I might add to this post later in the week. A previous and longer calendar post is at: durhamspark.blogspot.com/2024/08/summer-came-in-with-buzz-and-whirr-goes.html
A cold front came through around the 18th and it has been sunny with drier air. Clear to partly or mostly cloudy or overcast, often at night. It is mostly cloudy at the end of the 21st. Scorpius, Sagittarius, the Summer Triangle, Ophiuchus, and Hercules were visible between the bright clouds and haziness yesterday evening, but it was again mostly cloudy by dawn and the Moon was full on the 19th, Monday. It has been mostly cloudy before dawn recently. A hurricane or tropical storm went over Bermuda followed by a cold front passing through North Carolina. It wasn't very windy or wet when the front came through but many small dead branches fell from the oaks around the 17th or 18th. I saw a large mottled pale gray Carolina mantis nymph around the 17th in the late afternoon. There was a green [Eastern] pondhawk dragonfly around the 19th or 20th, the first I've seen this year? After early August dragonflies seem to have become scarce, at least away from water. The catbirds, dark gray with black, are still around. I've been hearing but not seeing the usual late summer goldfinches. There are probably fewer Rudbeckia seeds to bring them down this year, whenever those ripen. Around 27 black swallowtail caterpillars hatched out on the potted parsley, which will have to be supplemented [counting again on the 23rd, there could be 31 to 35 tiny black and white to greenish caterpillars on a few small parsley plants]. I saw a 2" American lady caterpillar on an Antennnaria around the 18th or 19th. I noticed a large silken webworm nest on a hickory a few days ago, in seaon. Many mosquitoes yesterday and today, or maybe it was just the time of day, in the afternoon. Besides mushrooms, spiders are also more abundant in late summer and fall around here. Disturbed a or the large robberfly, with prey, about yesterday. A black and greenish (?) thin fly with mostly dark opaque wings landed on a yellow Hypericum flower a few days ago. A green longlegged fly on a gray stepping stone rather than a leaf one morning. Various wasps have been around. A small brown, yellowish buff, white, and black leafhopper on a dayflower this afternoon. The somewhat related cicadas seem fewer this week, though they also call less when it is cool or cloudy. Could it be the work of the large cicada killer wasps, which came out recently? One came down in front of me with a paralyzed female cicada a few days ago. I also found a large, pale-colored female cicada with liquified insides and I wondered if that was only due to decay.
Mars and Jupiter seemed to have moved apart and towards Auriga recently, and the times of sunrise and sunset have changed a lot since mid-July. It might have been around now last (?) year or in 2022 when the night sky was clear before midnight but seemed noticeably more muddied, even though I looked at it for over an hour and tried to let my eyes adapt to the dark, or as dark as it gets in my area without a major power outage. [I was with the gray patterned shorthaired cat, not mine, that died in November 2023. She wasn't really supposed to be outside at night, but I was right there.]
The dead young bullfrog vanished but for the back leg bones. It was dry, but two relatively large toads were killed on the road, 11-12' apart, at night around the 17-18th. I found the remains early one the morning, but I might have heard one get killed the evening before.
Two white and blue, two (?) blue, and four purple morning glory (Ipomoea) flowers opened today. It is cool enough that the blue and purple flowers stayed open all day and after dark, though they faded to become hard to tell apart by color. A volunteer plant had the first purple flower yesterday and I think there were one or two white and blue flowers. The orange Nasturtium bloomed again. A darker red pink crape myrtle began blooming here before the 17th, joining the earlier purplish pink one and several in the neighborhood. A fragrant white evergreen Gardenia is flowering again, after being cut short by drought around June. Usually it only blooms once, earlier in the summer. I just noticed today that a white and dark purplish red rose of Sharon began blooming again by today, with three flowers. That particular small tree bloomed a lot during the drought, but their blooming season was also curtailed by the drought. The large female American persimmon is losing many of its leaves early as usual, maybe to show off its usually very abundant, large, and sweet fall-winter fruit, which attracts many animals, day and night, including gray foxes. At times it fruits so heavily that good-sized branches break. The pink-flowered milkweed finished blooming around the 19th or 20th and the whitish crab spider left. A nearby female yellow garden spider remains. The milkweed might seed this year, possibly for the first time, though it has flowered before. Or maybe for the second or third time. There are at least three developing seedpods, from probably near 100 flowers (I did count them, but not all together). It probably grew from a scattered seed from the NC Botanical Garden. There are wild and planted milkweeds of a few species in my area, but they aren't very common, especially the large, spreading species (with light pink flowers?) that the orange and black monarch butterflies seem to prefer as a larval foodplant. Similar looking dogbanes are much more abundant. I found a ninth sicklepod (Cassia) this week, though most of them are probably too shaded and won't flower much or at all before it gets too cool and dark. The mosquitoes are out, but it is like fall today, and not in a 'bracing' way. There will probably be a lot of traffic noise from miles away after dark, because of the weather. A seasonal wind is supposed to disturb people in California and there is something disturbing about the seasonal highway noise here, though it isn't usually that loud. I don't mean individual vehicles or the heavy aircraft noise or trains, or the sound of people driving around in circles, etc. (that has mostly stopped in 2024 anyway) or in motorcycle 'gangs' on highways at night. It could be the associations rather than the actual sound.
