Got the rest of the veggies in, some weeding done, feds the birds, and relaxed:
This morning I saw finches, sparrows, swallows, robins, mourning doves, a red-bellied woodpecker, grackles (some form of black bird), and I SAW MY FIRST HUMMINGBIRD OF THE SEASON!!!
laura
Cole WILL have a nest in his beard before the summer ends. Can’t wait for that video.
MattF
FYI, there’s an article in the latest Science magazine about the unusual abilities cats demonstrate when they interact with humans. Scientists are discovering that cats can interact with humans as well as dogs– but that ‘can’ is crucial. Testing cats turns out to be difficult because they will often just ignore the scientists or run away.
Amir Khalid
RIP Grumpy Cat. Tardar Sauce the cat has died of complications from a urinary tract infection,
mrmoshpotato
@laura: Only one beard nest?
stinger
Those birds are making quite the musical racket!
I *think* I saw a hummingbird yesterday, but it was out of the corner of my eye and quickly gone, so not sure. But then a few minutes later, TWO Baltimore orioles flew right through my open porch, along the length of the house. One alighted briefly on the chair by the window I was standing at, so I got a really good look. They nest in the tallest tree in my yard, and I see them every year about this time. I don’t know why I don’t see them later in the year — there should be more once the babies hatch. But anyway they are beautiful.
Leto
@Amir Khalid: Avalune told me about that this morning, which really sucks. That cat brought a lot of joy the world over.
Laying on the PT table with heat on my knees in preparation for the stretching/work to come.
MattF
@MattF: And here‘s the abstract.
zhena gogolia
I saw one of our baby robins sticking his beak out of the nest just now when we came home.
Baud
@MattF:
“I tell you it’s like herding cats.”
Skepticat
Those birds saw you too, so they’re rubbing their little claws together in glee because they know they have the Critter Whisperer in their thrall and they’ll live well.
J R in WV
Most cats don’t care whether you like them or not, others would prefer that you don’t, so you will leave them the f— alone! Some want lap time, sleep with you, etc. Way more variety than dogs, who mostly want their humans to lurve them hard.
realbtl
Montana hummers showed up about 4 days ago. Put the feeder up and now have about 5 hanging around. The feeder is about 5′ away out the window where I’m sitting. Endless enjoyment.
ixnay
Hummingbirds here in western Maine for the past week or so. Get the feeders out. No red dye.
ruemara
I christen thee Radagast the Brawn.
Edited to reflect that we are doing something LA eating related this weekend. Because.
NotMax
All before noon? I iz impressed.
Eunicecycle
@stinger: just put out an Oriole feeder. We had one that has been hanging around trying to eat out of our hummingbird feeders.
TomatoQueen
Raven chicks at the Tower of London:
https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/17/raven-chicks-hatch-at-tower-of-london-for-first-time-in-30-years-9583624/
#DeptofThereWillAlwaysBeanEngland #linkingthingydidntwork
TenguPhule
Trump plans to release thousands of migrants in two Democratic strongholds, Florida officials say
I remember when some people thought this was an empty threat.
TenguPhule
@MattF:
Perhaps a sign of cat’s native intelligence.
TenguPhule
@ruemara:
Well played.
MelissaM
How much do you spend per month on bird feed?
J R in WV
@MattF:
Highly recommended by me. Interesting work clearly explained.
trollhattan
We’re lucky enough to have hummingbirds year round. Anna’s stay resident while others, black-chinned and some I’m challenged to ID, reside here in summer. Male black-chinned may be my favorite because they make a cheesy UFO sound effect when they fly–it will startle the crap out of you if you don’t expect it when one zooms past.
For such tiny things they’re quite bold and scrappy. My dog is fixated on them and does his level best to make them all go away now, now I tell you! They’re not impressed, despite the several orders of magnitude weight difference. (TBF to the dog, he could basically snag one out of the air if his timing were better, sucker can jump.)
Tip for those who can grow them, hummers frequently nest in citrus trees. No idea why but something I observe in the region.
trollhattan
@TenguPhule:
Not empty threat–Trump is stupid enough to do it–but a huge miscalculation on his part of how traumatized we’ll be having planeloads of Arch Criminals and Terrorists dumped in our midst. Oh no, not another taco truck! (pupusa truck in this metaphor)
Gin & Tonic
Moment of un-Zen: an old, old friend, someone I’ve known for 50 or so years, whose daughters are close friends with my daughters, died of pancreatic cancer yesterday. We hadn’t always kept in touch, the way it sometimes is with old friends, and the family had desired to keep the illness private, so we didn’t even find out she was terminal until last Friday. This Friday she’s gone. This is an almost unfathomably cruel and difficult disease, for which the morbidity has hardly improved since it took my father nearly four decades ago.
