Driving back from Nevada at sunset. The drive is mostly desert and lake, but there is always something cool to see in that long stretch of highway.
I’m doing 80 and that’s why the sticks are blurry. But not bad. But not as pretty as it was.
We had snow all day and the mountains are getting hammered. It stuck to the ground, but not my drive. Best type of snowstorm. Wish I could ski just once more time.
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It looks like you had a very nice cruise at sunset. Is that the great salt lake?
Is Sam a good travelling partner?
Cheers
Driving back from Nevada at sunset. The drive is mostly desert and lake, but there is always something cool to see in that long stretch of highway.
I’m doing 80 and that’s why the sticks are blurry. But not bad. But not as pretty as it was.
We had snow all day and the mountains are getting hammered. It stuck to the ground, but not my drive. Best type of snowstorm. Wish I could ski just once more time.
It is so low this year that people are afraid that the buffaloes will walk off the island. It’s a Utah joke...there’s a causeway out to an island and of course the water is never deep anyway. But the lake affects our weather so much and we aren’t getting much snow anymore. They are going to have to do something soon because if it gets much lower then dust will blow on the snow and melt it faster.
Sam is not a good traveler yet. She wanted to sit in front with me until I tied her to the seat and then she whined. Now she is big enough to poke her head out the window and she is riding calmer. I have a great seatbelt for her when she is a tad bigger. And yay she is totally potty trained. Has sit, stay and wait, down really well. And BIG. I posted a photo of her last night. It’s amazing how fast she grew.
We have a drought here as well, with historically lower levels in the reservoirs than ever, with too few restrictions, especially in the agricultural area.
It is so low this year that people are afraid that the buffaloes will walk off the island. It’s a Utah joke...there’s a causeway out to an island and of course the water is never deep anyway. But the lake affects our weather so much and we aren’t getting much snow anymore. They are going to have to do something soon because if it gets much lower then dust will blow on the snow and melt it faster.
Sam is not a good traveler yet. She wanted to sit in front with me until I tied her to the seat and then she whined. Now she is big enough to poke her head out the window and she is riding calmer. I have a great seatbelt for her when she is a tad bigger. And yay she is totally potty trained. Has sit, stay and wait, down really well. And BIG. I posted a photo of her last night. It’s amazing how fast she grew.
Utah’s population is going up more quickly every year and that means more housing that gets diverted from it. Coming from Ogden heading south and then around it there is a bend in the road and you suddenly see the lake and Farmington bay. The bay used to be much higher than it is now. Instead of seeing the lake you see lots of dirt. My mind still sees it higher for just a minute and then I see reality. Weird.
We have a drought here as well, with historically lower levels in the reservoirs than ever, with too few restrictions, especially in the agricultural area.
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Whenever I drive from and to home I pass one of the major dams that supplies water to Auckland households. We've also had a flourish of new building and occupation over these last few years. It's quite disconcerting to see the levels regularly keep dropping.
Utah’s population is going up more quickly every year and that means more housing that gets diverted from it. Coming from Ogden heading south and then around it there is a bend in the road and you suddenly see the lake and Farmington bay. The bay used to be much higher than it is now. Instead of seeing the lake you see lots of dirt. My mind still sees it higher for just a minute and then I see reality. Weird.
We've had reports of brownish snow across the SL valley. Usually caused by pollutants picked up by the snow as it falls. In this case possibly also dirt kicked up in the air by the strong winds to our W and NW and transported here.
Whenever I drive from and to home I pass one of the major dams that supplies water to Auckland households. We've also had a flourish of new building and occupation over these last few years. It's quite disconcerting to see the levels regularly keep dropping.
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by low water levels, we are at least fortunate that it is primarily clay, which seems from what I've learned from you and the salt lake area soil, to be an advantage regarding the pollution of dust.
We've had reports of brownish snow across the SL valley. Usually caused by pollutants picked up by the snow as it falls. In this case possibly also dirt kicked up in the air by the strong winds to our W and NW and transported here.