The rabbit has been around most days, including today, and the deer have been browsing. I saw the white with black spots cat around the 18th or 19th after dark, maybe the first cat I have seen this summer, though there are signs that they are around. [Thinking about it further, I might have seen that cat across the street earlier in the summer.] I don't see many cats around now. Any coyotes? Three crows were drinking by the road in the morning around the 20th. A larger adult and two fledglings, or not?? Both common and fish crows might be found in the area, though the smaller fish crows are more of a coastal species. Large ravens are also found in the Triangle, such as near the Eno in Hillsborough and in Raleigh, but they are rare. There was mowing east yesterday and south today, and maybe two south. Edging north of east recently? Mowing in the west recently? UNC's fall semester began on the 19th and nearby universities began around the same time.
A fireball over Makurazaki, Kagoshima, in southern Japan at night on August 11th 8:12-8:13pm: lunarmeteoritehunters.blogspot.com/2024/08/kagoshima-bolide-meteor-11aug2024.html
It was forecast that at the current rate of name changes, by 2532 Sato will be the only family name in Japan: FT448.
Before May 21, 1942 the Japanese occupation forces reportedy killed a 200+ pound male tiger outside an internment camp in Hong Kong, and its skin is now on display at the Tin Hau temple in Stanley Town, Hong Kong? WWII information war propaganda?
In July 2023 unexplained lights were reported at Indian nuclear powerplants and an ISRO facility: FT448.
"'A magnificent meteor'" like "'a dragon,'" or "'a tapeworm,'" white to dark red, reportedly flew from Perakirchen to Windhag over Austria around 10pm September 27, 1924: FT448.
Ingo, a flamingo at the Berlin Zoo, passed away before February 9th; he had been there since the mid-50's, but his origins are unknown, other than a ring on a leg saying "Cairo, 23.6.1948:" FT448.
A 250g chocolate bar from the 2000 Sydney Olympics was found in a store before February 4th; probably still edible: FT448
Blowing tumbleweed trapped people in South Jordan, near Salt Lake City, Utah March 2nd: FT448
Wikipedia: The anniversary of an accidental release of non-native Atlantic salmon from a fish farm on the West Coast was a few days ago.
In the spring a traffic accident killed about 25,000 juvenile chinook salmon from Lookinglass Hatchery and released about 77,000 into Lookinglass Creek in Oregon, and 350-700 will probably return to the Creek to spawn as adults. The fish had been meant for the Imnaha River: FT448.
Modernist houses are most common in CA, NY, FL, and NC in this country? Some have been 'retrofitted' into my community in recent years.
A person only has "an exceptionally good meal" 5-6 times in a lifetime?? – FT448.
August 18th – Mail Order Catalogue Day, from 1872? Helium was discovered during a solar eclipse August 18, 1868. August 17, 1590 the Roanoke colony was found to be "lost?" Black Cat Appreciation Day and World Honey Bee Day? World Photography Day on the 19th and Internaut Day on the 23rd? Phil Donahue passed away August 18th.
fair.org/home/phil-donahue-changed-my-life-and-millions-of-others/
fair.org/home/are-all-yeltsin-critics-quothard-linequot-or-is-that-just-the-u-s-medias-party-line/
fair.org/home/students-left-out-of-discussions-about-student-gaza-protests/
www.councilestatemedia.uk/p/independent-journalists-are-no-longer
Sam Husseini – Biden and the Iraq War: husseini.substack.com/p/joe-biden-wont-tell-the-truth-about
www.kenklippenstein.com/p/americas-shadow-war-in-ukraine
Drug-adulterated Amanita muscaria mushroom "edibles?" Potentially very dangerous mushroom entheogens/hallucinogens have become so 'mainstream' or 'normie' that they are mentioned on NPR?? Next up Datura?
