Ray's Thought for the Day

Drink your Hamelia tea, Ray.

No.

Come on Ray, drink it up. It's good for you.

No.

Ray, if you drink your Hamelia tea, you shall be immortal for the immediate nonce.

I don't care. I don't like it.

Now Ray, you must follow your sun god training in all respects or you shall never make good progress. Plus, if you drink your tea, you might get a treat later.

What kind of treat?

Hmmm. A very special treat that Hope and Olwen are arranging. But not unless you drink your tea.

All righty then. Ugh. This stuff puts a yellow streak down my tongue. Yuck! There now I drank it all up Rayetta. Hey Rayetta, since I am now immortal for the imediate nonce, let's do an experiment. Cut my head off and see if it still talks.

Certainly not Ray, that's not a sun god trick. Sun gods don't do that one and besides, you'd bleed all over the laboratory. Who'd clean up the mess?

I would instruct headless Ray to clean up. Then you could holler at everyone to come in the laboratory and watch headless Ray clean up the mess. That would be really funny. And my head could sit up somewhere like maybe on a nice serving platter and watch the proceedings. Ha, that would be too cool.

No Ray. But maybe next time you have your Hamelia tea, you can get Crumby to cut off your head.

All righty then. I'll check up on that possibility with the nearly always reliable Crumby.

Crumby's Telescope Tomfoolery Notes - Danger!

As you know, panic attacks are the top-of-the-line global threat to human existence. That is why one should always remember to make sure one's Rigel Quickfinder is turned off when not in use. For nothing is more likely to induce widespread panic than a Quickfinder with a dead battery.

It is very easy for me, Crumby Ovate, to imagine a scenario in which one chance smart ass remark, uttered in the Stygian darkness, regarding a dead Rigel battery, could trigger a chain of events leading to the extermination of humanity on the eastern Edwards Plateau. All that would be required; a chain reaction panic attack.

So make sure to switch that Rigel off when you are done espying the celestial bodies. And remember to keep some extra batteries some place where you can find them in a timely fashion. Panic kills!!!!

The picture here indicates out of focus Rings of Rigel when the Rigel has a fresh, properly installed battery. Raymone took this picture while concealed in the stygian darkness of the Boy's Comfort Station. That's why the rings are a tad out of focus.

Raymone's Plants du Jour

Not all the plants habitating at the CB are native to these parts. In fact, anticipating hotter and drier conditions, we have been introducing plants to the CB from points south and southwest to see how they'd do. But some other plants have been introduced in weak moments, as the Crumby Ovate has previously admitted. Then too, some plants are irresistibly cute, like Cupheas, for example. No doubt, Cupheas have it made for the nonce because humans find them irresistibly cute. Cultivars also occasionally get admitted to the CB premisis too. Sometimes cultivars are planted in areas lately reclaimed from the St. Augustine weed. Finally, some of the goofiest plants habitating at the CB were growing at the CB long before it was the CB and pre-date our arrival on the site. If they don't spread, we don't generally try to kill them, but instead, let them pass of their own volition, like the nasty old rose bushes.

Here's a couple of examples of plants that are totally inappropriate to the CB.

Hamelia patens. This one is widely disseminated in the nursery trade. It is vended as firecracker bush, fire bush, scarlet bush, etc. From observing its behavior for lo many moons, we can tell that it prefers a tropical rainforest habitat. To do any good, it must have all the water it can get. Like it wants gallons every day. Otherwise, its leaves hang vertically, like a sad dog's ears. Also, it is nowise frost hardy and very slow to come back in the spring. Apparently, the leaves brewed up as a tea, confer immortality to the tea's imbiber. This water hog was introduced due to a weak moment and also because we got a real good deal on the four plants. All four were like six dollars.

Then there's Crinum sp. ?. Nobody has any idea what any of these Crinums are, taxonomically speaking. We tried to kill these off by digging up their extensive system of rhizomes, tubers or what not. But Beelzebub, maybe, had hold from the other end and wouldn't turn loose. The foilage is an unattractive pale green. They flower in the hottest part of the year. The flowering culms always flop over onto the ground. To take this picture, Raymone had to prop the culm up. Even though these are planted under the eaves, they are always thirsty because it hardly ever rains in these parts. Honestly, we feel guilty about not watering them more, but Jeez Louise!

We used to have some spider lilies, Hymenocallis sp., also taxonomically impossible,
in with the Crinums, but those finally expired, maybe. These Crinums pre-dated us and will post-date the demise of the Judeo-Christian tradition, oh my!

Botanical Little Wonders that Shall Arrive at the CB Anon, Maybe

We have collected seeds of Geum canadense, Sanicula canadensis and Passiflora affinis. The former twain have been set out to germinate, maybe. Fruits of the latter have been collected, but they have not been set out. We have a microhabitat at the CB much like the microhabitat the Passiflora affinis from which the furits were collected is habitating for the nonce. In fact, we have several such microhabitats. Perhaps we should just move the semi-wild plant or some part of it to the CB. We are all very excited at the prospect of these presumptive new arrivals grwoing up at the CB.

The photo to the east indicates some of the variability of the fruits within the genus Passiflora. P. foetida is on the left with P. affinis next to it. Then there's also some Styrax platanifolia fruits that were a lot of trouble getting to the CB and an unknown Fraxinus single samara. Those Styrax calyces sure do remind me of something else, like Vacciniums maybe.

Anyway, that's just buzzhead on the P. foetida, so don't freak out and think you're having a religious experience.

Crumby's Telescope Tomfoolery Notes

All righty then, Ray. Those geese are plenty scary. And I didn't know geese ate bermudagrass. Were you scared, getting that close to those fierce geese?

Noper Crumby. Raymone took the picture. I was behind Raymone a ways.

All righty then. It still seems like a Potential Safety Topic - Environmental Hazard to me, getting that close to hungry geese.

Anyhow, the celestial bodies were more exposed last night than on the eve immediately preceeding last night. I don't really understand why that is, but they were. For lo, I was able to split 41 Ophiucus at only 416x. It took me about an hour until I was satisfied with looking at that pair. I continue to be gawkingly amazed at how fast the stars zip across the field of view at a high magnification like 416x. Stupidity transfixes me, just like it does the Kinglet. But my stupidity does way less harm, maybe. Praise the Goddess.

Besides 41, other binaries espied in Ophiucus were 36 and BU 46. Then there was 11, and Struve 2404 in Aquila and Gamma in Corona Australis. I need to look that last one up and find out if I saw what I think I saw.

Then, at about 1:30 AM, or maybe it was 2 AM, Aquarius was up fairly high so I decided to espy Uranus which is ostensibly habitating for the nonce in Aquarius. But just when I was on the verge of espying Uranus, the cloudy curtain was drawn.

Oh yes. The Wild Duck Cluster, Messier 12 is well worth espying also in those parts of the sky. It appeared as layers of stars. Many of those stars could be many furlongs further away than some of the closer ones.

Ray's Thoughts for the Day

I think it's great that I live in a country where the Secretary of Defense, Mr. Rumpler, can be crazy and still have a job. Great!

It's also great that I live in a country where the Secretary of State, Ms. Sleeza, can run around all over the world like an excited chicken. What a neat job she has. Great!

It's also great that the Kinglet has, so far, not used the spell, unprecedented, with respect to the recent turn of international events. Great! Just knowing that the Kinglet may know that the events were precedented gives me confidence. Great!

And how about Mr. Chitlin? Great!

All that aside, here's a couple of pictures of barnyard fowl pals.

This is a pretty rooster. Pretty is as pretty does, though, and he has to be tied up.

These geese find bermudagrass to be delicious. They spell, "This is our delicious bermudagrass and you can't have any."

All righty then.

Ray's Thought for the Day

Anon, someone needs to go get me my delicious cinnamon bun. I am too wore out from brush cutting to go get it myself. Please, please don't forget my delicious cinnamon bun. I need some nutrition.

There's a pair of cardinals that have been fornicating repeatedly at the CB all summer. They built two nests that I know about. The first nest they built was right near a bird bath where the blue jays come to take baths. A blue jay ate the eggs. They put the second nest in a hanging flower pot on the front porch right next to the human and proto human ingress/egress hole. That nest produced one dead baby bird. Every time a human or proto human went in or out, the lady cardinal would fly off to the southwest pasture. She was nervous and spent to much time flying around, maybe.

Crumby's Telescope Tomfoolery Notes

Hark! One or another of Jupiter's big moons is throwing a shadow upon Jupiter. Pretty neat with 20mm TV plossl and 3x TV barlow. Jupiter is visible even though it aint dark. Tonight the sky is clear for the nonce and I have set up the big Lomo and the Newt. However, I forgot that I only have one dang Rigel. Both the scopes have Rigel mounts, but if I switch the Rigel back and forth, I'll have to adjust it every time I switch. That's no good. Hmmm. Maybe I need another gizmo.

Tonight the subject of perusal shall be the much interrupted of late subject of perusal, Ophiucus the Hoe Bearer, who chopped poor old Serpens in half. Then after that I shall look north if I am still awake, maybe. Yip! Yip! Harroooo!

Addendum

Er. I couldn't split 41 Ophiucus last night and I couldn't find the Mag 12 companion in SAO 160261 either. Also, I couldn't split 68 Ophiucus. Aggravatin'. Well, it was very windy with intermittent clouds and the sky was very bright. Poor conditions.

Antares was all over the place in the Newt. It looked like a fire ball and I was having some trouble resolving stars even in the Lomo even at high powers where the Lomo normally produces very nice discs. However, I did split Antares again at very high power in the Newt. The companion appeared blue gray last night.

