Let There Be Video...

I bet Bobby Frost had an easier time writing the poem than I had getting it from camera to blog. Damned electronica-- verks mas when you give it the "on" button!



Slainte, Folks...

Cygnus

Some Days...

It Just Doesn't Pay To Get Out Of Bed...

Today, however, was like getting a promotion on christ-mess eve...

MY PRESENTS:

Here's what near ten hours take-home of labor looks like in sheet metals tools.

And what the store did na have when I went a-searching [y'all are my witnesses!] and so was forced forced I tell ya to buy the camera in stead.
[Well, look at it this way-- if I hadn't a bought the camera, how would you ever be able to appreciate my tool? HA!]

And WHAT a tool it is...

No clue what kind of 18 oz. of tempered steel this baby is made of, but will bang head-first or side-bodied on 16-gauge stainless for years with no defect...

Kinda feel like I'm wielding Mjollnir when I'm in possession...
And if I'm gonna barter ten or so hours' worth of labor for the tools to do tens of hundreds of hours more, well, then... I s'pose I aughta be serious about the whole apprentice class then...

Oh-- the 'promotion' part of the deal is, come Monday I get to start itching more-- working with insulation near full-time.

They call it a promotion. They don't realize...

I know the fast road to cancer when you put me on it!! HA!

See Ya, Missouri, come Spring Official!!! HARAR!!!

(Still... Moving around at work caint be all bad...
Might not be any GOOD, true... but a step aside is a step not back'ard, aye?)

Slainte!

Cygnus

This Is What Happens...

When you wait two days in Texas to pick your okra-- and it rains the day you don't!
These critters were not a ONE larger than the tines two days ago.
'Course, they weren't rain-saturated either!

Erm.. come to mention, we have had a fair bit in the Big H of late-- and the stalks themselves have shot up what seems like a foot in the same time-frame...
They seem to really like co-cohabiting with the tomato flora:


Speaking of-- some of the tomatoes I'd thought to pull; seem to have run their lifespan.
But...
On closer inspection, if they serve as naught but natural trellis for the cucumber that seems to want to take to abounding, well then--
I reckon I'll let 'em be...

The watermelon are doing the same to the Okra in turn:
This all kinda gives me an idea... I'd like to take a handful of seeds in season and scatter them in a 20x20 area, and just leave them to their own ways. See what likes what, what chokes what, what is what, y' ken...
But-- that's for next year, I reckon.

Watermelon and cantaloupe both love to put out flowers......
I'd love to see more fruit...
Um.. OH!! Wait!
Seems to be Irish Siesta time-- Leprechaun shade for a siesta! har!

Um... I can't grow these. Honest. not the toadstools, either...

Well, folks, enough of me boring yard for the nacht. I gotta go shower and raid the kitchen.

Alas, no wenches awaiting.

Damn city. I gotta get outo' this place...

Slainte!

Cygnus

Gonna Have To Be Tuesdays...

From Here On Out...

I started my Sheet Metals Apprentice-- classroom hours-- tonight. The next eight Mondays I will not be on the computer-- I leave home at 0620 and return at 2245... NOT Blogger-conducive hours when 'blogger-hours' means a minimum of three...

I'll see yall on the morrow, folks.

Slainte!

Cygnus

A Hand-written Blog

 

 

 

 

I'll try [almost] anything once...

Especially when passed on from a cute friend! har!

"A friend passed this on to me. Thot you mite be able to use it.
V.J.T."


Flies Won’t Bug You Anymore

We went with some out of town friends to Sweety Pies on Sunday for breakfast, and we sat in the enclosed patio section beside the house. We happened to notice a couple of zip lock baggies pinned to a post and a wall. The bags were half filled with water, each contained 4 pennies, and they were zipped shut. Naturally we were curious! Ms Sweety told us that these baggies kept the flies away! So naturally we were even more curious! We actually watched some flies come in the open window, stand around on the window sill, and then fly out again. And there were no flies in the eating area! This morning I checked this out on Goggle. Below are comments on this fly control idea. I'm now a believer! More comments not included here were about pet dog s and fly problems.

Zip-lock water bags
Sue says:

Many people swear that a zip-lock bag filled half-way with water and attached over entry-ways will repel flies. No one yet knows how or why it works, but there is speculation that it has something to do with the way the moving water refr acts light. If you have tried this please use the comments form at the bottom of the page to share your results with the rest of us.

