As a contribution to our shared lunch with friends tomorrow I’ve made Lemon Butter Biscuits and Gingerbread Dinosaurs. Unfortunately Halide, while a fab photo app for iPhone, sometimes loses photos. The butter biscuits photo is before cooking. Dino photo after.
The Levin dog park, next to Lake Horowhenua, is splendid: 50,000 square metres (12 acres), fully fenced, large and small open areas, shaded areas, loads of trees. Free poop bags, lots of bins, drinking water for dogs, seats. Wonderful!
A “hidden figure” in the development of GPS technology has officially been honored …. Mathematician Dr. Gladys West was recognized for doing the computing responsible for creating the Geographical Positioning System, more commonly referred to as the GPS. Via vdebolt.
The pause point
It’s 4.45 am on summer solstice. I have been awake an hour already. Sunrise will come soon, bringing more than 16 hours of daylight.
I sip my tea — a Rare Kenya Silver Tip — and am eating fresh sweet strawberries from the tunnel house.
A nearly full moon is setting behind clouds in the west while the birds start their dawn chorus all around. The constant sea roars gently behind me.
Oshi has come up on the bed. He’s lying quietly by my ankle, occasionally hiccuping, as he sometimes does.
This is a moment of peace as the world reaches its turning point. The year-end holidays have begun, the longest day has arrived, the summer is underway. We will rest now before launching ourselves into a new year.
Nice: 16 hours and 12 minutes of daylight today.
After several fatalities recently, we have new signs between Waikawa Beach Road and Levin on State Highway 1. “Keep left, high crash rate.” The new soft barrier in the median strip along some stretches might help drivers behave too.
Today’s Te Reo Māori quirk: tātahi is the beach. You don’t put a ‘te’ in front of it, just like you wouldn’t put a ‘the’ in front of a placename. So: “Kei te haere au ki tātahi.” I’m going to the beach. “Kei te haere au ki te whare pukapuka.” I’m going to the library.
So, any thoughts about what’s heading our way and how long it’ll take to get here?
Interesting word of the week, bdelloid
: From the Ancient Greek βδέλλα (bdella, "leech").
That bd
combination at the start! Can't wait for this to come up in Scrabble.
Where I got this word from: a SciShow video.
Your New Social Credit Score: A powerful 3 minute video about a possible, even likely, future. I specially like: “If you’re a citizen of Google, Facebook, or another corporation…”
We like the horses down the road. Moose has recently joined the other two. When he's standing right beside them you can see what a big fellow he is. The other day he joined me in a selfie. Photos: 3 horses grazing in a paddock; big horse next to me — headshot.
Drat! Last week’s sutures from a trivial excision came out today. Except for one that resisted. Now I have 4 new sutures in the middle of my back. No actual pain, but ouchy! Plus it was so muggy I may have been approaching fainting in the nurse’s office. Recovering at home now.
At sunrise today there was a nice little inversion layer over the paddock next door. Photo: 2 black and white steers grazing in a misty paddock with flax spears in the foreground.
One of the delights of Te Reo Māori is that it doesn’t have to suffer apostrophes. But what I was really going to say was “Good on you Ōtaki for these bilingual road works signs”.
This morning’s beach theme: black-backed gulls and an oystercatcher on the wet sand with Kāpiti Island in the background.
I really enjoyed Elseworlds parts 1 & 2 under the show names of Flash and Arrow. But part 3, under the name of Supergirl, was all about the boys, extra boys even. Supergirl barely even had a role. Pretty darn perturbing!
These starlings, I think, have given themselves orange heads by dipping into the flax flowers. Photos: starlings on flowering flax spears; flowering flax spears against a green paddock and blue sky background.
And again it’s thundery weather. These are my favourite clouds today.
One of the best parts of this story about a homeless man in hospital in Brazil:
The pups were eager, but also patient — settling at the doorway to wait for their friend.
While the staff got César squared away … they … invited his dogs inside as to not keep them apart.