The death of somebody your own age, whom you’ve known forever, forces one to look at one’s own mortality as well, and it’s not pleasant.
scuffletuffle
@TenguPhule: Solution = Mar a Lago + eminent domain
CapnMubbers
@Gin & Tonic: It does indeed induce reflections on one’s mortality. I’m so sorry.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Gin & Tonic: I’m sorry to hear that. It must have been a shock.
CapnMubbers
I think the visitor to the birdbath is a white-breasted nuthatch. It’s fuzzy, but the appearance, posture and behavior flying to the ?post after the birdbath fit a nuthatch.
Feeder, not post.
satby
@Gin & Tonic: Condolences on the loss of your friend. That particular cancer is vicious. I lost a friend to it about 5 years ago, only a few months from diagnosis to death. Terrible thing.
trollhattan
@Gin & Tonic:
Sorry to hear that. I think many of us imagine a slow, steady predictable decline paired with all the needed heartfelt goodbyes beforehand. Then something dramatic occurs and it’s all over in a blink
Fuck cancer.
Raven
@Gin & Tonic: Aw man, I’m sorry to hear this. A buddy of mine went that way a few years back and he did the same, we were going up to see him and he just said nope.
Spanky
@Gin & Tonic: I’m sorry for you and your friends, particularly the family. It does hit close to home for me to hear about this, even though none of my friends have died yet. I reflect on its coming and on how I’ll deal with it.
Of course, if it’s me that goes first I know exactly how I’ll react.
Origuy
@TomatoQueen: Thanks for the link. Interesting, the raven master stop clipping their wings and they started to breed. I wonder if there’s a connection.
The three peregrine chicks on the ledge of the San Jose City Hall have their adult feathers and are expected to fledge any day now. Probably waiting for it to stop raining.
rikyrah
Traitors ALL??
Mother Jones (@MotherJones) Tweeted:
“I hope you catch the irony here that at the CIA and intelligence agencies, millions of dollars are being spent to stop the Russians from making a mess of the 2020 election and yet, in the US Senate, we can’t bring a bill to the floor to even debate it.” https://t.co/G4zD7Cvjx5 https://twitter.com/MotherJones/status/1129427232882155520?s=17
rikyrah
Cole,
Your backyard looks beautiful ??
rikyrah
@Gin & Tonic:
Sorry for your loss ??
ICAM about pancreatic cancer ??
joel hanes
@stinger:
why I don’t see them later in the year
If you want to see them every day, look up “oriole feeder plans” (very very simple to make) and provide a couple oranges cut in wedges and a pint of the cheapest grape jelly every week through the late summer.
They’re one of my favorite birds to watch : acrobatic, energetic, vocal, brilliantly colored, very swift flight, like an orange comet.
Aleta
@Gin & Tonic: I’m so sorry for your family’s loss. The suddenness of discovery and loss to pancreatic cancer is an intense shock.
Ruviana
@trollhattan: Yup. I had one hover for several minutes in front of my slider for the pure joy of tormenting my indoor cat who was on the back of a chair scheming on how to get that sucker! I larfed.
Aleta
Five weeks ago my good friend, full of life and committed to activism for all its good parts, died of pancreatic cancer.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@MattF:
The Scientists weren’t feeding or petting the cats. so why would a cat reward bad behavior in a human?
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic: my Dad died of pancreatic cancer in 1991. Brutal type of cancer — as he said then “to bolí.”
My sympathies.
eemom
@Gin & Tonic:
Lost a dear old law school friend to cancer last summer. We were out of touch for many years, but had gotten back together for dinner once in 2015, and hit it right back off just as though the decades hadn’t passed. Then it became kind of an on and off cyber thing, with some heated exchanges on FB after the 2016 disaster. (He wasn’t a BernOUT, but he was a white man from the midwest and very much of the Hillary-blaming mindset.)
Then, suddenly, just about a year ago, he posted that he was in Stage Four gastroesophogeal cancer, and as he put it, near “the end of my time in this body, which is pretty much shot.” It was a shock to me. The terrible irony was that when I’d seen him in 2015, he was just completing recovery from a devastating thing called Guillain-Barré syndrome that had paralyzed and almost killed him. So he fought his way back from that, only to….
