After walking the dogs this afternoon, I stepped back out to get this nice photo of the waxing gibbous moon over one of the saguaros in our yard. Click on the image to enlarge.

I’m re-posting this article from September of 2010. Yesterday, the gentleman that sponsored the billboard contacted us for permission to use the post and our remarks in connection with an upcoming book. Here is the comment that Paul left . . .

Requesting permission to use your comments and observations of our Billboard, posted on Cap’n Bob & the Damsel on September 13, 2010, in promoting our soon to be published book, “AN ALARM WENT OFF When I Heard ‘G.D. America’”. Please read IT’S REALLY SIMPLE on our website, www.psnorac.com. You are doing a great job. We thank you for it. Paul

My answer was in the affirmative, of course. Follow the link to check out his new book.

Here’s the original post . . .

During our return trip to California over the weekend, we passed this billboard on Interstate 10 near Quartzsite, AZ. The sign admonishes readers to “DO THE MATH” with regard to greenhouse gasses. I checked out the website www.psnorac.com and navigated to the Greenhouse Gasses write-up. In the lengthy treatise, the author breaks down the numbers of the composition of the atmosphere and in layman’s terms, explains the extremely small part of the atmosphere that can be considered as greenhouse gasses.

Image: billboard - click to enlarge

We did some research and found some graphics from the National Center for Policy Analysis and posted them in February of 2008. If you read the greenhouse write-up on psnorac.com, you will be able to visualize the numbers in the graphics in our post from 2008. You can download the National Center for Policy Analysis pamphlet (PDF), “A Global Warming Primer,” at this link. There is a lot of other information in the pamphlet that relate to the AGW issue.

As Jack Horkheimer used to say (before passing) “keep Looking Up.” That’s why we’re starting to plan for a fairly short trip in May to witness an annular solar eclipse. The path of maximum eclipse extends from Asia, across the Pacific and then through the western United States. The path in Arizona will pass over Page and continue into New Mexico to Albuquerque.

Image: Path of maximum annular eclipse. Click to enlarge

Our target destination will be to go to Chinle, AZ, adjacent to the Canyon De Chelly National Park. In the image, you can see that the red path goes right over Navajo land and just along the southern part of the national park. Our plan is to tow a travel trailer to the area and find a place to camp after the eclipse that will occur on May 20, 2012.

I’m ordering some eclipse shades and a solar filter for each of our two cameras for the event. We are hoping for some excellent pictures of one of the most spectacular events to happen on Earth.

We were fortunate to purchase a piece of the Sonoran Desert when we bought our lot in Wickenburg, AZ. I took this photo of one of several cholla growing on the property. I like the way it looks against the blue Arizona sky. Click on the image to enlarge.

Have a good weekend, everybody. And, please enjoy this beautiful Arizona sunset that I photographed this evening from our courtyard.

We paused along the road a quarter mile north of our new house to take this photo of the Bradshaw Mountains that lie between Wickenburg and Prescott. It was a nice, clear and sunny day today with blue skies and a high temperature of 65 °. Click on the image to enlarge.

As viewed from the courtyard in front of our beautiful little desert house. The weather was mostly cloudy today, but the clouds were clearing when I snapped this photo. We’re expecting sunny skies tomorrow. Click on the image to enlarge.

Compost red wiggler worms slow down their consumption of organic scraps in the wintertime, but we humans keep producing the scraps. So, to reinforce the worm workload, we ordered a thousand more red wigglers from Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm.

Image - the compost bin after introducing the new worms. Click on the image to enlarge.

The worms arrived in the mail today, so to get things started, I gave them a “drink.” The worms are packed in dry peat and come in a bag (see insert in photo). The next step was to dig down below the organic scraps in the compost bin to the layer of worm castings below. I added some moist garden soil and put the ball of worms on top of the soil. The instructions that come with the worms say to cover them with a wet newspaper. The worms will absorb the moisture and begin to crawl into the soil and thence start consuming scraps within 48 hours.

Enjoy this slideshow of Damsel’s photos of flowers taken last spring. The weather here is sort of gloomy with the forecast pointing to more rain today and tonight. I thought a few spring flowers would cheer us up.

When the weather gets gloomy, Beethoven likes to snuggle under his blanket. Click on the image to enlarge.