Altivo

The real raspberries and blackberries here this year were completely destroyed by drought. They turned into shriveled brown pellets without ripening.

The Raspberry Pi single board computer, on the other paw, arrived and is functional. At the moment I can only use the composite video output, which is kinda "furry" looking but legible. I'm waiting for an HDMI to VGA breakout box to arrive so I can use a standard monitor.

I've tried out two Linux configurations on it: Debian "squeeze" and ArchLinux. Debian, as usual, comes up fully configured with defaults that you may or may not want. Arch installs with a console only setup, no GUI at all, and requires you to add packages in order to build the GUI and environment you want. There are things to be said for each. Arch, for instance, uses a textual config file that let me adjust the overscan settings for my television easily. Debian has that configuration buried somewhere that I haven't yet found.

In any case, yet another Linux configuration arrived on the scene just today. Dubbed "Raspbian," it's the next release of Debian, optimized to use the available hardware acceleration on the Raspberry Pi's ARMv6 CPU and video. That includes, as I understand it, hardware floating point assist, and some degree of AGP video performance, using a chunk borrowed from the (limited) 256MB of RAM in the system.

Even the default Debian is certainly usable, though not exactly zippy at all tasks. Loading some programs takes significant time, though they run fast enough once loaded.

There is also a version of RISC OS available, though it's in beta at the moment so I'll wait for a final release. I know enough UNIX and Linux to play with a beta, but RISC OS is terra incognita to me.

In other news, it's very hot again. And the baby owls were here tonight. We hadn't seen them since last Friday night, but three were at the birdbaths once again right after sunset.

Up the count. Tonight at dusk we watched five young owls arrive on the two birdbaths in the yard, drinking and splashing a bit. The hot weather has continued unabated and I'm sure they're glad of the water. I'm also quite sure that adult screech owls are not so social. These five youngsters must be a brood, all siblings, to stick together so closely and play with one another. Gary tried to sneak around the house and take a picture of them, but as soon as he came in sight they scattered. One remained perched on a fence rail for another ten or fifteen minutes, while the rest headed up into the oaks. We have lots of mice and chipmunks around, though the chipmunks are diurnal so probably the mice are their main prey. And to be honest, they're welcome to take all the mice they can get. I hope they'll still be around to sing for us in the fall. I love the sound of screech owls. It isn't screechy at all, but more like a theremin or a musical saw.

Gary was going to a Civil War recreation this weekend, but the weather is so hot that most of his friends canceled out. Selfishly, I'm hoping he'll stick around and we can do stuff together.

We are independent. We did not grill anything. We did not set off any fireworks. (No, we're not responsible for the heatwave.)

We did wash the dining room windows so we can see the birds better.

We did replace our waterbed mattress with a brand new one. The bed frame and pedestal is 33 years old but I like it and I'm not giving it up. It's an enclosed box with mirrored headboard and ceiling made of dark-stained heavy pine boards. The mattress was 17 or 18 years old, and they are normally expected to last about 10. No wonder it had many patches. When it recently began to leak around the valve, I knew it was time. I ordered a complete new mattress setup, liner, mattress, heater, thermostat, and pad. About double what I paid last time for just the mattress and pad, but the technology has improved again. Getting the old mattress drained and removed was the hard part. The new stuff installed easily and fits perfectly (I hope.)

Not telling how much dog and cat hair was underneath the old mattress. How does it get all the way under there anyway?

The other highlight? Owls. Two young screech owls visited our birdbaths at dawn. And just after dusk they were there again, splashing in the water like songbirds. I've never seen an owl do that before, but I suppose they find this weather just as awful as we do.

Today's high here was either 101F or 97F depending on which thermometer you believe. It felt like 110F because there was plenty of humidity and no wind. Leaving the horses and ducks out in their yards again tonight rather than locking them up. We do put the sheep in, but they are recently shorn and their pen is just inside the large barn door that we leave open in summer. Particularly with the young lamb among them, I think it's better to bring them in.

Good grief, I think the last time I missed posting for two solid days was probably several years ago. And the worst part of it is that there's nothing interesting to say about all that time, much beyond that it was too busy and the days were too short. Work stuff, failed geekery, shopping nonsense.

Hopefully the bump is past for now. Yesterday and today were beautiful days that made me want to go out in some park and hike in the woods. We have some nice places not far away where that would work. At least three of them, four in fact, are within less than 30 minutes' driving distance. And some really excellent ones, like Glacial Park, are under an hour. But managing to actually get away from work during daylight hours has been too difficult. I hope the weather holds through the weekend but that seems unlikely.

Indigo buntings, hummingbirds, and orioles are making frequent appearances near the house now. We've still seen only one grosbeak, which is disappointing, but all our usual species are accounted for. The red-headed woodpeckers haven't been spotted for a week, so I suspect they have moved on as usual. White-crowned sparrows, of which we saw many last May, have not been here this year. But I hadn't seen any of them in the previous ten years either, so that's not too surprising. Coworker reports seeing a pileated woodpecker in Marengo Ridge a week ago today, and I've wanted to get up there (literally ten minutes from home) to check it out myself but haven't yet managed. At least the odds are good that if it was there last week it still is around now.

Cat and dog are taking up the entire sofa next to me. The Literati ereader arrived on Tuesday, but committed suicide while trying to download its own update from the net. Not my doing, it automatically did that as soon as it connected to wi-fi. EBay seller supplied prepaid return label and says he'll send another one (which may do the same thing, I don't know, though colleague's Literati is working fine with the newest firmware, so I expect it's not inevitably fatal.)

