My Backyard

I Caught a Shark

This is video that Chris took of our saltwater fishing boat trip we took in November. It's actually a bonnet head shark.

Here's the write up of the whole trip:

Dead Fish Walking

It's been a strange dry season, cold, rainy, and terribly gloomy.

When the sun sticks his head out even for a little while I try to get out there and get some new pictures. Here's Red Ear on the pond.

And the Viper! He looks mean but he's not. In fact, he's not even a viper.

I noticed 15 to 20 birds hanging around the back pond. It is (was) almost dried out and there were some sort of little fish in there, popping the top of the water, by the dozens. And the birds came to catch them. I tried to get a good picture but they were too shy. Here's one though flying away.

Most of them were wood storks, which is odd to see that many at once. I caught these in flight, too. Now I want to know what they were eating back there in the pond. I tried to scoop them out with a net but I had no luck.

Lo and behold, Mike found this one for me. It's a walking armored catfish. They dig into the mud and will stay in a shallow pond for as long as possible. This one apparently tried to get up and walk away. He didn't make it.

A flower an an ant...

Every March we have a couple of screech owls meet up in this bole, way up high in a pine tree, to nest. This is an older picture of one of them with a baby. As I was walking to the mailbox last week I noticed one little head looking out of the hole. No, I thought, it's way too early for them so I ran to get my camera.

It was a squirrel...

The hawks were calling back and forth, making quite a racket.

I don't know what he is but he's cute.

And another butterfly...

Download your own Facebook LookBack Video

FaceBook has put together a LookBack video taken from your timeline. Some have just seen it come up on their wall and were able to share it from there. This is for the others who have not and are having trouble getting it to their timeline.

This will probably only work on a computer. If someone can get it to work on a phone, let me know.

I am using Chrome.

1. You are going to need some code from another website.

A. Click on the following link: http://textuploader.com/14qr

B. Highlight all the text.

C. Right click on this text and press copy.

D. This code is now on your clipboard waiting for you to copy it somewhere else.

E. You can close that window, now.

2. Now we go to your LookBack Video. It should self generate.

A. Click here: https://www.facebook.com/lookback

B. Press Ctrl+Shift+J (all at the same time) to open the Java console.

C. This should take up half your screen (it may even pop up in a new window). Click anywhere in the blank space.

D. Press CTRL+V. (That's keyboard speak for Paste.) That text will be pasted into the console.

E. Press Enter.

3. Now to get the link of your LookBack video.

A. You will see a greyish area with a long URL in the console. It'll start with the usual Http and so on. Click on it.

B. It should open up your video in a new window.

C. Press Ctrl+S. (That's keyboard speak for Save.)

D. Now you can save it to your hard drive. I recommend to just save it to the desktop; It's easier to find or delete or move it somewhere else.

4. Now it's on your hard drive, just upload it to FaceBook in the usual way!

I give full credit to the video posted here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXuqETx4lp0

I only re-wrote the instructions as best I could. Thank you, whomsoever you are.

(Please give me some feedback, whether it worked or not!)

Dirty Birds

I think we spend more money on dirt than anything else.

We brought in 20 more loads. 17 went to the front, 2 went to a low spot in the back and the last was a beautiful pile of dark brown earth for the garden. (I don't actually have a garden... yet.)

This is clay and when it's wet it is sticky.

But it spreads out nicely and this will be great when we can get some grass growing on it.

We had a couple of palm trees that were about to walk away from their planters. Time to transplant them to a better spot.

And now for some flowers.

I knew what kind of bush this was at one time.

Close up of a Vinca.

Another unknown...

Closer...

I know this one! It's called Moses in the Cradle or Moses in a Boat.

Unknown and Pretty!

Three Blackbirds on a wire.

The snowbirds have arrived. And with them, dark gloomy cold weather.

These are Cedar Waxwings. They are hard to see high up in a tree but you can hear them, a whistling noise.

I haven't seen the sun in a while.

So instead we will play with the clouds.

I am not a leaf!

Cool bug!

I call them drooping bells.

And a volunteer in one of my planters.

Nice, much more land to play with.

Stay warm!

Fun with the Sun

And I'm back, with the usual flowers, birds and things.

Bright orange flowers...

This is my neighbors tree and it's beautiful. It's an African Tulip tree.

I truly need to snarf some seeds.

I just now finally got around to cleaning up my files and found a few odds and ends of pictures I've taken over the last few month that didn't really go anywhere else.