [...] Once safely on the slide, he focuses his microscope to take the photograph, changing the exposure one micron at a time. (For reference, the width of a human hair measures approximately 70 microns.) On average, Myhrvold photographs each snowflake more than 100 times, or as many times as he can before the snowflake starts to melt. Using specialized computer software, Myhrvold combines multiple photographs of a single specimen to create the final photograph. "That photo [is usually the result of] 100 photographs put together using computer software," he says. "You have to take many photos in order to get a high enough resolution, because many photos put together allows you to have enough depth of field to see an entire snowflake very sharply."

2021 - a clean slate

For a few days the weather guessers have been telling us to expect snow and freezing rain this past Wednesday. By the time it got closer to Wednesday, the nasty weather had been pushed forward to Thursday - then to Friday. As it turned out, AFAIK, the rain/freezing rain that was to precede and proceed the snow and was to have started at around Midnight last night did not show up. When I trudged through the accumulated snow and blowing snow to retrieve our morning paper, there was no sign of slipperiness as I expected from a coating of ice. But...the world from our house, looks fresh and clean with its white coating. It is still snowing, but only half-heartedly with tiny flakes. The sun has been trying to peek out for the past hour. I've already had my first bowl of snow ice cream - for breakfast. (I'll take a small break, here.)

The first photo was taken at about 8am (the camera's date/time was off) at which time I measured a bit over 4 inches of snow on the patio table. At about 11:30am, I measured 5.5 inches. The sun came out just before noon and the snow had quit. By hovering your cursor over a photo you may reveal the caption to each photo.

When the weather turns bad, we always have a bountiful number of birds at our feeders. This morning, we've had European starlings (ugh!), a passel of slate-colored juncos (with one pink-sided amongst them), a handful of house finches, a like number of American gold finches, a few tufted titmice, one white-breasted nuthatch, one red-bellied woodpecker, a couple of downy woodpeckers, and a female cardinal - that I recall.

Please note the blue feeder in the above two photos. I have a hook on a pole that I use to retrieve/replace feeders through one or the other of the living room windows during weather such as this. A bit after these photos were taken, I tried to retrieve the blue feeder for re-filling. Unfortunately, I used one hand/arm in the process and fumbled the feeder when I took its full weight at the end of my pole, dumping it off onto the ground. I replaced it with another tube-type feeder rather than going out and trampling about in the snow. The snow looks better without my footprints.

Added at 3:33pm - No more ice cream

It warmed up, quickly, once the sun came out. About half of the snow has already melted. What is left wouldn't be fit for snow ice cream. It is 35 degrees Fahrenheit.