The staff of life ... also makes a good ham sammich

I have a bread recipe honed over the last couple of years. Makes really fine thick-cut breakfast toast. I look forward to waking up just to eat this stuff.

To quote a wise philosopher:

They're so light and fluffy white
We'll raise a fortune by tonight
They're so light and fluffy brown
They're the finest in the town

It's seriously NOT gluten-free, so you celiacs should just look away. In fact, you need to add gluten to get the protein cross-linking required to promote the fluffiness that floats my morning boat (in addition to high-protein King Arthur bread flour!). Sorry.

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Even more feckin birds

Zip-tied my old GoPro to the shepherd's hook holding up the bird feeder, which allowed me to click pictures from my couch via bluetooth.

It was a cloudy day, so the shutter speed was slow, resulting in some blur for these fast-moving subjects. Also, there's a half-second lag 'twixt me clicking the screen button and the actual "click."

However, I think this technique going to bear fruit in coming sessions, because I can get some outrageous closeups. The birds don't seem to notice the little camera box six inches away.

About as close a look at our red-headed woodpecker as you'll ever get.

This guy doesn't spend a lot of time at the feeder; I think he's too 

heavy and can't get a firm grip on the perch.

A black-capped chickadee enjoys a seed. Once I get the hang of the 

GoPro for this application, I suspect I'll get better shots.

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More bird pictures from the old guy, by popular request

Here's Mrs. and Mr. Cardinal, mentioned in an earlier post. Mary and I have both witnessed the male feeding the female — he'll bring her a choice sunflower seed and place it gently in her beak. We have not, however, seen the female taking any such actions toward the male. Harrumph.

There are a few of these rose-breasted grosbeaks hanging around. I hope they stay for a while; they are beautiful birds. I'm working on getting a better photo, perhaps one in flight where you can see the complex white wing bars against the black main feathers.

This gray catbird is my new favorite. I like the subtlety of its grays and blacks, and it's a nicely proportioned bird as well. It reminds me of a Boeing 757 in that its form perfectly follows its function.

OK, maybe I'm overthinking this a tiny bit.

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Idiot figures out his camera after 10 years

 This is why I bought a Nikon D7100 anyway:

OK, whoop-de-doo, Orion. But I finally studied the manual and the field guide. I put some time and effort into the project. Also, I bought a cable release. I practiced a couple of times, and Voila! An astrophoto.

Can't wait to get to Wisconsin, where it's actually dark.

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Bird pictures from the old people

So now that we're old, we've taken up bird-watching. We've set up the feeders right outside the living room window and we have his-and-hers binoculars so we can view the birds during commercials. ("NCIS," and "The Office," mostly. NCIS is a pretty good show, given its unlikely premise and characters. Seriously, none of those people, except maybe for Gibbs, would be working in a responsible position in law enforcement at the highest levels, right? Right? Anyway, I love the theme song.)

We've even started a log of bird sightings, God help us, and so far it's in a small notebook.

We have a few actual non-sparrow sightings and are some highlights so far:

We have a nesting pair of cardinals in a pine tree in our backyard. Mrs. Cardinal has taken to pecking at her reflection in our right-hand living room window every day at about 11 a.m. She's not overly enthusiastic about it, so we're not worried she'll hurt herself. Mary and I hear the tapping, look at each other, smile and shake our heads.

 

In the winter, we get lots of these Juncos. I don't know where they go in the summer. Probably Monaco, for the gambling and the women.

These pretty little downy woodpeckers (You could also call them "peckwooders." It's the same meaning, try it. You'll like it.) are a common sight when Mary puts out a suet feeder. They also attract these guys:

That right there is your basic red-bellied woodpecker. He's twice as big as the downy. At our Wisconsin place, I've seen a pileated pecker, which is larger still. Sounds like a machine gun when he's hitting the trees — you can hear him from half a mile away. I'll get a picture of him one of these days.

Also, anhinga doing a mating dance in Georgia and we've been told a lie about egrets our entire lives, but that's a post for another time.

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July 11, 2112

Sorry, neighbors, but Dave's gonna rock out tonight.