Ray's Thought for the Day - Clear the Dang Brush

What can be done when one is feeling a tad morose or down about the mouth, as it were? Well, like the Kinglet, I go out and cut some brush. Either that or take a couple of Alka Seltzer. Alka Seltzer always cheers me up. It's so effervescent. But this time I chose to clear some brush. At the CB we never let unwanted brush get very big. Consequently, when we clear brush, we use hand snips. The brush that got cleared was mostly Celtis laevigata and Ulmus crassifolia seedlings, some of them nearly two feet tall. They seed out along the east fencerow where the habitat begins to grade into what would probably be hackberry-elm woodland. But that's a marginal call because most of the big hackberries and elms just east proximally succumbed to drought a few years ago. Anyway, those saplings got cut mainly because they are not what we want in that location aesthetically speaking, preferring a shrub, grass and sedge dominated understory. The shrubs are Ilex decidua, Ilex vomitoria, Symphoricarpus orbiculata, Rhus triloba, Rhus lanceolata, Callicarpa americana and some subshrubs, Solanum triquetrum and Malvaviscus arboreus. Then there are about 25 different grasses and sedges and a bunch of native herbs and vines.

Now that I have actually cleared some brush I feel lots better. But the prospect of clearing more brush is not as appealing as a nice fizzy Alka Seltzer libation. However, I shall have lotsa trouble convincing Red that the Alka Seltzer libation will do just as well as clearing the rest of the brush. So here I go out again to clear some more brush, less enthusiastic than formerly.

The above should be expressed as a Druid dichotomy, thusly. What is your druthers, clear brush or a soothing libation?

Ray's Thought for the Day - I am a Nail in the Tin Roof fer Heat Month is Turning Out to be a Serious Loser

At the CB for this very hot and dry month we have 6 tics in the guage. We piss out more than that, maybe. If this weather pattern continues through another fall like the last one, Goddess help us. Last night I was so stressed by the incessant heat and lack of rainfall that I awoke from rest upon the Ample Bosoms all sweaty. Then I started to look around for some light reading that might help put me to rest again. "What's this? Here's some of my sun god training homework that I was supposed to read. I remember now, this is the very volume I was hoping might come out as a Classic Comic." That was my thought as I picked up Revelation by St. John the Devine.

What's this then? Easy that, John is sending out letters to backsliders. Whoa! Jesus is telling John what to spell in the letters. Yikes! Jesus is aggravated. The faithful are fornicating like rabbits and wolfing down evil cows sacrificed to Balaam (not the Balaam who had the talking donkey, but a different Balaam, maybe) and whoring after Jezebel. Uh oh, if the faithful don't quit all that wickedness they will never get to see the four interesting beasts that inhabit round about the throne of God. The beasts say "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come." 24/7. Er, doubtless the interesting part is how the beasts look.

Plus the backsliders, unless they repent at the last minute, won't get to see the 24 elders either. What are the 24 elders up to? The elders fall down before him that sat on the throne and cast their crowns before the throne and they say, er, oh well never mind what they say. Probably the interesting part is watching the elders cast their crowns to the foot of the throne and then retrieve them. That could be fairly interesting if the crowns are all very similar.

Chapter 12 is sort of interesting reading for Druids, maybe. But then the balance of the book is a couple of big wars and after that there's a new heaven and a new earth and a new Jerusalem. The big difference between the new earth and the old earth is, on the new earth there is no night, no oceans and no sinners. Whoa! I may infer that there would be no astronomers or ichthyologists either.

Crumby warned me about this book long ago. Crumby said, "It is a book that is easy for liars and gluttons to live with." Why? "Easy that, they skip over the second part of Chapter 22, Verse 15."

Er, now I have to come up with some intelligent questions about the book to ask my lady instructors.

1). Babylon is a little hamlet in Iraq. Are the sinners of Babylon really all that much more wicked than the sinners in say, Miami Beach?

2). Do you think we should stop using Whore of Babylon as a synonym for lying and gluttonous Congresspersons and the TV demons?

3). Do I really need to be a Jewish virgin to stand on Mount Sion with Jesus? Er. Rayetta may not think this one is very intelligent. I may need to omit this one.

4). How much does a talent weigh? Er. Noper I can look this one up, maybe. I better not ask this one.

5). What about the lady that gets chased off into the wilderness by Beelzebub maybe. Is she like unto our White Goddess, maybe? How come she gets disrespected so much?

Dang it. I'm wore out with this. Well, maybe some of these questions will demonstrate to the ladies that I have read my homework lesson, maybe.

Ray's Thought for the Day - It's Faith Based, Baby!

All righty then, everybody who has lotsa faith is supposed to do like Jesus said and give a bunch of alms to the poor. But who the heck do the faithful give the alms to. Easy that, the preacher. Then the preacher, together with his helpers, makes sure the alms are put to good works, or go toward good works, or go toward processes that may lead to good works, eventually.

However, there are lotsa heathens who don't tithe because they are heathens. In fact, because they are heathens, they don't give any alms to the poor via the preacher. But the heathens with jobs do pay taxes probably, so the preachers have decided that since America is a Christian country, they, the preachers need to get contributions from the heathens. This process, getting the alms from the heathens is called faith based funding. The way it works is, the preacher has some of his helpers write up a grant proposal for federal funding of a good work. Then, lo and behold, the feds fork over a bunch of money to the preacher, if the preacher is well connected, politically, and most of the big words in the grant proposal are spelled correctly. Er, come to think on it, well-connected trumps spelling by a wide margin, maybe.

The really neat part is that because everybody knows preachers can be trusted with lotsa money, there is no need for any federal oversight of the disbursed funds. Everyone just knows automatically that the funds will be put to good works. And the heathens, well, they have been robbed. But what the heck, let the heathens rage.

Hoover hogs are starting to look, delicious!

Crumby's Telescope Tomfoolery Notes

I have a list of multiples to espy in Ophiucus. But I'm not making much headway. I tried to do some hard ones first; example, a double with 1.9 arcseconds separation and the little one mag 12. On some of these there's been serious trouble deciding if my scope was up to the task, or if I was looking at the wrong star, duh. Seeing has been swell the last two nights, but then the clouds zoom up from the south right away. It's pretty funny to be focusing the telescopery and finally get a tiny star smack dab centered and perfectly focused using a 6mm ep and 2x barlow for a magnification of 445x and then suddenly everything goes blank due to cloudy obscurity. Many would have a panic attack if such happened to them. But the Crumby Ovate is steeled against such misadventures from long habit.

Raymone's Presumptive Plants du Jour- Sanicula canadensis

Red finds Sanicula canadensis interesting and amusing. Now we are making preparations for S. canadensis to stay at the CB. Here's half of a fruit. Later, when we have less time, but more time to devote to the task, someone here shall label some of the interesting parts. Now it's later and we have labeled some parts.

If you have a dissecting microscope and some Sanicula fruits, you should check out the back of the fruit where the sinuous oil glands wind within grooves among the dilated hooked bristle bases.

For the purpose of killing two liars and gluttons with one stone, you never know, this could do it, there's always hope, is another picture of the only Hexalectris orchid located on a recent outing to Walnut Creek Park (WCP). The picture shows H. spicata with decumbent ovaries. No H. nitida were found on this visit and the habitat is now cut up by numerous sissy white boy bike trails.

Jeez Louise, I hope someone can savvy the preceeding paragraph. Get it? There's an extra picture, of the Hexalectris, that is thematically disjunct if one takes a narrow view. The extra picture is the stone we hope kills a liar and glutton or two. But actually, the pressure on public land in Texas is such that many must compete for opportunities to recreate or even walk around a bit outdoors in a natural setting. The Texas ruling class believes the great outdoors is their property and they begrudge access to any smidgnin of it to the downtrodden masses, including the sissy white boy bicycle riders. So the sissy white boy bicycle riders are constrained and their sissy white boy trails must loop ever closer together so that many trails are within a few feet of many other trails, usually in public parks like WCP. That part of WCP, the former and still presumptive Hexalectris nitida habitat, is like that these days, sissy white boy bike trails looping like spaghetti.

One likeable aspect of how the precious ruling class has structured our society is the 50-70 hour work week with little increase in real earnings over 1960. This indicates that millions of wage slaves toil such long hours for scanty wages that they don't have the time or inclination to adversely impact the natural environment directly with their persons present in the natural environment. They're on pavement 24/7. That's good and just what they deserve.

Ray's Thought for the Day

It's that time again, when the round chested among the botanically minded venture forth in search of Hexalectris orchids. Praise the Goddess.

Crumby's Telescope Tomfoolery Notes

Up I leapt from the safety of the Ample Bosoms and out I journeyed into the stygian darkness with only a dog for company. It was 4 AM or thereabouts when all the telescopery gear was distributed handily and pointed in the right direction. Yepper, there was Queen Cassiopeia who ordered her only daughter, Andromeda, to be chained naked to a great rock that stuck up from the depths of some great sea; chained naked to a great rock to await the coming of a great sea monster of unspecified phylum. But hark, along comes Perseus and his flying horse, Pegasus, and together they rescue Andromeda. What a spell that is, from a time of great religious transition in those bygone times.

Anyway, I had some unfinished business with Queen Cassiopeia due to some user telescopery errors that need not concern anyone. Hark, it was cloudy all yesterday evening so off I went to the Ample Bosoms predicting that the morning skies would clear, and being an Ovate focused in, sure enough, my foretelling proved true.

Just for fun, my first stop was Iota Cassiopeia, a lovely triple. Then it was down to Struve 3053, a lovely double. Then I went over to King Cepheus and explored a bit because I wasn't used to Cepheus in that particular location. Cepheus, you may recall is one of Queen Cassiopeia's significant others and also her husband. And finally now, I remember that I wanted to espy W2 Cassiopeia, but forgot about it in the mad dash through Cepheus.

