Just got back home...

Just got back home ... from our outing to Maddox Drive-In.  That was quite an experience, and I mean that entirely in a good way.  It's very reminiscent of the way drive-ins used to be, about 50 years ago.  You drive into a parking space that's under an awning, to protect you from sun and rain.  A few seconds after we parked, a young lady came out to see what we wanted.  I ordered a cheeseburger with (homemade!) root beer, and Debbie ordered a “half basket” of chicken (three pieces of fried chicken, with fries, gravy, and a roll) and some iced tea.  We paid with a credit card – a modern enhancement :)  A few minutes later our meal arrived (on a window-mounted tray), and every last bit of it was delicious.  My cheeseburger was a thick patty of excellent beef, a molten slice of cheddar on top, a perfectly grilled bun, and all the right trimmings.  The fries were outstanding.  Debbie's chicken, she reports, was delicious, and she ate all of it.

After we finished, Debbie spotted one of the servers walking by with a gigantic chocolate ice cream cone.  Neither of us had much room left, so Debbie ordered some chocolate ice cream in a dish, and we figured we'd split it.  Well, our server came back with close to a quart of ice cream.  We decided we'd eat it on the way home, with Debbie feeding me spoonfuls at a time.  I thought we'd be throwing away most of it.  Oh, no, we weren't – because after we tasted the first spoonful we both decided that this ambrosia wasn't going to go to waste.  As I write this my belly is distended from eating large quantities of chocolate ice cream on top of a big meal.  I still can't believe just how good that stuff was!  Right to the last bite we were both eagerly slurping it down.  They make the ice cream at Maddox, and it tastes like it.

The bill for that entire meal, including the ice cream and a generous tip for our server, was less than $22.  By today's standards, that's one heck of a deal.  We'll be back to Maddox Drive-In, for sure!

In just the nick of time, I tell ya!

In just the nick of time, I tell ya!  I would have thought that California politicians would find it challenging to top the level of lunacy they've displayed in the past few years.  Looks like I was wrong: they've done it.

If the Democrats actually do this, do you suppose that would get a majority of Californians to vote otherwise?

Oh, of course not.  Instead, probably they'd elect even more of these wackos!

We escaped that bastion of bonkerosity in just the nick of time!

Steve McIntyre is back at it...

Steve McIntyre is back at it ... shredding bad climatology and exposing truth wherever he can.  I'm not sure why there was a hiatus of a few months, but I'm glad to see him back on it...

“Why A Woman Can’t Be More Like A Man.”

“Why A Woman Can’t Be More Like A Man.”  That's the headline on Megan McArdle's piece about recent research that adds to the body of scientific evidence showing structural and functional differences between the brains of men and women.  It's an entirely typical McArdle piece: insightful, illuminating, and funny.  Her conclusion:

So if we find out that women's brains really are different from men's, in ways that are driven not by the environment in which they are raised but the hormones suffusing their brain, we're going to need to start by rethinking the ways that we identify sexism in the first place -- and then start thinking about what sort of remedies might be appropriate. This is going to be an even longer, messier negotiation than the one we're having now.

Especially if science tells us that women are just better at understanding complicated stuff like science. Men, the benighted darlings, will just have to trust us.

Megan McArdle is a national treasure. Her existence gives me hope for the future of this country...

Morning in Paradise...

Morning in Paradise ... usually means a morning walkie with Race and Miki, and it did this morning, too.  Lots and lots of hawks about, all still hunting the voles exposed a few weeks ago when the barley was cut.  I think the vole population is now down to about 10% of its peak level, and now there are ever more predators focused on ever fewer prey.  Things are not looking good for the voles, much to the delight of all the farmers around.

A couple photos from our walk (sunflower and alfalfa in bloom, respectively):

After we got back home, I placed my tripod sprinklers in a new location for the day.  Since I've equipped all my hoses with quick-connect fasteners, this job has gotten much less tedious – no unscrewing and screwing of hose connectors required!  Also, the new tripods I bought a few weeks ago are working just great – they're sturdy, stable, and put the sprinkler up high where it can cover more ground. 

