Baby Box Turtle

I'd wondered about where Box Turtles come from for years. I'd seen eggs in the compost pile and at first assumed they were turtles until I broke some open accidentally with the rototiller and found that they were snake eggs. These eggs were not much smaller than chicken eggs, which was surprising. They were leathery and orange. I found a Box Turtle laying eggs one year, down by the horseshoe pits. I was quiet and careful not to disturb it, and then by sheer luck some time later came upon a baby box turtle in that same area, making it's way to the woods. It was tiny, but still, I could imagine it coming from an egg something between a marble and my thumb in size.

This year, I found a baby box turtle in my garage. I don't know how long it was there, but it was obviously trapped and in trouble as there was nothing to eat in the garage. Zach was at hand and got to oversee the relocation and release of the little traveller.

Heartland Garden

During our Powell Garden travels, we walked over to the Chapel and I was barely able to talk Zach into getting on the trolley bus. Once on, he did not want to get off, and our only choice was to go all the way around the site to the other side and get off at the Heartland Garden.

This was a very good destination this time around. He was fascinated by the water pump and only wanted to stand and pump water into the pail. He was not interested in moving on to see any new things and only the promise of getting wet in the little stream lured him away.

The next fascinating thing was the little chicken coop. Zach wanted to walk inside and climb out the little chicken door and down the little chicken ramp. Again, I think he would have been happy to do this all day.

There were lots of enormous yellow grasshoppers, as well as the enormous steel praying mantis at the back of the garden.

On the way out, the apple core sculpture was something to play in as we headed out the garden on the way home.

Unintended Consequences

Our trip to Powell Gardens was not exactly according to plan. You take your children to a botanical garden so they can see the plants and learn to appreciate what can be done through cultivation and propagation and what makes a pleasing environment through the design of planned plantings of well laid out beds of various species of flowers and fruits.

Then you find that your child is more interested in the moss on the pond or the wild dandelions growing in the grass. You never know what's going to be important.

Water Garden at its Peak

I've been impressed by the Island Water Garden at Powell Gardens since they put it in several years ago.

This year, this day in mid September, was the best I've ever seen it.

Not only were the lily pads and lotuses perfect, but the little fountain at the back of the group of pools had a hypnotic effect. The fountain's ribbon of overflow was hitting the pool in the perfect way to make a steady stream of lazy drifting bubbles. Zach probably could have spent the entire day there, poking and popping the bubbles with his pointing little fingers. I was quite content to sit and watch.

Tenth Anniversary

I spent 9/11 going to Powell Gardens with Zach. It was about as lush and full of vegetation as I have ever seen it. We were coming off a wet spring and a wet summer and the plants looked amazing, even the cactus plants looked green and healthy.

The lake was full of algae and duckweed. I don't feel as bad about our pond and its perennial pea green phase. If the experts either can't control it or don't think it's worth controlling, why should I?

The Chapel felt like it was tucked back into a wild wood and the black eyed Susans formed a yellow wall up to chest high.

Trail of Death

In looking for new places to hike, I checked out the GeoCaching site for the first time in a couple of years and set out with Zach to check out someplace new.

The Trail of Death is on a portion of the Little Blue Trace Trail, and commemorates the forced relocation of 859 Potawatomi Indians from Indiana to Kansas in 1838. It sounded like the Trail of Tears, which I had heard of before. The trail of tears was several relocations over 7 years in which 4,000 Indians died out of 15,000 relocated. So this action was 17 times smaller with about 1/6 of the death rate of the Trail of Tears (that means 100 times more people died), yet it got the nastier name.

The park itself was pretty nice, it a rural portion of eastern Jackson County,near an active rail line, which could be heard clearly during the entire time we walked the trail.

Zach was all for going south, and liked anything that looked dangerous. We came back to the parking area and tried to go north, but he quickly got tired and bored and wanted to stand on a concrete pad or smack the trees with a stick.

