Mid-Week Band Practice

 

Today I went to my office after work to check on the plants. Most of my plants seemed fine, except for the big ZZ plant, which still looks overwatered even though it's been two weeks. Will it ever recover? Then I went to band practice because we didn't have it on Sunday, since I couldn't go, our leader couldn't go, and Hardingfele said why bother. She didn't come tonight either. We are playing at that annual Ukrainian picnic, so we are practicing klezmer, which I love. I'm not excited about the gig because we are playing for free (they offered to pay us, but Hardingfele said no) for half an hour before the official start of the picnic, so for the benefit of people setting up. We're not actually part of the picnic entertainment this year. Bongo the Chocolate Lab was there tonight, and he was as excited to see me as he used to be when he was a puppy.

Travalon had to work all day, but he does have photos from yesterday. First, some photos from the place off Fair Oaks. We've posted some of these before, when they were in the rail yard.

This is an abandoned caboose he found at Jefferson Junction.

Here's the junction.

Another view of the caboose.

The depot itself doesn't seem to be completely abandoned, since there's a pretty shiny grill outside of it.

Sunset over the tracks.

Hey! You're supposed to stay 25 feet from the tracks! Can't this deer read??

I did borrow someone's photo of how weird the sun looked a couple of weeks ago during all the smoke.

Our former neighbor saw Big Boy out in Colorado today. She sent a bunch of disjointed videos that I might put together at some point, and a couple of photos.

Though to be honest, I think our video is better because Big Boy was really tooting her horn. Since there weren't intersections where our neighbor was watching (she saw it in two different spots), Big Boy wasn't blowing her horn. The unusual sound of the horn is half the fun of the train, besides its immense size. I'm so glad we got to see her in person (train?).

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Homegrown Cactus Fruit

 

Today I worked from home and felt a bit stir-crazy. My phone said it felt like 100 F out, and there was not only a heat advisory but an air quality warning as well due to the now annual wildfires in Canada. People always used to say up north you are stuck inside in the winter, but at least you can go out in the summer, unlike down south, where it's reversed. However, it's becoming so the only time you can be outdoors around here is May and October.

One kind of cool thing did happen today: I ate the fruit from my rick rack cactus. It was tart and delicious, light green and full of seeds like a kiwi fruit. (Longtime readers may remember that over twenty years ago I grew a tiny pineapple and ate that, so this isn't my first homegrown fruit.) I did manage to save a few seeds and have planted them, but I don't have high hopes. The cactus itself is kind of struggling now, and AI said it might have been getting too much light in the southern-facing window, so I have moved it to the plant room with eastern-facing windows and plant lights on the ceiling. I'm not sure how much I trust AI, after trying to find a song from sixteen years ago. The only thing I remembered about the singer was that he was a big fan of Michael Jackson and that he was a Virgo, so I put those two facts into AI and got a lot of garbage results of famous singers (this guy is kind of obscure) who I know are, say, a Taurus or a Libra. Regardless of what you think of astrology, it is just a fact that someone either is or isn't a particular sign, so if AI can't get that right, how can I trust it with plant questions? Am I overwatering or underwatering? Giving it too much or too little light? Does it need more room in the pot or should it be rootbound? Now I don't know if I can trust AI with any questions about plant care. My poor Norfolk pine is slowly dying, and I have no idea what to do. I feel so bad.

In case you haven't had enough of train graffiti, here are some screen shots from the videos that guy always posts on social media of the train that goes through our neighborhood. These are older ones I forgot to post before. How did I miss this one?

Lots of "Puck" in that bunch. Here are the photos from the train I saw yesterday. Alas, the awesome graffiti I saw was on the other side of the train, but there's plenty of good stuff from this side.

These may be in reverse order, but does it really matter? They're beautiful in any order.

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