I visited him a lot in hospice, and got to know his family and friends, which I never had all those years we were out of touch. Another irony was that I totally hit it off with his ex-wife, who was there for him 24/7 with their kids. At her invitation I visited for the last time the night before he died. He was out of it by then but I sat beside him and stroked his forehead and told him he’d be free.
I am so, so sorry that we lost touch all those years. He was a brilliant, kind and funny person and we really were close once long ago.
Lesson learned.
rikyrah
@Gin & Tonic:
My Dad had lung cancer back in the dark ages of cancer diagnoses. They took out a lung, and he lived 30 more years.
Pancreatic cancer took him out in under 12 months from diagnosis.
Duane
That’s the most boring YT video ever. All the talk about birds, I expected Cole to fall out of a tree, or be attacked by irate black birds. That was a video of watching grass grow? Cole working in the garden, now that could be entertaining.
rikyrah
?BREAKING: @OhioState now admits a team doctor sexually abused at least 177 men in the 1970s–1990s. Officials knew about the abuse as early as 1979 but did NOTHING until 1996.@GOP Rep @Jim_Jordan was an assistant coach from 1987-1995 and did NOTHING.?https://t.co/5ji9nieIeC pic.twitter.com/bQhokwyHGx
— Dr. Dena Grayson (@DrDenaGrayson) May 17, 2019
Msilaneous
@Gin & Tonic: So sorry for your loss.
Immanentize
@rikyrah: Wonder what Gym Jordan will have to say about this.
J R in WV
@Gin & Tonic:
Much sympathy for your loss. I experienced something very similar recently, my cousin, less than a year younger than me, died of ovarian cancer. We were very close as kids, being so close in age. It is not pleasant at all.
There were other things which made it even more uncomfortable for both me and my local cousin. RWNJ theocrat cousin in control of ill cousin’s environment, nothing anyone could do with RWNJ around. Sad.
I’ve tried to write about it a couple of times, deleted them all. Not happy with this brief description either… but there it is. Misery flowering from RWNJs all around us… it’s all they know how to do.
And in reading comments above, I see that I am far from alone in this, but for the RWNJ theocrat involved.
Again, my sympathy for all those who have had a recent loss like this!
mrmoshpotato
Are the birds cops? They have to tell you if they’re cops.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@rikyrah: Let me guess, Representative Jordan’s speeches are prone to a rather alarming homophobia subtext to them?
rikyrah
Archie’s birth certificate is out:
Son of the Princess of the United Kingdom! Baby Archie’s birth certificate confirms that he was born at private Portland Hospital after overdue Meghan’s home birth dream was dashed
Birth certificate for Harry and Meghan’s baby Archie was revealed today more than a week after he was born
Meghan titled ‘Rachel Meghan Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Sussex’ when document was registered
She listed her occupation as ‘Princess of the United Kingdom’ on certificate, the same as Kate for her children
It confirmed place of birth as private Portland Hospital in London – despite Meghan’s wishes for a home birth
The former Suits actress had wanted the couple’s baby to be born at home at Frogmore Cottage in Windsor
Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor is now the seventh in line to the throne after being born on May 6
By MARK DUELL FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 10:10 EDT, 17 May 2019 | UPDATED: 14:22 EDT, 17 May 2019
Litlebritdifrnt
One of our local attorneys in Jacksonville was on the golf course one afternoon and had a pain in his side. He was diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer and after surgery after surgery he was dead within a month. I often wonder if he had ignored the pain and carried on golfing he would have lived a lot longer.
rikyrah
The Russians know how they hacked our elections. Apparently the FBI has some indication, but the most important people who need to know — the voters of Florida — are left in the dark. That’s not right and it’s no way to ensure our elections are uncorrupted. pic.twitter.com/A9TOy7Duaj
— Andrew Gillum (@AndrewGillum) May 17, 2019
laura
@mrmoshpotato: One nest at a time…. :)
Roger Moore
@MattF:
Cats are smart, but they’re not necessarily very cooperative. Anyone who loves cats can tell you this. Dog people think dogs are smart because they do what humans tell them to. Cat people think cats are smart because they do what they want to do. Dog smarts show up much better in tests because they’re more reproducible under testing conditions.
laura
@trollhattan: our orange tree hummer is peewee. We may on peewee the 13th, but that fierce lil guy zealously guards his/our yard. We’re always thrilled with the years first sighting. We garden for his pleasure -he’s rather keen on the Mexican sage.
