6/25/23

 Sunday, June 25, 2023

In bed around 10, awake at 5:27, and up at 5:39 with back pain.  65℉, high of 77, partly/mostly cloudy day, about 1/2 inch of rain fell overnight, more expected today, wind SE at 11 mph, 3 to 15 mph during the day with gusts up to 27 mph.  The sun rose at 5:13 and will set at 8:35, 15+22.

Bad news from the patio.  Overnight we lost another major branch on the ornamental pear tree.  I sat on the patio for 5 to 10 minutes before noticing the significant upper branch on the far side of the tree was hanging down vertically.  How could I spend that much time looking at all the dead small branches and twigs that need to be pruned without seeing that major damage?  Can't see the forest for the trees?  I can't see the tree for the twigs.  Amazing,  Disappointing.  A little scary.

Aside from that bad news about the broken branch, it is a magnificent morning to be alive and hearing, feeling, and seeing.  'A poor life this if full of care . . ."  Even at 7 o'clock on a Sunday morning, there is the white noise of the freeway which is rather comforting rather than annoying.  I usually wonder where all those drivers are going, whether they will be delivering themselves or some cargo, to whom, where, and why.   There is also the random sound of a neighbor driving down County Line Road, perhaps one of our several doctor neighbors off on morning rounds with patients who are hospitalized. A loud cardinal is making a distinctive call.  A few birds fly to the platform feeder including one small dark bird I can't identify.  I see that some of the dead branches on the pear tree provide a handy perch for them in approaching and leaving the feeder.  A bright goldfinch flies into the thickets and a robin flies high into the pine trees on the McGregor lot line.  Chipmunks scurry all over the area along with an occasional gray squirrel.  I don't see any red squirrels around us, which is disappointing.  In Saukville, we had lots of reds, rarely a gray.  I'm reminded of how the little chipmunks resemble prairie dogs and meerkats when they pose upright on their haunches.  There is a gentle breeze blowing and I notice how disconnected (wrong word?) it is or should I say they are.  There isn't one area-wide breeze blowing over everything uniformly, but rather individual breezes impacting, e.g., some of the ferns but not others nearby.  How does that work?  Like feeling a breeze on my left arm and no breeze on my right arm.  What dynamics are at work with winds and breezes, other than the effects of obstacles?

Meanwhile, at the front of the house, the English sparrows continue their effort to take over our bird feeders, especially the suet.

I'm hungry.  Get outta my way!

Russia Clown Show?  Are we to believe what we are told has happened within one day in Vladimir Putin's Mother Russia?  Yevgeny Prigozhin led a private army of some 25,000 heavily-armed, battle-hardened troops from Eastern Ukraine into and through the large city and regional military headquarters of Rostov-on-Don and up the major highway from Rostov to within 120 miles of Moscow to oust Putin's Defense Minister and military Chief of Staff, and then, after talking with Putin's Belarussian puppet Alexander Lukashenko, changed his mind, ordered his troops to retreat/withdraw and to pledge allegiance to Putin's Defense Minister and Chief of Staff and further agreed to flee to Belarus under Lukashenko'sprotection, which is to say without the protection his private army would provide,  where he almost certainly would be murdered by one of Putin's henchmen.  Is this believable?  

    Why am I thinking of the famous/notorious Blackwater USA and Erik Prince,  its founder and leader former Navy Seal and brother of Trump's Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and their lucrative contracts to provide security services to the CIA and the State Department?  From Wikipedia: "In 2007, Blackwater received widespread notoriety for the Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad, when a group of its employees killed 17 Iraqi civilians and injured 20. Four employees were convicted in the United States and later controversially pardoned on December 22, 2020, by President Donald Trump."