Lizards, Reptiles and Amphibians

We watched a Geico commercial awhile back, a guy in a laboratory being consumed by a green glob of gunk.  Stupid, blah, yuk!  "I liked the lizard better." said I. "Geckos aren't lizards," Trish responded. Googled it: yup, they're lizards alright.  That got me wondering about the lizard family: who's included, who isn't, are the marine iguanas I saw in the Galapagos Islands lizards or amphibians? Here's the skinny, lizard lovers, amazing facts and statistics you always wanted to know but never realized until just now.

Geckos are the smallest of the lizards, which are a subset of the reptile family.  The largest lizard is the Komodo dragon which can weigh up to 300 pounds and reach 10' in length.  They're carnivores, are very quick and they do consume the occasional human, bones and all.  Grabbing one by the tail isn't really a good idea.

This might surprise you: modern scientists include birds in the reptile family.  When we visited Dinosaur National Monument last year, one of the rangers said, "Birds are dinosaurs."  Golly gee, Mister Science!

If you're cold-blooded, have overlapping scales and are not a snake, you're a lizard.  If you're a  cold-blooded vertebrate with dry, scaly skin and lay soft shelled eggs on land you're a reptile.  If you have both lungs and gills - like frogs, newts, turtles and salamanders - you're an amphibian.

Marine iguanas aren't amphibians but can stay underwater for up to 45 minutes, chowing down on algae, their favorite food.  Although not very photogenic, they love to pose for pictures, big grins on their faces.

Stylin'!

My recent attempt to inspire a new trend in Arizona footwear was unsuccessful.  Not a single one of my friends had the intestinal fortitude to follow in my avant garde, ground-breaking, sartorial footsteps.  What a bunch of wussies!

A few days ago I drove down to Casa Grande, met up with fraternity brother Tom, then headed on down to the Tucson area to visit Al, another fraternity brother.  I left LHC at 7:30 AM, freshly showered and shaved.  Stopped twice en route to CG for bladder breaks and a burger, arrived at Tom's shortly after noon.  We chatted awhile, had a brew and then I headed off to the guest bedroom for my daily nap.

I sat down on a chair and bent down to remove my sandals - and was flabbergasted at what I saw!  My right foot was encased in Keens, my left foot in one of the cheap-ass knockoffs I wear around home.  I laughed out loud.  Couldn't believe I'd left home without noticing that.  Couldn't believe I'd stopped twice and hadn't noticed.  Couldn't believe Trish hadn't noticed either.

After my nap, sandals back on my feet, I showed them to Tom and his wife, Martha.  They hadn't noticed the mismatch earlier, were quite delighted when I pointed it out.  And, later, so was Al.  We went out to dinner at Al's and again when Tom and I returned to CG.  My attempts to have everyone wear mismatched footwear out to dinner fell on deaf ears.  Guess they just aren't ready to embrace that level of senility.  I'm confident they will embrace it in due time, although, given my commanding lead, it's doubtful they'll ever catch up.

Strike 3

When we bought our LHC home, there was a tree living in a raised bed near the front entry, stood about 6' tall.  "What kind of tree was it?" you ask.  Not sure but quite likely a Ho-Humia Nondescriptus.  Borrrrring!  Certainly didn't merit a focal point position in front of the house.  Took one look at it and thought you're sooo outta here!  And so it came to pass.

Now then, what to replace it with?  An orange tree of course!  Citrus does well in Arizona if provided with adequate water and fertilizer, and I'm an excellent provider thereof if I do say so myself (especially fertilizer).  The orange tree flourished, beau coup oranges 3 years after planting.  But, nary a one fit to eat - all pulp, no juice. Turns out the variety I selected was racist, wouldn't consider cross-pollination in its wildest dreams.  So, it too bit the dust.

Okay, what next?  Hours of arduous research spent finding a plant of the right size and temperament resulted in the next selection, a pygmy date palm.  My neighbors have several, 5-6' tall, attractive (picture below), seemed like a no-brainer.  Bought one, stuck it in the ground, gave it lots of TLC.  To no avail: darn thing just sat there, never grew an inch.  Strike 3!  You're out!  Enough, already!  No more plants!*  How about colorful glazed pottery? 

I ripped out the palm and tossed it over the back fence to RIP with its predecessors.  Then I capped off the irrigation pipe to the planter and off we went in search of pottery.  We didn't find much, LHC not being the Mecca of fine yard art.  Trish was headed off to Santa Fe in a few weeks, and we knew she'd find a better selection there.  And indeed she did, bought a tall pot and a sphere.  We wanted a group of 3, found the third one at the local Lowe's.

So, here's the new look.  The gabion cube was a bonus.  When I ordered the parts for the mailbox, they screwed up, sent 6 extra 2X2 panels, so might as well put them to use.  I made the copper trellis several years ago, brought it from OR.  That thing on the far right in the picture below is a rain chain, much more attractive than a plain downspout.