I have successfully downloaded 65 ebooks that I had purchased for the eBookwise reader device over the past seven years. All of them were converted to epub format and await a new epub compatible reader so they can be transplanted. Adobe Digital Reader seems quite happy with them, so I'm confident that they will take root as soon as new soil is avalable.

More birds: Red-headed woodpecker, at least one, is still here, spotted today several times. Indigo buntings in the yard just at dusk. We generally see a few each year, though many are in the general area by all accounts. I think our property is too heavily wooded for them. Really odd one was a warbler walking in the grass outside the library windows. Might have been a yellow warbler, but I couldn't see any streaks on the breast. Other possibility is Tennessee warbler but no russet cap on its head. Maybe females don't show that?

Still missing the rose-breasted grosbeaks and the white crowned sparrows we usually see passing through about now.

Wild cherry trees are coming into bloom now, nearly a month early. Honeysuckle, which is normally just opening now, is nearly past. Bee balm or Mountain mint are opening too. Wild cherry fragrance on the still air is overpowering.

Have to be up at 5 tomorrow to start the Audubon bird count at 6. If the sun comes out, it should be a good year. At least it is supposed to be reasonably warm and not overly windy.

*trumpet fanfare*

Allasso volume 2: Saudade has arrived on the scene from Pink Fox Publications. Available in traditional print or Kindle format from Amazon, this issue contains material from no less than eight (count them, eight) members of the Furry Writers' Guild, including myself. Prose, poetry, and some nice artwork too. Don't miss it.

End shameless plug. Seriously, editor Brian Lee Cook has done a super job of bringing these materials together. You can even skip my own story if you like, but you should read the others, OK?

No more woodpeckers today. I suspect, as usual, they have gone on to look for better nesting grounds. Whatever it takes to meet their criteria, we don't quite have.

Getting lax here. Or too busy.

Not that much happened yesterday other than the usual for a Saturday, shopping, animal care, laundry stuff.

This morning we went up to the library so I could activate and test the new firewall while no one was there to be interrupted, and Gary could use the wireless (which doesn't depend on this particular firewall) to work on his final project for the term. The firewall worked first time, though it still took about 90 minutes to test all the possible functionality that I could. My big concern was a point to point VPN tunnel required by our library software system, but that worked right off. I still had to try various subnets and parameters, but that seems to be done. Hooray. I just might be retired before this particular process needs to happen again. (I should be so lucky.)

Then we drove out to Richmond to pick up two ducks. Gary has become hooked on Freecycle and Craigslist, and yesterday he saw someone giving away ducks. Happily, they divided up what they had between several requesters, so we ended up with two females, perfect for our interest in eggs. The hens were reluctant to leave their home pen, but finally Gary crawled in there and caught them gently. They seem to have made themselves at home with our two established ducks within 30 minutes or so. These are "domestic mallards" according to the giver, and they apparently lay eggs with blue-green shells so it won't confuse our count for the Campbell hen. Now to see if she stops laying due to the disruption of her daily routine.

The red-headed woodpeckers are still hanging about, for the fourth day running.

Plans to grill something for dinner have probably been aborted by rain showers, but that's OK. We have plenty of stuff in the freezer to choose from.

Well, library books anyway. All day in-service training completed and went reasonably well.

Got home just in time to see a red-headed woodpecker in the back yard. Gary has already spotted it a couple of times earlier, and it came back yet once more before dark. These are very striking birds with areas of snowy white, solid black, and deep crimson. The edges between the colors are sharp and clear. When I was outside later I think I heard it as well, though it's not easy to distinguish from a bluejay and we have lots of those around.

Heard a great crested flycatcher in the woodlot behind the barns, and since the oak and hickory trees are only just starting to leaf out, I was able to spot it when it flew from one crown to another about 50 feet up.

On another birdish topic, our champion egg-laying duck laid egg number 199 today. One per day is her rule and she has only missed one day since she started laying last fall. Tomorrow will be number 200 and I have no reason to suspect she'll fail to deliver it.

I didn't have time to get a camera, but two geese landed on the ridge of the library roof this morning and sat there for several minutes. No idea why they would do that, but it sure was odd looking.

We are still being goosed by junk political callers, too. No way to tell tham that we voted last week and they are wasting their time and ours. As far as I can tell, all the calls are from Republicans, as usual. And all of them consist of negative campaigning against an opponent rather than positive ideas and concepts being presented. Republicans are defined by what they are against, not by what they favor, apparently. The great party of the perpetual "No!"

Raccoons are out in force, as are the chipmunks. Last night we saw two large 'coons in 0ur yard. Today I noticed a dead one on the edge of the road. Still busily enlarging itself, it had blimped up by about 50% over it's former dimensions, sort of like a Mandarin duck.

Think it must be time for bed, can't keep my eyes open.

Saw a turkey vulture in Harvard, circling over Lions Park today. I'm sure this is the earliest I've ever seen one. Went to the Audubon meeting tonight with friend Susan who said she had seen a red headed woodpecker in her yard, as well. That's about a month earlier than we usually see them.

Gary called the heat pump guy a couple of days ago because our system was acting irregular again. It would run normally for 20 hours or so, then lock up. He found a defective (sticky) relay. No parts cost because there were spare contacts on another relay that operates in parallel with it anyway. He transferred the problem circuit and everything is working again. Hopefully we're now good for a couple of years. He checked the pressure in the underground loop and it was OK. The compressor is transferring heat as it should, and the problem with the relay was cutting off the pump that circulates the coolant in the wells. All seems to be functional now.

Clear skies, brilliant full moon. Even if there is an aurora display tonight, I suspect the moon will mask it for us.