Santa-Cali-Gon Days

I used to work on a music festival called The Spirit Festival that was on Labor Day weekend, and we supposedly competed with the Santa-Cali-Gon Days festival. I always thought that was absurd, the Santa-Cali-Gon Days was a joke, I thought. The Spirit Festival has been dead and gone for 10 years now and the Santa-Cali-Gon Days keep plugging along.

I did hear some good things about it, that it was well organized, always made money, had great attendance, and always did well by the vendors. I took Zach down while Andrea studied and had my first SCG experience. It was hot as hell, and Zach did not want to walk after about 50' on the sidewalk. At first, he did not want to get in the backpack, but I finally got him up there and we hiked the 8 blocks over to the site (parking was unbelievable).

The site is scenic and well laid out, but it's just a carnival with food and trinket booths. Zach was too small to go on rides and the food and merchandise lacked any kind of appeal. The games were all variations of the same rip-off, and the people running the games were doing their usual annoying hawking of the game and hyping the prizes.

We walked through once and returned home. That will probably be my last Santa-Cali-Gon Days festival.

Toilet Paper Apocalypse

The nighttime security next door is woefully inadequate. If this had been a real emergency, like the end of the world, they would have been completely taken by surprise. As it was, it just looked like the end of the world.

Cole's 10th Birthday Party

We went out to the AMF Pro Bowl Lanes in North Kansas City. I was sick at the time and so was Zach. It was a hot day and people were bowling inside, but Zach was more interested in exploring. We checked out the inside space, which included some really old fashion classic bowling alley decor and some of the biggest pool tables I've ever seen. Then Zach wanted to go outside where there were some really old go cart tracks, some batting cages, and a mini golf course.

I pretty much let Zach go where he wants and follow him to see if something interesting happens. This time, he decided to go into the batting cages and go explore the automatic pitching machines from behind the netting. I'm sure they wouldn't have wanted us back there, but it was hot out and there was no one outside of the building, so we went back and poked around. Our curiosity satisfied, the birthday party moved outside and we ate cupcakes and played mini golf. Zach didn't get the hang of hitting balls, but he was starting to figure out the goal of getting it in the hole. I think he just liked walking around on the course.

Catalpa-tee Peg

Recently, the little boss and I did a walkabout on the TEC grounds. He liked the huge Catalpa tree pods. They look like giant green beans, but they're tough like little spears. He had to inspect the drainage and while he was there, I flipped the pod like a knife in the game Mumbledee Peg. Not that I ever played the game formally, I just remember it had something to do with flipping knives onto the ground and you won when they stuck blade in the ground with their hilt pointing up. I managed to make one stick right in the ground, which is evidence that you should not be playing with these pods with a 2 year old because "YOU CAN PUT AN EYE OUT WITH THAT!"

We walked down the street and determined that Al Seese has a salt block out for the deer by the enormous rock he pulled out of the parking lot area when he built his shop and left it standing as a vaguely Idaho shaped (or upside down Nevada) monument to not wanting to haul everything you find off the site.

We also discovered the end of the drainage culvert is severely eroded. I'm surprised the Christian Martial Arts guys can't fix that by praying then kicking and hitting it.

Space Station Time Lapse

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

This is beautiful.

I had no idea how much auroras and lightning storms there were around the world at any one time.

It's from Astronomy Picture of the day at: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap111121.html

Here's the text/explanation:
Around the World in 90 Minutes
Video Credit: Expedition 28 & 29 Crews, ISAL, NASA's JSC;
Compilation and Editing: Michael König; Music: Do Dekor (Jan Jelinek), faitiche
Explanation: What is it like to circle the Earth? Every 90 minutes, astronauts aboard the International Space Station experience just that. Recently, crew members took a series of light-sensitive videos looking down at night that have been digitally fused to produce the above time-lapse video. Many wonders of the land and sky are visible in the eighteen sequences, including red aurora above green aurora, lights from many major cities, and stars in the background. Looming at the top of the frame is usually part of the space station itself, sometimes seen re-orienting solar panels. Please help create a useful companion guide for this moving video by identifying landmarks, cities, countries, weather phenomena, and even background constellations that appear.