Ruckus
@Gin & Tonic:
Sorry.
Yes pancreatic cancer is tough. It doesn’t usually make itself known until late in it’s progression and at that time there is very little to nothing that can be done. Have heard stories about docs finding it when they do a surgery for something else and they can save a patient. But that seems to be very rare.
And believe me, getting a cancer diagnosis is worse than knowing someone with cancer. I’ve had to deal with it from both sides. Can it be treated? Will the treatment work? Will it work successfully so that your life is not massively affected? Will you die before that can happen?
Roger Moore
@Origuy:
Very likely so. Acrobatic flying is often part of corvids’ courtship, so clipping their wings could be a serious impediment.
Mary G
Lovely thread about libraries:
ruemara
@Gin & Tonic: Deepest condolences
mrmoshpotato
@laura:
I don’t think that’s up to us – or any human. :)
Doug R
Kidz and their phonz making videos in portrait mode.
Ruckus
Medicine has advanced to the point that a lot of cancer diagnosis is no longer fatal and people can lead an almost normal life. But that is not all cancers. Some are much harder to find, some are hard to fight and for some the treatment can be as hard or harder than the cancer itself. And the issue is of course not just age, cancer strikes at any age. The type may be more common at particular age ranges but cancer is a equal opportunity problem, everyone can develop it, at any time. The only cancers that don’t cross all barriers are cancers of the reproductive systems.
chris
@Gin & Tonic: Sorry for your loss.
Aleta
@Mary G: Thanks! Sent it to the librarian cousin.
mrmoshpotato
@Doug R:
While on your lawn?
“Turn your phone, sonny!” *shakes fist*
Bill Arnold
@scuffletuffle:
Or perhaps the White House:
Legislative Privilege!
(Seriously, it’s amusing to watch White House lawyers argue that the Legislative Branch cannot investigate [1], and shortly thereafter, see the Executive Branch proposing (well, sort of[2]) major legislation.)
[1]
[2] Donald Trump’s Rose Garden immigration speech, explained (Dara Linddara, May 16, 2019)
trollhattan
@laura:
Here’s to Peewee and Peewee’s family!
We’ve finished year one of our new, lawnless yard and I need to figure out what hummer-butterfly-bee plants to add, and where. Wanted one complete cycle before I started to dig/slice open drip lines with shovel.
trollhattan
@mrmoshpotato:
Always feel like I’m peering through a barely open door.
Juju
I live in eastern NC and we’ve had hummingbirds since around April 10. An interesting thing about hummingbirds is that they prefer 100% cane sugar over beet or a mix of cane and beet sugar. I went through around 35 lbs of cane sugar feeding hummingbirds last year. I’m glad they make 10 lb bags of cane sugar.
Bill Arnold
@trollhattan:
Location, rainfall, amount of sunlight?
trollhattan
@Bill Arnold:
Sacramento Valley, one section has northern exposure and the other, western, i.e., blazing hot in summer afternoons. Best former plants lost in the do-over were some very old and prolific lantana.
ETA “Mediterranean” climate with basically no rain from now to and sometimes through October.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@trollhattan:
There is the Delta Breeze.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@trollhattan:
Except this year, we seem to have a late May winter storm pattern(this is putting a serious harsh on my landscape astrophotography).
Bill Arnold
@trollhattan:
Not familiar with the area, but would start (and assume you already have) with a list like this
Sac Valley’s Drought-Tolerant, California Native Plant List
and would (personal favorite) go with Penstemon if they work:
Drought Tolerant Penstemon Are a Hummingbird Favorite – The beautiful, flowering spikes of drought tolerant penstemon transform the garden in spring and summer, attracting hummingbirds from near and far.
rikyrah
Da phuq??
Low-Income College Students Are Being Taxed Like Trust-Fund Babies
By Erica L. Green
May 17, 2019
Bill Arnold
@rikyrah:
Related (well a subset of it):
Trump Accidentally Raised Taxes on the Children of Dead Veterans (Eric Levitz, 2019/05/17)
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Gin & Tonic:
I’m so sorry
TenguPhule
Mnuchin rejects Democrats’ subpoena for President Trump’s tax returns
At some point elected Democrats have to recognize that Republicans as national party DO NOT GIVE A SHIT about the law where it is supposed to enforced against Republicans.
Stop trying to offer carrots. Its way past time for big fucking sticks and the beatings must continue until the GOP capitulates. And even then for some time thereafter.