The slightly second-hand 6mm Orthoscopic eyepiece works most excellently in the 133.5 Lomo Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope.

Ray's Thought for the Day

Yesterday's unharbingered, by any of us, rain event, produced no rain worth checking the guage over. So now it's back to 98 in the shade and the Kinglet is doing nothing. Why doesn't the Kinglet pray to Jesus to stop the climate change on-going? You'd think he'd at least do that much.

Oh ho. Now I remember. The Kinglet and his Evil Ministers want the climate to get hotter. They believe a hotter climate will promote plant growth, maybe, like in lush Saudi Arabia. Or, perhaps they believe that climate change is an indicator of the inevitalbe Armageddon that they are apparently hurrying along so that Armageddon can occur before the next election.

Besides being either a firt-rate ignoramus or a demonic imp, the Kinglet talks with his mouth full. How could our precious ruling class have selected a kinglet that talks with his mouth full? Our precious ruling class is turning out to be a serious disappointment.

Raymone's Plant du Jour - Silphium laciniatum - compass plant

Jeez Louise! Why'd you dang Druids take my protective fence down? The Odocoileus virginiana have most et me up. Mercy! Hep me, hep me.

That's a good question Crumby. Why did you take its fence down and leave it down so long?

I wanted to see if it could survive without any protection, Rayetta.

Hmmm. Well enough is enough. You put its fence back up right now Crumby Ovate. Go get its protective fence this instant.

Yes, Lovely Druidess Rayetta.

Thank ye, thank ye Lovely Druidess Rayetta. Ye have saved me, saved me from the ferocious herbivores.

You are most welcome, Silphium laciniatum. Crumby will go get you a protective fence right now. Shame on Crumby.

Yepper, shame on Crumby. It's been terrible, terrible I tell you, Lovely Druidess Rayetta, they eat on me most every night.

There, there. You'll be safe now. Crumby, don't hurt yourself with that concrete reinforcement protective fencing material.

I have the situation under control Rayetta. There now if I can just get it unrolled and untangled. This dang stuff is a Potential Safety Topic - Environmental Hazard, fer sure. Ouch! All righty then, take that and that and that. There now, it's assumed the position. Help me put it around the Silphium laciniatum, Rayetta.

All righty then. Move it that way Crumby. No, that way. No, back that way some. There, that's better. Now you're all safe again, Silphium laciniatum.

Praise the Goddess. Thank ye sooooooo much fer savin' me, Lovely Druidess Rayetta.

You are most welcome.
_____

Silphium laciniatum is not generally found in these parts. There may be a goodly amount of it up in north Texas, or off east, still, but that's problematic. So far as we know, this is the only one in Travis County. Crumby found this one, oddly enough, in Kerr County and brought it home because it was fixing to get murdered.

What's left of the leaves on this one, when the picture was taken, are oriented in an exact north-south plane, hence the vulgar reference to compass. If the north star is not espy-able one can orient ones German equatorial telescope mount by simply pointing the polar alignment scope at the leaves of Silphium laciniatum when they are turned sidewise.

Ray's Thought for the Day

Mercy! It was a 100 degrees in the shade, but then along came some dark clouds from the west and we had to drop what we were doing and rearrange for rain. But the rain never came. It went somewhere else. Anyhow, now we're ready for unharbingered rain. Praise the Goddess.

It got so hot, the double sided tape on Crumby's Quickfinder melted. Then he couldn't find the extra double sided tape. "Where's my double sided tape?" he hollered over and over. Then he started hollering that he had to go to the store and get some more double sided tape even though there was a whole roll of it here at the CB somehwere, but evil forces, or careless Druids, meaning the rest of us, had hidden the double sided tape from his purview. Then he found the tape right where he put it. Praise the Goddess.

Crumby's Telescope Tomfoolery Notes and Addendum

Anon, I shall venture forth into the stygian darkness. I have asked myself, "Crumby, why do humans and some proto humans maybe, leave lights outside on all night long or never turn them off, ever." All I can come up with is they're sniveling cowards afraid somebody's gonna sneak up on their houses at night. Perhaps they hope the police will espy the sneaks and arrest them. If the police arrest the sneaks, I say, "Give them fifty dollars and let them go." Then after awhile the sneaks will get rich and won't have to actually break in. But the only ones who should have to pay for the sneaks are the sniveling cowards.

Anon shows some promise as the skies were actually blue instead of puke milky blue at sundown for a change. Blue skies mean less pollution between me and the celestial bodies maybe. So I am looking forward to an interesting evening, even more interesting than fixing for the interesting evening. First fixing, I banged my finder scope on the door sill. Then I discovered the Rigel Quickfinder had been left on again for dang near 24 hours. Then I couldn't find the extra battery. Everything's OK maybe though. The finder seems to have survived unharmed thanks probably to its rubber armor. And for a wonder, the Quickfinder still lights up.

Tonight I will be testing out a lightly used 6mm Orthoscopic ep that came in the mail yesterday. I tried it out some last night, but there was so much humidity after that little rain that all the optics kept steaming up faster than I could wipe them off. If it wasn't the scope steamed up, it was the ep, and if it wasn't the ep, it was my spectacles. And the Rigel got wet too. In fact, it got knocked off the telescope when I had to excitedly relocate the telescope during the rain event and after it got knocked off it got rained on. For a wonder it still works.

The subjects celestial anon shall be in the eastern and southern skies. Which reminds me, I need to stop this and list the presumptive celestials anon in my field notebook which in this case should probably be referenced as my sky notebook. This notebook is an extension and modification of the methodology and results from some of my looseleaf notes totally evaporating, probably into a cow.
_____

Addendum
_____

The time frame for this addendum is about 11 PM til 5 AM for the dates of the Julian, July 21-22. As one might expect, a great many celestial bodies may be observed over an approximately six hour period. However, the desire to know what ones are being observed, and finding those particular ones employing the preferred Ludite methodology, takes time.

Observing conditions were as good as they get here probably. The moon didn't arise until 5 AM and there were no clouds. The Andromeda Galaxy was detectable in 8x42 binoculars at around 2 AM. One or another of those little galaxies at 9 0'clock from Andromeda was also espied accidentally in the 10" Newtonian, maybe. M 33 was not espied. It's not much fun looking below about 40 degrees on the north and northeast horizons. The sky that way is always very light.

Pie Aquila, off east, is a challenge for me and my telescopery. At 208x it becomes apparently binary. I have heard of it being split at much lower powers. But I don't fool around on it anymore. At 416x I can see two stars, fer sure.

To get a look at Alpha Pisces above the Celtis laevigata and Vitis mustangensis one has to wait awhile these days. So it was around 3:30 when Alpha Pisces got high enough to espy. Here again, I had to resort to 400x plus to identify a binary, not easy with a hand guided mount. Actually, I might be able to split it at something less than 400, but the appropriate eps weren't comparitively handy.

Mainly, the multiple stars I like are the colorful ones that can be espied at fairly low magnifications. A fair example is Struve 163, very pretty red and blue stars at 80x.

All told these were the multiples espied. Some are repeats. Pie aquila, Epsilon pegasi, 57 Aquila, Alpha capricornis, beta capricornis, 54 Sagittarius, 35 Piscis, Zeta Piscis, Alpha Piscis, Iota Cassiopeia, Struve 163 and Psi Cassiopeia.

Sedge Buster - Eleocharis Achene Parts

All righty then. I have always desired to converse with an Eleocharis achene. I have some questions. Monsieur or Madamoiselle Achene, do you feel up to answering some questions posed by the Crumby Ovate?

Yepper do, Crumby, ask away.

All righty then. What do you use that great big tubercle for?

What tubercle?

Er, your most anterior portion.

That's my head.

All righty then, what do you use your head for?

What does my head remind you of Crumby?

Dang it, I'm the inquisitor here, not you. Stop that.

Stop what?

Stop asking me questions.

Oh my Crumby, it's OK for you to ask me questions, but I can't ask you questions too.

Dang it. All righty then, your head reminds me of a simple machine known generally as a wedge.

Very good Crumby. So then I would naturally use my head to wedge in or out, maybe.

In or out of what, achene?

Why dirt Crumby, generally, or sometimes out of a ducks asshole.

That's very interesting achene. That's actually what I thought.

Then why did you ask, Crumby?

Well of course I wanted you, a talking achene, to confirm my suspicions.

All righty then, Crumby, do you need any more of your thoughts confirmed.

Yepper achene, one more. What are your bristles with retrose hooks for?

You tell me, Crumby.

Er. Achene, you use 'em to hang on to stuff with.

So then Crumby, why do you name them bristles and not arms?

All righty then, the bristles are your arms actually. Was I correct?

Sometimes Crumby, but often I use them for leverage when I am wedging along to assist in wedging.

Cool! Thank you very much for discussing yourself with me today, Achene.

You are welcome, Crumby.

Raymone's Plant du Jour - Physostegia correllii

Physostegia correllii is a new arrival at the CB. Monsieur Red hasn't taught it to talk yet. We have two plants currently ensconced in a temporary habitat area that requires daily attention, watering, to keep them from dying. They like lots of water.

The two we have were branches on their parent plant six weeks or so ago. Now they're big plants about two feet tall. That would indicate that Physostegia correllii can be readily propagated from cuttings. No matter that I have produced thousands of baby plants from cuttings, I am always amazed every time the process actually works. It's like getting cool plants for free, almost, with almost no work, almost.

Anyway, these cuttings that are now regular plants were made from wild plants recently.

