My landlord has been periodically removing 'volunteer' trees which grow too close to our back property line, undermining our parking lot with their roots and possibly falling across a fence and blocking the driveway. The good news is that I can scavenge the logs for firewood, which goes into my Wiccan church's firepit on cold nights.
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It was a distraction, to say the very least. I tried to watch the International Space Station sail across the early-morning sky...but my eyes kept checking the four police cars purposefully parked outside a low-rent house down the block. Very possibly a drug raid. No flashing gumballs, only yellow 'caution' lights. Most of my neighbors probably saw ( Read more... )

I'll probably get up before most of my friends tomorrow, bundle up, fumble through my apartment in the dark (hopefully without waking my partner Gail), and go outside to keep an appointment. If the sky's clear, a bright blob of light will make its' way from south-southwest to south-southeast. It's not supposed to rise more than 15 degrees above the ( Read more... )

By purest chance, the Planet Mercury was visible above the Cascades in the last fleeting moments before sunrise on September 6th. It's a sufficiently rare sight that at first I mistook it for Venus---but the second planet from the Sun was already well up in the morning sky, and fading from sight. It was indeed the small, elusive, closest planet to ( Read more... )