Ann Says:

October 5th, 2008 at 5:51 pm

I did tried the zip-lock bag and pennies this weekend. I have a horse trailer with full LQ. The flies were very bad this weekend while I was camping. I put the baggie with pennies above the door of the LQ. NOT ONE FLY came in the trailer. The horse trailer part had many. Not sure why it works but it does!!!!!!!



Danielle Martin Says:

September 20th, 2008 at 8:43 pm

Fill a zip-lock bag with water and 5 or 6 pennies and hang it in the problem area. In my case it was a particular window in my home. It had a slight but significant passage way for insects. Every since I have done that, it has kept flies and wasps away. Some say, that wasps and flies mistake the bag for some sort of other insect nest and are threatened by this.

Maggie Says:

June 7th, 2009 at 11:40 am

I swear by the plastic bag of water trick I have them on side porch (our house entry) and all around the basement door. We saw these in Northeast Mo at an Amish grocery store & have used them since. They say it works because a fly sees a reflection & won't come around.

Just DJ Says:

May 16th, 2009 at 7:25 pm

Regarding the science behind zip log bags of water? My research found that each of the millions of mo lecules of water presents its own prism effect and given that flies have a lot of eyes, to them it's like a zillion disco balls reflecting light, colors and movement in a dizzying manner. When you figure that flies are basically prey for many other bugs, animals, birds, etc., they simply won't take the risk of being around that much perceived action. I moved to a rural area ant thought these "hillbillies" were just yanking my city boy chain but I tried it, worked immediately! We went from hundreds of flies to seeing the occasional one, but he doesn’t hang around long.

Reg said:
I tested this yesterday at our cabin outdoors. I was in the hammock with my wife. Flies were llanding on us in droves. I got up, filled a sandwich bag half full with water and put 6 pennies in it spread across on the bottom. I hung it on her side of the hammock about 2 feet above her side and one foot out. No flies landed on her or me except for the very tip of my outside elbow. Next time I will use two bags on both sides of us.

If anybody knows cares to experiment whether this works, feed us back!

Slainte, Folks!

Cygnus

Midnight, Headlight, Blind Me...

Not so much trouble with the video tonight...



Nor with the humidity stronghold being broken...

Might add another vid to this blog-- we'll have to see if the camera kept acting right...

Slainte, Folks!

Cygnus

One Man's Trash...

My Treasure Chest Project


I'll see if I can get some pictures to accompany some of the description herein...

Last night driving home from work I spied a Wooden Box amidst the collectivia of refuse cornering a curb and a mailbox...

I reversed Molly and popped her trunk [and, yes, baby DO got a lotta junk in her trunk... she be a BOV, fer crissake! lol!] and added from the curb the hammered-condition treasure...

I Dunno...

Something quite... Tim Allenesque for me specifically about wooden chests, no matter their size-- big, little, or shoulder-tall...

I'm not a big manly-man insofar as a lot of manly-man schtuff... auto engine bores bore me; followed and stopped following more sports than most of you can name. Don't get overworked by explosions or boobs [e.g. I don't do movies] because I understand the science behind both-- and have seen my share.

BUT...

Something about the wooden chests... as if I was a pirate in another life. As if... as if treasures themselves could lay hidden in secret compartments: an heirloom diamond; momma's birth certificate; some seeds. An original Cygnus poem in his own handwriting...

Something private, and secluded-like, off-limits. Covert.

Non-invasive.
Secure.

Ah, yes... security. Locked. Stronghold.
Enclosed.

Chest. Of Treasures...

This one needs some TLC-- mainly some vise- and glue-reparations around corner seams.But then, I needed a project, a goal. Something to give a little TLC and elbow grease to.

Aargh then, Matey! Score!


Slainte!

Cygnus

Knowledge Is Power.

Yes!
But...

Knowing and not doing is the same as not knowing at all.

IMPLICATION: Power is in the doing.
[Which, by the way, is easy. Um... if you know how. If you have that... if you know that ledge. And don't step off of it...]

**************************

Define "NORMAL".

[Maybe Typical is better to shoot for...]

I feel I'm fairly abnormal.
Now...WHAT in the hell is "fairly abnormal"?
Well, I postulate that there is your everyday quirky "abnormal", which we all are [in the words of the Great Georg Carlin-- "...you are unique. Just like everybody else..."].

Then there's certifiable.

I'm not so much the latter, but fer dern sher am far removed from the former...

