December 20, 2022 I cannot be in the sun yet, but this morning I looked out and there was a flock of White Pelicans! I had to be at the Senior Center at 8 AM but took a few photos standing on the shore at my place.
December 10, 2022 And the great days keep coming! The duck that I thought was a Greebe was indeed a Red-breasted Merganser! No manatees or dolphin today. It was cloudy to start but the sun came out. Lots of boats out today. The red boat I showed with five 450 engines I was told, can go over 100 mph and cost well over a million dollars!
December 9, 2022 Another beautiful day…but not until 10 AM, it was foggy early on so I did a shortened run. Among the birds I did see was a Merganser .I was chastened by someone who says I need to have more verbiage, so here goes.
December 8, 2022 Beautiful weather, 16 species of birds today (only 10 yesterday). I was waiting for the sea grape grapes to ripen to make jelly, but the birds need them more then I do.
December 7, 2022 Tee shirt again today, lots of photos!
December 5, 2022 Another beautiful tee shirt day! Lots of birds (four Kingfishers but no photos).
December 4, 2022 Another beautiful morning! Marian came with me and we saw a dolphin cone up right in front of us!
Below is a video Marian took of me taking down a fish someone had left hanging.
December 3, 2022 Out kayaking today was incredibly beautiful! I saw a manatee (no photos though), a flock of Parrots, Great Blue Herons, etc., but again no photos. What I did get were beautiful photos and a sequence of an Osprey catching breakfast!
December 1, 2022 I had my annual visit with the vampire this morning, so no kayaking.
I posted the following on Quora a year ago and thought it good enough to post again.
Egyptian Proverbs (interpreted from hieroglyphics)
Egyptian Proverbs were a very important part of the Ancient people of Egypt, one of the main concepts the Egyptians had was “know yourself.” Their spiritual aspect of this concept held that within man is Power. Proverbs were held as a teaching method for a man to understand their idea of the universe, thus they were inscribed in temples and tombs of Egypt. The “Book of the Dead” is the name given to a genre of mortuary spells, magical texts, and accompanying illustrations called vignettes. These were written on sheets of papyrus, the walls of tombs and coffins. They were placed with the dead in order to help them pass through the dangers of the underworld and attain an afterlife of bliss in the Field of Peace. The various texts were composed over thousands of years, and total nearly two hundred, no one media contains them all. {Field of Peace -Variously translated as the Field of Offerings, Field of Reeds, or Blessed Fields, the place that preserves the pleasures of ancient Egyptian life for eternity}.
Below are some of the powerful teachings proverbs found in the temples of Luxor written thousands of years ago.
– The best and shortest road towards knowledge of truth is Nature. – For every joy there is a price to be paid. – If his heart rules him, his conscience will soon take the place of the rod. – What you are doing does not matter so much as what you are learning from doing it. It is better not to know and to know what one does not know, than presumptuously to attribute some random meaning to symbols. – If you search for the laws of harmony, you will find knowledge. – If you are searching for a super power, observe Nature!
– Exuberance is a good stimulus towards action, but the inner light grows in silence and concentration. – Not the greatest Master can go even one step for his disciple; in himself he must experience each stage of developing consciousness. Therefore he will know nothing for which he is not ripe. – The body is the house of god. That is why it is said, “Man know yourself.”
– True teaching is not an accumulation of knowledge; it is an awaking of consciousness which goes through successive stages. – The man who knows how to lead one of his brothers towards what he has known may one day be saved by that very brother. – People bring about their own undoing through their tongues. – If one tries to navigate unknown waters one runs the risk of shipwreck. – Leave him in error who loves his error. – Every man is rich in excuses to safeguard his prejudices, his instincts, and his opinions. – To know means to record in one’s memory; but to understand means to blend with the thing and to assimilate it oneself.