The pictures around here somewhere show the new infloresence with the very first P. correllii flower ever seen at the CB.

The second is a closeup. I kept trying to find the stamens when I took the close up picture, but finally gave up. Where are the stamens?

Ray's Thought for the Day

As has been noted many times in this venue, at the CB we recycle. Just taking a random picture here in the laboratory reveals many recycled items. But none of us like to clean out refrigerators. So when the refrigerator got cleaned out after about a decade interval of not getting cleaned out, those two plastic whiskey bottles were uncovered in the refrigerator somewhere. One of them contains a Potassium nitrate solution and the other one contains an Indole-3 butyric acid solution. But notice that the Indole-3 butyric acid solution container could indicate a Potential Safety Topic, Environmental Hazard. What if someone guzzled the contents up, thinking it was Old Crow? Ha! Wouldn't that human or proto human get a surprise!

I can hear 'em holler, "This hyer Old Crow don't taste right."

"Noper it don't, maybe. But it'll make yer root grow." I'd holler back.
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And, that little rain storm Crumby harbingered up, maybe, left six tics in the guage.

And then, the rain came!

Whoa! It just rained really hard for maybe 15 minutes, the first rain in a good long while. The lesser goldfinches and the house finches, meantime, are enjoying the delicious sunflower seeds that managed to come to fruition despite the ferocious drought in these parts. Praise the Goddess.

What's happening elsewhere on our little orbiting globe? Er, Christians, Muslims and Jews, oh my! They'll be at it to the end. Watch out for the Wicker Man.

Ray's Thought for the Day

Dang it. I hit my pointer finger with a staple hammer. Lucky for me, I hit it early on. I sure would have been aggravated if I had hit my finger on the last post. Actually, the more I think about it, and I can do that, think today, because it's cloudy and a tad cooler, the First Law of Manual Labor spells, "Hurt yourself early on, then work it off." That's what I did, automatically, without mentally referencing the First Law. Only now, when it's cooler, do I reflect upon the First Law. Stealthy, eh. Uh oh, Ogma is blazing forth. Got to shut down again, mentally.

Crumby's Telescope Tomfoolery Notes

Yepper. Progress, even good progress transpired tonight, Praise the Goddess. Many heavenly bodies were espied, yea verily that needed espying in that part of the heavens formerly espied by me with the eyes of an ignoramus. These are the multiple stars espied in the several constellations visited in order of visitation: a very attractive one in Cepheus, but I don't know its name yet, Struve 2816 in Cepheus, 8 Lacerta, Epsilon Pegasi?, 94 Aqaurii, Yikes! Zeta Aquarii takes some high power, 65 Piscium and Psi Piscium. I would have espied some more, but high clouds moved in from the southwest. Perhaps they preface rain, maybe. The CB needs rain way more that it needs Tomfoolery.

I continue to appreciate my new flashlight. It is definitely the finest flashlight I have ever come across. Yawn, the Ample Bosoms beckon.

Institutional Stupidity

Off I went in an easterly direction. Look over there. A big tractor is mowing the 3" high weed lawn at the grade school. Whoa! The tractor is raising a big cloud of dust. Oh well. It's the commonplace little things that bring on the Wicker Man. But hey, the planet will orbit along , when you are gone bye-bye.

Public school grounds are good places to find odd little weeds that are resistant to trampling and utterly hopeless maintenance practices. Many of these odd little weeds are the same ones that are adapted to sidewalk cracks.

Ray's Thought for the Day

Today, I must drink plenty of water and avoid exertion, especially, mental exertion. The mentally wore out are easy prey for the Wicker Man. Praise the Goddess.

Crumby's Telescope Tomfoolery Notes and Addendum

Much time has elapsed during the three intervals I have suffered through attempting to espy Struve 1785. Tonight at last I found a double in the general neighborhood of Struve 1785. The twain components were about 177 degrees in the newt and split about right for a 3 arc second double at 178x. But the colors did not jive. With the 25 Ortho the thing looked yellowish, but with the 7mm Ortho I got no hint of red or orange. Instead I got white and maybe a very pale yellow. So I may have been on the wrong dang double. I have had more trouble with Struve 1785 than with 50 other multiples put together. Aggravating. But Praise the Goddess I shall soon recline upon the Ample Bosoms to close out a weary day.

Addendum: The hour preceeding Ogma's appearance.

The day follows hard upon the preceeding day and away we go, in orbit.

Strange it is, fer me, venturing forth into the semi-stygian darkness. "Look toward the west Crumby, what do you espy?" I remarked out loud. Whoa! There's some bright stars over yonder, and I actually know names, fer 'em, thanks to Telescope Tomfoolery. They're the same ones that were overhead just awhile back, previous to my adventures upon the Ample Bosoms. And off to the east are a bunch of ones I have not learned for various reasons. But right behind those new ones are ones I learned about at the very first nonce of Telescope Tomfoolery, like Alpha Tauri and the Pleiades. Praise the Goddess.

All righty then, the moon is waning and we are in one of our terrible droughts with no clouds ever, dewpoints a thing of the past. It is always hot, even in the early morning. Much Tomfoolery promises anon.

I have a plan. The plan is to quit the Ample Bosoms at 3:30 AM so that all the telescopery apparatii may be properly ordered by no later than 4 AM. Then the east shall be perused employing that same telescopery apparatii for as many mornings as it takes to carefully espy all the celestial wonders that may be espied in Cetus, Eriadnus, Auriga and whatever other ones are over that way. That's the plan. Praise the Goddess. I need to remember to watch out for the Wicker Man though.

Too Much BS, locally

Yepper. Sweetwater Glen. I took the best picture that one could take of this new development, envrironmentally spelling, from the best picture taking vantage along Manchaca Road that I could assay in relative safety. My picture has the big trees that were spared.

I go past this location two or three days a week on business of my own and every time I go that way, I see that sign. Where's the sweetwater? Where's the glen? Too mucho BS. How has our tolerance of such lying bullshit language evolved?

Ray's Thought for the Day

Today, I must remember to drink plenty of water and avoid exertion. Praise the Goddess.
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Crumby's Telescope Tomfoolery Note for the morning.

Dang it! The environment was excessively polluted at 4 AM. I need to calm down and watch out for the Wicker Man. Praise the Goddess.

Crumby's Telescope Tomfoolery Notes

Sometimes you can get so excited, you just wear yourself out. That's what happened to me, probably, last night. I had many great stargazing plans, but alas, failed to arise from the Ample Bosoms at the appointed time which was 3 AM. Instead, Ogma caught me still abed. Doubtless, that new flashlight over stimulated me and conked me out. So for the previous date there is nothing to report except some boring technical information in addition to the manufacture of the light shield as discussed previously this morning.

The additional boring technical information is that I have, after long effort, located a slightly used 6mm University Optics orthoscopic eyepiece. It is going to be mailed to the CB tomorrow, Praise the Goddess. When it arrives I shall have the 6, 7, 9, 12.5 and 25mm plus a 16mm Konig by the same telescopery manufacturing/procurement firm, UO. Needless to say, I want the 6mm because I heartily approve of all the others, and believe that the 6mm will improve my quality of life as did the rest of those eps.

Ray's Thoughts for the Day

We're having a heat wave, a tropical heat wave. La, la.

All righty then. The Kinglet needs to declare a War on Heat. Then he can go on the TV and holler, "Bring on the heat."

At this very moment, the CB thermometer reads 98 in the shade. And the Kinglet is doing nothing except making it hotter. War Kinglet. Lead us to war on heat. You can do it. We'll follow a man like you, panting like dogs, sweating like, er, whatever.

Or if you're not man enough to declare War on Heat, how about an electric bill rebate, or, a red popsickle sounds cooling and delicious. Kinglet, fetch me a red popsickle.

Guess what? The Kinglet aint going to fetch me a popsickle, Goddess Get 'Em. No, the Kinglet's off in foreign parts entertaining the foreigners with democracy jokes.

Oh, and spelling of foreign parts, does Halliburton and Subsidiaries have a Beirut branch? Yikes, The Lebanon is going to need its infrastructure rebuilt, virtually. Boom!

Plastic Pots by C. Ovate, R. Pistrum and R. Pistrum, LDR

At the CB we find a great many uses for plastic pots, the ones plants may come in from your friendly retail nursery. Here are some of the different ones we have accumulated at the CB. From left to right that's a three gallon, a one gallon, a six inch and a four inch. They also come in much bigger sizes, five, ten and even fifty gallon ones, and variously littler sizes but the ones littler than four inches are usually combined into a group and called a tray. There are a good many different tray types and these are identifiable by the number of cells per tray which are actually little pots fused together. All these trays with their different numbers of cells have their uses, but that is not today's very important and interesting subtopic.

Today's subtopic is, what you can do with the useful plastic pots once the plants are out of them. Here are some of the many uses we put them to at the CB.

1. Temporary repositories for alien weeds we have pulled up.

2. Outdoor trash cans.

3. Temporary decorative Buda limestone holders.

4. Stump regrowth inhibitors. When we cut down an unwanted invasive tree we invert an appropriately sized pot over the stump and the pot keeps the stump from resprouting.

5. One can, of course, put new plants into the useful pots.

6. Party hats.

7. And we make artifacts out of them. For example, the faceplate for the laser collimator we use to confirm collimation of the Newtonian telescope was cut from a yellow four inch pot. Nearby, is a picture of a light shield we made from a five gallon pot. It helps keep unwanted light from getting into the telescope tube and aggravating us. All one has to do is cut the walls of a five gallon so the little end has a 10 inch inner diameter, then staple the cut together and tape it over with electric tape. You may notice that without the light shield, the telescope focuser is only about five inches from the end of the telescope and that means the secondary mirror is also only about five inches down the tube.

