Wild & Weedy Wednesday: Tropical Storm Teddy

 

I just had a couple fun days and nights working from the Cottage. I weathered Tropical Storm Teddy just fine, and so did the new windows in the sunporch that Dad is installing.

OK, now, the storm. Here is a little gully nearby, a low tide access spot to the beach. At high tide Tuesday it was rather rough.

I took a few video clips amid the blowing raindrops.

The westerly wind built up the waves all across the Minas Basin, and brought them right to Longspell Point.

These videos are from the vantage point of the cottage.

Come back for my next random blog post. Who knows what it will be about?!

Scientific Saturday: Bioblitzing!

 

So this week, in my spare moments, I've been 'bioblitzing.' Yes, making observations of plenty of living things in my county, and submitting them to iNaturalist. It's the First Annual Kepukwitk Municipal iNaturalist Competition - and Digby County is competing quite well, so far. 

The first time I heard the term 'citizen scientist' was just a few years ago. A local retired biologist used it, speaking of everyday people contributing to scientific knowledge. Well, that is just what iNaturlaist is about. Everyone can log in and submit what they have seen. Even if you don't know what some organism is, someone out there will, and can help identify it. 

Powder-tipped antler lichen

Here are a few other things I have seen this week:

Ladies Tresses Orchid

Blue Felt Lichen (our Provincial lichen - nominated)

Northern Harrier

Great Blue Heron

Dwarf Birch

Family & Friends Friday: 1984 Video of Great Grampie Murphy!

Hello family and friends! Yeah, Fridays are due to be my days to post this kind of personal stuff. I'm cutting back on social media, and using this blog instead. 

I was amazed and surprised this past weekend to get a link to some footage recently posted to Youtube of the one great grandparent I knew, Pat Murphy. So, those of you who knew him or are related, and those interested in antique cars, will enjoy this video. I do not know the fellow at all who posted this, and must have taken the video back in 1984. Grampie M would be eighty years old in this video. He died in 1990. 

One vehicle that lasted a long time in the family was decorated by Pat Murphy with all the chrome and lights he could find from other vehicles. It did not run, in my memory, but would be hauled in the occasional town parade. We called it 'The Flying Angel.' For some years, when I was a teenager, it was parked in our yard. Here is a photo of it from back then, with my sister, brother and me.

I remember getting to tour the junkyard, but not with Grampie Murphy. Not being interested in cars much, I was fascinated by the tree trunks growing up through the bumpers and engines of the decaying vehicles. Here is the video.