OK Kelvin, if these aren't interference patterns, what are they? Republished 2/6/2018

Photo taken in February. First published for Feb 28, 2009

My brother is a physics professor, who teaches optics. He said years ago that I couldn't be seeing interference patterns on a macroscopic scale, from light coming through a narrow crack in a door hinge.

Here, the light is coming sideways through a narrow gap between a curtain and window frame. The bands certainly look like interference patterns to me. (When I was an oceanography student, I used to watch the waves reflecting off the sides of the ship canal as I walked to school. They made interference patterns as they crossed. I also knew all the types of wave patterns I could get in a coffee cup from my hand shaking as I walked across the cafeteria.)

This is a South-facing window, and the photo was taken on 2-28-2007. It has been photoshopped only to bring out the best in the image. I think that if the light is coming sideways to the opening, you can get the effect of a very narrow slit.

Or, if these aren't interference patterns, what are they?


The vertical lines are possibly from the vertical bars on the porch railings. Although the railings are less than waist-high; the early morning sun would have to be very low down to cast light through them up to this ceiling. I don't think the sun through the trees could be that low; maybe a reflection off a pan of water?This is early morning light, by the angle, and it comes through a lot of trees, so it is often a focused beam, coming through a narrow gap between the trees, as can be seen sometimes casting wavery light through the old float glass windows. (Pictures previously published.)

The night the vultures dropped in

First, in the very late afternoon, lying out on the lawn chairs, Larry & I saw them way up high, circling. Many of them, maybe 18 or 2 dozen, so high & small we could barely see they were birds, and they were grey against the sky, not black. We guessed turkey vultures, because we couldn't think of what else would be in such a large group, soaring, circling in a "kettle".

Then, without my seeing their actual arrival, they were dropping into the large Ponderosa pines south of the house, slightly downhill. It was still just light enough to try to get a few photos that night. This one was taken the next morning, Sept 26, 2007. I waited a couple of hours and took the later bus to school, hoping to get a shot of them as they flew.

Instead, they sat in the trees in sunny spots, or flew to the large black oak to the east of the house and stretched their wings out in the sun. I could just hear them saying "Mornin' Joe. Cup of coffee?" as they woke up slowly.

Meanwhile, out from under the same pine trees came a flock of wild turkeys, a dozen or so, industriously scratching for their breakfasts. I can see why Benjamin Franklin admired them.

Even by the time I had to catch the bus to school at 9:30, they had not left, still waiting for their thermal. As the bus pulled out, I could see just the first few rising slowly.*

That afternoon when I got home from school, I went straight to the window, but unfortunately without the camera. There they were, 2 dozen of them, circling down just above the treetops, deciding if they were coming here again. A breathtaking sight.


*My Young Wilderness Professional book-club friend tells me that they migrate that way, by rising very high on a thermal, then gliding down to the next one. And I guess this south slope makes a good one.

Looking just as if she were asleep...

Curled up beside the road, a fawn or yearling. If she were a live deer, this would be a good picture. Please, everybody, be careful out there, these nights with poor visibility and early dark.

Little Lovey died last night. He was only 8 years old. He had been to the vet twice in the last two weeks. He had been blocked before, but this time was worse. After he came home, he was doing ok, but the medicine was making him sick. I eventually stopped giving it to him, he got a little better and started eating a little again. Then, on the advice of the vet, I added back just one, just once, the most likely to help, and the least likely to make him sick. But it was "use with caution in the case of kidney damage" and I think that might be what happened to him. The next morning he was very weak, and he just went downhill in a few days.

He was a feral kitten, trapped when he was several months old. He had only 3 usable legs, and hopped everywhere. He liked to be petted and have his stomach rubbed and hop up on my lap.

Once two giant dogs almost got him: they had chased him down under a bush, and he was on his back, all three sets of claws out to defend himself. I ran out in my pajamas in the rain, bare-handed, and chased them off. Then I got a length of pipe and guarded him (they tried to come back) for the hour it took him to get back to the house. He was exhausted, and went to sleep in the rain for some time. And he had totally reverted to feral, was completely scared of me. (Well, I'd been as scary as I knew how to be, telling those giant dogs to "Go home!!!")

