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Hedera’s Corner
Lovely beasts! The term “you turkey” was definitely not coined on their account. We had WTs in our Grand Lake (Oakland) neighborhood, but I haven’t spotted them since – er – last Thanksgiving…
You and Berkeley Prof Brad DeLong must live relatively near one another. He occasionally finds turkeys in his back yard too.
Well, we probably both live in the East Bay hills, Linkmeister. Given that they run from Richmond to San Jose, which is a little over 50 miles, that’s quite a range to define as “relatively near.” You can find turkeys almost anywhere in the upper hills. In fact, a columnist in the Montclarion recently reported on a woman who left her front door open because the weather was nice and found her house occupied by a hen turkey and her ten little turkey-lets! Evicted without damage to anyone, but there they are…
Guten Abend
Toller Blog, aber leider sehe ich nur die hälfte.Ist Euch das bekannt?
Liegt das an meinem Safari?
Gruß aus
I’m glad you like the blog, potenzmittel. Thank you for pointing out a problem. I thought I had fixed that.
Gruss aus
hedera
Actually, if you wonder why only half the photos here have captions, it’s because I got tired of entering them by hand!
I could have written the same about my cousin Jay who died last January after years of being in and out of the hospital – that I grew up with him doing all the holidays, Jewish and American together for years but didn’t see much of him as an adult except at certain weddings and funerals. And yet, when he died it was such a shock to my system. His mom, my last living aunt, and his wife and son survive him. I’m sorry to hear of your loss, Karen. I do hope as you, that he is resting in a place of peace.
Howdy there, have you been getting problems using the hosting? I required to refresh the web page about large quantity of times to be able to get the web page to run!
Not as a rule, but my site was flooded with a couple hundred spam comments about a week before you posted, maybe that had something to do with it. You also may have been working with it at the same time I was updating this area. Sorry you had a problem.
Mmmm, those look tasty. Or poisonous. Only one way to know for sure: make a soup out of them and feed them to Clint Eastwood.
What have you got against Clint Eastwood?? Actually, given the risks, I only eat mushrooms from the grocery store, which I assume have been cleared by an expert. I’ll just admire these, thanks.
Is Roger Ackroyd a Cheat or not –Debate!
The first Christie I read was “The Moving Finger.” Jane doesn’t involve/solve until the very end of the story. I loved that novelette, so now I have a bit of a preference for the the mysteries that twist clues around the principle characters , THEN have the great sleuth show up.
plots
don’t trumps the twist/turns/up/downs of new knees .
Thanx for the knee knews update and the tedium update.
SallyMutant from Fan Ap, Ike Renfield in FB world
I took a break from Agatha last night and started To the Hilt by Dick Francis – I’ve discovered that Dick Francis really deserves his reputation as a good detective story writer! However, you remind me that I have The Moving Finger upstairs – I’ll have to go dig it out now…
Time to break out a few partially-full cans of cheap beer!
Not for him – he’s a recovering alcoholic! I realize it was a kindly meant thought…
Oh, wait a minute – I posted that last comment and then realized you meant for the snails! But since we don’t keep it in the house, we’ll have to find another solution…
How about a baking soda concoction?
OK, they seem to have fixed the problem with the .01 and .02 upgrades. I’m still annoyed with them.
Looks like it might be a female Garden or Cross spider (araneus diadematus). So named because they are common in gardens or for the white cross on the abdomen. Orb weavers. Good bug catchers.
I got an explanation of the penguins with flaming crowns. Apparently last year the kids got to choose a name for their classes, and one class decided it was the “Red-Hot Jalapeno Penguins.” So there.
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Gorgeous!
The Pelicans were invited. Definitely part of the party.
Thanks Karen!
Fine report & pix and thanks for the links to the GREAT pix.
Love that you are covering modern architecture as well as old.
Thanks for sharing–Art is going to Germany for work in a couple weeks (looks at calendar)…I mean 10 days. He'll stop in Amsterdam on the way in, and Berlin on the way out, working in Darmstadt, so this is useful.
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Utterly charming!
