Happy Birthday, delux_vivens!!! May your year to come be filled with purrs and contentment!!!! *hugs*

Here are some pics I took around Greenbelt Lake over the last few weeks for two lovely birthday grrls, dear romeny and ladysnaps!!! I hope it's been a wonderful and relaxing day for you both. <3


A passion flower. They line the path along the formerly known as the sunny western side of the lake and first bloomed fully in June, got cut back at the beginning of July, and came back with another set of blooms in August. They're blooming still. Hardy little buggers. These flowers always look like elegant beauties from outer space to me, with their strange antennae-like stamens and bright fringe. (-:
( Follow me here to see more early autumn flora and fauna . . .  )

And now for the after-birthday birthday greeting!



These hobbit actors keep busy between shoots for the BigBang fics, but if they came up for air, they would wish dear lbilover a very happy birthday!!! Hope it was a lovely one!!

This ringwraith, sitting in his favorite rocking chair with his favorite kitty, would like to wish benedict a happy birthday!!!



Happy Birthday, benedict!!!

This ringwraith also wishes the other ringwraiths would stop making fun of him for having cat fur covered robes. No, none of the Petsmarts in Mordor carry furminators--he's looked.

Yay--we just got our power back--it was out for 18 hours starting at 4:30 this morning. So all's good here now. I hope all you folks north of us who were more in the eye are OK.

I didn't get to bed until after 5 am when the winds were settling down, and it took me a good hour or so to get to sleep, but I slept through until 2 in the afternoon--I was pretty exhausted. So then I got up and went hunting for ice, tried several places before I was successful, and came back with my quarry an hour later. The power was out in all of Old Greenbelt through to Greenbelt Road, and lots of branches and leaves were down on my drive, but I saw no downed trees. We're not very flooded because, until last week, most of the storms in the area have missed this immediate area, so we haven't had as wet an August as most of the area has and our water table needed all that Irene brought.

The fridge was up to 50 degrees F, so I think I got the perishables iced up just in time as they had several more hours of power out to go. I still have my perishables in the coolers, so I'm going to clean out the fridge tonight before I put them back in. I don't know if the freezer would have really made the 48 hours they say freezers can go, because, though the freezer was full, the ice cream I just checked seemed pretty soft. However, no ice had melted. Still, I don't think the frozen foods in this freezer should be considered safe after 24 hours. So that's good to know at least for next time.

I went out later this afternoon to check on the strays--they were fine. I gave Ostra her massage and pet down. I don't think I mentioned before but she's fully pettable now and shimmies her tail straight up in the air mewing all the while as I approach--it only took 2 years. (-; I can pet Brigit fleetingly, and she's just started mewing to me, but it's going to take some more months, I think, depending on how jealous she gets of Ostra, and if Ostra lets me pet Brigit; Ostra's trying her best to keep us from touching by swatting both of us. Cats. (-; A. keeps saying she's going to try to trap them and bring them to a fosterer, but I'll believe it when it happens--she's been saying it since spring.

Then I picked up some more ice and batteries on the way home, as I sure made use of the battery powered fans and lights last night. So it's good--I'm almost stocked up again for next time. I made use of every bit of prep I did. I'm sure glad I won't need to get more ice tomorrow--the cost of this stuff adds up, and I'm glad I won't have to truck my frozens to L tomorrow, although I'm very grateful for her offer. And I'm glad I didn't have to buy dry ice--I looked up where I could get it locally and that stuff is expensive--I'm not sure it's worth the expense if you don't keep expensive fish and meat in your freezer. Tomorrow I'll walk down to the lake and see how it looks there.

What an exhausting week! Be safe everyone!

This Ent, who I met at the Cascade Falls Trail in Patapsco River Valley Park, would like to wish saraqael a very happy birthday!!!! The Ent also tells you not to worry about hasty little things like earthquakes and hurricanes which he plans to nap through.

Here's info on the seismic zone in VA.

We may have broken the record over one that hit here in 1897 by a tenth of a point. I'm hoping this one counts for this century and not a late one for the last one. They said there we should only get one this big once a century and I'm gonna hold them to it, dammit.

Hey ancalime8301!!!! Check this out!

On our way back from seeing RotK in June, Cali and I saw a strange gray creature running across the road in my headlights. My best guess was it was a hairless fox who maybe lost its fur from mange. Or maybe the love-child of Gollum and the fox that saw the hobbits as they journeyed out of the Shire.

Anyway, I just saw this video on the weather channel site, and this has got to be the very fellow, unless there's more than one of them. It was found near a hospital in our county, and the nearest hospital from where we saw it is about 4 miles away. Obviously, it's trucking its way over the area, trying to find the portal back to its home dimension. Seeing it here, it looks a little chubby to be a fox.

What do ya'll think it is? Weird, huh?

Edit: Just found an article on it with a pic and the video here.

It's febobe's birthday, so you know that . . .



Frodo's had a rough time
and he's laid up in bed;
Little does he suspect
( Again, little does he suspect . . . )

Happy Birthday, annwyn55!!! I hope you have a lovely celebration!!! And here's Bingo and Sam on Tol Eressea to celebrate it with a double drabble for you. This pic was taken at sunset at Delaware State Seashore last October--yes the sea really was that color! Click on it to embiggen.



Title: More Sand
Pairing: F/S
Rating: PG Fluff
Disclaimer: Just borrowing J.R.R. Tolkien's hobbits for the shear pleasure of it. And I'd never sell them; I'd keep them if I could.

( Sam was worried . . . )