I Don't Know Officer....The Road Changed Direction And......

We live near a round-a-bout. If you don't know what that is, it's a circle with four points of egress/ingress. We have a total of sixteen signs to direct, re-direct and confuse the drivers. This is not age limited, we have seen young, sorry but mainly females, literally go up the wrong way when leaving either the north or south plat (this would be left = N and right = S) in the sketch. Four Yields, four Pedistrian silhouettes with arrows pointing towards the painted road, four right pointing One Way arrows to show which way to go when entering the round-a- bout and four signs that tell you to stay on your side of the concrete devider when entering on the main road. This is where the young driver gets confused, not sure how, but they enter while driving on a two lane road that seperates with a triangle shaped piece of concrete in the road leading into the circle. They go left of the triangle thus go counter clockwise in the circle. Getting out of the cirlce is the hard part IF a car is coming towards them from the opposite direction. With the older driver, it's the One Way signs that get them. They enter correctly but then take the first exit out to the right when they wanted to exit on the opposite side of the circle.

The first picture of how confusing this could be for the mindless and the second is the result for driving too fast at night and probably under the influence because he hit the curb in the upper right side of the outer circle, blowing out three tires and damaging his left front quarter panel and the light pole he hit.

If you haven't figured it out, I can't draw.

All of a Sudden They're Everywhere

Seems like just in the past week or so the dragon and damselflies have been coming out in droves. I guess our luck of seeing so many is the fact that we have a pond so close.

This one showed up while I was taking he top rails off the deck due to hail damage and the fact that some where just really worn looking. I think it was the fact that in this process I opened up the dinner hall by exposing the living quarters of spiders that lurk up in where you don't normally see in and around the ballusters.

Not sure what this one is but I narrowed it down to a couple but only by the tail color.

Dragonflies...Like Old Biplanes

A delicate creature, this one looks like it just got back from a bomb run in the 1st World War.

Blow these up and you can go here to see Dragonflies of Ohio. This is the Black Saddlebag variety, female I think. Offical picture is here....copy it into your browser if it doesn't open from here.

ohio-nature.com/black-saddlebags.jpg

http://www.ohio-nature.com/ohio-dragonfly-pictures.html

Call Me Nuts......Some Do.......

It's hot and humid out so why would someone stand out in the sun to BBQ. Well, this someone is smarter than the average heat wave. I went out at 9 this morning to fix lunch. I used Sweet Baby Ray's Buffalo Marinade on chicken wings. First time I have tried it and they were great. I'm sure the neighbors that were going to get their coffees thought I was nuts.

So now I have become a regular fan of pineapple, peaches, asparagus and morning prepped wings on the grill.

From Fog To Glowing Sky

It may have been foggy this morning and it truely was very humid throughout the day. Hot too. Yet, there was a storm that blew through west of us and the cloud gave those with the need for a photo opp this. I really love digital. As morning and evening light comes and goes so quickly the digital camera is the photographers financial friend. I took 25 shots or so and got ride of all but 9. The sky is on fire said Chicken Little, well not true but he did cry out and this would have scared him for sure I bet.

Got Up This Morning and What Did I See?

Nothing, absolutely nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. I was able to see moisture that was left on the windows. It is sooooooo humid and windless that the dew/humidity has collected on the windows. This was today and the humidity level has been extremely high for the past two days. High tomorrow is suppose to be 97 and humid. It's summer and we should expect this. Beats shoveling snow. Make it larger and you still can't see clearly.

What Do You See?

I posted this on Facebook stating that I had too much time on my hands and recieved a comment from a friend. I said I saw a puppy dog running but he said he saw a lion. He asked or said he remember laying around as a kid and finding images in the clouds but he had a question for me.....he wanted to know if I was "partying" at the time and if he hinted at the possibility that I may have had some sort of aid in my partying.

Well, with the aid of anything or not, what do you see.