Ray's This and That

Red Ears Proprietor mentions that many of the CB botanical little wonders are going into heat/drought dormancy. And many of the ones that aren't, tell Red, they wish they could.

My sister, Rayetta, LDR, spells that based on her experience so far with me, she is going to write a book entitled, "How to Become a Sun God, for Dummies". Very funny, Rayetta. That joke ran its course when Heck was a pup.

Crumby is driving everyone nuts with telescope tomfoolery. Last night he was out until one o'clock and when he came in, he started hollering, and woke everyone up. Apparently, he was all excited about his new flashlight. That new flashlight had already caused a fuss when Crumby thought it was broke out of the package and he figured it needed to go back to Target. But then Rayetta read the directions and put the batteries in correctly so the flashlight worked, all righty then, Praise the Goddess.

And spelling of the Crumby Ovate, here he is now. Surely Crumby, I would have surmised you to be abed resting upon the Ample Bosoms.

Noper. I woke up in the neighborhood of 4:30 AM, and espying that the eastern sky was clear, I headed on out. What's fer breakfast, Ray?

Nutty nuggets with milk and a nectarine or blueberries.

All righty then. Move on over, Ray. I got to do my Tomfoolery Notes before breakfast.

Crumby's Telescope Tomfoolery Notes

I got this really cool new flashlight at Target. It comes with red and blue filters that a knowledgable person may alternatively clamp over the business end. I used the red one to protect my night vision, both last night and this morning, already. Later, I shall have Raymone take a picture of my very interesting new flashlight.

Hark, I have been at Tomfoolery sufficiently long enough, so that now I have espied the Pleiades in the evening sky and in the morning sky. How goofy is that? Earlier than right now I arose and went outside and beheld the Pleiades among a myriad of other celestial wonders. The clouds were nowhere to be espied. Expeditiously the telescopery was assembled and I quickly focused in on Aries, for the dawn was to be anon. Expeditiously, Gamma and Lambda Arietis succumbed to my perusal. Er, I sure am sleepy. It may be time for a nap upon the Ample Bosoms.

All righty then, clearly, Telescope Tomfoolery falls within the purview of the Druid Maxim, "If ye got awhile, it takes awhile." For it takes awhile for the globe upon which many of us are situated to position itself properly for my viewing pleasure.
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Later
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Check out my new flashlight. It is constructed primarily from rugged aluminum. It has nine bulbs that are supposed to last a thousand years. The light beam is so bright that it could guide a great ship through the Straits of Hormuz even with the Straits of Hormuz beset by stygian darkness and the great ship captained by a drunkard beset with the blind staggers.

Check out that red filter. Check out the blue filter leaning up against the linen tester. As you can see, by comparing my new flashlight to the armadillo skull which has all the occipital bones present as you may note), this new flashlight is a midget as flashlights go. It's so little it fits in the cigar box with my zoom eyepiece and my five University Optics eyepieces which is very handy. But it's also tough. I already abused it, accidentally. It can take a lick or two.

However, when one uses a red filter to prevent being blinded by the light, the red filter reduces ones ability to find pink dots. One has to look really closely for any pink dots one may wish to espy. I almost had a panic attack when I couldn't find some important pink dots on the star maps. But then I said to myself, "Crumby, that red filter on the new flashlight could be adversely impacting the pink dots." So that's when I stopped fixing to panic and just looked more carefully for the pink dots. No problemo, there they were. They were yellow, sort of.

The only other potential drawback to my new flashlight is that I may not be able to put in the batteries correctly by myself. Get this, the dang thing operates on three 3A batteries. Two of the batteries go positive end up towards the business end, and one of the batteries faces the other way. But get this, the two positive ones can only work if they are inserted properly in their own personal slots and the other battery occupies its own special slot. I never heard of such a thing. Plus, if you have just one battery inserted the wrong way or inserted in the wrong slot, my new flashlight won't light up. Someone made me tape the flashlight instructions to the underside lid of my eyepiece cigar box. Praise the Goddess.

Ray's Thought for the Day - Passiflora lutea

Just the other day some of us were talking about the little woodland passion flowers and I was whining about how I never see any of them blooming. Well today when I went over to get my delicious cinnamon bun I decided to check out an old fence row that many moons past demarcated a cow pen. This is located a little ways north of the Cow Barn and both Crumby and me, Ray, are want to go over there and collect interesting plants or plant parts. Today, as I absent mindedly collected Rivina humilis seed along that fencerow I happened to notice Passiflora lutea entwined in the fence and climbing on up into a Celtis laevigata way high. There were lotsa flowers, buds and fruit, but the fruit's not ripe yet.

So after I went on back to the CB and ate my delicious cinnamon bun, I took Raymone and the twain girlfriends back on over to the fencerow to get some pictures. Here the pictures are somewhere.

Here they are. These have much smaller flowers than the previously featured P. foetida. This flower is smaller than a half dollar coin.

This lateral view shows just how uni-erotic passion flowers are, hence the vulgar name, passion flower. See, it has its sex organs stuck out every which away and even its ovary is a mother superior.

There it goes along climbing 10 feet and more up into the tree. Even in this terrible heat and drought it's roaring along when most everything else, has pinched up. Look at all that passion fruit. Praise the Goddess.

Crumby's Telescope Tomfoolery Notes and Addendum

Tonight I was going to stay up and gaze at the northeast part of the sky, but the clouds got in the way again. Earlier though I espied M6 and M7, plus the Lagoon and Trifid nebulas in Saggitarius. For some reason I could see the nebulosity really well tonight before the moon came up. That Orion Ultrablock filter is turning out to be right handy for nebulosity. Tonight was the most nebulosity I have ever seen outside of Orion. I could see the nebulosity even without the filter.

But then as soon as I turned around to look the other way, the clouds covered up the northeast quadrant about when the stars I wanted to espy were getting up high enough. One night closer. Patience is no virtue. It's off to the Ample Bosoms, Praise the Goddess.
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Special Movie Review

We went to see the new pirate movie. The movie theater doubles as a restaurant and serves up a delicious hamburger with swiss cheese on it. Also, they have Negra Modelo, the best commercial ale you can get in these parts. I had both a hamburger and a Negra Modelo while enjoying the pirate movie.

The pirate movie was very interesting because Davy Jones had an octopus for a head and all Davy Jones' crew had fish, crustacean, mollusc or echinoderm parts attached. It was lotsa fun figuring out what Phylum the different crew members primarily belonged to. And, a giant squid-like animal, some sort of mollusc, attacked everyone. I only got bored very briefly during a couple of the chase scene/sword fights. It is very unusual for me to be relatively still and seated for anywhere near that long, 2.5 hours, without getting bored and aggravated. So give that particular pirate movie three big coyote yips.
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Addendum

But lo I was awakened from repose upon the Ample Bosoms by the need to perform a certain ablution common to Druids and upon completion of my ablution I said to myself, "Crumby, you are erect and bushy-tailed, ye might as well go outside and look around." So that's what I did do, head out into the stygian darkness, a stygian darkness lit up only by wasteful electric night lights, the moon, and airplanes zooming aloft, blinking, plus a few other sources of light that need not be detailed in this venue. Once my eyes adjusted to the stygian darkness of the east pasture and my sensory apparati focused in on the heavens, I noticed that the very quadrant of the night sky that I was very interested in was naked of clouds and all those newly arrived heavenly bodies were laid bare to my keen, spectacle enhanced vision.

The area of the naked night sky of interest stretched from Cassiopeia to a little ways short of the moon and almost to the CB zenith. Expeditiously, I gathered up the many telescopery items required and positioned all these items so that they should be handy. For a while I couldn't figure out what was what and the dawn would come anon in a couple of hours or a little more. "Good Goddess," I whined, "hep me, please, please, hep me."

Then the merciful White Goddess had pity on Her ovate and focused me in on two stars, to whit, Alnach and Mirach belonging to the Lady Andromeda and otherwise known as Alpha and Beta Andromeda. Once I focused in on those two, all the other stars patterned up around those two. All righty then, Praise the Goddess. Ye know the Lady Andromeda was also attacked by a sea creature of an undetermined phyla, come to think of it, so that's the movie review connection.

Working from the bottom up, binaries espied were Struve 331 and Eta Persei, then Alnach and Iota 6 Trianguli. Triangulum is troubling on account of its too long of a triangle to fit in the 8x50 binoculars or the 9x60 finder. Or so it seemed to me.

All these are very nice mutiple stars and I felt very fortunate to espy them all. Hark though, the Andromeda galaxy was visible in the binoculars so I decided to look at that galaxy awhile. The Andromeda galaxy is the finest galactic smudge visible in the night sky from the CB.

Then the cloudy curtain was drawn while I was negotiating around in Aries so I didn't get to look around much in those parts, but I did figure out the disposition of Aries, Cetus and Pisces, all very promising constellations. And, of course, above all that was Pegasus, the flying horse, galloping along.

If you fool around with Cartes du Ciel, the most cool, free, electric star chartery, you can set the thing up so that Pegasus gallops along, virtually, on the computer screen. What will those clever Gauls think of next?

Surely, all those known and liked had a Happy Bastille Day just like the Crumby Ovate.

Too Much BS

Many of the problems in the Middle East which are fixing to get even lots worse for those staying in those parts, if that's possible, could be superficially addressed by moving the State of Israel somewhere else. That is, pick up and move the whole shebang, artifacts and all, right down to every antique pot shard, brick-a-brack or whatever of the Wailing Wall, plus Goliath's tomb. Everything!