– There are two kinds of error: blind credulity and piecemeal criticism. Never believe a word without putting its truth to the test; discernment does not grow in laziness; and this faculty of discernment is indispensable to the Seeker. Sound skepticism is the necessary condition for good discernment; but piecemeal criticism is an error. – Love is one thing, knowledge is another. – True sages are those who give what they have, without meanness and without secret! – An answer brings no illumination unless the question has matured to a point where it gives rise to this answer which thus becomes its fruit. Therefore learn how to put a question. – What reveals itself to me ceases to be mysterious for me alone: if I unveil it to anyone else, he hears mere words which betray the living sense: Profanation, but never revelation. – The first concerning the ‘secrets’: all cognition comes from inside; we are therefore initiated only by ourselves, but the Master gives the keys. – The second concerning the ‘way’: the seeker has need of a Master to guide him and lift him up when he falls, to lead him back to the right way when he strays. – Understanding develops by degrees. – As to deserving, know that the gift of heaven is free; this gift of Knowledge is so great that no effort whatever could hope to ‘deserve’ it. – If the Master teaches what is error, the disciple’s submission is slavery ; if he teaches truth, this submission is ennoblement. – There grows no wheat where there is no grain. – The only thing that is humiliating is helplessness. – An answer if profitable in proportion to the intensity of the quest. – Listen to your conviction, even if they seem absurd to your reason.
— Know the world in yourself. Never look for yourself in the world, for this would be to project your illusion – To teach one must know the nature of those whom one is teaching. – In every vital activity it is the path that matters. – The way of knowledge is narrow. – Each truth you learn will be, for you, as new as if it had never been written. – The only active force that arises out of possession is fear of losing the object of possession. – If you defy an enemy by doubting his courage you double it. – The nut doesn’t reveal the tree it contains. – For knowledge… you should know that peace is an indispensable condition of getting it. – The first thing necessary in teaching is a master; the second is a pupil capable of carrying on the tradition. – Peace is the fruit of activity, not of sleep. – Envious greed must govern to possess and ambition must possess to govern. – When the governing class isn’t chosen for quality it is chosen for material wealth: this always means decadence, the lowest stage a society can reach.
– One foot isn’t enough to walk with. – Our senses serve to affirm, not to know. – We mustn’t confuse mastery with mimicry, knowledge with superstitious ignorance. – Physical consciousness is indispensable for the achievement of knowledge. – A man can’t be judge of his neighbor’ intelligence. His own vital experience is never his neighbor’s. – No discussion can throw light if it wanders from the real point. – Your body is the temple of knowledge. – Experience will show you, a Master can only point the way.
– A house has the character of the man who lives in it. – All organs work together in the functioning of the whole. – A man’s heart is his own super power. – A pupil may show you by his own efforts how much he deserves to learn from you. – Routine and prejudice distort vision. Each man thinks his own horizon is the limit of the world. – You will free yourself when you learn to be neutral and follow the instructions of your heart without letting things perturb you. This is the way of Maat. – Judge by cause, not by effect. – Growth in consciousness doesn’t depend on the will of the intellect or its possibilities but on the intensity of the inner urge. – Every man must act in the rhythm of his time… such is wisdom. – Men need images. Lacking them they invent idols. Better then to found the images on realities that lead the true seeker to the source. – Maat, who links universal to terrestrial, the divine with the human is incomprehensible to the cerebral intelligence. – Have the wisdom to abandon the values of a time that has passed and pick out the constituents of the future. An environment must be suited to the age and men to their environment. – Everyone finds himself in the world where he belongs. The essential thing is to have a fixed point from which to check its reality now and then. – Always watch and follow nature.
– A phenomenon always arises from the interaction of complementary. If you want something look for the complement that will elicit it. Seth causes Horus. – Horus redeems Seth. – All seed answer light, but the color is different. – The plant reveals what is in the seed. – Popular beliefs on essential matters must be examined in order to discover the original thought. – It is the passive resistance from the helm that steers the boat. – The key to all problems is the problem of consciousness. – Man must learn to increase his sense of responsibility and of the fact that everything he does will have its consequences. – If you would build something solid, don’t work with wind: always look for a fixed point, something you know that is stable… yourself. – If you would know yourself, take yourself as starting point and go back to its source; your beginning will disclose your end. – Images are nearer reality than cold definitions. – Seek peacefully, you will find. – Organization is impossible unless those who know the laws of harmony lay the foundation. – It is no use whatever preaching Wisdom to men: you must inject it into their blood. – Knowledge is consciousness of reality. Reality is the sum of the laws that govern nature and of the causes from which they flow. – Social good is what brings peace to family and society. – Knowledge is not necessarily wisdom. – By knowing one reaches belief. By doing one gains conviction. When you know, dare. – Altruism is the mark of a superior being. – All is within yourself. Know your most inward self and look for what corresponds with it in nature. – The seed cannot sprout upwards without simultaneously sending roots into the ground. – The seed includes all the possibilities of the tree…. The seed will develop these possibilities, however, only if it receives corresponding energies from the sky. – Grain must return to the earth, die, and decompose for new growth to begin. – Man, know yourself… and you shalt know the gods.
