Some random bits of nature

I'm taking a break from the cards/collectibles for today. If that's cool with you, then read on -- if not, you can check back in on Friday for a regularly scheduled card post.

One thing that I've learned in my now 4+ years in Tennessee, is that when the warmer weather arrives, so do the thunderstorms (with the occasional threat of a tornado as well). I enjoy thunderstorms quite a bit, so their presence is always a welcome sight, and sound. The last couple of days have been pretty exciting, as we've had the perfect conditions for random pop-up storms -- the kind that show up out of nowhere, dump a bunch of rain, produce sounds that make one think that the world is ending, and the move off just as quickly as they arrived. Yesterday (Monday) was particularly good, especially in the morning, one came in while I was out doing some stuff out in the shed, I walked out to see what's what after listening to the sky talk for a few minutes, noticed some interesting cloud formations, and decided to take a few pictures before the rain/hail started.

Do you see the face?

I realize that some folks might not care too much about pictures of clouds, but I thought that they were neat, so... yeah!

Going back in time a little bit, to last week to be exact, we had one morning that got down to 50 degrees (brr!), and it must've been a little colder higher up, enough to produce some ice crystals, because we ended up with a sun halo. I hadn't seen too many of these before, so I of course had to try and take some pictures. Being that it's the sun, you know, kind of bright, I couldn't really see what I was doing, so I just had to point the phone in the suns general direction, and hope that a few of the photos came out.

I couldn't pull the phone far enough way to get the entire halo, but considering that I couldn't see what I was doing, I think that some of them didn't turn out too bad. Also, I didn't realize until I was looking at the photos on the computer, that a bunch of planes had to show up and spread their chemtrails (insert smiling emoji here) through my shots! Actually, I think the photos look a little more interesting with those condensation trails going through them -- although we don't get lot of airplane traffic out here very often, so to have three going by at the same time was a bit odd.

Staying with events that happened last week, I was doing some chainsawing, trying my best to clean up a little dead zone. While taking my first water break, I noticed that I had some company (middle of the photo), company of the slithering variety to be more exact.

It's probably hard to get a sense of scale (pun intended) from the photos, but that's over five feet worth of black rat snake. For non-snake people, these are a very common species, and are non-venomous. They are also very beneficial to one's surroundings, as they help take care of pesky rodents that might otherwise try to get into people's homes. He or she obviously didn't mind me or the chainsaw, as they showed up while I was working - and I certainly didn't mind the company, as it's always nice to have someone to talk to :)

Summer also means skinks, lots and lots of skinks! I love these little buggers so damn much.

Living right next to water has plenty of perks, one them being if you got to pick up a rock, or in this case, a brick, during the warmer months, the odds are high that you're going to find one of these little cuties (black salamander) underneath.

And finally, I know that this looks like the opposite of nature, but a couple of weeks ago I parked next to this car at the Kroger, and couldn't help but notice all of the muddy footprints...

... I especially liked the tracks on the windshield :)

That's all I've got for today, but there's still a lot of summer left, so depending on how things go, I might just have a few more posts worth of stuff before fall.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

COMC Sundays: 2013 Panini Golden Age Historic Signatures

Hey there, welcome to week 2 of my new ongoing series. If you liked last week's stuff, than there's a pretty good chance that you'll like this week's as well. And if you didn't like last week's stuff, well then, you could always skip through to the bottom, as I've tucked a bit of non-card content into today's post as well.

Al Kaline: Everyone knows of Mr. Tiger's accomplishments, so I don't think that any stats need to be added here. I actually bought a second copy of this card during the recent Spring Sale, the price was so low that I just couldn't not buy it. I've heard of instances where COMC has contacted people to ask them to return a card after they have bought something from someone who had accidently priced it too low, I was half-expecting for this to be one of those times, but no email ever came, so I guess the seller either didn't know of it's value... or they just don't think too highly of Mr. Kaline.

Ralph Terry: Owner of two World Series rings, MVP of the 1962 World Series, and a two-time all-star. [Side note: The image of Ralph Terry's face on this card is kind of creepy looking]

Gary Lee Cavagnaro's only claim to fame was The Bad News Bears. He's only got two other acting credits to his name, those being Drive-In (worth checking out btw) and Crisis at Central High.

Erin Blunt is pretty much just known for The Bad News Bears as well, although he did appear on a few television shows like The Waltons, Happy Days, Quincy M.E., and The White Shadow.

Looking ahead to next week: 2014 Panini Golden Age Historic Signatures.

Since this post was kind of short, I'm gonna add some bonus content to pad it out a little:

Yesterday morning while brushing my teeth I just happened to be looking out the patio door at the right time to see a decent sized turtle about 50 feet from the house. So I quickly put on a pair of sandals, and with toothbrush still in mouth, headed out get a better look.

The bottle was for scale.

As I approached I was pretty sure that it was going to be a snapping turtle, if only because I had seen another one in almost the exact same spot a little over two years ago. When I got to within about 10 feet, I was able to confirm that it was indeed a snapper.

If I had to guess, I'd say that this turtle was around 12 inches long, and was in the 7-10 pound range. I don't know where it was coming from (possibly the frog pond), but it was headed in a direction that would've meant almost certain death. The next closest body of water from our property is about a mile away, and although the turtle was headed that way, it would have had to cross the acres of field next door -- which has been in the process of being mowed and baled -- plus, the real feel yesterday in the sun yesterday was in the 90's, so with all those factors in mind... something had to be done to help it.

The snapping turtle that I relocated a couple of years ago was only about 1/3 of the size of this one, so I knew that this one might be a little more difficult to catch. I am no expert when it comes to turtle wrangling, but I do know that snapper's can reach their neck almost across the back of their body, and they tend to be a lot more aggressive while on land... so since I'm kind of attached to my fingers, I wasn't about to be trying to pick it up.

Not surprisingly, the turtle wasn't too keen on cooperating. But after about 40 minutes, he (or she) was safely gotten in to a rolling tote, which was then picked up and taken to the creek in the front of our property. I would have liked to have taken it to the part of the creek that goes through the woods, but being the time of the year that it is, I don't fancy the thought of running into any poisonous snakes -- not to mention all the ticks -- so there weren't too many options.

I couldn't get any pictures of the turtle once we got over to the water because when I got too within about 20-30 feet from the waterway, the turtle could smell the water and started to get very antsy. As soon as the tote was laid down, the turtle made a mad dash for the water, and was gone before I could even think to get my cell phone out.

Just another typical morning in the middle of nowhere :)


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.