(no subject)

[which_chick]

When I take the ashes and coals out of the woodstove so that I have room in the stove to build a new fire, I schlep them outside and dump them on the compost heap. This has set the compost heap on fire a couple of times, but since I live way out in the country and don't really have neighbors, that's okay. Also, the compost heap doesn't catch on fire easily these days because it's all already been burnt. Anyway, if it's night out when I tip the ashes and coals out of my nifty metal bucket that I got for Christmas, the coals glow orangey-red, like things that are hot enough to emit visible spectra of radiant heat, about the color of an electric stove burner on high. Hrm. As a simile, that could use some work. It's not exactly tripping off the tongue, is it? But if I said they were like rubies, that'd suck -- hot coals are not like rubies. They're nowhere near ruddy enough. They are the orange-red of mediumly-hot things, about 900 degrees Fahrenheit. (Here's a handy chart.) This is probably because they ARE hot things. D'oh. If you've not seen scattered hot coals glowing angrily in the dark cold, well, your loss... they're quite pretty. I should try to take a picture for you. I wonder how that'd come out?

For now, though, if you're resorting to your sterling imagination to render this bucolic image of my life that I've just shared, imagine an orangey-red and not a red-like-rubies. Red-like-rubies is way wrong.

Comments

[ornery-chick.livejournal.com]

Oooh, that is an incredibly cool photo! I've watched a katydid bust out of its pupal exoskeleton. It's fascinating. Did you watch this dragonfly through the whole process of unfurling itself?

I've got a real appreciation for extreme close-up photos and nature photos in general. I spent a lot of hours in my garden last summer chronicling the progression of the flower beds.

I'm going to go check out your other photos.

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

I didn't watch this particular one, but I have watched *a* dragonfly emerge. I live next to a lake (it's in sight from where I sit typing this), so there are numerous dragonfly-viewing opportunities for me.

I didn't know katydids pupated. Learn something new every day, I guess.

I should take more pictures of my garden. On my "someday" list is growing morning glories so that I can time-lapse photograph the opening of one of the flowers at fixed intervals some morning and animate the frames for a movie.

[ornery-chick.livejournal.com]

You should definitely plant some morning glories. They're eeeeeeasy and so very cheerful. We've got an ugly chain-link fence between our house and the neighbor's to the west, and I planted morning glories along the entire length of the fence this past year to make it a little more aesthetically appealing.

One of the bonuses of morning glories is that they'll re-seed themselves for quite a few years, so if you have a space you don't want to have to mess with much, they are a good choice.

Oh, and bumblebees fit exactly and perfectly into the center of a morning glory, and it is vastly amusing to see those fat little buggers inserting themselves into the center of each blue trumpet to snack on whatever nectar they produce.