Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

February 2014

Scenes From Around Our Desert Home


I wandered around our little patch of desert this morning taking photos. I captured pictures of cacti, critters, rock garden, etc.

My original purpose was to get up on the hill out back and take pictures of the top of the RV to see if there would be any problems installing the new cover we ordered for it. It looks like there are no objects to adversely impact the installation.

The slideshow leads off with “the big guy,” our saguaro cactus out front, followed by Damsel’s rock and cactus garden, one of the hidden hedgehog cacti up on the hill, a view of our neighbor’s house on the hill across the little wash, quail and a squirrel snacking on critter crunch, a compass barrel cactus on the hill, beavertail prickly pear cactus in the landscape cover, a place on the hill under a palo verde tree, a desert lizard and another hedgehog in the river rock landscape cover.

08 Feb 2014 by Arizona Critters Home & Garden Photography

Death Panel

From The Patriot Post: CBO Finds Out What’s In It

The reduction in CBO’s projections of hours worked represents a decline in the number of full-time-equivalent workers of about 2.0 million in 2017, rising to about 2.5 million in 2024.” The estimate is nearly triple CBO’s original one.

That brings us to Ramirez‘ tongue-in-cheek look at the jobs devastation caused by this POS . . .

Death Panel

07 Feb 2014 by Beltway Kabuki Whacko Politics

Agave

Agave

Much of the planted gardens here in our town (as well as throughout the desert) is xeriscape. This agave is in an area surrounded by a staircase from the parking area to the specialist clinic at our local medical center. This lush desert succulent, rendered in sepia, is a nice still-life showing the artistic nature of our gardens. Click on the image to enlarge.

06 Feb 2014 by Arizona Photography

Imbolc – Halfway to Spring

Imbolc

Today marks the cross-quarter event of Imbolc, the halfway point between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox. Here in Arizona, we are having a mild winter thus far; today’s high was 59° with broken clouds and no precipitation hitting the ground, although we could see virga several times today as we were out and about.

The image above is a screen capture of the dynamic depiction of the grand octal earth orbital clock at Archaeoastronomy.com. I captured the image when planet Earth paused briefly at the Imbolc position in the orbit. Imbolc and the other cross-quarter names come from the Celtic to describe the seasonal mid-points in ancient times. Click on the image to enlarge (slightly).

03 Feb 2014 by Astronomy Environment

A Helicopter-Shaped Cloud

Helicopter-Shaped Cloud

After dinner yesterday, Damsel looked out of the front window and saw a cloud that appeared to look like the silhouette of an aircraft. She grabbed her camera and got this image of the phenomenon before it morphed into a randomly shaped cloud.

I remembered that there is a term to describe seeing objects in nature that one perceives as resembling something else. However, I could not remember the exact term so I did an internet search on “clouds that resemble things” and found a definition on Askville which led me to this definition on Wikipedia:

Pareidolia

Pareidolia (parr-i-DOH-lee-uh) is a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant, a form of apophenia. Common examples include seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon or the Moon rabbit, and hearing hidden messages on records when played in reverse.

Interesting. Click on the image to enlarge.

ALSO: Seeing extraterrestrial alien faces in Ice Cream: Alien Frosty Paws.

02 Feb 2014 by Environment Photography

Solar Activity

Sunspots 01FEB2014

Huge sunspot AR 1967 erupted with an M6 class solar flare a couple of days ago. It is not aimed directly at Earth, but scientists predict a 45 percent chance of auroras at high latitudes when the CME glances off the magnetosphere tomorrow. I photographed these two active sunspot regions around noon local time in Arizona. Solar north is up. Click on the image to enlarge.

There was a larger event in late December when the prediction for auroras was such that perhaps they could be seen at lower latitudes, but alas, nothing here at latitude 34. It is possible at this latitude (I have seen auroras in Southern California) so if we live long enough we may see them again here in our Arizona dark skies.

01 Feb 2014 by Astronomy Science

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