We spotted a plump mushroom cluster nestled at the base of a neighbor’s tree:
Eight days later they’d started curling:
Mushrooms growing on tree roots generally mean the tree is in trouble and, indeed, it’s a battered Black Locust.
Category: Oddities
Who’d’a thunk it?
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Lyme Disease
For reasons that made sense at the time, two weeks ago I ventured outside the house. A few days later, this appeared:
Lyme Disease – arm rash The pallid skin over on the left comes from a bike glove. The central bump is one of those annoying sebaceous hyperplasias appearing after a Certain Age and not relevant here.
Having been around this particular block a few times, Mary recognized the diffuse red rash, sleeping 30 of 36 consecutive hours, and a day-long 103 °F fever as Lyme disease. I’m currently taking 100 mg of doxycycline twice a day and (after a week) feeling better, while sleeping a lot more than usual at random intervals during the day.
We’re both highly aware of Lyme disease: Mary routinely dresses in a complete overlayer of permethrin-sprayed clothing and I generally strip-and-shower immediately after any yard work in similarly sprayed, albeit less enclosing, attire. In this case, we think a tiny Deer Tick nymph affixed itself to the outboard side of my wrist, where I could neither see nor feel it, and (because I didn’t take a shower after being outside for only a few minutes) remained attached long enough to infect me.
Caught and treated early, Lyme disease generally does not progress into “post-treatment Lyme disease”, an ailment rife with what can charitably be described as serious woo, despite some evidence of actual disease.
Some of Mary’s Master Gardener cronies have endured co-infections of Babesia microti and we’ll be watching for those symptoms after doxycycline tamps down the obvious problem.
I’ll be puttering very carefully around heavy machinery and posting irregularly for a few weeks …
Memo to Self: the Basement Shop has a lot to recommend it!
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Small Spider vs. Marmorated Stink Bug
Spiders know how to handle much larger prey:
Spider draining Marmorated Stinkbug Apparently the stink bug’s armor doesn’t count for much when the spider has the luxury of attacking through a weak spot in the underbelly after the critter stops struggling.
Stink bugs cause considerable damage to crops (notably apples) in the Hudson Valley, but they haven’t been the existential catastrophe we all expected when they first arrived.
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Why LED Lamps Fail
Spotted over a fast food emporium’s parking lot:
Disemboweled parking lot light It’s hard to be sure, but I think there’s a paper wasp nest around the bundle of wires just above the transformer / ballast / whatever. Perhaps the repair tech departed with the job unfinished?
As with traffic signals, flashlights, and automotive lighting, the LEDs surely work long after the driver circuitry has given up.
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Too Many Deer: Another One Bites the Dust
I passed another dead deer on New Hackensack Rd while hauling groceries home:
Deer Collision – roadkill – New Hackensack Rd – 2021-09-08 The next day I walked past the other side of the collision at the corner gas station’s dead car collection:
Deer Collision – front end damage A closer look at that nice rounded dent links the two contestants:
Deer Collision – front end damage – deer hair detail The impact didn’t blow the airbags, so maybe the car isn’t a total loss, despite extensive front end damage and some scrap metal inside the engine compartment.
As far as I can tell, Vassar College has been holding a deer cull every January, but taking out a few dozen deer definitely hasn’t eliminated the road hazard. If the folks objecting to the cull set up a fund to help drivers damaged by the objects of their affection, it’d demonstrate their understanding of the problem.
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Rail Trail: Fallen Tree Clearing
We rolled up to a pair of walkers who had just watched a long-dead tree fall across the Dutchess Rail Trail ahead of them:
Rail Trail – fallen tree – 2021-09-15 Which is why I now carry a fold-out pruning saw in my tool kit:
Rail Trail – fallen tree – cleared – 2021-09-15 The mowing crew we encountered half a mile ahead had a chainsaw and cleared the remainder.
Stay alert out there!
Although I don’t have a picture, there was a freshly dead bat lying underneath the main trunk. I think it rode the tree down, only to get slapped hard against the gravel beside the trail. I’m sure bats power up faster than I do, but not quite fast enough.
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Bondhus Wrench: Missing Ball
Around the beginning of the year, I updated my collection of somewhat worn hex wrenches with a set of metric and inch ball-end hex wrenches from Bondhus sold by and shipped from Amazon:
Bondhus hex wrenches – missing 7-64 ball When I applied the 7/64 wrench to a setscrew, the missing ball came as a surprise.
Even though the inch wrench set doesn’t get a lot of use, it’s possible I broke the ball off during a previous adventure, but a look at the end shows the black oxide coating covering the end:
Bondhus hex wrenches – missing 7-64 ball – detail Yeah, it was born that way.
I wonder if and how their lifetime guarantee works.
[Update: It does!]
Protip: as of this writing, the Amazon listing has two other “sizes” showing exactly the same set at significantly higher prices from two randomly named sellers:
Bondhus hex wrench set – Amazon listing It is safe to assume Amazon no longer has its customers’ best interests in mind.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 