Sunday, February 25, 2007
Bird-Bush-Bird-Bush
At the standard 2:1 conversion rate, this picture of the bush beside our house probably shows 6 or 7 BHEs (bird in hand equivalents), although it’s very difficult to tell precisely. If what you want to do is unobtrusively hang out in a light brown and off-white bush, these guy have got the coloration down. I may be mistaking one or two for tangles of branches, or vice versa.
The sparrows do favor this stretch of bush, which is a combination of the world’s lamest forsythia, bittersweet, and some other very tenacious vine, in part, I’m sure, for its camouflage potential. As soon as the sun gets on it these cold mornings, they start coming, hopping from one branch to another, pushing each other out of locations, flying off and returning. And judging by the sidewalk underneath, pooping. (If you didn’t have to worry about them taking a dump in your hand, the ratio might be as high as 3:1. It does reduce the desirability a little.)
I like to think that this entertainment is my reward for putting out water for them through the winter, although I’m sure there is really no connection. Unlike Androcles' Lion, these guys aren’t going to return a favor if they can. It doesn’t work that way.
I have a fable of my own:
One day, killing time on a sunny day in Washington DC eating a muffin on a park
bench, I noticed several sparrows hopping about, looking for food. I broke off
part of my muffin and set it down on the ground. Several hours later, walking
along a leafy avenue to attend a lecture that my friend Hank Greenspan was
giving at the Holocaust Museum, a large gob of bird crap landed on my shoulder.
Moral: Nature doesn’t give you what you deserve. Nature gives you what it gives
you.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Crescent and star
I absolutely get this as a religious symbol.
I also really like that you can see, very faintly, the earthshine illuminating the dark part of the moon's sphere. (Of course, if you blow it up too much, you'll see that the camera shook a little during the exposure. Must get a tripod if I'm going to do this kind of thing. And possibly read the camera manual.)
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
The Heart of Lightness
I keep saying I want to keep the ice candles on the hobby side of the hobby-obsession border, but I’m not sure I’m succeeding. The weather here has been perfect – from the idiosyncratic perspective of the ice candler at least: rarely above freezing and no snow. I’ve now got a family of five candles out in the yard, although to be honest they look a little Easter Islandish, so it’s maybe an archaic and silently dysfunctional family.
This one, which I particularly like, is a block that I let freeze solid inadvertently. I had to create a candle cavity with a drill and boiling water. This is a little more artificial intervention than I generally like, but you have to do what you have to do sometimes.
The cavity turned out to have an elegant and very functional shape: narrow neck – so narrow I have to use a flexible grabber tool to lower the candle in – but a candle chamber that spreads out to the sides of the block. This form provides a lot more shelter from the wind than most, and last night I was able to burn two tea lights in it at once, and they ordinarily are so feeble they blow out at the slightest puff of wind.
This one, which I particularly like, is a block that I let freeze solid inadvertently. I had to create a candle cavity with a drill and boiling water. This is a little more artificial intervention than I generally like, but you have to do what you have to do sometimes. The cavity turned out to have an elegant and very functional shape: narrow neck – so narrow I have to use a flexible grabber tool to lower the candle in – but a candle chamber that spreads out to the sides of the block. This form provides a lot more shelter from the wind than most, and last night I was able to burn two tea lights in it at once, and they ordinarily are so feeble they blow out at the slightest puff of wind.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Moonset
One of the nice things about this time of year is that you don't have to get up dreadfully early to see the events of the dawn sky - in this case, the setting of the moon. (Well, I suppose this isn't quite the setting of the moon, but close enough. The sky would be too bright by the time of the actual disappearance below the horizon.)
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Playing the angles
Speaking of slants of light, I’ve just seen a dramatic demonstration of the difference that the angle of incidence of the sun’s rays can make.
Back in elementary school when they explained why the Northern and Southern Hemispheres are colder in their winters two factors (as I recall) were cited:
1) the days are shorter, hence less overall sunlight
2) The sunlight strikes at a more oblique angle in winter, and is thus less powerful
#1 made perfect sense to me at the time, #2 not so much. Sunlight is sunlight, right?
Wrong. Certainly the ice on the sidewalks on Bigelow Street suggest there is a big difference. Bigelow runs more or less due North-South, up a hill that crests a block or so from my house. The North facing slope is fairly gentle, but just steep enough so that the sun’s rays on these low-angled winter days do not strike at all directly. This is in contrast to the steeper, south-facing slope, which meets the sun’s rays much more directly.
Despite the single and low double digit temperatures we’ve been having, the south-facing sidewalks melted clean in a day or so of sunshine after last Friday’s freezing rain. In contrast, you take your life in your feet walking on the north-facing sidewalks.
Back in elementary school when they explained why the Northern and Southern Hemispheres are colder in their winters two factors (as I recall) were cited:
1) the days are shorter, hence less overall sunlight
2) The sunlight strikes at a more oblique angle in winter, and is thus less powerful
#1 made perfect sense to me at the time, #2 not so much. Sunlight is sunlight, right?
Wrong. Certainly the ice on the sidewalks on Bigelow Street suggest there is a big difference. Bigelow runs more or less due North-South, up a hill that crests a block or so from my house. The North facing slope is fairly gentle, but just steep enough so that the sun’s rays on these low-angled winter days do not strike at all directly. This is in contrast to the steeper, south-facing slope, which meets the sun’s rays much more directly.
Despite the single and low double digit temperatures we’ve been having, the south-facing sidewalks melted clean in a day or so of sunshine after last Friday’s freezing rain. In contrast, you take your life in your feet walking on the north-facing sidewalks.