My late sister gave me Rush’s 2112 LP album when I was 16, probably for my birthday. At the time, my collection was mainly classical — Beethhoven, Tchaikovsky and Liszt — with a smattering of Deep Purple and Tom Jones (!). Yeah I was a weird kid. Still am. But she knew I would like that album, because she knew me.

It was the evening my musical universe changed.

Rush’s 2112 taught me that a dozen barre chords could smash a pair of 6-inch speakers into pulp, make me desperate for decibels that I could never achieve at home (to this day) and turn me desperate to learn guitar right the hell now. Music didn't have to be about puppy love and sex but could be about politics and ideas and weird novels I'd never heard about, but immediately devoured.

(Note: Ayn Rand was full of shit.)

Progressive rock became my thing, thanks to this album. My CD rack and vinyl stack is still heavy on the Yes, Jethro Tull, ELP, Genesis, Zepplin, Floyd and Styx. And I still listen to them, often. Like, tonight, and loud.

After “Moving Pictures” in 1981, the band moved away from the bombastic crash chords and pretentious lyrics I loved so much and began to incorporate Reggae, Ska and other influences that I never had the background or education to really appreciate. While Rush were no longer the white-hot center of my musical universe, I admired their growing technical mastery.

I first saw Rush at the Chicago Stadium when they were promoting their "Farewell to Kings" album in 1977. I've seen them two or three times over the years, the last in July 2010. They were as great as I had remembered and hoped they’d be, despite us all looking old. They rocked the hell OUT and did a "2112" medley for us senior fans, who were extremely grateful.

I am happy to note that my son likes Rush. He enjoys the old stuff — in small doses — and has a
fairly extensive collection of their newer material from the late 1990s, when they’d returned to a more guitar-forward, power-trio sound. (Albeit much more polished and featuring radio-friendly subject matter. Hey, a band’s gotta eat.)

My musical muse and me.

When I heard drummer Neil Peart had died, a bit of me died along with the news. (I learned after he died it was pronounced "Peert," not "Pert," and I’d been confidently saying it incorrectly all those years. Dammit.) I found myself deeply missing my sister, and wishing I could just call her up and thank her for that moment in the mid-1970s when my head exploded over the course of a 20-minute-and-34-second full-side prog-rock anthem.

Rock On, my Rush Fan Friends, Rock On. And happy 58th birthday, my dear little sister.

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Frostbite Friday Golf

February 21, 2020

So I played golf today. Boughton Ridge Golf Course sent me an email touting "Frostbite Friday": $12 for 9 holes, with cart, including a free soup and chili bar. Hell, I've golfed in colder than 24 degrees F (-4 C). It was a pretty bluebird day, not a single cloud in the sky all day, with a light breeze from the west veering toward the south.

Granted, putting was a challenge under the prevailing conditions. Every green was covered in an inch of crusty snow, and there were no actual "holes," per se. If I got the ball within a gimme of the stick, I called it good. Most of the flags were down on the ground, however, so I called it done if the ball touched any part of the cloth. 

On a couple of greens, the flags were completely buried, so I had to improvise. I lost fewer balls than you'd think, as the snow was so crusty the balls would bounce and sit on top. I actually came out ahead: I picked up a lot of balls that I assume were left behind during midwinter fun tournaments when the snow was deeper. They were mostly Titleists, unfortunately, of which I'm not a big fan and will use for water hazard shots.

On most of the tee areas, the ground was frozen solid so I couldn't get a tee in the ground. In those cases, I used a 3-wood off the rocky "turf." (I parred the first hole that way!) Finally, on the 5th hole, the snow was deep enough to use a tee. I'm guessing — with some confidence — that I'm the only member of my family to tee up a Top Flight golf ball in two inches of snow and hit a pretty damn good 180-yard drive down the middle. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Tip for all you winter golfers: keep a chemical hand warmer in the same pocket with your golf balls -- the balls will retain their elasticity and go farther. Otherwise it's like hitting concrete.

Finished with a mid-season-average 44, thanks to my generous scoring rules, and headed for the clubhouse for clam chowder (a bit bland) and Italian wedding soup (very tasty). Tom, the course manager, told me I was literally the only person to take advantage of Frostbite Friday today, for some reason. I would recommend it highly; I didn't have to wait at a single hole.

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