You can read more about him, and see a picture, at
http://wrwcolors.blogspot.com/2006/10/three-legged-cat-falls-off-roof.html

Goodby Lovey. I love you.

Strange Cat on the Roof

This isn't the strange cat, this is Cheesecake, several years ago, on a favorite perch, 20-some feet up in the air. Photoshopped, needless to say.

This week, on Sunday night, the neighbor's cat had gone over the roof, jumped down to the lower roof that connects to the balcony - and discovered that there was no way down. He was frantically running around looking for one when I went out to see what was going on out there.

(In the old days, before the roof was rebuilt, there used to be a way down for the cats, besides climbing the shingles. The cat who used to live upstairs discovered how to put his arms around the drainpipe and slide down like a furry fireman. While we still lived in the basement, Cheesecake watched that, and when we moved upstairs, he did it too. Sure wish I had a picture of it.)

Now the roof sticks out further, and there's no access to the firepole-drainpipe. Since I didn't discover the neighbor's cat out there until dark, and he runs from me (he beats up my cats), I just left him, hoping he might discover some way down. But he was still there in the morning, so I called the neighbors at 7:30, on my way out the door to school.

When I got home, there was a note from them. They'd used my orchard ladder to get their cat off the roof, and were keeping their cats inside for a couple of days as a "time-out"....

My Summer

I did a lot of new things this summer.

Two days a week, I left the house before 5:00am to walk to the bus stop for a 5:40 bus, to take a class down in Rocklin. At first, the sky was light, with only a few stars left, and the birds started singing by 5:10. By the last few weeks of class, it was full dark, with all the stars out, when I left the house, and still dark with no birds when the bus left. Before class started, once I realised what the bus schedule had to be, I was saying "I'm not really going to do this am I? No, I'm not going to do it." But as soon as I did it, I loved the early morning walks.

I started walking on other mornings too, though not quite so early. The trail along the irrigation ditch down the hill is a lovely place to walk, shady & partly through woods, or if I go early enough, (as late as 9:00 on Sundays), I can explore back streets and sleeping neighborhoods, and see almost no one (a little white dog, a woman in her garden wearing her nightgown).

I worked at the college library all four days, until closing time at 7:00. And the days I worked in the evening after leaving the house before 5:00, and getting back in town at 3:00, and then finally climbing the hill from the bus stop at 7:30, were long days. And I did it. I survived and enjoyed it.

I went for walks in the woods on Saturdays with a friend I met in the library; the first time in all the years I've lived here that I've had the chance to enjoy being so close to the mountains. And we went to lots of lovely trails and lakes.

The class I took was a sewing class, in the fashion design department. It's been nice to start sewing again, after years when I did mostly dyeing instead. And to start working on some patterns to use up the many beautiful batik and hand-dyed fabrics I've collected during those years.

And oh yes, falling in love. With the guy I've been going for walks in the woods with. For the first time in decades.

Solar Heating - Cat Style

Chilly nights and sunny days. The house warms up a lot on its south slope exposure. But Bob and Pandora warming up their furry stomachs in the morning are cuter. Hope I can get a really good picture another time. This was such a chilly morning I wasn't willing to open a window to try for a better photo - and they would have moved.

Dear Faithful Reader

(and occasional readers) I know you're out there, because of Statcounter. Perhaps you could get in touch and let me know what keeps you coming back, what you're looking for? Or why you don't come very often, what you're looking for? I write about lots of things. If I knew what interested you, perhaps there'd be more about those topics. If you'd rather email me than leave a comment, please put the blog name in the subject line.

Imagine me here at my desk writing to you. This is the day after I got my computer. It's on the Mission desk in Grandfather's house. I had been online first thing, and gotten an image of a batik fabric to use as a desktop. I call this image the "Arts and Crafts Computer". (Yes I know there's a book by that name.)

Over at Dressaday Erin tagged us all. Here's my 5 items of information about myself:

I finally met another person who dates historical events by what they were wearing. (Yes, she's a costumer.)

I live (for a few months more) in the house my mother was born in.

I learnt to sew in 5th grade in England, by hand.

I learnt to bake bread the summer I turned 16, on a wood stove at our cabin.

When I call my cats (mrrroowwwww), they come running. Through the sprinklers. To get to dinner. They have me trained to call them as soon as I come home, before dark. So the coyotes don't get them.