November 30, 2022 Last day of the month. I made quiche last night, first time, it was absolutely light and delicious!
I got to go out and enjoy the water this morning, It felt so wonderful!
I got a new TV yesterday, it was made a month ago in Mexico. I had been suffering with my old TV for a long time, it was dark on the left third and had a white light in the lower right hand corner. I tried to donate it but no one wants it, so off to the recycler it goes.
There was an article in the paper about the Owls I have photographed years ago. The adults caught a rat that apparently had eaten rat poison. The whole family died. Now the nest is empty.
November 27, 2022 A lot of sunscreen on and Kay out to kayak with me. It was windy and took a lot of effort to paddle
I took my camera that will take movies. I told Kay that I did not like the camera (it does not do stills the way my D300 does) and the camera paid me back for dissing it. It only recorded the last seven minutes of the three hour trip. The photos and videos I took all along the trip did not make it onto the chip! Here are the videos it did record:
November 25, 2022 I hope everyone had good Thanksgiving, Dee and Graham had invited me over to their awesome home for dinner!
November 16, 2022 We have a thief in our midst. The weather has been so nice I have left the doors open and the screen doors shut. Yesterday morning I went down to the kitchen for breakfast and I felt something under my foot. On further inspection it turned out to be bread crumbs. That is strange I thought, I had not gotten out bread recently. I did have a loaf of really nice bread on the counter. The bread was full of nuts of all kinds, including sunflower seeds. I had only used two slices out of it. I looked up, and there was no bread on the counter, it was gone. It had vanished. I looked at the open door, the screen had been partially opened.
So there now are 8 billion people on Earth. Think we’ve reached the planet’s carrying capacity yet?
The symbolic 8 millionth person is a baby girl born in Manila November 15, 2022 at 1:29 a.m.
The rate of the Earth’s population growth is scary, although demographers expect it’s going to slow down a bit. It took about 300,000 years from the time Homo Sapiens emerged for us to reach the first billion, in about 1804.
We hit 2 billion just 123 years later, in 1927.
3 billion in 1960, 33 years later
4 billion in 1974, 14 years later
5 billion in 1987, 13 years later
6 billion in 1999, 12 years later
7 billion in 2011, 12 years later
And just 11 years later, we have reached 8 billion.
The UN said annual growth has fallen from 2.1% between 1962 and 1965 to below 1% in 2020 and could even drop to around 0.5% by 2050. It also projects the population to continue growing to about 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050, and peak around 10.4 billion in the 2080s.
November 14, 2022 It has been cloudy and rainy in the mornings for a while, and I have been up in the booth doing the sounds for a play.
But this afternoon my Red-shouldered Hawk came to say hello, and fly down onto the lawn to catch a lizard I guess.
(Photos from my back porch.)
November 10, 2022 Nicole is knocking! Just wind and 2.8 inches of rain so far.
I cannot see across the bay for all the rain, my rubber tree and the mangroves are bending to the wind.
Wind and rain!
November 8, 2022 Eclipse of the moon this morning!
November 4, 2022 Both Dolphin and manatee sighting day! Again the manatees were in the widened section of the creek and two dolphin were heading south.
November 3, 2022 Another manatee sighting day! Several manatees were in the widened area of Bear Creek, Nature John and I paddled with them for a long time. They kept raising their whole heads out of the water and one came up right under me.
October 30, 2022 Another great day, low 70’s, Interacted with a Cormorant and a manatee. Lots of birds including more Black Crowned Night Herons.
October 29, 2022 It was a beautiful day today, 70 to start 75 when I returned. I saw a Black Crowned Night Heron for the first time in months. No dolphins or manatees today.
October 27, 2022 It was cloudy and sprinkling all morning, so I did not go out kayaking. Here is someone who came to visit, first on my porch, then out on a tree branch!
October 26, 2022 Two manatees, my first sighting of Storks, three Ospreys, and lots of birds this morning! Bob said that I had just missed a dolphin who had swum by several times chasing fish.
October 24, 2022 Another beautiful day.
October 23, 2022 second trip. Marian invited Mindy to come along. We got to play with the manatees!
A lady came out on her deck and said the it was “against the law to touch the manatees”. AS I have stated here before, it is only against the law to HARASS the manatees, when a manatee comes up to the side of your kayak, stays there for 3 minutes, and asks to be petted, touching them is NOT harassment!