South Florida would be a good spot to move it all to. Miami Beach could be the new capital and it could be renamed whatever. Then all the artifacts and such could be set up out in the adjacent swamp somewhere. Jumpin' Jehoshophat, real estate values would go through the roof, a south Florida realtor's dream come true.

What a tourist attraction the State of Israel, Florida, would be! All the knucklehead Christians could flock to the Holy Land without having to leave the neighborhood, hardly. Everyone in Florida could get rich servicing the tourists. It would be way bigger than Graceland. Maybe all of Florida could become a sort of combo State of Israel, Florida, theme park, dinner theater and golf course.

All righty then, we could move the Cow Barn to Florida and set up an Ezekiel's Wheel scary ride.

Ray's Thought for the Day

Whoa! Sedge buster! I plumb forgot about sedge buster. Perhaps we shall perform a sedge buster, anon.
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Later
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Eleocharis We started this a while back, but got interrupted by an adventure.

Eleocharis montevidensis. Spikelet. Note the hyaline scale margins that on this one are rounded at the top. The body of the the scale is generally reddish brown. This one is the most common of the spikerushes in these parts. The usual common name is bar-ditch spikerush.

Here's some different age achenes. Stigmas 2 or 3, take your pick. Bristles present, you betchum.

Crumby is Ready, Maybe

Jeez Louise. I just sat down in my nice chair after a hard day of pushin' dirt around and I sat on a fork. Moreover it's my work fork that I use to dig little holes in the dirt. I brought it home in my hip pocket because I forgot it was there, then I sat on it. It's a very nice fork. Er. Since we've run out of plants to take pictures of, and I'm too goofy to get a good picture of Jupiter, perhaps Raymone can take a picture of this fork. Forks are sort of interesting.
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Later
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No, no, no, change the plans. No fork photos. We must go to rest upon the Ample Bosoms instead, for patience is no virtue and there's no way I'm gonna wait weeks to see heavenly bodies at 10 PM that I may now, this very night, espy at 3 AM. So I must arise Phoenix-like from peaceful rest upon Her Ample Bosoms at, er, around 2 AM, maybe. So now it's off to repose upon the Bosoms.

The dang hummingbirds are foraging still. Fer Goddess Sakes, it's after 8 PM.
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Much later
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It's 4 AM of the next morning approximately. I arose from repose upon the Ample Bosoms around 2 AM. Out I went into the moonlit stygian darkness with only a dog for company. I had to explain to the dog that if she barked anymore she would have to go back in the house. This particular dog understands a lot of Druidese so she didn't bark anymore after the first few barks.

Expeditiously we set up all the telescopery in two shakes of a lamb's tail. But lo the stars were strange from the zenith to the east. Lyra was upside down for Goddess Sakes. So we needed to get orientated as the moron high school principal used to state over the school intercom every morning.

All righty then. What looks sort of familiar? There's Cassiopeia off to the northeast. There's Fomalhaut below the moon off to the south. Yikes! Er, what's all these others?

Uh oh. The dewpoint has dewpointed and the clouds are massing in the south. Uh, oh here come the clouds. But ere the cloudy curtain was drawn, we espied part of Pegasus maybe. Jeez Louise, that's a big horse. And Perseus too, we espied, maybe, east and down from Cassiopeia.

Learning all these new ones, with few bright ones to steer by, will be interesting.

During the telscopery session which was actually more of a binocular session, a scouting expedition as it were, there was a flash of light and a loud pop off to the north indicating that a transformer blew up over there somewhere. So a bunch of humans and proto humans won't have any electric stuff right now including their air conditioners. Then right after the transformer blew up, a bunch of trucks started sireening around. Gee whillikers. I sure hope nothing bad happened to anyone I know and like.

Ray's Thoughts for the Day

Reckon how Crumby tells Jovian moons from stars! I'll have to get on him about that.

What's the difference between having a positive attitude and a whatever attitude? Easy that, let's consider an example. A bunch of ignoramuses go off to enviropreneur camp and do ring dubs as instructed on how to by the camp managers. The enviropreneur camp managers tell them how swell they all are and what positive attitudes they now have about the environment because they did ring dubs, a group activity indicating sociability. The rest of us, who get to suffer from the pollution the positive attitudes eventually engender, are the whatevers.

Crumby's Telescope Tomfoolery Notes

The moon didn't arise above the horizon until just a little while ago. Goodness gracious the moon was bright. Behind and above the moon is Neptune. But I did not assay to espy Neptune through the moon glow. Instead, the wily Crumby Ovate did his stargazing pre-moonrise. Yepper, for the clever CO missed 57 Aquila on his first hunt for that particular binary. This time I carefully triangulated from that star in Aquila that hangs below Altair, the bottom one, and alpha and beta Capricornis to find 57. What threw me the first time around was I didn't realize how low 57 was and didn't have those Capricorn stars for reference points. Those Capricorn binaries are neat too, if rather too far apart. Besides alpha and beta there's a bunch of interesting doubles, three at least, just south of beta, you can espy, maybe. I espied two of em. Then also, to get fired up, I looked at Rasgeliath (sp) again. It's a real good one. Also the two Jovian moons closest to Jove, that some call Jupiter, looked to be almost the same distance from Jupiter and in the same orbit almost. That was cool.

Actually, I have been fairly excited all evening by more than telescopery tomfoolery for one of the Otus asio that stays around the CB flew up to the back door of the domicile and snatched some unlucky bug or lizard or some such right of the plate glass while I was pinking doubles on my star maps. Then the dang owl just flew on over to the next to closest to the back door tree in the pecan orchard and ate supper. I saw the whole event for the porch light was on. The owl was a gray one. Actually, I espied that owl with my peripheral vision earlier in the evening hunting around in the grass up by the porch. So as you may see, I have had a very interesting evening. In addition to all the above, I got to holler at everyone to come see the owl and everyone saw it except for the slow pokes.

Reckon how long it will be before the owl starts coming in the house.

Ray's Thought for the Day

Rumpler is abroad. Surprise! Ooooh. Once upon a time when I was in public school and walked home every day, a distance of 1.5 miles, and stopped along the way to play some basketball, delaying my return to Dr. Swineherd's orphanage, I discovered that the jostling of the basketball capers had loosened me up, so that as I wandered alone in the general direction of the orphanage I had an accident. The accident was that I verily shitted my pants a wonderful amount. Surprise!

The connecting theme here is underwear. Rumpler likes to wear underwear upon his noggin as a symbol of his great authority. I had to change out my underwear.

Ray’s Thought for the Day

I am the about the luckiest Druid and sun god trainee ever, maybe. Let me count all my blessings.

1) two beautiful only marginally annoying girlfriends

2) an exceptionally smart sister, occasionally annoying and dangerous

3) a bosom companion, also sometimes annoying and dangerous

4) a nice place to stay until I move into my palace

5) interesting friends and associates at the CB

6) a cinnamon bun every Saturday

Hmmm. Er, Crumby, what are your blessings?

Today Ray, I can smell. I smelled epazote. It was wonderful. There was I, smelling the wonderful aroma of the Chenopode par excellence.

Er, that’s it.

Noper Ray. Last night, Antares split in the Newt, so that I could espy the little companion in the 7:30 direction using the 18mm X-Cel and the Tele Vue 3x barlow for a total magnification of 208.333 x.

Er, that’s it.

Noper Ray. I have lots more blessings. I’m a Druid for one thing and that’s the best it can get in this plane on this sphere. Praise the Goddess.

Me too, Crumby, I’m a Druid. So why do I need to be a sun god if being a Druid is so hot?

Beats me off, Ray. Ask the Goddess or the Arkdruid.

How about if I also ask the Arkdruid about what ye just spelled Crumby?

Whatever, Ray. I can smell fer the nonce, or at least I could a little while ago. So if the Arkdruid makes me sleep on the cow hides some more, that's OK. Those cow hides may be the reason I can smell today. Could be, yepper. Praise the Goddess.

All righty then. Praise the Goddess.

All righty then. Praise the Goddess.

It sure was hot and windy today Crumby.

Yepper.

That little bit of gulf moisture we got last week is toast.

Yepper. We (collectively considered) sure are making things hot and dry.

Yepper.

How to Tell the CB Wild Ryes Apart, by C. Ovate

The Width of the Glumes

Many moons ago when I first began to study grasses, (early Druid training and the first plant family I was interested in), I relied upon “The Grasses of Texas” by Frank W. Gould to help me learn about the grasses. I still use that book quite a bit. I like it a lot, though, I must say, one can spend a lot of time figuring stuff out, due to typos in the keys. But nowadays my copy has those typos all corrected, maybe, and also features some interesting ancient commentary I made when I finally discovered that there were typos. For example, on p. 545 of my copy there is the spell, asshole, written in red pencil along with two big red ovals and arrows indicating how to correct for the typos by redistributing the text inside the red ovals to alternative locations as indicated by the arrows.

In addition to the typos, Dr. Gould’s lingo was sometimes confusing to the presumptive graminoidologist. An example:
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Glumes strongly bowed out at base

vs.

Glumes not or only slightly bowed out at base
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Hmmm. I said to myself once upon a time long ago. Whut the heck?

Here’s a picture nearby of what Dr. Gould was trying to communicate to me in his key. The glumes of an Elymus virginicus are on the left, those of E. canadensis are on the right.

Here’s a couple of mature infloresences for comparison.

Once the book cover falls apart you can use the spine cover part of it, for a bookmark. It took awhile, plus long term abuse, for this iteration to enter the book mark phase of book cover existence.
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Later
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Say Crumby, wasn't there a novel spelled "The Width of the Glumes"?

Maybe Ray. Then also there was one spelled "Glume House", maybe.

