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Newfound birdlike dinosaur had surprisingly long legs.
If I had a working time machine, I'd be going back in time and hanging out with all the feathered dinosaurs. I want a pet Archaeopteryx in the worst way. I hate gray. I say this as a homeowner and as an employee of a new home builder: this gray craze needs to just die already. I like to check out current MLS listings, and SO many sellers have slopped gray paint all over their walls regardless of the color of their cabinetry or walls. It looks like hell. And if I'm going to pay top dollar for a so-called "move in ready" home, I am by golly not going to shell out to have the whole damn house repainted after closing. I'm sure that the right shade of gray in the right home in the right area of the country could be very attractive. But the denizens of this part of the world already spend almost half the year living in cold, gray suckage - the last thing we need is to spend the rest of the year having House-Induced Affective Disorder. On the other hand.... gray goes nicely with Halloween decorations. If I wanted to live in an upscale witch's cottage, I may reconsider my position.  The board here at The Casa Chez Nous is currently doing battle with our detention pond, just the latest skirmish in an ongoing battle of getting Mother Nature to do what we want by throwing money at her. The community's developer graded and seeded the detention basin as his final task before turning over the community to the homeowners to run. He told us that pond would fill up when it rained, then drain and dry out over the next few days - all we would need to do is mow the area and maintain the landscaping around it. And in fact that's how most detention ponds behave: proper grading, drainage pipes properly sized and set, fire up the lawnmowers, and Bob's your uncle. Bob is not our uncle. Mother Nature apparently wants that area to be a wetland, which shouldn't surprise anyone who pays attention to what happens in my area. There are lots of little ponds and streams, and the one thing these areas rarely do is dry up, even if we haven't had any rain for weeks. As with our pond, there are thriving ecosystems in them, with frogs and turtles and fish (!) and ducks and assorted plants. How on earth did we end up with fish in a land locked pond, you may ask? I assume they were dropped by the birds who visit. Or it's a biblical plague. And we have mosquitos. Lots of mosquitos. This is what prompted the current board to take up arms once again and try to persuade Mother Nature to cooperate. I shared with the board relevant information from past board meeting minutes and photos documenting just how fast that area reverts to what Mother Nature thinks it ought to be doing. Nonetheless, the area has been cleaned out, with reseeding to take place soon. Meanwhile the board is doing a victory lap, I'm keeping my mouth shut, and Mother Nature is no doubt smirking. Unrelated to the pond, one of the board members has set up a large kids pool on their driveway, which has to be a violation of some sort. I'm thankful that this also isn't my problem. And completely unrelated to this, there are pink flamingos hanging around in a lake north of the Greater Cincinnati area. Officials are blaming Hurricane Idalia. So walking fish would not be a surprise...  |
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