I saw these clouds on my Friday walk, but fortunately no snakes. Dudley tolerated staying on the lead for the complete walk better than I had expected.
Art Trading Cards
Some friends of mine from Denver had been trying to get me to go to the Denver Art Trading Card exchange for a while. It is held in LoDo (Lower Downtown Denver) on the second Saturday of the month. Last month I had family stuff planned and there was a snowstorm as well. This month, I was able to go, but didn’t have much time to work on cards. However, I did dig out some untraded ones from online exchanges, and made some new ones from old carvings. I was able to come up with 21 cards and traded every one. They all used handcarved images, usually with a commercial background stamp.
I saw one other person there with ATC’s using possibly handcarved images. There was a lot a variety: good prints from color printers, good color copies, cards with embellioshments, cards with commercial stamps, cards with embellishments, and collage cards. Most people had several different designs, so you could nearly always find something you liked to trade.
I plan to do this again, and will try to take double the number of cards, since I had to say “sorry, all traded out” more time than I can count.
Garden notes
My oregano is flourishing. So is the dianthus, the columbines, and the other herbs. However, it looks as though only one of two cinqfoils survived, and two of five rose bushes. Must do a better job of mulching next year.
Afternoon skies
After going out to feed a few nights ago, Jack returned to the house to say: “Voracious little monsters.” I asked, “What, the horses?” “No.” he said, “the hummingbirds.”
A skunk is bad enough, but I had a real thrill this afternoon when I took the dogs up to the plateau for an afternoon walk. I was returning by the normal way, walking on a path I had walked along a hundred times, and I saw a glint out of the corner of my eye about the same time as I heard a furious rattling sound. The glint quickly resolved itself to a rattlesnake, coiled to strike, which seemed near enough to touch, but was actually probably at least six feet from me. I quickly grabbed hold of Dudley, while my heart tried to leave my ribcage. I got the lead back on Dudley while I called Lody to me. I wasn’t too concerned about Lody messing with the snake, but I was very concerned about Dudley. We’ve nursed three dogs through suspected snake bites, and I didn’t want to add Dudley to the roster. I think I will keep him on the lead for the next few walks.
Linux in the Library
A story in NewsForge writes about Linux in action: A public library’s success story
in Howard Country, Maryland. I enjoyed this article not least because my grandmother was at one time a Howard County librarian. I still remember helping her by shelving books, which seemed to me a great opportunity to find new authors.
Hummingbird
I’ve been hearing, and occasionally seeing, hummingbirds for almost a week, but Jack just put a feeder up this morning. We had to buy a new one, since we couldn’t find all the components for the ones we used last year.
More Fractals
I’ve used “gThumb”:http://gthumb.sourceforge.net/ to load my fractals into a “small gallery.”:http://www.stardel.com/fractals/
Pikes Peak
Pikes Peak has more snow on it right now than it has all winter. Taken from “a back porch in North Colorado Springs.”:http://www.stardel.com/topaz/
Black and white
This morning, I was gathering up the feed buckets in the barn and saw a bit of movement out of the corner of my eye. A skunk had crawled out from under the pallet of stacked hay, about six feet away. Needless to say, I left the barn quickly. I usually worry about sickness when wildlife is so bold, but in my brief glimpse it looked sleek and healthy.
I hope it doesn’t feel threatened by any of the horses. It is bad enough deskunking a 110 pound dog.
Eye of the Galaxy
I’ve been cleaning house, doing a complete install of Fedora Core 2, Release 3, and playing with “gnofract4d.”:http://gnofract4d.sourceforge.net/ Of the three, playing with gnofrract4d, which produced this graphic, was the most fun, though installing Fedora wasn’t too bad either.