Wordless Wednesday: The Last of the Lunacy

Many Moons

Roger looked at the window and said, "I can see the moon tonight." It was a beautiful clear night. We had turned out the lights in our bedroom, and the window above our bed was open for the cool night air. The window has double panes, with sliders that meet in the middle. When I looked through the four panes out my side of the window, I saw this:

I thought it was so interesting. I said to Roger, "This is so weird, but I see a bunch of moons around the moon." I grabbed the camera and tried to take a photo what the reflection looked like. When he looked out his side of the window through the four panes, he saw this:

He said he saw a bunch of moons too. We didn't know then, that we were seeing very different reflections while looking out the window at exactly the same time. Then one of us described what we were seeing. I looked out his side of the window and photographed his view.

We have no idea why it looked like this, and why our views looked so different. We laughed so loud we hoped that we didn't wake the neighbors.

While We're Waiting, We Walk and Walk

Escrow is proceeding. Forty-five days is a long time, but we are incredibly patient. Our agent (who happens to be my seriously efficient sister) says we are very mellow clients. Yes we are. Want to know why? We walk everyday. We take good long looks around. We enjoy the blue skies and the mountains and the marsh. We've been walking three to four miles a day. It's good for our hearts, our bones, and our anxiety levels. We're mellow.

On Friday we headed up to the local community redwood forest. There's really nothing like walking among ancient living things that are more than a thousand years old. Puts things into a calming perspective. Deep breaths among the old trees.

And the next day we walk our favorite trails in the marsh and then take a detour into one of the marsh meadows. We take a look east out to hills in the distance. That's where we walked just the day before in the forest. Behind us is Humboldt Bay with the tide going out. It's the heartbeat of the earth here.

Many of the shorebirds are back, and it's really great to see them, especially this Marbled Godwit. The dabblers haven't returned yet, but soon the ponds will be filled with Green-winged Teals, Cinnamon Teals and Wigeons. Lots and lots of them. We can't wait.

So, here is a real estate photo of the living room in the house we are buying. It looks like home, doesn't it?

Some Clouds On A Day Without FOG

This looks like a Virga with cloud shadows

I thought this was an iridescent pileus, but I'm not so sure.

More cloud shadow and virga

Loved this virga formation

Okay, so the fog was coming back in! I liked the cloud reflection in the car window.

An Hour At The Marsh

The sun came out. The temps were in the low 70s. Sunday was a real summer day. So, we went to the marsh to see if any of the shore birds had returned.

Yes! A few had come back. It has been several weeks since we've seen very many birds at the marsh. We were so happy to see these Greater Yellowlegs and whatever these beautiful buff-colored shorebirds are.

Of course, I couldn't resist this Great Egret's perfect reflection.

Or this skypool in the wavy cattail waters.

Birds AND atmospheric optics! Life is good.

The House and Dental Follow-up

I got in to see a dentist on Wednesday. He was incredibly kind and thorough. He alleviated my fear about an infection and an impending periodontal abscess. No infection of any kind anywhere. He was somewhat mystified by my sense of pressure, but thought it had to do with the new bridge and how it is interacting with the tooth next to it and the unhappy gum between them. I'm scheduled to see a periodontist in late August, but for now, I can breathe a sigh of relief and not worry about some excruciating pain waking me in the night on a long weekend.

We had the house inspection done on Thursday morning. The inspector was also incredibly kind and thorough (it must be a trend here!). He spent 2 1/2 hours checking every nook and cranny from the rooftop to the crawlspace under the house. Everything looks good with only a few things that will require attention. We got to walk around the house again and were happy to still like it and glad about our decision to buy it.

When Roger was walking around the yard he found this. Our first bug at the new house. It's a

Ten-lined June Beetle. It's a fairly large beetle and probably a nuisance, but we were happy to see our first bit of wildlife there. The other sign of wildlife was some plastic bubble-wrap placed strategically by the front door to prevent the swallows from nesting. The neighbors next door have a nest right above their front door. So there's lots of swooping swallows everywhere. A very pleasant sight.

So far things are moving along well. The skies have been gray and not particularly conducive to playing outside, but we're content. And, we're ready whenever that sun does come out to go and take a nice long look around. A very pleasant thought.

All Kinds of Follow-Ups

We're still in escrow. There was a flurry of electronic paperwork full of disclosures that required our crazy electronic signatures and initials. Sellers sign. Buyers sign. We read all the fine print and make sure all the boxes are checked as they should be. Then nothing for a few days. There will be an inspection and once all of that is over, we have to sign off on all contingencies and wait for escrow to close. We've walked over to the house a few times. We still like it and the neighborhood. So far so good.

I still haven't found a dentist, but the one I've been hoping to see will be back from vacation on July 7th. Maybe he'll take a few minutes to see me and tell me what's going on with this crazy tooth of mine. I'm not in pain, but the endless pressure has been slowly driving me crazy. I haven't taken a photograph in weeks. That's how distracting this weird discomfort is. I'm sick of it. If he can't see me, I'm planning to head back to the emergency clinic just to make sure there isn't an infection building slowly.

We were planning to do a post called Quacks and Moos about how we walk around the neighborhood and talk to the animals. I did photograph this cow around the corner from our little rental here. It was going to be part of the quack and moo story, but I'm not sure we'll ever get around to doing that one. We're moving even closer to big dairy cow land. There will definitely be more cow photos in the future.

Back in June we wrote about how much we like our little neighborhood here. Interestingly, a few days later there was a knock on our door and our very adorable pre-teen neighbor and her friend were giggling out there, offering us homemade cookies to buy. They said they were starting a little business and gave us one of their hand-made business cards. They call themselves NWPC, for the Nerdy Wart People Club. We bought four delicious chocolate chip cookies, and we've been hoping they'll come back!

I was going through some of my older photos the other day and found this one from March, when we were at the beach house. I think it's a pretty good example of a Virga. I sent it to The Cloud Appreciation Society to see what they think. It's been a while since any atmospheric optics or interesting clouds have crossed our skies. Even in my malaise I still run outside to check. There are some things that I won't miss no matter how I'm feeling.

We hope you all had a good 4th of July. We don't celebrate and were pretty glad our neighbor only shot off noisy things until 10:30. Such a crazy holiday.

OMG! We're In Escrow

It's true! Roger saw a new listing on Monday and emailed our agent (my sister) and asked her to set up an appointment with the listing agent for a look. We arrived early and met the current owner as he was about to leave for the showing. He told us he would be happy to show us around. He and his family have been in the house since it was built in 1990. It's a real house with insulation, double-paned windows, and central heating. When we walked in, we fell in love. It has hardwood floors and a fireplace. It has three bedrooms and two baths but isn't a mansion in any way. In fact, the entire lot is smaller than some ostentatious houses these days. It's in a family neighborhood of owner-occupied homes only one-block long that dead ends at the outskirts of town. We made an offer right away. So did two other prospective buyers. But the owner wanted to sell to us. We are so happy. I didn't even take any photos of it. When we were there, looking around, I was so blown away I just walked around saying, "Oh wow, oh wow, a real house!" It's a 45-day escrow, so anything can happen, but we're confident that by mid-August we'll have our new home. I'll try to get over there for pics soon. Just wanted to share this crazy good news!