Ray's Thought for the Day - Buda Limestone

See. It's like I spelled yesterday. This chunk of Buda Limestone is somewhat orange and somewhat fossiliferous. You may wonder how a relatively small pig, such as myself in this particular transformation, can tote around such large chunks. Easy that, magnetism. I insert a magnet into my rectum and the magnet turns me into a super pig.

Raymone's Plant du Jour

All righty then. Ye have yer Anisicanthus, yer Ruellia, a Justicia that aint flowering yet, a Justicia not located at the CB and now, Dicliptera brachiata of the Acanthaceae.

Hi there. I'm Dicliptera brachiata. My flower depicted nearby, had to be magnified a significant amount. Right Raymone?

Oui.

The Druids like us because they believe we help them with their St. Augustine weed problem. We indeedy do just that, much like our big cousin, Ruellia. Our normal habitat is shady terraces and partial shade wood margins in these parts. We grow like crazy from seed.

Crumby's Telescope Tomfoolery Notes

As the weatherpersons would say, a ridge of high pressure is building into the area. Ridges of high pressure in these parts can last for months during the hottest parts of the annual trip around Ogma. Many enjoy the ridges for meteroic conditions induced by the ridges allow them to bask under Ogma, unmolested by rain, and do aquatic recreational activities and golf. The aquatic recreational activities take a toll of the unwary as the waters shallow, but few of the golfers are struck by lightning.

The agricultural minded are less enthusiastic about the ridges. However, now that telescope tomfoolery has interested me, I find it slightly easier to put up with the ridges. One pattern I have noticed, that may not qualify as a pattern, is that as the moon waxes, so do the ridges. So on clear nights the tomfool must contend with a very bright waxing moon. Such was the nonce of the preceeding eve.

Out went the Crumby Ovate into the stygian darkness of the east pasture. Actually, it was broad daylight when I took the Newt out to the east pasture because it needs time to thermal adjust and must be collimated. But later, out went the Crumby Ovate into the stygian moonlit darkness of the east pasture, armed cap-a-pie. Due to the ferocity of the skeeters, the Crumby Ovate had to beat a retreat and go get his denim jacket. Out went the Crumby Ovate. The Crumby Ovate began to sweat for it was verily hot as Beelzebub's theoretical domain. The Crumby Ovate had to go back in the CB domicile to find some telescopery he forgot and have a delicious raspberry soda to cool off with.

At last though, out went the Crumby Ovate to enjoy the many celestial wonders that awaited.

I really, really, really want a nice picture of Jupiter and associated moons. So I worked on that awhile employing the Newt. The trouble is, I can't in-line focus the digital adequately or something like that. Plus there may be the problem of too much glass between me and Jupiter. But I shall persist. Maybe, some night absent the bright moon in close proximity, and absent the whipping hot wind, I shall succeed, maybe.

Then my attention was grabbed by Cygnus' left wing, that part of the left wing that an ornithologist, or anyone familiar with one of the many interesting Topography of a Bird illustrations, might refer to as the bird's wrist, to which the primary feathers are attached. Indeed that is the location of the star Delta Cygnus which demarcates the Swan's wrist. Going out from the wrist along the primaries, one finds Theta Cygnus and nearby 16 Cygnus, after some effort, maybe.

Boring Technical Thoughts

Two eps incluced among the CB telescopery are 12.5 and 18mm X-Cels which seldom get any use because they are big and clunky and don't work as well in the Maks as orthos. But I surmised they might do OK in the Newt. So I wanted to test them out because I think about vending them a lot. I would have vended them already, but the 18mm redeemed itself one day in the microscope.

They did all right, but not super. Both Pi Aquilae and Delta Cygnus split with 12.5mm and 2x Ultima. That's 1250/12.5 x 2. 16 Cygni is easy at 36 arcseconds so the 18mm can do that handily unbarlowed. Course the 25mm Lomo plossl can too.

The stupid Blinking Planetary Nebula is near 16 Cygni. It's one of the planetary nebula that can be espied from this location since it's bright enought to shine through all the pollution. I looked at it again since I was in the neighborhood. Then there's the very pretty 30, 31 stars above Deneb. Those are worth espying.

I wanted to stay up longer, for Andromeda, but the cow hides beckoned and the haze increased. Ray and me get to sleep in the house tonight, the Arkdruid's wrath having run its course.

Ray's Thought for the Day

All righty then. The underlying substrate of some of the CB is Buda limestone. Buda limestone oxidizes readily and turns orange. Some of it has fossils, but mostly the hunks of it I look at don't have any fossils. But today I was hauling around hunks of it because they needed to go somewhere else. Someday when I am a famous sun god, instead of just a sun god trainee, everyone will spell that Sun God Ray moved those hunks of Buda limestone around and his touch on them was so hot, they turned orange and one day he created a hunk of Buda limestone that had fossils in it. Then someone may say, here is that very hunk of Buda limestone that Ray put the fossils in. This very hunk with the fossils is proof of Sun God Ray's existence.

Dang it Ray! Just because you learned a new word, tautology, doesn't mean you have to do a tautology in all yer dang spells.

Course not Crumby, I'll get tired of 'em eventually. But they amuse me very much fer the time being.

Yepper, they can be amusing, or not. Er Ray, can I crowd in with some telescope tomfoolery here? I have little to report for the skies have been non-conducive to telescope tomfoolery of recent evenings.

Why certainly Crumby, I am worn out from toting hunks around. So much so that my poor fingers are so aggravated that I can barely spell fer the nonce, anyhow.

All righty then.

All righty then.

Crumby's Telescope Tomfoolery Notes

Okie Dokie. Here's a picture of the moon somewhere from night before last. That's about all I have done all week long with the telescopery. It's been cloudy at night a whole lot. Oh, I toted the Newtonian outside one day and collimated it, but then I just had to tote it back into the human and proto human living quarters.

There's a Thryothorus ludovicianus that comes in the living quarters every day. He likes to sit up on the Newts finder scope and sing. Invariably though, he also takes a dump on the finder scope. So now the Newt finder scope is covered in bird shit. I try to keep it cleaned off, but that particular wren is a regular shit factory operating on a three shift, seven day a week schedule. Lucky fer that wren, this is a Druid household and he's a good singer.

Leucocoprismus fragilissimus

Leucocoprismus fragilissimus. Sometimes you go outside in the morning and the dang faeries have been a runnin' and a jumpin' all over. You can tell by the faerie ring. Here's one of the particpants in a faerie ring this morning. These can vanish in the wink of an eye. Can you say ephemeral?

It's a New Month at the CB

Yepper, actually the new month started yesterday, so it runs from July 8 - August 4 of the Julian. Er, let's see. What shall I be? Er, all righty then. I am a nail in a tin roof fer heat and the CB tree fer I am a nail in a tin roof fer heat is Chasmanthium latifolium.

Chasmanthium latifolium. Here I am in the pecan orchard. I have long since kicked the shit out of all the introduced weeds and now I am totally dominant here. However, when I briefly go dormant in the winter the sedges and buttercups become apparent under me. They have their days, I have mine.

We Chasmanthiums are encouraged at the CB because Druids are too lazy to weed fencerows of undersirable introduced alien plants and unwanted native plants. So they encourage us, because they like us and we kick ass. Here we Chasmanthiums go, marching up the south fencerow toward the west, kicking ass right out into Ogma territory. However, we do tolerate associating with plants as big as us, like Elymus canadensis and Malvaviscus arboreus. They just need to watch out. The Panicum virgatum though, pretty much suppresses us in full Ogma territory. But in the pecan orchard, we'd kick its ass. We also kick ass on the east fencerow. However, there we have lotsa competitors as big as us.

You'd think, given our obvious importance, that the ignorant and vulgar among the humans and proto humans could have come up with a better common name, fer us. But no! What do they call us, inland sea oats. How stupid is that? Do ye see any inland seas around? Another more reasonable common name, fer us, is creek oats. That's a tad better, but how about this one. This is one we settled on ourselves. Big Flat Oats. How's that!


Here's one of our fruits sporting around with some human artifacts Red dug up at the CB. The cat's eye marble is historic and the flake is archaic. See, our fruits are big and flat.

The Family Acanthaceae Er One of Em, Anyhow

At the CB we are very fond of the family of plants, Acanthaceae. Acanthaceae is very much a small, manageable family in these parts. An apt scholar could, with lotsa luck, learn all the species of Acanthaceae that habitate in these parts in a summer, about the same amount of time it would take an apt scholar to learn all the herps of the same geography.

We should like all the Acanthaceae species that occur in these parts to grow here at the CB, but we are habitat limited, especially for those ones that like lotsa water, or the ones that like near Beelzebub-arific growing conditions. We're not quite there yet.

This is one of the wet ones we like a lot, especially because of its fanciful scientific name, Justicia americana. Wet indeed! And the name reminds of a popular doggerel of my youth.

Order in the court. The judge is gonna spit. If ye can't swim, ye better get.

Scarlet Patch Caterpillar Survival Documented at the CB

Yesterday we released three scarlet patch caterpillars into the brush edge south of the north pasture. One of them, at least, survived the night. This is it. If you click on the picture you may notice why many would hesitate before eating, it, maybe.

Ray's Thought for the Day - Missiles

You know, for a long time I thought missiles was a synonym for little girls. But those days when I thought that are long since past. These days, now that everyone is praying to their personal god(s) goddess(es) that stray missles or their parts that have fallen off, won't hit me, Ray, and I'm sure those prayers will be answered, maybe, I, Ray have an idea.

