armlessbear.com

Caught in Action by Google

Google Maps Street view has come to Madison!
After inspecting the street view of our street we know the following things:
It’s late afternoon, it’s past mid-July (our new windows are in) and it’s before we got lots of rain (the grass is yellow and crunchy looking.)
We also know M was not home from work yet, but I was and I was just about leave.
The annoying thing is that I was clearly leaving my driveway and failed to notice a mid-size car with a camera mounted on the top driving down my street.

What were YOU doing when Google Maps drove by?

Mama Mia, thats-a-spicy-weed?

In an attempt to enjoy the nice weather today, do some yard clean up, and prepare for the winter storm warning I was doing some raking in the little garden spot between the driveways.
I pulled some dead leaves away and smelled something familiar, yet strangely out of place. I sniffed again and looked at the ground. Fresh, new, tiny green leaves were poking out of the dead leaves. I retrieved a rake and gently pulled all the dead vegetation away. Growing underneath all that dead was a hardy little oregano plant.

I thought the first signs of spring were supposed to be crocuses or tulips, not herbs. I’m not complaining, it’s just… weird, that’s all.

Spring? Sprung? Springing?

Last fall we were inattentive lawn people. No grass was mowed, no leaves were raked in the back. The warm weather of the last few days melted snow exposing our laziness to the naked eye. Soggy, icy leaves covered a significant portion of our backyard. I googled around a bit and discovered that with each passing day we were murdering our lawn. Smothering it, inviting burrowing pests, encouraging moss. Oh, the horror, the shame of it all!

Today I spent 2.5 hours in the back yard cleaning up our mess.
I filled 2 old garbage cans and our compost bin with leaves and there are still more leaves that need to find a home. The 2 densely packed garbage cans are for composting later in the season when good carbon sources are scarce.

Bird's Eye View

A while ago I discovered http://maps.live.com and the “Bird’s Eye View” feature available.
After peering closely at the pictures I could tell the approximate date the photos were taken, i.e. late April. Here’s a nice neutral photo of Memorial Union.
It’s nice how they got the early spring shots before the trees completely leafed out obscuring everything. Microsoft is a little vague on who actually supplied the photos for each shot, but whomever it is, they’re waaay more detailed than the folks at Google Maps (which is still my favorite mapping site).
But I digress…

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood***

• Won’t you be my neighbor?

This afternoon I discovered that my very nice neighbors will be moving this summer. While I’m happy that neighbor guy found a job in a very small, competitive field, I’m sad to see them go. They are great neighbors and nice people.

So, this opens up a spot in our small neighborhood. For those of you who know our address and are interested in the house, they’re one house north of us and we share a driveway.

I don’t know the details of exactly when they’re going, but going they are and it would be awesome if someone we knew moved in next door. So, if you find yourself in the market for a 3br 1ba house with a roomy 1 car garage and a fenced yard in an awesome neighborhood with many, many cool neighbors, I suggest you make plans to move this summer!

Oh my god, someone stole our tree!

Our tree, here this morning, is now but a shadow of it’s former self. By tomorrow afternoon, all that will be left will be firewood.

Speaking of, those of you to whom we promised firewood, come & get it!

Flickr-free photos

After giving it some thought, I decided I don’t need to pay money to “go pro” on flickr when I have oodles of web space ready and waiting for me.

I’ll leave my photos up on flickr, at least for a while. Any that I want to add to a particular group, I will probably still put up there as well.

Otherwise, look for new photos at photos.bloy.org (RSS).

My Body Aches...

But it feels good. I have blister and several proto-blisters on my hands and fingers, my arms and back hurt and it feels great.
Really.
I’m Not Kidding.
My car’s thermometer told me it was 46 in my driveway. The driveway glaciers were beginning to break up of their own accord, but not nearly fast enough.
The hardware store was sold out of the things that are specifically designed to break ice up, so for a mere $8.99 I bought a flat garden shovel and went crazy on the driveway.
It felt GREAT to hack away at the ice sheets, stick the shovel underneath some larger sheets and lift away whole ice sheets.