I think I'm abnormal to a larger degree than is typical, but I have to wonder--is that normal?
I mean, does everybody wonder from time to time just exactly how abnormal they are? Hmm??

Strange...

Slainte.

Cygnus

Buenos Noches

Way too tarred to try and faux a writing thing, and end up waxing scatological again...

Don't know where to find a version of the song with all the (below) lyrics, either... the one video'd is the only one I've ever heard.

So?
Color me deprived!!!

Enjoy none the less...



Over in Killarney
Many years ago,
Me Mither sang a song to me
In tones so sweet and low. Just a simple little ditty,
In her good ould Irish way,
And l'd give the world if she could sing
That song to me this day.

Chorus:
"Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, Too-ra-loo-ra-li,
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, hush now, don't you cry!
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, Too-ra-loo-ra-li,
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, that's an Irish lullaby.".

Oft in dreams I wander
To that cot again,
I feel her arms a-huggin' me
As when she held me then.
And I hear her voice a -hummin'
To me as in days of yore,
When she used to rock me fast asleep
Outside the cabin door.

Chorus:
"Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, Too-ra-loo-ra-li,
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, hush now, don't you cry!
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, Too-ra-loo-ra-li,
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, that's an Irish lullaby."

Slainte!

Cygnus

Can I Be The Milkman?

[Better yet, where do I buy one of those Timeline Reefers?!?]

Welcome Back To School, Folks!!!

And so funny that in an email from a friend I get two lines to a song, and I youtube it, and here be the milkman and the cafeteria ladies (gods, help us all! ha!)...



Oh-- the funny comes in because...my friend is in the eddication field... hehehe!

One of the catchiest tunes with one of the coolest fun videos ever-- do yourself a favor-- if you don't watch the whole thing, skip to about two minutes forty secs in and catch the homage to hip-hop...

LMAO!!!

TOO freaking much fun, folks!

Slainte, Yankee Lady!

Cygnus

And What Music The Day's Close Proffers...

Is Sheer Poetry...

You can sing for nine minutes-plus and never waste a word, and proscribe one of the all-time best sing-alongs the rock world has ever had...



I bow down!! Imagine being in an audience so small for such a performance! If you weren't sing-alonging when he requested early on, you were by the end. Or had you died with the music? Eh?!?

Slainte!

Cygnus

I'm A Loser

My Sunday morning wake-up song.

I'm not even going to post the crappy live version of it-- go see the embedding-disabled one...

Slainte.

Cygnus

Alternative Homes

Treehouses, Geodesics, Yurts


Check out the combo pictured above-- a Treehouse/Geodesic Futuristic Concept Design...
It's #4 on THIS page; see if it don't stir image in the ination...


And moving TibEastward...

The original word for "nomad" came from a word for felt, making the nomads "felt people". These felt people called their circular, lattice-walled shelters "home," ger (rhymes with "air") or uy (oo-ee).[1]

I didn't know that...
But apparently these nomads liked the efficiency of the Yurt, one of many options I explore tonight in a quest for six months' worth of Ozarks-suitable camping shelter (Spring to Fall Solstices...).


Me? I'm dryad-- Druid if you wanna be spiritually sassy about it all, which, really, ain't necessary...
Well, being of Oaken bent, I'm kinda partial to living amongst the birds...


No Flood worries here! Ha!
Then again, a few feet of snow and I'm ... "floating"... on high cotton! HAR!


And then we come full circle, with another circular structure, the Dome...

Always loved these structures...something hearth-centralish about it all, and being able to set the house up Four Quarters in curves...

The message, really, is-- folks, anything is possible.

How probable... depends on how Swan-like your mind be...

Slainte, Folks!

Cygnus

Don't Care About Nothin'...

Not even that I don't care...

Work is a four-letter word. The entire concept sickens me. [The commercial/industrial complex concept of it-- not the elbow-grease-for-potatoes-you're-growing concept.]
The particular task I'm assigned right now is gruelingly dull to the point of tears. Literally. Seriously.

There's an I-never-get-ahead-ness about the entirety of my day-to-day existence.

I don't care. Well, doesn't matter if I do-- no further ahead for doing so, so... why bother?

No desire to explore this option or that one. No excitement at a dome home on two acres, or a puppy running rabbits out of a garden thereon. [... well, we damn near evoked a smile, there...]
Treehouse sounds kinda cool... probably look them up again someday on the net.
Don't care to now...