Yeah that won’t spread as much as our salty sand. The words above are from a tweet from the weather service about the wind blowing in from the lake. That’s why we got so much that people were calling the weather service about it. I don’t remember it happening before. At least not that bad.
Yesterday my car was very clean cuz of the rain. Today it’s covered in salt and dirt. Window washing fluid wouldn’t clean it. That’s how much and how hard it was. I went to Nevada again today and got lots of photos of the area and the ground. I got a close up of the sand. I’ll post more next Friday, but here are a few.
I took Sam too just to see how she’d do in the car for that long. She did GREAT. I tied her in the back and she stuck her head out the window most of the way there. I watched her in my side mirror and it looked like she was either biting the air or trying to catch it. Just kept lunging at with her mouth and outside. She slept on the way home. I guess sleeping in the car is tiresome. Who knew...
No more puppy face. She is growing into her lab dawg one. She looks so much like Abby did at that age.
Here’s how Abby looked when she was about 2 months older than Sam is now.
Sam
As far as I remember this was the first time I’ve been out on the sand here. I did swim in it a few times when I was a kid. Yuck. Sure it’s all fun and games till you get out and the sun dries the salt on you. It’s at a rest stop and one can have 'access' (isn’t this the true meaning of the word access?) and I drove out on it. You can see from the photo how hard it looks. There were no tire tracks from any car out there today. Other times it’s been water instead. I’ve never really paid much attention to the ebb and flow because I knew that it did go up and down often. One year I’d pass by and it’s water, the next either water or sand and it kept doing that. Now I haven’t driven there since I moved back so I don’t notice.
by low water levels, we are at least fortunate that it is primarily clay, which seems from what I've learned from you and the salt lake area soil, to be an advantage regarding the pollution of dust.
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@snoopydawg
beautiful SD! Looks like a good birding area.
Driving back from Nevada at sunset. The drive is mostly desert and lake, but there is always something cool to see in that long stretch of highway.
I’m doing 80 and that’s why the sticks are blurry. But not bad. But not as pretty as it was.
We had snow all day and the mountains are getting hammered. It stuck to the ground, but not my drive. Best type of snowstorm. Wish I could ski just once more time.
up
4 users have voted.
—
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
I passed a few places that is setup for birding so I know where to go this spring. I just remembered that it’s eagle season here. I went out by the lake last year that I used to go to see them and it was all houses out there now. It used to be farmland and wide open spaces. But yuck. I wouldn’t want to live that close to the lake because when it’s low and the wind is blowing in it’s really stinky. The valley gets it now and then but that close all the time.
For some good feelings check out Luther Allison in joe's ebs, especially, 'Living in the house of the blues’, and the performance with Rush and Clapton!
You all out there, just survive whatever puts your life in danger.
Trying to hope for better times, but it's not working.
Those are fantastic photos Janis! Stunning beautiful! Outstanding! Gorgeous! Awesome! What are the white vertical lines on the first one? Coke?
up
4 users have voted.
—
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
@janis b
I was just tryin' to be funny... You are great. I was trying to figure out what my eyes were seeing, and I guess it reminded me of something I once saw...
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
What an imagination you have, lines on black velvet ; )
#3.1 I was just tryin' to be funny... You are great. I was trying to figure out what my eyes were seeing, and I guess it reminded me of something I once saw...
This is a fly of some sort, obviously a bee-mimic.
This is a Green Bottle Fly or something very similar. The shutter speed was not fast enough to freeze the wings, so you just get the body in hover mode.
Another unknown type of fly.
This is super fly.
This is Odontomyia, a Soldier Fly
Hope all are well!
Play it safe!
up
10 users have voted.
—
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
This is a fly of some sort, obviously a bee-mimic.
This is a Green Bottle Fly or something very similar. The shutter speed was not fast enough to freeze the wings, so you just get the body in hover mode.
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
This is a fly of some sort, obviously a bee-mimic.