I made myself a nice light breakfast with a variant of my garbanzo bean salad.  This time I used a can of garbanzos, a tomato, about half a bottled roasted red pepper, two dill pickles, and a couple teaspoons of Duke's mayonnaise.  Yum!

Debbie and I are going to try a new place to eat for lunch: Maddox Drive-In, in Perry (just south of Brigham City).  This is run by the same people who run Maddox Ranch House, where we've had a couple of fine beef meals.  Today I'm going to have me a cheeseburger and some homemade root beer!

The roundabout way to Mantua...

The roundabout way to Mantua...  We had a little four-wheeling adventure late yesterday afternoon, and it led to the best viewing of peregrine falcons we've ever had.

We started out heading south from home, through Paradise and Avon and on to the (dirt) road leading over the mountains to Liberty.  We didn't go more than two or three miles on that road, though, as we turned right (west) on a intersection that our map said leads all the way to Mantua.  After passing through a gate we climbed for several miles, finally reaching a pass that gave us the view above.  The lake is the Mantua Reservoir, and through the gap to its left you can make out (in the glare) the northern reaches of Brigham City.

There were several routes available to take at that pass, and none of them are marked.  The majority of the traffic takes a branch that goes to a private home and is gated off.  The road that continues through bears to the right of that branch, and is apparently little traveled – it was kind of rough :)  For the next couple of miles or so, it headed steeply down through a series of rocky switchbacks.  If it's wet or muddy, that section could be challenging.  Yesterday was neither, and we had no trouble.  Once down on the bottom, we crossed a wide and fairly flat valley, quite pretty, and chock full of peregrine falcons.  They were by far the most common bird there.  At some points we had 10 or so of them doing their tricky acrobatic flying all around us.  We saw lots of them perched on fence posts, including one with a half-eaten mouse that gripped the fence post with its knees while hanging onto the mouse with its claws.  That was exciting for us, to see all those beautiful falcons!

After we crossed that “Falcon Valley”, we headed down a draw an into Mantua's valley.  The photo above left shows some pretty lighting we saw on the way down.  Mantua has an unlikely pronunciation: MAN-uh-way.  How they get that pronunciation from that spelling is beyond my ken, but the locals all insist that's correct.

It was a very pleasant evening drive for us: some real four-wheeling, a bazillion falcons, and even a few deer thrown in for good measure.  We'll be doing that drive again, for sure!

I don't really like Krispy Kreme donuts, but...

I don't really like Krispy Kreme donuts, but ... I think I'd still be unhappy, and I'd immediately suspect Michelle Obama...  Via my lovely bride:

Morning in Paradise...

Morning in Paradise...  Yesterday was Debbie's 12 week followup visit with her knee doctor.  He pronounced her fit for full weight bearing, as she can tolerate it, and told her to get on with the physical therapy to build up her muscles again.  He also gave her a referral for more physical therapy, to help with her lower back pain.  She's going to be working out a lot!  Debbie also had her second hydro-therapy session yesterday, and that went very well indeed.  So yesterday afternoon, by way of celebrating, we headed for Salt Lake City for an early dinner at The Red Iguana.

After our last experience with an excellent “special”, the first thing we looked at was the specials (which are different every day).  There were three, and they all sounded great!  Debbie picked the baby back pork ribs, which she pronounced delicious (in between yummy noises).  I had a chile relleno special, with a roast poblano pepper in a light egg batter (no grease in sight!), stuffed with a spiced (but not spicy hot) mixture of ground beef, corn, pine nuts, and raisins.  That was, hands down, the best chile relleno I have ever had - brains fall out on the table good.  We topped it off with flan, excellent as always.

Then Debbie had the brilliant idea of trying the State Liquor Store in Salt Lake City, thinking that it might have more selection.  There was a beer she wanted to get (Epic Brewing Intermountain Wheat), and I was looking for a decent cognac.  A quick Google Maps query showed us that the State Liquor Store was less than a mile away, on the same road as Red Iguana – perfect!  We tootled on down there, and discovered that it was four or five times the size of the Logan liquor store, and had all the things we wanted (and more).  So we headed home with very happy bellies, and loaded down with a fine selection of hootch.  Yay!