Legally, “harassment” includes any act that potentially injures [nope], annoys [nope], or disturbs [nope] the manatee, or causes a disruption of its natural behavior [nope, it is naturally curious]. When it comes up to you multiple times and you pet it, that is not harassment.
October 23, 2022 A beautiful sunny day, tee shirt and shorts.
October 22, 2022 Back to kayaking early in the morning. It was 56 degrees as I put in but in the 60’s when I returned.
October 19, 2022 Home again, I met some nice people on the plane and talked all night, then slept seven hours this morning in the quiet of my house. While I was gone my bananas fell and someone disposed of them 🙁
Everything else is as I left it. Thanks for Marian for taking me to the airport, Amy for picking me up, Don for getting me to the train, Steph and Jason for getting me from the train and taking me to the airport and Jim for getting me home!! Thanks to William for watering my house plants, they are happy.
I had the most wonderful trip, seeing my daughter Amy and Darren, Sarah, Don and Jeanne, Stephen and Daisy (and Leif and Viola) and Stephany and Jason.
I saw a lot of birds )including Bald Eagles, Cormorants, Pelicans, a Wood Duck and many more) a herd of elk, sea lions, giant trees, where M*A*S*H was filmed, the tar pits, and went kayaking with Amy, a car museum, the Winchester House, an airplane show, and many other things. Some nice long hikes, wonderful home cooked meals and eating out. My first train ride in 30 years, a ride in Amy’s new van, a new Prius and in Don’s fantastic Tesla!
Thanks to all for making my trip such a great success!!2
October 18, 2022 Out to lunch and over to Venice. Venice California that is, but it does have canals!
October 17, 2022 Off to the Tar Pits and the Car museum.
October 16, 2022 We had a fun day hiking in Malibu Creek Park, The trail we selected led to the area used to film: Planet of the Apes M*A*S*H Roots
October 15, 2022 Leaving Stephen’s and air show. The train I was supposed to go to LA had an accident, and so I took a train an hour later. The train had hit a farm truck and killed the driver, thus it needed a new engine and was supposed to be four hours late..
October 14, 2022 Staying at Stephen and Daisy’s in Orcutt, California.
October 13, 2022. Stephen and Daisy visit.
October 12, 2022 AM Winchester house and lunch.
October 12, 2022. At Donald’s, we went to Winchester House. Then in the afternoon went to a few marshes and a tree where there was an American Bald Eagle! I looked up a few of the birds, but some I have no idea their names.
October 11, 2022. If was foggy at first, then cleared..in the 50’s. I drove for 8 hours with a couple of stops. The first stop was to see a herd of elk! The elk were trying to cross the road! Then later on I found a tree that cars could drive through! So I drove through!
The brand new Toyota Prius got 63.5 miles per gallon, so the price was mitigated somewhat.
October 10, 2022 It was foggy this morning and for extended periods today. I drove for 9 hours with a few stops. One was at Sea Lion Caves where I got to see Sea Lions!
October 9, 2022 Amy and I drove to Tacoma to visit with my grand daughter Sarah and go out to a birthday breakfast. Then we went to a park and walked along the shore. Sarah said that she saw a whale last time she was roller skating there!
October 8, 2022 Amy and I hiked all around Seward Park. There were hundreds of birds floating in the water off of the southern edge of the park (Lake Washington), some Canada Geese but mostly ducks.
October 7, 2022 Amy and I rented a kayak and paddled about in Green lake for an hour! 66º and sunny, beautiful weather!!
October 6 PM – Amy and I went to Washington Park Arboretum and then to a park where there were Ducks, a Bald Eagle, a Great Blue Heron, and a lot of turtles.
October 6, 2022, AM update. October 3 – I worked at the ABC Bicycles building bicycles. October 4 – I managed the gym in Gulfport, Florida, then Marian took me to the Tampa International Airport to begin my travels. I flew to Vegas, then on to Seattle where my daughter Amy picked me up for a stay here in Kirkland. October 5 – Amy and I hiked a trail where I found a leaf from a tree that is a foot across!
October 2, 2022, another beautiful day, Marian came with me. As usual we saw Lady Anhinga in her mangrove refuge.
October 1, 2022 Another beautiful day, Diane came with me, I saw a group of manatees, one came out of the water but I only caught him as he went down. When they are in a group, the groupofmanateesiscalled an aggregation.
9-29-22 I have made it home after evacuating for Hurricane Ian. The water out of the bay was sucked dry by the hurricane and deposited down south!