This is a Green Bottle Fly or something very similar. The shutter speed was not fast enough to freeze the wings, so you just get the body in hover mode.
Another unknown type of fly.
This is super fly.
This is Odontomyia, a Soldier Fly
Hope all are well!
Play it safe!
up
3 users have voted.
—
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
@snoopydawg
Yes they are superficially smiliar, some of the long-legged flies, and skeeters. Yes I am certain it is a fly, not a mosquito. Generally speaking the proboscis of the female skeeter is a very very needle-like narrow affair. This being short and blunt is not that. Then the huge eyes are another key distinction, most mosquitoes do not have big eyes, in fact they are on the small side, and certainly there are none like this. I sent it to a few of my bug buddies and one entomologist friend actually recently sent me the family/genus he said to look up, it was one of those. It is a fly. Which are an amazingly diverse group. Whereas most skeeters are superficially very similar in appearance.
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
inspired by your contribution than I’ve ever known or felt interested in. You’re a wonderful observer and teacher of nature, which enhances all of our experiences.
I remember seeing more greenbottle flies in the past here, but very few now. As beautiful as their iridescent colours are, I can’t say I miss them. Something in nature regarding their environment has changed. Maybe because people with dogs are more attentive to cleaning up after them? Now, farming needs to clean up its act in so many ways. Much more complicated, but highly significant to our future.
One page I read said that flies were not pollinators. Another page said that one of fly's positive contributions, beside breaking down rotting material, is that they pollinate some plants that bees don’t because the flowers don’t have nectar to attract them.
Anyway, thanks very much dystopian
This is a fly of some sort, obviously a bee-mimic.
This is a Green Bottle Fly or something very similar. The shutter speed was not fast enough to freeze the wings, so you just get the body in hover mode.
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
those seed pods. Very sere. Those bits of nature always attract me. Just for the heck of it and by way of contrast I thought I'd toss in a sea of grass - this goes on forever
be well and have a good one
up
6 users have voted.
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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
@enhydra lutris
savannah, prairie, grassland, or what flavor of habitat? Looks great!
those seed pods. Very sere. Those bits of nature always attract me. Just for the heck of it and by way of contrast I thought I'd toss in a sea of grass - this goes on forever
be well and have a good one
up
3 users have voted.
—
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
I suspect savannah or grassland, stuff runs from about a foot tall to several feet tall, depending on who has been grazing how much and all that. Here's an area maybe a mile to the north of that pic (across the Mara river) that is, at that time of year, less grazed by grazing animal herds with some critters for scale:
be well and have a good one
#6 savannah, prairie, grassland, or what flavor of habitat? Looks great!
up
3 users have voted.
—
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
I love the 3 bands of colour and light. It's very visually calming and reflective.
those seed pods. Very sere. Those bits of nature always attract me. Just for the heck of it and by way of contrast I thought I'd toss in a sea of grass - this goes on forever
Comments
Evening
Driving back from Nevada at sunset. The drive is mostly desert and lake, but there is always something cool to see in that long stretch of highway.
I’m doing 80 and that’s why the sticks are blurry. But not bad. But not as pretty as it was.
We had snow all day and the mountains are getting hammered. It stuck to the ground, but not my drive. Best type of snowstorm. Wish I could ski just once more time.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Hi snoopy
It looks like you had a very nice cruise at sunset. Is that the great salt lake?
Is Sam a good travelling partner?
Cheers
It is
It is so low this year that people are afraid that the buffaloes will walk off the island. It’s a Utah joke...there’s a causeway out to an island and of course the water is never deep anyway. But the lake affects our weather so much and we aren’t getting much snow anymore. They are going to have to do something soon because if it gets much lower then dust will blow on the snow and melt it faster.