The item below (EI) is not going to be mentioned by the MSM. The September issue if Fortean Times (FT448) appeared so early, and has an article on the attempted assassination of Trump with so many alleged details I never heard mentioned on NPR, etc. They stopped talking about it soon after it happened and it vanished like the never really explained Las Vegas, Nevada (?) mass shooting. Hundreds of bumblebees were found inexplicably dead by a path, in clumps, May 31, 2024 in Golpsie, Sutherland, UK. Pesticide? Douglas Mackay said that he saw a "'perfect orange ball,'" like a full Moon but not glowing (?), come from the ocean around 8pm, 50-100' high, fly over the village and climb and vanish near a hospital, over 10-15 seconds in all. I didn't pay attention, but I wonder if the mainstream media gave as much attention to the RNC as it is giving to the DNC. I haven't been paying attention to the conventions, but I wonder if they covered the 2024 Democratic Party platform, etc. The platforms aren't followed in office, but they still matter, such as what the Democrats say, or don't say, about the multi-front war in the Middle East. There is a very "weird" "vibe" listening to the applause and chanting at the DNC. On Fresh Air today – Prosecutors or the FBI didn't talk to the media about ongoing cases under the old "norm," and J Edgar Hoover targeted both the left and the right – according to an NBC reporter?? The FBI doesn't want to damage the reputations of innocent people?? Blaming Trump, Tucker Carlson, etc. "Hyperpartisanship," but their examples are all Republicans. How many times has Hillary Clinton been on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me? Former WUNC staffer Asma Khaled (Ozma? Someone else?) says that Walz is better for Harris than Vance is for Trump. Maybe both of the major party VP candidates are more interesting candidates then their running mates and Walz is a new Dean or Edwards. Green candidate Jill Stein recently revealed her running mate, probably not mentioned by the MSM. In general, Hillary Clinton, Pelosi, Biden, and Harris are allegedly suddenly very popular if not charismatic. The Democrats are going to try to run on a sort of economic populism (with bloody, though maybe not with American blood, for now, hot wars and cold wars abroad and information war in in the NATOland countries)? WUNC hasn't played Della Mae's Boston Town in a long time. I have a copy, but I came across it again on YouTube, though it seemed like a different recording. Berning it down years ago? It has nothing to do with Bernie Sanders or party politics though. Touching on Japan, Maoist China, Soviet cybernetics, ancient Babylonian cuneiform, etc. on YouTube, so I have to avoid spending too much time there.
Today's Electronic Intifada weekly live update on YouTube with, in order, a Professor Maradhi (?) from Tehran; a report on recent resistance actions, weapons, and tactics in Gaza and Lebanon; and discussion of the Democratic Party's new anti-Palestinian and pro-war party platform (though they don't do much with their platforms and then try to make them disappear) and news. It is about three hours long: www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIVpmfCpPXI
Jared Kushner and potential construction in a wild part of coastal Albania: www.rsn.org/001/jared-kushner-wants-to-turn-a-wild-stretch-of-albania-into-a-luxury-resort.html
Ukraine's invasion of Russia isn't the same as the French or German invasions of Russia, but at the same time, the current invasion and earlier attacks inside Russia and on ethnic Russians in Ukraine might demonstrate that post-2014 coup Ukraine was a serious threat to Russia, as the Russian government claimed. The Ukrainian government was very hostile to Russia and ethnic Russians, and now it has NATO personnel and weapons, and an "authoritarian" government with no opposition. Maybe the Ukrainian right will work with the CIA to carry out terrorism and assassinations in the "West" and elsewhere during and after the war, like the CIA's Latin American allies in the 20th century.
In May Estonia accused Russia of GPS jamming in northeastern Europe; Germany kept quiet about its findings: FT448. China is currently launching its own sytem. Russia?
Around 5pm May 20, 2024 several people were hit by lightning by the Elba River in Dresden, Germany. A very brief and undetected hail at 20,000' destroyed the nose and damaged the windows of an Austrian Airlines Airbus A320 coming into the Vienna Schwechat airport June 9th: FT448.
Damion Green did not cast a vote for himself in a Rainier, Washington city council election, and lost by one vote: FT448
The solar 365 day counting xiuhpohaulli in ancient Mexico (to edit for the fall, but I will probably post again before then.):
Teotleco (Arrival of the Deities), Tepeilhuitl (Feast of the Mountains), Quecholli (Precious Feather = a bird, the roseate spoonbill, a large, rose-colored wading bird sometimes seen in the Carolinas? Or a quail?), Panquetzaliztli (Raising of the Banners), Atemoztli (Descent of Water), etc.
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