*No more plants in just that one spot, still have 8 types of cacti and a century plant in other areas.

Hot Pot

Several days ago I went to Home Depot and bought the largest clay pot they had in stock, one of those unglazed, terra cotta pots you see everywhere.  We'd been looking for 3 large, colorful, glazed pots for a particular spot outdoors but weren't finding what we wanted so I thought I'd try painting one with my acrylic artist paints.

When I got it home it quickly became obvious that HD's largest wasn't nearly large enough for the outdoor setting.  What the hell, since I'd already bought it, I opted to go ahead and paint it anyway.  I applied a couple coats of Kilz primer/sealer, then several applications of paint in yellow, red and black - and voila, it became Hot Pot!  It now resides on one of our (indoor) pot shelves.

  

Roughing It

A few posts back (Virginia City) I mentioned that Mark Twain lived there a couple years and that he wrote the book, Roughing It, while he was there.  Although I'd read lots of Twain's stuff, books, essays, short stories, etc, that book I had yet to read.  So off to the local library I went, found a copy, am now halfway through it - and I'm delighted!

It's truly a time capsule of the old west, the era of the cross-country stagecoach, pony express and mining boom towns.  As with any book, my interest is greatly enhanced when I've been to most if not all of the places described therein.  To see those places through the eyes of someone who was there 150 years ago is pure pleasure, given my love of American history.  Of course, the humor, wit, turn of phrase, irreverence, and gross exaggerations inherent in Twain's style add to the enjoyment.  It's rare that I laugh out loud while reading, but Mr T has me doing it repeatedly.

Were you aware the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was banned?  Yup, it was.  Twain's satirical writings about Christianity were also banned up one side and censored down the other.  Letters From the Earth, The Diaries of Adam and Eve and Methuselah: If you've not read them, you should - unless you happen to be a devout Christian with no sense of humor whatsoever.  They're hilarious.

The list of banned and censored American writers includes many of the greats so Mark was in good company.  Here are a few names you may recognize: Sinclair, Melville, London, Salinger, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Stowe, Bradbury, Heinlein, Hawthorne, Crane, Williams.  There are many more.  The very concept of banning and censoring books infuriates me.  It's Orwell's Big Brother in action.  Don't get me started!

Oops, looks like I already started.  Okay, let's return to the main feature.  If you've not read Twain beyond Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer I encourage you do so.  Try it, you'll like it.  Or not.

Given his awesome vocabulary and his way with words, it's hard to believe that Mark's formal education ended when he was about 12 years old.  His father died, so Mark had to find work to help support his large family.  

Valor in the Pacific

WW II Valor in the Pacific National Monument has 3 separate sites.  Nearly 2 million people a year visit the USS Arizona Memorial (Pearl Harbor) in Hawaii.  The other 2 sites - Tule Lake, CA and Kiska Island, AK - are virtually unknown and rarely visited.

We stopped briefly in Tule Lake this summer, not much to see there yet, a work in progress.  Before WW II, Tule Lake had a large Civilian Conservation Corp camp.  When the war started, it was rapidly expanded and converted to a Japanese-American internment camp that held 20,000 people, the largest of 10 internment camps that held a total of 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry.

The picture below, taken when all the barracks were still present, could have been taken of Dachau or Auschwitz.  Many of these buildings were moved and converted into homes after the war; we saw several as we drove through town.

The internees were given 3 days notice before they were moved, were forced to abandon their homes, businesses and belongings, were allowed to take only 1 suitcase to the internment camps, where they were destined to stay for 2.5 years.

These camps were a flagrant act of bigotry and a violation of civil rights.  In my view, the Tule Lake site shouldn't be included with the other 2 sites and should be named more appropriately.  Of valor there was naught.  Of shame there was abundance.

Gabion Mailbox 2

The resident architect drops in the first rock.  Trish came up with the idea.  I did the design/build.  We collaborated on the rocks.  Shortly after this picture was taken she said I could go do something else, a subtle hint that she wasn't much impressed with me randomly tossing rocks into the basket.  So ..... I left and did something else.

We hauled the rocks in buckets so we could hand pick the best shapes and sizes.  It took 15 buckets.  We placed some concrete blocks and debris from the old mailbox in the core where it couldn't be seen, decreasing the number of buckets needed.  It will weigh close to a ton when it's finished.  Is that enough to deflect the attacks of mail carrier vehicles?  Only time will tell.

Brace wires are added at 1' intervals to keep the sides from bulging out.

The first outgoing mail is placed in the box.  It's a Netflix DVD, the only mail that matters much nowadays.  Utility bills, investment reports and similar items are now paperless, all done online.

All done, looking good!

It was a fun project, total cost about $325, including gabion, mailbox, numbers and rocks.  We ordered the gabion parts from an outfit in CA; using a local welding outfit would have cost 5 times as much.  Should you be interested in a gabion project, here's the link to the provider: http://www.gabion1.com/