Sam is not a good traveler yet. She wanted to sit in front with me until I tied her to the seat and then she whined. Now she is big enough to poke her head out the window and she is riding calmer. I have a great seatbelt for her when she is a tad bigger. And yay she is totally potty trained. Has sit, stay and wait, down really well. And BIG. I posted a photo of her last night. It’s amazing how fast she grew.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
I'm sorry about the drought
"Scientists say the biggest problem is upstream diversions that are leading to less water replenishing the lake each year."
https://kutv.com/news/local/experts-great-salt-lake-drying-out-could-res...
We have a drought here as well, with historically lower levels in the reservoirs than ever, with too few restrictions, especially in the agricultural area.
Yeah that is part of the problem
Utah’s population is going up more quickly every year and that means more housing that gets diverted from it. Coming from Ogden heading south and then around it there is a bend in the road and you suddenly see the lake and Farmington bay. The bay used to be much higher than it is now. Instead of seeing the lake you see lots of dirt. My mind still sees it higher for just a minute and then I see reality. Weird.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
I'm experiencing something very similar
Whenever I drive from and to home I pass one of the major dams that supplies water to Auckland households. We've also had a flourish of new building and occupation over these last few years. It's quite disconcerting to see the levels regularly keep dropping.
Timely
We've had reports of brownish snow across the SL valley. Usually caused by pollutants picked up by the snow as it falls. In this case possibly also dirt kicked up in the air by the strong winds to our W and NW and transported here.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Because the ground is more exposed here as well
by low water levels, we are at least fortunate that it is primarily clay, which seems from what I've learned from you and the salt lake area soil, to be an advantage regarding the pollution of dust.
An advantage for you I take it?
Yeah that won’t spread as much as our salty sand. The words above are from a tweet from the weather service about the wind blowing in from the lake. That’s why we got so much that people were calling the weather service about it. I don’t remember it happening before. At least not that bad.
Yesterday my car was very clean cuz of the rain. Today it’s covered in salt and dirt. Window washing fluid wouldn’t clean it. That’s how much and how hard it was. I went to Nevada again today and got lots of photos of the area and the ground. I got a close up of the sand. I’ll post more next Friday, but here are a few.
I took Sam too just to see how she’d do in the car for that long. She did GREAT. I tied her in the back and she stuck her head out the window most of the way there. I watched her in my side mirror and it looked like she was either biting the air or trying to catch it. Just kept lunging at with her mouth and outside. She slept on the way home. I guess sleeping in the car is tiresome. Who knew...
No more puppy face. She is growing into her lab dawg one. She looks so much like Abby did at that age.
Here’s how Abby looked when she was about 2 months older than Sam is now.
As far as I remember this was the first time I’ve been out on the sand here. I did swim in it a few times when I was a kid. Yuck. Sure it’s all fun and games till you get out and the sun dries the salt on you. It’s at a rest stop and one can have 'access' (isn’t this the true meaning of the word access?) and I drove out on it. You can see from the photo how hard it looks. There were no tire tracks from any car out there today. Other times it’s been water instead. I’ve never really paid much attention to the ebb and flow because I knew that it did go up and down often. One year I’d pass by and it’s water, the next either water or sand and it kept doing that. Now I haven’t driven there since I moved back so I don’t notice.
Yeah I’m chatty tonight.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
nice pics SD
beautiful SD! Looks like a good birding area.
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
It is
I passed a few places that is setup for birding so I know where to go this spring. I just remembered that it’s eagle season here. I went out by the lake last year that I used to go to see them and it was all houses out there now. It used to be farmland and wide open spaces. But yuck. I wouldn’t want to live that close to the lake because when it’s low and the wind is blowing in it’s really stinky. The valley gets it now and then but that close all the time.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Feels like the curtain came down befort the show could begin
You all out there, just survive whatever puts your life in danger.
Trying to hope for better times, but it's not working.
Thank you for being here, janis b.
You're so welcome mimi
I appreciate your presence just as much.
For some good feelings check out Luther Allison in joe's ebs, especially, 'Living in the house of the blues’, and the performance with Rush and Clapton!
beautiful photos Janis!
