It started out as a single paddle in a tiny pot a number of years ago. Over the years it grew and grew eventually becoming a very pretty cactus plant. And this year it is doing something it never had done before.
It is blooming, displaying the most delicate, yet beautiful yellow flowers. Even the bees are enjoying them. Nature at her finest.
On March 6th we drove to the far eastern end of the street we live on to await the launch of Starship 8. Living some 70 miles west of Starbase all we can see of the launches is the vapor trail in the sky.
Compared to the early morning launches we can see very little when they launch in the late afternoon. Our plans call for us taking our RV over to the Brownsville area during one of the future launches. The RV park we like to stay at there is about 20 miles from the launch site. When that happens the photos should look significantly different. Life is far shorter than you think. Live each day to its fullest, after all, it could be you last.
I didn’t post yesterday and the reason can be found in the above red box. We had a “severe thunderstorm” hit yesterday just as I was getting ready to write the blog. The rainfall total was 8.60 inches for the storm. The electric was off for several hours. The streets were flooded. There was simply no where for the water to drain off as the land around us is quite flat. Some days are more interesting than others.
Palm trees drop hundreds and hundreds of seeds on the ground. Only a very few of those seeds ever actually sprout. The image shows two of them that sprouted in one of our front flower beds.
My wife was weeding those flower beds and pulled these two small seedlings up. That begs the question, was this the end of their short life? Or was the fact they were dropped in one of our compost bins and once they decompose and are placed on the ground around our garden plants will they become part of the plants they nourish, it being just a stop in their life cycle.
As the song goes: is All We are Dust in the Wind or is the cycle of Life endless?
YouTube seems like its becoming a cesspool of ads and I’m not paying Google money to be somewhat ad free. So, what with YouTube being the place the hucksters have taken over with ads that are sometimes longer than the video I want to watch, this is how I react.
If it’s the channel of someone I like, I let the ads play, but mute the volume and spend time doing something else. later returning my attention to the screen, if the ads are over, and there are always ads not just a single ad, I click back to the beginning of the video I want to watch, unmute the sound and watch the video. If YouTube interjects more ads I just repeat the mute etc. routine. When done I find a playlist for that channel, click to watch and go off letting the ads and videos run on and on. I figure if the advertiser is willing to be a party to my privacy and time, they can pay to have ads run that I am not even in the room to watch. Any amount the channel earns from YouTube is just a bonus.
If it is a new channel I immediately click to skip the ad , I’m not watching an ad for some channel I know nothing about. Most all of the videos I watch are what I call educational, where I am trying to do something and seek out a video from someone who has already done it. This is especially true for the photo and video editing apps, various repairs, gardening info and space news videos and live streams I like to watch. I’d say something about the stupid video suggestions YouTube provides, but that is a post for another day.