Lovely! thank you for sharing your trip! 🙂
It looks like a beautiful trip. So green and with the windmills it could be on another planet from Las Vegas. But then everything is another planet from Las Vegas. I really enjoyed your visit, and look forward to the next one.
I'm not sure why u referring to the guy with the bow as mongol horseback riding…the Hungarians was one of the best horseback archers them self's. The saddle and bow he is using, is made after 9th century Hungarian archaeological findings.
Personally, based on my own reading, I associate a man guiding his horse with his knees at a full gallop and shooting at things with a recurved bow with the Mongol Hordes. If you say it's 9th century Hungarian, I can't argue, not an expert in that period. For that matter, I'm not at all sure that, if you go back far enough, there isn't some connection between the Magyar and the Mongol Hordes.
Poor you & poor Duke! Dobes have so much black that they're pretty invisible in the dark. We used to joke that, when we walked our Dobe at night , the best way to spot her was to look for a slightly darker spot in the overall dark.
So sorry to read about your fall and hope you are already feeling a lot better. If you're still coming tomorrow, I'm prepared for that shiner!
Ike, yes, Duke was horrified. He's such a sweet dog.
Ruth, I do plan to be there but be warned, it's even worse than it was last night! I have also just been informed by Southwest that my 5:05PM flight will now leave at 6:45PM. If I'm lucky.
Love your Viking cruise day-by-day stories but can't get to any after cologne. If you have more could direct me to the post. We are doing that trip next Spring and I love your insights!
Glad you enjoyed it. I have, of course, got more after Cologne but I haven't had time to upload the photos and write the posts due to, well, life intervening. May get some more done shortly!
Estelle, if you'd like more photos (without a blog but with more extensive captions), check out my husband's photo site with pictures of the trip:
http://jtringl.smugmug.com/TouringCivilizedPlaces/European-Tour-July-2012a
Thanks for sharing the views from your new “home away from home”, Karen. Beautiful! About the differences between the two neighborhoods, especially the morning walkers greeting or not, I guess different parts of Rockridge are different in that regard. Up where we live, almost everyone – walkers, runners, workers, – will give you a smile and a “good morning” or “hi there” even with their earbuds in. Once you’re back in your newly renovated home, you’ll have to come walk up here more often! 😉
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K: I didn’t know you had a second website until today. Your posting on the ivy site has gotten a little sketchy. (Did you ever see the BBC Brideshead where Charles asks Sebastian “Why in the world are we visiting the gardens??” Sebastian: “Why? . . . to see the ivy, of course!”)
We demolished our old house (which had been a ranch style from the early ‘Fifties) and built a new one on the old lot in 1991–a design by Silverstein/Jacobson, the Berkeley partners of Pattern Language fame. Our contractor turned out to be crooked, and walked before the project was even half complete, so I ended up as my own general contractor. It’s a big job, as you’re finding out.
When I saw the “Remodel” link, I thought you might be redesigning your blogsite, but I see instead you now have two. Will you be abandoning one? For me, just keeping up with one is a chore. I’ve posted about 650 pieces on a host of subjects, and I may be running out of material. I think a lot of the pent-up backlog of diversions and interests got poured out in that first 500 or so pieces, and that now I have to discover a new thing to generate a full essay. My latest preoccupation is Christopher Hitchens, whom I discovered just at about the point that he was dying.
Good luck with your refurbish/remodel!