Those are fantastic photos Janis! Stunning beautiful! Outstanding! Gorgeous! Awesome! What are the white vertical lines on the first one? Coke?
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
Hi dystopian
Do I, or my photos seem that wired ; ?
You are a trip, and much fun, thank you.
I was just funnin'
I was just tryin' to be funny... You are great. I was trying to figure out what my eyes were seeing, and I guess it reminded me of something I once saw...
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
...
What an imagination you have, lines on black velvet ; )
Hi all!
This is a fly of some sort, obviously a bee-mimic.
This is a Green Bottle Fly or something very similar. The shutter speed was not fast enough to freeze the wings, so you just get the body in hover mode.
Another unknown type of fly.
This is super fly.
This is Odontomyia, a Soldier Fly
Hope all are well!
Play it safe!
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
Super fly
[video:https://youtu.be/-cmo6MRYf5g]
Funky stuff
[video:https://youtu.be/c3z7HN2ugQY]
How'd ya know?
I love that Janis! I dug it the first time I heard it as a teen!
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
For me,
it was hinted in your title, super fly ... and I just flew with it ; ).
It's so nice to communicate with you.
Super fly looks like a
mosquito. You sure it isn’t?
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Flies and mosquitos are both dip-didip-didip in order Diptera…
so a mix-up would be understandable.
[video:https://youtu.be/lXmsLe8t_gg]
Who put the bomp in the Bombus bumba-bumblebee genus? Who put the Bombus in the Hymenoptera order with the other bees, and also wasps and ants?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumblebee
What a perfect musical match
to buzzing creatures. Thanks.
sorry to be slow here...
Yes they are superficially smiliar, some of the long-legged flies, and skeeters. Yes I am certain it is a fly, not a mosquito. Generally speaking the proboscis of the female skeeter is a very very needle-like narrow affair. This being short and blunt is not that. Then the huge eyes are another key distinction, most mosquitoes do not have big eyes, in fact they are on the small side, and certainly there are none like this. I sent it to a few of my bug buddies and one entomologist friend actually recently sent me the family/genus he said to look up, it was one of those. It is a fly. Which are an amazingly diverse group. Whereas most skeeters are superficially very similar in appearance.
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
I’ve learned more about flies, dystopian,
inspired by your contribution than I’ve ever known or felt interested in. You’re a wonderful observer and teacher of nature, which enhances all of our experiences.
I remember seeing more greenbottle flies in the past here, but very few now. As beautiful as their iridescent colours are, I can’t say I miss them. Something in nature regarding their environment has changed. Maybe because people with dogs are more attentive to cleaning up after them? Now, farming needs to clean up its act in so many ways. Much more complicated, but highly significant to our future.
One page I read said that flies were not pollinators. Another page said that one of fly's positive contributions, beside breaking down rotting material, is that they pollinate some plants that bees don’t because the flowers don’t have nectar to attract them.
Anyway, thanks very much dystopian
Late to the party...
Here's the sunrise on Thursday.
Have a good day!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
great colors LO!
beautiful photo LO!
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
What a wake up call that is!
The early mornings are very special. I'm glad you have them.
Good morning Janis. Late to the party as usual but love
those seed pods. Very sere. Those bits of nature always attract me. Just for the heck of it and by way of contrast I thought I'd toss in a sea of grass - this goes on forever
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
so is that
savannah, prairie, grassland, or what flavor of habitat? Looks great!
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
G'morning dysto - I'm not really that good with those terms,
I suspect savannah or grassland, stuff runs from about a foot tall to several feet tall, depending on who has been grazing how much and all that. Here's an area maybe a mile to the north of that pic (across the Mara river) that is, at that time of year, less grazed by grazing animal herds with some critters for scale:
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
It's like the ocean el, thank you
I love the 3 bands of colour and light. It's very visually calming and reflective.
Saturday night photo recapitulation Christmas Still Life
A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.
Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.
Thank you Dawn
Your Christmas still-life is bright and energetic in the light.