h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I think I want to marry Henry Letterbox.

Mr Letterbox is currently recording Run Off To L. A. you have been warned xx

Thanks cc xx

I didn't finish my video of the lit-up clouds yet, because I got distracted by a really good lightning bolt! The video will be coming up in The Post, but you can have a preview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_kuh-twX5w&t I'm fascinated by how it is almost horizontal, so I can't guess where it came from or where it was going, but it is amazing to study

The Daddy Long Legs portrait will be coming up in <./>thepost</.> soon as well

Sadly there was a horse killed in that thunderstorm. Lesson learnt: do not hang out of windows during lightning storms... Nah, put it on my tombstone!

I tried to learn some birdcalls, but very little sunk in.

Oh no, that is sad about the horse... And there was the fire in the house near you in June, too It is a lesson - thunderstorms are fascinating to watch, but we mustn't forget that they are powerful as well...

I can remember thunderstorms when the lightning seemed to hit very nearby.

Haven't had many thunderstorms lately. Or any rain at all.

Over here there have been occasions when I saw lightning hit inside my yard.

I hope you were wearing earmuffs, then.

I wuzn't. To this day I have tinnitus. But not because of lightning, because of guns being fired off right next to my ear.

Only two anhinga chicks were left in the nest this morning...did one fledge? One has seemed lethargic...smaller, a poor competitor at feeding time, and more reluctant to leave the nest and roost on a branch...did one die or did one fly away?

Multiple crises...pandemic, recession, an election, social unrest...an MIA anhinga chick...and we're out of banana bread...

If the other chicks still have their baby feathers, then it's unlikely that the chick could have fledged and left the nest ...

Hullo Phreddy Phredster!

Out of banana bread??? Oh no! . This makes me insecure. Bake! Bake immediately!

Guns next to your ear, Willem? Yikes! This sounds like a warzone situation?

Tinnitus must be very annoying, even debilitating.

Great lightning video, Sasha!!!

Eeek, some nice dramatic tension here!! because at first there's just dark, but you know the lightning is going to strike but when? when? then suddenly there it is!!

And that's incredible, to slow it down, then freeze the frame! An amazing study!! Nice video work!

That dramatic tension, reminds me of the time when FWR and Mister D previewed The Night Of The Killer Seagulls, those flashing lights, on off on off on off on off .... I was sooo tense .. heartbeat was like a conga drum ..



Conga drums, haven't thought about them in years. In the 80s, where we lived, many people played congas at festivals and things. I remember the first time I saw someone playing them. This guy, he was stripped to the waist, dancing wildly in a field. Before that moment, I thought life was about getting to work on time and writing nice letters to friends. Not that this should have affected these things. I still got to work on time and wrote nice letters to friends. Its just ..

Is this relevant to anything at all? Yes!! And yet strangely no ..

I just had a fine visit to Crepuscular Meadows!

Paul! yes! The writer has taken to wandering into the the script to interview a tree, and to speak to Mr Conti in the Cuckoo House, and Letitia Lochinvar. Yay!!hey magic!!

The writer appearing in the script gives me a sense of 3D, hard to explain, as if there is text on paper, (I'm reading on screen, but I see it as a paper book) but the papges are curled into paper tunnels, through which the writer can wander.

What am I talking about? I don't know. . Its to do with the Meadows Magic. heheh. It has just tripped off a dream image. I never saw books as 3D entities before. How very strange.

Imagine, if you get a book from the library, but all the characters have left the pages, through paper tunnels, they've gone for a walk out of the book..



And then there's the hologram pyramind in the Hoohaw Reservoir!!!!

That is so awesome.

Ah, Mr Letterbox ... no warning can prepare me enough. heheh.

I'm glad you enjoy Crepuscular Meadows, Cactuscafe.

Some days I write two spotlights, so I fear that I'm getting ahead of you.

On the other hand, maybe the first batch was the best. Read at your own pace, of course.

Lately, I've been reminiscing about beloved stores that once were dominant, but have fallen by the wayside. Woolworth (which I call Wellworthit), and the A&P (Which I call CTC, as in Coast to coast).

I also ask Emma Sullivan, who runs a small cafe, to visit Ahabit of Coffee (a dig at Starbucks) to rate their products.

Today I spotlight a retired custodian who was the most popular person at the high school. He has built a lovely fountain in his backyard (hios mother was from Rome, where everyone loved the fountains), and a solarium in front of the house, where he has elephant ear plants and those small citrus trees that the Romans love so much!

Hi Willem...our neighbor said the third chick died. It had been acting like it didn't have the strength or energy to get out of the nest and compete for food. this is clear in the videos of feeding frezies...

The other two chicks abandoned the nest yesterday and explored the oak tree, climbing to the top branches. The adults now feed them where they find them.

I was envisioning a dramatic long-distance fledge from the nest...instead they are making short hops of two to four feet from branch to branch....they like to stand on a branch and flap their wings vigorously...probably holding on with their peculiar orange webbed feet..

Hello and thanks for the info. It's the way of nature ... for us humans losing a child is one of the worst things that can happen. For wild critters, it's par for the course to lose one or more with every breeding attempt ...