We have taken Beethoven to the dog park several times since we adopted him. The first time we took him, he got in the little tub of water, splashed around a couple of times and then got out. Today, I had the camera ready for his dip in the tub. Enjoy the slideshow!
Temporary Spa Shade
We have had our spa since last July. We enjoy it a lot, especially on the warmer days. If we get into the spa late in the afternoon, however, the sun going down on the west side of the house shines directly into the spa.
I asked the gentleman who installed the screen patio enclosure to come out and install a roll-down shade for us. He installed a couple more extruded aluminum supports (the same material used for the original patio) to hold the shade on the west end of the patio.
Image: Before and after – click to enlarge
I say temporary in the title since this shade is a cheap Chinese plastic shade that won’t last in the Arizona sun. We are already planning on getting a custom shade from one of the warehouse home improvement stores. We saw one we really liked at our friends’ house on the Colorado River. The supports installed today will be permanent.
Happy Easter
We’re still full from a delicious Easter dinner, so please enjoy this back lighted Easter lily. Click on the image to enlarge.
A Cardinal in a Mesquite Tree
No, it’s not the first day of Christmas nor spring and neither is this a partridge in a pear tree. However, the red and green complimentary colors make this photo of a cardinal in the mesquite tree look very festive.
We put out the seed bell for the birds a couple of days ago and since they are attracted to it, we get lots of photo ops like this. Click on the image to enlarge.
To all of our Christian friends, Happy Easter and to all of our Jewish friends, Happy Passover.
Roadwork
When we went to our friend’s house on the Colorado River last week, we encountered a little problem when towing the trailer down the drive to the road in front of the house. The last dozen feet or so of the road, it sloped downward a bit abruptly. There was no damage to the trailer, but the rear leveling jacks dug into the one-inch gravel for several feet.
Image: Before and after for the top of the drive and the end of the drive. Two feet wider at the top and flared at to bottom for more room. Click image to enlarge.
It just so happened that Kevin, our contractor (the gentleman that built our house) stopped by the day we got back from the river. I mentioned the problem on the RV drive to him and he agreed to bring his Caterpillar multi-purpose tractor and smooth out the grade to a gradual slope.
Today, we got the work done. Kevin ran the tractor and Damsel and I moved rocks, raked up gravel and helped a bit. It was a bit of work. Earlier in the day, Damsel and I widened the road at the top near the wash to make it easier to get the trailer around the curve. With Kevin’s help, we also widened the bottom of the road to enable a sharper turn when towing the trailer out.
Tomorrow, or maybe the next day, I want to hook the trailer up to the truck and tow it down and around to see if any more work is needed. Judging from the result from today’s work, I believe it will be just fine.
A Century of Global Temperature Data Proves – Not Much
I read a recent article at the CO2 Science website entitled “One Hundred Years of Global Temperature Change: 1906-2005.” The article discusses the conclusions of a study made to try and determine if 20th century warming is the result of an anthropomorphic-related temperature increase.
Working with 2249 globally-distributed monthly temperature records covering the period 1906-2005, which they obtained from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the authors evaluated “to what extent the temperature rise in the past 100 years was a trend or a natural fluctuation.”
What was learned:
Ludecke et al. report that “the mean of all stations shows 0.58°C global warming from 1906 to 2005,” but they say that “if we consider only those stations with a population of under 1000 and below 800 meters above sea level, this figure drops to 0.41°C.” In addition, they note that “about a quarter of all records show falling temperatures,” which in itself, in their words, “is an indication that the observed temperature series are predominantly natural fluctuations,” where the word natural means that “we do not have within a defined confidence interval a definitely positive anthropogenic contribution.” And continuing to explore this aspect of their analysis, they evaluated – with a confidence interval of 95% – the probability that the observed global warming from 1906 to 2005 was a natural fluctuation, finding that probability to lie “between 40% and 70%, depending on the station’s characteristics,” while “for the period 1906 to 1955 the probabilities are arranged between 80% and 90% and for 1956 to 2005 between 60% and 70%.”
It’s interesting that this study went to the trouble to factor out the Urban Heat Island effect by removing densely populated areas from the results. Of course, the alarmists try and capitalize on the UHI effect to support their erroneous beliefs.
More Hedgehog Flowers
One of the two hedgehog cacti in front of the house has several open flowers with more to come – you can see the cactus with its blooms and a close-up of one flower in the inset. Click on the image to enlarge.