This morning I took our usual walk with Miki and Race.  It was a particularly beautiful morning: blue, blue sky with just a few puffy clouds, temperature 64°, humidity 35%, dew on the ground, all the dust tamped down by a light rain last night.  It's hard to beat this for walking!  We took a loop route, and just as we started back we were joined by two very happy, crazy-friendly Springer Spaniels.  They stayed with us all the way home.  One of them had a tag with a partially readable phone number, so I locked them in the back yard and tried to contact the owner.  As I was doing that, Debbie called up to tell me that the dogs had escaped the back yard, and were tearing off for parts distant.  Oh, well.  So much for the idea of helping them get back home.  We're hoping they're smart enough not to get hit by a car.

Now we're off to do some grocery shopping...

Porcupine in Paradise...

Porcupine in Paradise...  That's Porcupine Reservoir, where Debbie and I took an late afternoon trip yesterday.  We were looking for wildlife, and we found it: two peregrine falcons, a kingfisher, an osprey, lots of common loons, and a new bird we haven't identified yet.  It's shaped a lot like a loon, behaves like a loon, but it has a reddish-brown head.  We only saw it at a distance, so we didn't get any more details.  The only actual loon that might fit is the Pacific Loon, but that shouldn't be seen here even on migration...

“Scientists discover that the world contains dramatically more trees than previously thought”

“Scientists discover that the world contains dramatically more trees than previously thought”  My father would have enjoyed that headline...

Hillary's email problem...

Hillary's email problem...  Some dramatic news this morning:

• Hillary's IT guy pleads the Fifth (uh oh).
• Hacker puts all of Hillary's “Sent” emails up for sale (whoa!)

If the IT guy is pleading the Fifth, that means that he's afraid he did something illegal.  In that case, the obvious thing to do would be to grant him immunity, in which case there's no legal reason for him not to testify.  No matter how that goes, the implication for Hillary is clear (as if it needed any more clarity!).

The hacker selling Hillary's emails is possibly a fraud.  Arguing against that possibility is the hacker's marketing technique: releasing the subject lines.  They look real, though of course they could be a cleverly constructed ruse.  If they're real, and if someone bites and purchases them, and if they are released into the public domain – then it's really hard to see how Hillary can maintain the pretense of innocence from email wrongdoing.  Of course, it's hard to see that with what we know right now – though her team is certainly trying hard.

I wonder if I'll live long enough that the name “Clinton” is no longer a blight upon the American political landscape?

A local girl and her trout...

A local girl and her trout...  Paradise Trout & Berry Days photos, from a local news web site...

Plant identification in Paradise...

Plant identification in Paradise...  Jake Zollinger (fourth generation nurseryman) came out to visit us this morning.  We've purchased some plants from them (weeping willows, lilacs, paper birches, and some prostrate sumacs), and he verified that our planned locations were all ok for them.  He also walked around our place with me, identifying the “mystery plants” that we have all about.

The shade trees that we have near our house (one in front, one in the rear) that we like are honeylocusts, a horticultural variety (Imperial) that is their number one seller for shade trees.  The two trees we have in front of the house, with incredibly soft wood and with lots of dead branches, are lindens.  They're going to go.  The shrubs with red berries planted (four of them) in the front of our house are viburnums.  We'll probably keep one of these, but the other three are out of control and too close to the house.  The ugly shrub growing right next to our front porch, and suckering all over the place, turns out to be the sprouting root stock of an ornamental crab apple.  The ornamental part apparently died (or was cut back) some time ago, and the former owner started pruning what grew out of the root stock.  That's going to go for sure!  On the southeast corner of our house we have a half-dead red-leafed plum that's got a big green bush underneath it.  That bush is its root stock sprouting, apparently because the ornamental part is dying.  That's gonna go, too (all of it). The red-leafed trees growing south of our barn are ornamental choke cherries – something I would never have guessed, as they don't look anything at all like the wild choke cherries. 

It was a very useful visit from my perspective.  Basically we've confirmed what we suspected: that the landscaping job done when this house was built in 1992 was nothing special, and that we should feel free to just start over.  Which we will, once the construction is done!

Wild life in Paradise...