Here's my idea. It's what our precious ruling class could do to test our presumptive missile defense system. Our precious ruling class could get in touch with their ruling class buddies in foreign parts that have missles. I suspect these would be mainly British and Israeli ruling class types. Our precious ruling class and the foreign ruling class bunch could maybe have some meetings, mixing business with pleasure at a lovely resort somewhere to set this up, maybe in Dubai. The plan would be for the foreign rulers to authorize shooting their missiles at us. Then we could shoot them down, sometimes, maybe. The result would be happy times for all the rulers who could suddenly buy up all the missile manufacturing capacity they don't own already, knowing in advance that missiles would be in high demand. Our ruling class and the foreign rulers could shoot missiles back and forth, testing our system, until our system was perfect. This could take awhile and could be worth billions to the rulers. Plus, all the ignoramuses everywhere could watch the missiles and anti-missles blow each other up on TV. Only fair, since the ignoramuses would be paying for the missiles, maybe.

My idea would be such a profound boon to the global economy, especially the missile production part of the economy, and also for TV advertising for the fireworks shows, that er, well, it's just inconceivable what could be accomplished in terms of global progress.

For Serious Naturalists, not Dumbasses

Today, we went and visited a great big patch of Anisicanthus wrightii at a place where that species has been increasing over time. Now that big patch harbors a great many scarlet patch butterflies including caterpillars. So three of those caterpillars got moved to the CB to see what they'd do here. We have lots of A. wrightii too so they should do OK unless something eats them. Historically, there was little to no A. wrightii in these parts and little to no scarlet patches either. But with the increasing popularity of A. wrightii as a parking lot shrub, especially at Home Depots, and the opportunity everyone has to make cuttings from the Home Depot A. wrightii, no doubt those A. wrightii are increasing everywhere by leaps and bounds. Hence the arrival of the scarlet patch which habitates on the A. wrightii.

Here's an old female laying eggs. See how beat up her wings are.

And here's a scarlet patch that didn't watch out. That spider is stealthy. Compare its abdomen to the Anisicanthus buds.

Ray's Thoughts for the Day

All righty then. We have now gotten up to 8 tics in the rain guage from this latest surge of gulf moisture. Last night we got over 4 tics. Crumby and me watched the clouds that carried that 4 tics roll in from the east. Easy that, for we were perched upon our steer hides in the shed with little else to do. It was fun to watch the stars wink out as the clouds covered them up. Crumby, of course, couldn't just enjoy the spectacle visually but also kept up a constant blather; "There's Sarik, er, now ye see it, er, now ye don't. There's Altair, er, now ye see it, er, now ye don't. There's Antares, er, now ye see it, er, now ye don't. There's Vega, er, now ye see it, er, now ye don't. There's Deneb, er, now ye see it, er, now ye don't. There's Arcturus, er, now ye see it, er, now ye don't., etc."

Ye may not think so, but Crumby's blather is a very old method of Druid training, much like push ups.

Then again, Red got to watching the TV. But the ladies were on top of him so he couldn't throw much of a tantrum before they made him switch channels. The program that riled Red up apparently starred Joe, the Senator from Tel Aviv, in a debate with a genuine ruling class guy, not just a minion like Joe. Some of our precious ruling class feels bad that the Kinglet they foisted off on us is a crazy nincompoop and his evil ministers are evil and incompetent. So in Connecticut, one of them is running for the senate.

One thing about globalization that is very interesting is the associated failure of nation states. Even the USA shall be suborned.

Ray's Thought for the Day

---- Crumby. Sleeping in the shed on those old cow skins with you snoring away really sucks.

So whut. I have to be out there too. It's not so bad, except for the heat and the skeeters.

Think so Crumby. How about the aroma?

What aroma, Ray?

Great. That's right, you can't smell anything, can you Crumby?

Noper, not under normal circumstances. Occasionally, however my nasalities will miraculously clear for a minute or a month. But usually I can't smell anything.

-----. It aint fair.

Well la de da Ray. Aint ye the prima donna. Ooohhh, it smells so bad. Oooooo.

Shut the ---- up Crumby.

Actually Ray, I saw something extremely interesting today. Do ye wish to know whut?

Sure! Great!

I saw a big old bison that had climbed up in a trailer full of hay. Plus the bison had hay all over the top of his head. Isn't that interesting?

Er! That is interesting. How'd the bison get in the trailer, reckon?

It's a real low trailer, like a gun trailer. I reckon the bison just stepped on up. And the day before that at about the same time there were a bunch of cows around that trailer and one of the calves had climbed on up.

Whoa! Whut the heck! I need to go see this trailer. We ought to take Rayetta too.

All righty then. Tomorrow. Bring yer girlfriends too.

The Arkdruid's Thought for the Day

Gracious sake alive! All righty then. I know somebody that gets to sleep on the steer skin in the shed for awhile.
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Later
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Oh Crum-by, Ra-ay. The Arkdruid wants to visit with yall.

Uh oh. Why hello there Arkdruid. Hey Arkdruid.

Crumby, I understand that you took advantage of my trust to cuss in this venue and also, you led Ray astray and Ray cussed too. Is that correct?

Yepper. Yepper.

What do you have to say for yourselves?

I cussed in this venue because I was overwrought and using a controlled substance.

Me too. It was a tautology thing too. Right Arkdruid?

Yes Ray, tautology is one of the subtopics involved here. But Ray, Crumby, don't you see that if you carry on like you did last night, everyone will think Druids are a bunch of savages.

Er. What's wrong with that Arkdruid?

We should not participate in the general descent into barbarism. We have rules. We have culture. So as punishment you two must take all out all the cussing and sleep in the shed for a week.

All righty then. All righty then.
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Crumby's and Ray's edited spell.
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OK dude. I have distracted the Arkdruid, dude.

Ye did. All righty then.

Don't ye want to know how?

Noper.

--------a man, noper.

Er!

Okie Dokie then. Want to go out Friday and collect some Scarlet Patch larvae?

----- yea, dude. Let's do it.

------- a.

Er. We also got to work up a couple of flats of Ereochola sericea.

-------a man. ------------out of a forncatin' tuba, dude. We need some cupgrass, all righty then.

All righty, -------- a then. Praise the Goddess.

Praise the Goddess.

Er! Crumby?

Yepper Ray.

Let's find some time to go kick some --------------------------..

---------a, all righty then. But let's plan carefully fer the nonce.

All righty then.

All righty then. Martyrs are, fer them.

Ray's Thoughts for the Day

I would like to personally thank everyone who prayed to their personal gods and goddesses on the subtopic, "Please personal god(s) or goddess(es), don't let the North Korean missle hit, Ray." Apparently your prayers worked cause it didn't hit me, and is apparently unlikely to hit me. However, just in case, keep me, Ray, in your prayers. Here's a line you can easily include in your prayers. "Please, personal god(s) or goddess(es), don't let any missles or space traveling vehicles or their cargos or stray parts that have broken off, hit Ray."

Please, please don't anyone be offended by this. It's sun god homework. It's like my job would be, if I was a sun god instead of a presumptive sun god. You may not think so, but constantly having to measure up to Jesus or Perseus is hard work.

But now, back to mundane Druidry. We need to come up with a new monthly name for the dates of the Julian, July 8 - August 4, plus a new tree for the new month for the CB. I have a pretty good idea on what the new tree, will be.

Crumby' s Telescope Tomfoolery Notes

There were lots of high clouds last night making telescopery even more problematic than is usual. Ray, cut up some white potatoes along with lotsa garlic and cooked them with the black eye peas though, so after a larruping helping of peas I was feeling fairly round chested. Out I went to the east pasture from whence I noticed that the moon had a halo around it, no doubt produced by the extant atmospheric conditions at that time.

I wanted to take a picture of all that, but by the time I rigged up, the halo had generally petered out. Then I decided I wanted to take pictures of Jupiter, but that proved beyond my measure for some reasons that I have yet to figure out. However, I am not an Ovate to be trifled with once I have set out to do something as directed by the WG and She says I need to have a good picture or two of Jupiter and its moons, so........ I shall persist in that undertaking/adventure.

All the above was preparatory to the arrival of Serpens Caput which arrival is apparent right above the always goofy Yed Posterior and Yed Prior in Ophiucus. Actually, I fooled around too long with Jupiter, so Serpens Caput was so high by the time I got around to it that I had to lean way forward, in hunkered over fashion, while ensconced upon my double decker lawn chair to espy the parts of Serpens Caput I needed to espy through the telescopery. The leaning over in hunkered fashion is probably what triggered the involuntary farting episode.

It's a good thing though that I fooled around with Jupiter so long because it took Serpens Caput a while to clear the vast high cloud bank that was massed all along the east horizon and considerably up a ways toward my zenith. But at last I happily figured out where everything I wanted to espy was located. Anon, chortling happily, I had a nice long look at Delta Serpens Caput.

But alas the clouds were going every which away by that time so I decided to rig down for the balance of the night and seek repose after rigging down upon the Ample Bosoms. Lo and behold, dang it, during the ablution phase preparatory to bedtime upon the Ample Bosoms I discovered that all the farting, which indeed had been on-going for many hours during the day even prior to the farting event at the telescopery, had produced a paydirt stain that had verily leaked all the way through my undears and had verily a-fixed itself to my shorts.

Whoa! I was much troubled then, upon discovering that paydirt stain in that location and I began to fret upon how long it had been observable at that location. Also, I began to reflect upon all the places I had visited that day outside the relatively safe CB boundaries and who might also have espied me back yonder. But then I also noticed all the mud stains on those particular shorts and how they were of similar color to the paydirt stain. So realizing that the mud stains made the paydirt stain stealthy, I was much relieved and went to the Ample Bosoms and slept peacefully on the Merciful Ample Bosoms. Praise the Goddess.