I recently won tickets to see Bon Jovi in concert. My daughter and I had a fabulous time as we are both huge Bon Jovi fans!

I just want to be warm and dry



Mollie feeling cold, wet, muddy and very sorry for herself

Aww, poor Mollie! She needs a cuddle

Oh the poor soul too! I want to get a huge warm towel for her!

Poor puppy!

Here's a black swan...

This is a building in my university (University of Glasgow, Scotland). It was founded in 1451, and is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world! This means that most of the buildings still have the old Victorian façades (it was moved to the current site in the late 1800s), but inside they have for the most part been renovated. My sister had her first year Latin classes in a church!

This is a Crosswalk I find near impossible to negotiate on my bike (upperleft). You need to make a right angle turn (going and coming) in a matter of four feet on a five foot long bicycle. It's an okay traffic structure for walkers but wheel/mobile chairs (ramp ends in a berm) and bicycles cannot safely transit. And why is it fifteen feet turned around the corner and not at the corner?

And now a white swan

It is raining today. Usually the lawnmower crew is followed by a flock of Ibis who find the pickings easier with a fresh mown lawn. I was waiting to get a good image of them (still am) after the crew came by. Today's weather has keep the mowers away and the birds closer to home and they were wandering the yards when I took my Yorkie out. I went back in and grabbed my camera and then down the street in pursuit of the flock. Some that noticed me moved away but some could have cared less and that latter group you see here doing their job of keeping the lawn insect population in check. My Yorkie ignored all these doings and attended to his affairs. Such a good dog.

I sometimes do things twice when it is raining. Don't know why and it has a team of analysists busy twenty-four seven trying to figure it out. Sorry, I double posted and the Delete function on this Blog doesn't work.

Here's one of many pictures I took while visiting my home town of Perth, Scotland - I'm normally in Glasgow for uni. My sister and I took a long walk around the riverside and botanic gardens.

After prolonged heavy rain, the bees are able to get busy again.

Another one from the country park

Raindrops on Roses

Darn! I've already posted today or I could've added "Whiskers on Kittens."

Now that I have a faster internet connection I can look at these photos and maybe add a few from my travels to the USA and Europe last year....

Welcome,Howie and please do!

Here's another shot from the "nature shoot" in my hometown of Perth, Scotland!

BIG and small Pinwheels


I've actually had the big wheel (over 5 foot diameter) mounted eight feet in the air on a car generator. It was spinning at about 1 turn per second (1 Hertz) when the mounting arrangement let loose. I need to get a machine shop to fabricate a solid coupler for me. The small pinwheel is single thickness aluminum roof valley sheathing and has lasted over a year and rotated around 2 million times. The BIG wheel is a little thicker Al but it is 3 ply with two strips running north/south side by side, two strips running East/West side by side then a repeat of the first layer. All contact cemented together with pop-rivets in the places it would tend to delaminate. I will get electrical juice from the Big one someday and hope too that the small ones could find generating niches to fill. I have a small one attached to an emergency generator crank but the torque to turn it initially requires a bigger wheel or a smaller generator. Add some storage and you're good to go and off the power grid.
The Wheels are better than Props most gens use because though of a shorter lifespan. much more economical to manufacture, recyclable and easily replaced. Book two comes out tomorrow.

Oh Yes Great idea for a thread!

Auntie 1, are those apple blossoms or orange blossoms the bee is busy with? From the side view of a blossom, I'm guessing citrus.

Sunlight and Flowers

Artificial Flowers in a window

Howie72, please post photos from your travels, but don't exclude your beautiful New Zealand.



Sorry mehaul, neither apple nor orange blossom, but Agapanthus! Here's the whole clump.
They originate from Africa. In Australia, environmentally aware
people remove the flower heads before seeding, as the plants can be invasive to native bushland.

The scent must be invasive (in a good way) as well. Is that a violet (Pansy) in the lower left?

Sorry again, mehaul! Agapanthus has little or no perfume, and
the low-growing plant is convolvulus, a spreading ground-cover.
Glad to see you have an interest in plants.
I admired your recent dwarf marigold photo. Do you also use them, as we do, as a companion plant to protect your vegies from nematode worms?