Wild life in Paradise...  Wildlife, that is.  Debbie and I took a big loop drive yesterday evening, up toward Hardware Ranch, then clockwise through Ant Flats, Eden, Liberty, over the mountains on a four-wheeling road to Avon, and back home.  The goal was wildlife spotting, and that we did: several deer (including three sets of twin fawns), an osprey, a bunch of cedar waxwings, a kingfisher, a blue heron, an unidentified bird the size and shape of a pheasant, but colored a mottled white and gray, lots of western bluebirds, swallows, a big trout (spotted by Debbie in a clear mountain stream), a perky mouse that ran across the road in front of us, and a peregrine falcon.  Not bad for one outing!

For the Mac-heads out there...

For the Mac-heads out there ... a couple of interesting articles.  One on security, the other on useful OS X-specific command line utilities...

The plant at right is very important to Debbie...

The plant at right is very important to Debbie...  It's Coffea arabica, the source of the brew she starts her day with.  Every day.  Two monster cups, at an absolute minimum :)  Via BPOD, of course...

Pluto...

Pluto...  Thanks to the New Horizons robotic explorer.  Via APOD, of course...

Morning in Paradise...

Morning in Paradise...  I can't believe it's September already, but that's what my calendar says, and I have no reason to believe it's wrong.  Dang!

Yesterday evening we took a drive down the left hand fork of the Blacksmith River, hoping to find wildlife.  We didn't find much of that, though we did see a doe with twin fawns on the way back out.  Our drive took us along a tumbling, rocky stream with the occasional beaver dam (and consequent ponds, willows, alder, aspen, etc.) through an unexpectedly narrow and dramatic canyon, with wall reminiscent of the Grand Canyon, though obviously on a much smaller scale.  We saw one side-stream that burst out of a spring on a rock wall (at right), and a few late-blooming plants (also at right).  It's very dry back there right now; no recent good rains and a lot of hot days...

This morning the boys (Miki and Race) took our usual walk.  We were a bit later than usual, and there were scads of hawks all around us, perched on every available elevated position, scanning the mown barley fields for voles.  I counted 22 hawks in sight from one place I stood!   The temperature was just about perfect for brisk walking: 62°.  The dogs, of course, were terrifically excited by this adventure.  As soon as I pick up the leashes or put on my hat, they basically go completely insane (admittedly that's not a big step from their normal state, but still...).  Some photos from today's walk:

Debbie read some exciting news online this morning: Crumb Brothers, which tragically closed a few months ago, is about to reopen under new ownership. Woo hoo! And it's even better than before, at least on the surface: the new owners are adding an espresso bar. Debbie is over the moon :)

And now you'll have to excuse us, as we're about to go to Herm's for breakfast...

Morning in Paradise...

Morning in Paradise...  Miki, Race, and I took our usual walk this morning, though on a slightly different route.  The sun rose over the Wasatch Mountains when we were about a third of the way through our walk, lighting up the fields most beautifully.

Nothing exciting on the walk today – no crazy voles, no skunks, no stooping hawks. But it sure was beautiful!

Shortly after we got back from our walk, it was time to take Debbie in for her first day of hydro-therapy.  That's her, in the therapy pool, walking on an underwater treadmill.  The monitors in front of her are showing her various views of her legs and feet, taken in realtime by underwater video cameras in the pool.  The therapist put her through a series of exercises with her about 65% immersed, so just over half her body weight was buoyed up by the water, and under half was actually on the treadmill.  Debbie pronounced the experience “cool” and we're going back for more on Thursday.

While on the way back from that, we got a text from our neighbor Alan L.  His wife Nikki gave birth to their latest child, Rockwell (at right); both mom and baby are in great shape.  Alan is already bragging about the muscles on display :)

We're going to head out to the left fork of Blacksmith River this evening to look for some more wildlife...

Chicken and dumplings in Paradise...

Chicken and dumplings in Paradise...  And all my readers should wish that they'd been here to partake!  Debbie hit a home run on this one: a slightly creamy chicken soup with roast chicken (not cooked in the broth), simple dumplings, and the classic vegetables.  From the first spoonful we knew she had a winner.  Man, am I stuffed now, with such good things!  And we has leftovers!

Even the dogs enjoyed the feast, in their role as lickers-of-bowls...