Ibis, Snowy, and Egrets have come to snatch up little fish or crustations left behind. See video below:
9-28-2022 While the Hurricane Ian rages outside, I have been trying to catch up with my photos. My “dongle”s which allowed me to send the phots from the computer chip to my laptop had both failed. I had to download from the camera directly to the laptop, this took hours to do, rather than the 15 minutes. I had ordered a new dongle but it had not arrived before I had to vacate. Here are some of the photos.
September 18, 2022 – Another nice day, one dolphin and several manatees were sighted today!
Sept 17, 2022 – We had over 5 inches of rain last night, my rain gauge only has capacity for 5 inches and it overflowed. Today was nice out, in the low 70’s. Not many birds though.
September 16, 2022 – A nice cooler day. Again I got a good photo of my nemesis, the Kingfisher! YAY!
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September 15, 2022 – A break in the weather! 70’s this morning!
September 14, 2022 – A nice day this morning. I got some nice photos of an Osprey and of a Yellow Crowned Night Heron having breakfast of a crab.
September 7, 2022 – An adventure every day! 1. I paddled further north on Bear Creek than I had ever been, but was stopped after a half mile by a 24 inch tree that had fallen across the creek. I could have portaged around it, but there was no easy way to get out of my kayak to do that. 2. I saw a momma dolphin and a baby, and also a manatee today. 3. I finally got better photos of the Kingfisher!
Dolphin day today Sept 5, 2022, as well as jacks (fish) making a splash, birds, and flowers.
Wednesday, May 25, 2022, 75° beautiful day. Another day with the manatees! I had not brought my phone, so no photos (my camera only focuses about 10 feet away, he was 12 inches from my lens), but a manatee came up and put his nose on the side of my kayak!! I petted him, gave him a scratch. He slid under my kayak and ribbed his back on the underside! I was glad he did not push too hard and dump me! Then he played with the handle on the stern that hangs down, tossing it around. Then he came back for more petting and a little scratch!!!!! What an amazing time!!!
Monday, May 23, 2022, 77° cloudy at start, cleared up later, but photos are still not so sharp due to lack of light.
Friday, May 20, 2022, 75° clear sky at 6:45 when I went out, fully clouded over with thunder and lightning to the south as I returned at 7:15. Short run this morning!
Thursday May 19, 2022, 75° mostly sunny, NO wind.
Wednesday, May 18, 2022, 74°, no wind, quite still.
Monday May 16, 2022, 72° water temp 72°, no wind at atart, 4 mph at end. Sunny.
Sunday May 15, 2022, 72°, little wind, sunny after the sun cleared the clouds.
Saturday, May 14, 2022. 70° no wind, lots of sun.
Friday May 13, 2022. It started out with a few clouds, then the clouds closed in. A light breeze 70°.
Cross a black cat, walk under a ladder or break a mirror, western culture has any number of great ways to bring about bad luck, but few are as curious as Friday the 13th. Deeply rooted in misfortune, the fabled day of disaster comes around once or twice a year to spook us into submission. There’s even a name for the irrational dread of the date: paraskevidekatriaphobia — which in itself is a specialised form of triskaidekaphobia, a fear of the number 13. Friday the 13th is a universally acknowledged day of bad luck.
The most commonly held theory of the origin can be traced back to a Norse myth about 12 gods holding a dinner party. at Valhalla. While the group initially intended to feast in the fabled halls, the event was interrupted by a 13th uninvited guest, the God of Mischief, Loki. According to legend, Loki tricked Höðrm the blind God of Winter into shooting his brother Baldr, the God of Summer with a magical spear tipped with mistletoe. The murder cast an awful shadow over the land and brought a fresh sentiment along with the number 13, which represented the unwanted 13th guest.
“Balder died and the whole Earth got dark. The whole Earth mourned. It was a bad, unlucky day, but not for me today!
May 6, 2022. 74° some clouds, slight breeze out of the SE.
Cinco de Mayo 2022. 74° no wind, a light breeze. Cinco de Mayo is a yearly celebration held on May 5, which commemorates the anniversary of Mexico’s victory over the French Empire at the Battle of Puebla in 1862, led by General Ignacio Zaragoza.
Wednesday, May 4, 2022. Another beautiful day, 74° light winds, sunny.
Monday May 2, 2022. 72° no wind, sunny.
Sunday May 1, 2022. 72°, no wind to start, light breeze upon return.