Making a bit more green frog skins [dollar bills, Tonto...] each week by going in an hour earlier every day for work, and only losing forty minutes' worth of sleep. A fair exchange.

Which I don't care about one way or the other. Too darned tired to do all that caring crap...

Bummed. Bored. Restless.
Indifferent.

Lackadaisical.
Sighing.

Tired.

Sit for minutes on end, looking at a screen I should be adding words to. Oft, of late, doze off doing so. And don't care so much-- where it would have killed me three months ago-- when, in nocturnal surrender, I bed down having added naught.

Airplanes. Bugs. Celtic Crosses.
Dancing a waltz.
Reading Tom Robbins. Or blogs (sorry, folks...)-- or writing them for that matter--

don't matter.

It really don't...
Least wise, not this minute.

Thanks for letting me start to dump, folks...

Slainte.

Cygnus

Not Teasing...

Watermelon's Ready...

Goin' out with a knife right now...

Slainte.

Cygnus

**Some half-hour later...**

My camera is a shithead, like that dog in The Jerk...

Frames it captured too dark for squat paper...

BUT, oh faithful, stand ready...

Granny's camera may yet proffer proof of the monstrosity...

One [Or Three]- Delta-Niner...

Tetra-Hydro-Cannabinol Saturated, Mayhap?!?

I been laughing my arse off and on all day long... gotta be the humidity-- you know, the, ah 'air saturation' level...

Hope you get a good laugh of this as well, my friends!



Slainte!

Cygnus

MacLlyr the Prepper Bard

Tide

upon that eerie time-lapse ledge
where sands of shore and water's edge
do interact their dance of tides
'neath moon-kissed days and starless nights
the swan, still leery, crane-necked, waits
not caring to transit said gates...


[dry feet? no water 'neath my breast?
all water? no wind 'neath my chest?
my wings do wither; webbed feet dry...]
i must needs have both Sea and Sky
and dance on winds and water glide
i must pass through transition, Tide.

jMc aka Cygnus

Slainte.

Cygnus Seeding...

Sunflowers!

Welcome To Decorative Eating !!!

Been drying these small fries for a few days now-- mayhap near a week...

Caught some strange bird with his "hand in the [cookie] jar"

[Um... or is that Swansbill in the Seed plate?! LOL!]

Either rate, these bad boys...

Have gone to bagging, or are now hung to dry (as their withering faces demanded). "Seed Me, Cygnus! SEED ME!!!" they keep pleading...

Thus, in the heat, dirt under my nails, flower petals like confetti on my forearms...

I seed on...

Thru blazing sun...

Pulling saddened sunflower...

Bagging. Seeding...
Sunflowers.

Slainte.

Cygnus

Since We Haven't Done It In A While...

Let's Don The Skin-So-Soft Off And Venture Forth...

To Cygnus's Eden-- which, for a garden update hinging on truth, ain't so much living up to the paradisaical name...

What I've had of late-- the last two and a half, three weeks, is decent vegetative growth on well-established plants-- melons, okra, tomatoes certainly! lol! Excellent as well on the new cucumber vines.
Not so much on the winter squash-- in a good amount of tomato shade currently.

Maybe too hot for the latter yet?

The heat I certainly "blame" [or credit, optimists out there] for the abundant vegetative ( the plant's LEAFY) growth... and lack of fruiting. BUT...

Flowers are coming back now...

The past few days have seen increased watering vigilance [times of day (evaporation), duration, saturation, etc...], and a physically observable shortening of the minutes of light every day, combining to send the poor heat-hammered heirlooms back to some remembrance of purpose.

The largest, or second-largest, of my sunflowers is ready to pick and hang to dry, the first small one now dropping seeds for birds or oven-roasting...

The watermelon... FINALLY!!! HAHAHA! browning along the stalk... ready I'd venture in a week or so...

And that compost cantaloupe? Produced a few melons so far-- all nice and sweet (and one DIVINE pink-fleshed one; I got seeds! ha!), and four more that actually look like, well, cantaloupe, are coming on strong.

Okra picked daily-- I can't keep up now (found ONE thing that LOVES this Texas heat! Ha!)... the pods are about two inches in the evening, and five or so-- e.g. bordering tough-- the next 24...
WOW!!! HA!

What else? Oh! Flowers, speaking of...

The cucumbers are noticing the shorter days too and are beginning to look for bees...
And I think we just completed the tour of my splot! Har!