Curtis,
I announced the fact that I’d be doing personal posts (like vacations and the remodel) on karenivy.net a few months ago but you must have missed it. I’m actually doing two blogs; I’m reserving Hedera’s Corner for political rants and posts of more general interest. You approach blogging much more seriously than I do; I post when I feel I have something to say, and if I have nothing to say, I don’t post. I’m currently (as you may have noticed) blogging our European cruise, but I stopped to go through the rest of the photos and identify them, since I found I was forgetting what the things I photographed are…
Thanks for your good wishes on the remodel. We’re very pleased with our contractor; we hired Mueller Nicholls of Oakland. We asked them to bid because the owner, Steve Nicholls, is a major supporter of East Bay Performing Arts, the new parent organization for the Oakland East Bay Symphony, the Oakland Symphony Chorus, and the Oakland Youth Orchestra. We hired them because of the extreme professionalism of their team, in particular their project manager, Rich Robb, and their kitchen designer, Michael Waxman (who appears to know every single building supplier in the East Bay). We signed off on a project plan in August, and as of last week we were actually a few days ahead of schedule. We’ve met with them every week and they’ve made this extremely smooth. (Knock wood.) We aren’t doing any structural changes (and so far we haven’t had to, thank God), just remodeling the kitchen (to the studs) and updating a 95-year-old house.
They always seem to blame it on squirrels in our neighborhood. I’ve begun to wonder just who is smarter – PG&E or squirrels.
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What you saw was a swarm. This is how bee colonies grow and multiply. When the hive gets too big, a new queen is made and the old queen will take most of the hive to a new location. They aren’t dangerous at this point, they are too busy moving. In the middle of the mass of bees is the queen. When they find a suitable place they will settle in. You should be so lucky as to have a hive on your property. They will fertilize your flowers and trees.
Sounds like you will have company this summer. We used to have a pair and the female became very friendly and would come when I called her. She was here for years but didn’t always have the same mate. I used to give her peanuts in the shell on our railing and she loved it. On year she and her mate brought a fledged baby to learn how to get peanuts. Didn’t work. The baby spotted a large bug on the sidewalk and swooped down to get that. The parents gave the impression of exasperation with its behavior.
We’ve had nesting scrub jays before; they ran everything but the hummingbirds out of the yard (mainly the towhees which usually nest here). Hope they’ll be more neighborly this time but it’s not too likely, they’re pretty territorial. I seem to remember they even ran off the squirrel.
I have the same situation with my CorelDRAW X3 software. Since they are now up to X6, they would just soon I go away when it comes to updates and solving problems. Of course, they do have this new state of the art software package they could sell me…. This company is Canadian. By law, aren’t they supposed to be polite and nice?
I think it’s just custom, not statute 😉
I left HP when I realized that the cartridges had an expiration date on them. If you didn’t use the ink fast enough, they made the cartridge quite working so you had to buy a new one even though the old one still had lots of ink in it. With ink selling for about $1000/gallon, I decided to get rid of my HP machine.
The cartridges don’t quit working, actually – you just get a warning that says This Is Expired and a bunch of legalese about out-of-warranty and no-support. You just keep hitting OK through that and you’re fine. The printer’s out of warranty anyhow.
We had a minor infestation at the old house once. They had decided they wanted to build a nest inside our brick chimney. Some of them wandered down the flue into the living room, and began buzzing around bumping into the curtains etc., leaving little blotches of nectar or honey or whatever it was they were carrying. We called the exterminator. He was a bee-guy who also raised bees, but said this was an “eradication” — not a transfer. He smoked’em out. No big deal.
Once, when I was having a mid-afternoon lunch at Cugini on Solano, I noticed out the front window a great big circling cylinder of bees about two stories up, swirling around and moving slowly towards the other side of the street. Really, quite amazing. There must have been hundreds and hundreds. A few people walking on the sidewalk noticed them and began dodging. But the bees weren’t interested in them. They kept spinning in this huge loose maelstrom moving northward. God knows where they ended up. Maybe this was a colony looking for a new home.
The problems with your HP printer are probably the result of Carly Fiorina’s cost-cutting measures. These brilliant lady CEO’s have the coolest ideas. They’re just fabulous (grin).
What Merry and I have noticed is that while computers (and the software that runs them) have been progressing by leaps and bounds year in and year out, the printer technology seems to be regressing. Each iteration does less, does less well what it does do, and does it slower, and with more glitches. What’s with the printer engineers? Is it all just built-in obsolescence designed to make us buy another one every 8 months or so? The first printer we had a decade ago was fast, simple, and turned out gorgeous color copies in seconds. The newer ones are slow to respond, slow to load, slow to print, and the picture copies look horrible. And they hold less paper, and jam more often, and are just as heavy and bulky as before. This is progress?