HeleninEire
@Gin & Tonic: So sorry. Pancreatic Cancer took my 45 year old brother 9 years ago. It is the only cancer that we can’t seem to get a handle on. 5% cure rate. If I am ever diagnosed with it I will refuse treatment, take my money, and travel the world until I can no longer walk.
Blessings to you and to your friend’s family.
TenguPhule
@Bill Arnold:
There are no accidents. Just intentions.
Brachiator
@Gin & Tonic:
Very sorry to hear this. Please take care, and condolences to your friend’s family.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Aleta:
My condolences
Aleta
@trollhattan: In the spring hummingbirds arrive from somewhere and populate a big old cherry tree by a stream-fed pond on the coast. The first time we noticed, we were sitting under the blossoms listening to the tree buzzing. Assumed it was bees, looked up and saw the tree full of feeding hummingbirds. Refueling. I’ve heard ruby throats have to clean their feathers in fresh water almost every day to fly efficiently. Since they’re territorial it must be a brief time that so many share the same tree, but I’m guessing that the water next to so much nectar, with branches to sit on to dry, are vital after migrating.
ixnay
@Gin & Tonic: p
Truly sorry. Used to be that lung cancer diagnosis was a soon death sentence. That appears to have changed. Not so much for pancreatic cancer, because it is so silent. Only way to beat it is with completely opportunistic info, like an MRI for other reasons. I know what I would do if so diagnosed.
trollhattan
@Bill Arnold:
Bookmarked–thanks!
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@TenguPhule:
Where the fuck does this even come from? Has this legal doctrine ever been used before? Who is Mnuchin or the supposed DOJ lawyers to decide what is or what isn’t a “legitimate legislative purpose”? That’s for the legislature to decide under their powers granted to them under the Constitution as well as hundreds of years of legal precedence.
JFC Mnunchin, you tea party slime, tell your boss that if he has nothing to hide, he has nothing to fear. Hasn’t that been the ultraconservative credo for decades?
Cacti
@TenguPhule:
Mnuchin is actually violating black letter law in this case. Now it’s up to the Courts to decide if they’re still an independent co-equal branch, or just a rubber stamping body for rule by executive fiat.
I’m not filled with confidence about the outcome.
But her emails!!!
@Bill Arnold:
They didn’t accidentally do shit. They were scrambling to find enough extra revenue to slip the tax cuts in under the trillion dollar mark so they could avoid having to go through regular order and have the cuts filibustered.
TenguPhule
@Cacti:
Now its federal court roulette.
I don’t like the odds.
Omnes Omnibus
@Immanentize: He still will say that he did not see anything. What choice does he have? Either he was completely unaware of what was going on or he was complicit. I think I know the real answer, but he can never admit to it now.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: My condolences.
J R in WV
@Roger Moore:
This is actually an important political event. Tradition holds that as long as the Ravens flock to The Tower, the English Royals will succeed on their throne, and so will the nation succeed.
Maybe this means Q E II will tell parlament to quit F’in around with Brexit?
Surely the English conservatives believe in rule by their sovereign queen?!
Steve in the ATL
@Gin & Tonic: oh that’s awful. I returned to the US to learn that my 28-year old first cousin died (on mother’s day!) of an unintentional drug overdose. Very depressing.
Bill Arnold
@Cacti:
Some interesting history (Bloomberg):
Trump’s Taxes Are Fair Game. Just Ask Warren Harding. – The Teapot Dome corruption scandal resulted in a 1924 law that gives the House Ways and Means Committee authority to demand returns. (Stephen Mihm, 2019/04/20)
[1] I did not read this excepting the abstract, but lawyers might find it interesting: James Couzens, Andrew Mellon, the “Greatest Tax Suit in the History of the World,” and Creation of the Joint Committee on Taxation and Its Staff (79!!! page PDF, George K. Yin September 27, 2012)
Ruckus
@ruemara:
Any word on a meet up?
Cacti
@Bill Arnold:
Right. The law that he’s defying gives the Secretary of the Treasury zero discretion. The language on providing income tax returns is “shall” not “may”.
It comes down to whether there is a single right wing Justice left on SCOTUS who still believes that the doctrine of IOKIYAR doesn’t trump (no pun intended) the law or the Constitution.
Brachiator
Here’s a moment of Zen. A Chinese school principal teaching kids the shuffle dance
https://youtu.be/UkaJrzd6-hw