Really, the place looks fabulous. Lots of texture and variety in a small space; lots of spreading around of the repetitive plantings-- no boring 'rows' here!
I just would like to see more fruiting...
I'm hoping with the onset of fall in earnest in a few weeks the hearty leaf-growth will translate to as much production! Ha!

You folks take care-- and let me know how the plots are going your end...

Slainte!

Cygnus

Two Bits...

And Worth Every Penny!
Ha!

Indifferential

a casual observer
no emotion left
remain peripheral
unmoved by life, by death

a heart broken of love
blinded no more by faith
offering no trust
how can Hope hold it's place

jMc aka Cygnus



FAULT

He who points the finger at
the world with bitter scorn
Has trapped inside a blackened heart
irreparably torn;

No longer life-sustaining, this
device so deeply bled
Into his eyes and heart that
he perceives the world, too, dead..

jMc aka Cygnus...

Slainte!

Cygnus

Wormhole...

This IS Friday, Isn't It?

Well, the majority of the words herein were written Friday.
And today would have made a good Friday-- went by fast and with minimal irritation.

Friday had all the makings of Monday.

But... today is Monday.

And, suddenly, I'm dizzy! LOL!

Let's just tell it like it went down...

Oh-six-thirty hours in Houston, Texas, [31 July 2009] and it is eighty-two degrees Fahrenheit on the thermometer.

Forty cents worth of coffee remains in my cup. The other dollar's worth has been involuntarily proffered to MollyMaroon's floorboard.

So twenty minutes later the java is doctored up @ work.

By a QUACK, it seems [C sighs exasperatingly]; the non-dairy, powdered, high-cholesterol creamer substance and the floor-recovered grinds are a serious bring-ya-down from the Irish Cream and French Roast...

But the cuppa does it's duty. Fifteen minutes after the start-labor buzzer, I'm drenched in sweat. Literally. My jeans are two-tone, the shade lighter below the knees where the denim shows proficiency avoiding skin contact.

And lucky me-- guess where I get to spend the sufficiently heated-up Houston afternoon?
You Guessed It-- the Insulation Attic!!! HARHARHAR!!!

Oh, joy is me...

Well, good thing this isn't a Monday, because... as a Monday, these events would SUCK!!! LOL!
Really, they bite ANY day, but a Monday, well... SHEESH!!!

A Friday?
Tolerable, mayhap. Indifferent, minimally. Because, well-- it's FRIDAY!!! HA!!!

Isn't it?
Isn't...

Is I dizzy again?

Slainte!

Cygnus

If It Have A Certain...

Je ne sais quois, shall we say??

I recently recalled a conversation of several years ago a friend and me were having about "going home".

Home.

Hmm... Grandma has a fru-fru by the front door that reads, in part, "Home is having a place to stay".

I disagree-- that's an abode. A dwelling. A habitat. A place. Shelter. Dig?

So...

"Home Is Where The Heart Is"?

Well, um... that's in my chest...and I live a lot in my head. [Yes, I refuse to pluralize it.]

I know, I know-- the metaphysical heart; where the "love" is.

Hmm...

Well, I love my brother; he's home! (Or maybe, Saturday, at the grocery store... je ne sais pas...)
And my mom, and my dad, and my son and sister and girlfriends and that weaterpark place and...

Nope. Too many places to call "home" if it is where the heart, the love, is. And the word HOME to me evokes something... deeper, something perhaps closer to that Nietzscheian abyss...

Home... Well, I also keep recalling that feeling come over me the other night, or technically morning when I was out in the garden-- literally; amongst the just-watered plants, listening to the percolation of it, to the frogs, the owl, the crickets, the wind thru the leaves, gazing the glimmer of stars through the drifting clouds...

But... the garden is just a "place" too, really. Like that abode. The difference, I sense...HOME... is that feeling, the perception you get when you are at the place where you have put your hands to work, with loving intent, repeatedly-- oft until they are cracked, calloused, bleeding, raw, and finally hardened by, blended with, the place--

Hmm... It's still elusive, that "home", but...

I've felt elements of which home will eventually be made. I'm collecting them, like so many pieces of metaphysical building materials, and will someday combine the blood, sweat and tears of the Heart with the feel of the right Place to turn them all free to create and prosper...
Be a lot closer to Elysian than to elusive, I ken...

Slainte, folks.

Cygnus