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cincinnatus_c
Currently at Toronto Pearson: -1. High today: 0.
I realized a couple of weeks ago that I was right about the Big Dipper, but wrong about Orion: the Big Dipper is closer to the horizon most of the night in the summer, but Orion is actually gone--the Big Dipper revolves around the pole in the northern sky, but the southern pole that Orion revolves around is--obviously--not in our sky. Realizing that, and then noticing that Sirius trails behind Orion to its west, I realized that Sirius must also disappear in the summer. But Sirius is the dog star, the sign of the dog days--of summer! Well, Uncle Wikipedia informs me that the dog days (and the flooding of the Nile) begin with the "heliacal rising" of Sirius--the first day that it's visible before sunrise. So, something to look out for in the late summer early mornings at the cottage, and another thing to make me glad that the cottage faces east. (I used to wish it faced west, to see the sunset. But to be able see everything rise, and the golden glow of the trees across the lake as the sun goes down, is the much better bargain.) And yet another thing that I learn and it makes me wonder how I have managed never to know this before. (It has only been looking at that star chart that prompted me to realize that your astrological sign corresponds, roughly, to the constellation the sun is in at the time you're born (and so the constellation corresponding to your sign isn't visible around your birthday). How did I not know that before? How did I never know anything about that at all? How many people take horoscopes seriously and don't know that?)
Speaking of seasonal signs, every day now I look outside and see no juncos and think that the juncos are gone, but then, until today, it has turned out that they're not. Today, maybe they are, who knows. Here they were yesterday:
Note our attractive shit pole. In case you were wondering, slathering vaseline on your bird feeder pole is not an effective way of keeping squirrels out of your bird feeder. It is, however, an effective way of creating a shit pole. Today I tried making baffles out of pie plates, and spraying the poles with cooking spray.
I realized a couple of weeks ago that I was right about the Big Dipper, but wrong about Orion: the Big Dipper is closer to the horizon most of the night in the summer, but Orion is actually gone--the Big Dipper revolves around the pole in the northern sky, but the southern pole that Orion revolves around is--obviously--not in our sky. Realizing that, and then noticing that Sirius trails behind Orion to its west, I realized that Sirius must also disappear in the summer. But Sirius is the dog star, the sign of the dog days--of summer! Well, Uncle Wikipedia informs me that the dog days (and the flooding of the Nile) begin with the "heliacal rising" of Sirius--the first day that it's visible before sunrise. So, something to look out for in the late summer early mornings at the cottage, and another thing to make me glad that the cottage faces east. (I used to wish it faced west, to see the sunset. But to be able see everything rise, and the golden glow of the trees across the lake as the sun goes down, is the much better bargain.) And yet another thing that I learn and it makes me wonder how I have managed never to know this before. (It has only been looking at that star chart that prompted me to realize that your astrological sign corresponds, roughly, to the constellation the sun is in at the time you're born (and so the constellation corresponding to your sign isn't visible around your birthday). How did I not know that before? How did I never know anything about that at all? How many people take horoscopes seriously and don't know that?)
Speaking of seasonal signs, every day now I look outside and see no juncos and think that the juncos are gone, but then, until today, it has turned out that they're not. Today, maybe they are, who knows. Here they were yesterday:
Note our attractive shit pole. In case you were wondering, slathering vaseline on your bird feeder pole is not an effective way of keeping squirrels out of your bird feeder. It is, however, an effective way of creating a shit pole. Today I tried making baffles out of pie plates, and spraying the poles with cooking spray.