Where is Henry Ford when we need him?
Yes, Carly left a serious mess, didn’t she? I’ve seen comments like yours on new printers in the comment sections of several printers while I researched new printers – I’ve decided I want to get a color laser.
For the record, I did get the drivers reinstalled and working correctly, but it took serious work. I posted a complaint on the HP Customer forum and a doubtless underpaid employee responded. The real issue as far as I can tell is that the latest drivers require Microsoft .NET 4.5, a point that isn’t documented anywhere except this guy’s “documented solution!” Specifically, as I complained on the forum, it isn’t documented on the System Requirements page for the driver – and it sure should be. I HAD .NET 4, and it wasn’t good enough!
Henry Ford made great cars and paid great wages, but he was a long way from perfect, and I’m not really sure I want him back…
Yes, they really look amazing when they swarm, don’t they? As Murray said, they were looking for a new home, and while moving they have no interest in people at all. Actually, I believe they normally have no interest in people, unless the people are stupid enough to interfere with them.
Well, I still have the HP printer (I considered buying a color laserjet from another vendor, but that’s a post in itself), and the HP software is broken again, but I can scan documents anyway – I just downloaded VueScan x64 from Hamrick Software. It cost $80, but it scans better and faster than the HP software did, and it recognizes that the machine has a document feeder and lets me scan multiple pages from the document feeder, which HP Solution Center never even offered. This is vastly superior software and supports a long list of printers. If you have a printer-scanner, it probably supports your box and probably is better than what you got from the vendor.
Wonderful personal and local history.
thank you for the story, sad but true, unfortunately I didn’t have my grandma or my dad in my life very long so I appreciate the history, I had heard stories that my grandfather was a terrible man.
Glad you appreciate it, Trish. Knowing family history is always good. Yeah, unfortunately, your grandfather was pretty awful (I didn’t include half of what I know in that post!), but he managed to produce some pretty nice descendants, so maybe we should just move on.
Thank you for sharing your trip to Melk Abbey. I was there last month (on Sunday, May 11th). Your photos and commentary brought back fond memories of my visit (except for the rainy day, which I see you also had on your visit). I think Melk Abbey is a must see for anyone traveling in that part of Austria. It’s quite unforgettable.
Glad you enjoyed the photos, Roger. Yes, Melk is amazing. I was disappointed that they wouldn’t let me take photos in their library!
I have photos taken inside the library which I can email to you if you wish. I did the tour in 2008.
Narelle, how kind of you to offer. I’d love to see them. My email address is at the menu link Karen Ivy’s Home Page, above.
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If you get nervous, Karen, you are welcome to come downhill and slum it with us in South Berkeley! I remember the 1991 fire, too. I was pregnant and awkward, but I climbed up on our roof to watch spot fires just beyond the cemetary (and some flareups within.) Scary, all right. There were people trying to break in to houses on our block, where the residents had evacuated.
Thanks for the offer, Sam. Unless the damn thing flares up again tomorrow, I should be OK. In 1991 we were half a block outside the evacuation area.
So much for the romance of the rails. Though a station like Seattle’s lends some enchantment.
Thank you for sharing your trip, my wife and I spent half of this last December in Melk, Austria. My step son is a senior at St John’s Prep in Minnesota but for this entire school year he has been one of those 900 students at the Melk Abby. The two Abby’s have had an exchange of students since the late 50’s it is a wonderful program and a very special place.
The remains under glass were actually gifts from Queen Maria Theresa as was the entire Abby. The “Stift” means Gift the queen gave the Abby and grounds to the monks as a gift. Wow!
I also have some photos I can send you if you would like
Also, as you leave the Abby and walk down the hill and reach the road look right across the street there is the best bakery you could ever imagine right there.
Thanks, Brad – amazing to get a response after all these years! Since we were with a tour we didn’t get much chance to explore the local bakeries. I’d like to see your photos; you can find my email address at this link: https://karenivy.net/karen-ivys-home-page/