Early Morning Reflections

July Mid-Month Photos and NO Storms

 Mid July and no storms.  The last posting show the storm clouds just a few days ago. Nothing on the immediate horizon but the heat will be back next week so they are saying the storms could roll in again. We have places that look like a war zone from the trees that are down. As of the 6 PM news there were still 200 without power. This is since Monday evening.

The soy bean field is growing. I finally got planted about 5 weeks ago, way behind schedule.

Billowing Clouds

They seemed close enough to reach up and touch and yet you feel that if you do you might get sucked into their churning furry. About 3" of rain in 39 minutes and supper high winds. I have been in many storms but have only seen rain truely go horizontal like this did on TV. The pond beside our house rose 2' in about an hour. When the rains stopped it was like turning off a switch, just like the switch the storm threw when it turn off the power. The air became stifling hot, humid and still. It stayed this way for us for 18 hours. A total of 75,000 without power and some 21 hours later there were still 5,500 powerless. Only good thing, today was cooler with lower humidity.

Off to the Races

I went to a local dragstrip yesterday, Kil-Kare Speedway, Xenia, OH where there is a cart track and an oval. I'm guessing it's a 1/4 miler since it is pretty much all turn and high banked. In the bottom is a flat oval with an X crossing thru it and some added asphalt in one area. I believe this area might be used in demolition derbies, busses and the like.

Local car clubs rent this area for what is called autocrossing or autox. This one was put on by the Corvette Club of Troy, Ohio. It was open to all cars so there were Subaru's, VW turbo Beetles and Honda S2000's as well as the iron horses of Chevrolet.

I took over 200 pictures and some videos. I have put 4 vids up on my FB page and I will put a picture here. The car is a Mazda that my son-in-law is driving but it isn't him that is important. It's the billboard that is edited.

First Time For This

I have never tried to take fireworks until last night. We had a neighbor that shot some off and we can see the top of the highest shot from a park near by. I even took some of the cars coming up the road in the smoke. The wind wind was not blowing so the smoke just hung in the air giving an erie look.

All were taken hand held an set on 1600 ISO @1/20th.


This was caught just at the right time, the explosion. It's one of those that just make super loud noise, like the warning shots the big displays give off.

Errrriiiiieeeeeee

Seven Months Ago

Just seven months and 3 days ago I took this shot for the monthly posting. Haven't looked back to see if I used it or not but never the less I took this one too.

Slow Season....So Far

With all the rain and off and on temperatures I figure I will be lucky to get much from my few plants this year. Finally I have one Grape Tomato turning and finally I have more coming on. I even used Blossom Set but a couple of weeks ago we had two weeks or so of high heat and humidity, somewhere in the mid 90's. Then we got down in the lower 40's a couple of nights but mainly the low 50's. Plants don't like changes and they don't like heat, well not tomatoes.

This plant is in a Topsy Turvy, little experimenting on my part. I have a full size tomato also in one as well as a full size in the ground. The two full size are running neck and neck but the in ground plant seems to be catching up. You see, it took a beating when we had small baseball size hail hit the area. Poor thing was on the ground with a partially cut stem. I stood it up and packed some dirt around it and voila, it is growing well.

The other full size as well as the grape type are in the Topsy Turvy planters. They weathered the storm quite well. I think it was due to the fact that they could swing in the wind and thus the plant end was not exposed to the hail. It was the end where put your dirt in. One took a couple of real damaging hits that broke the lid into several pieces. I called the company to try to buy a replacement and they sent me a new one, no charge, not even shipping. Only thing is it the kind that you put a pole through the center and the plants (3) around the side. I have sense then used duct tape, takes six strips, to fix the cracks and to keep it in place.

July Posting...Day Late

I could have waited to take the July shot on the 3rd but that would not be honest. The first was sunny all day and tomorrow is suppose to be that way too, but today we awoke to a real light drizzle. It has been cloudy all day but getting brighter.

The pictures are not about the day as much as the angle of the sun, if it is out, or the brightness of the day, again if the sun is out and the way the foliage looks as the seasons turn. There are only 7 more shots to be taken to make it one year or 24 shots. Hopefully I will be able to figure out how to show all or at least half of them at one time.