I've been watching the purple martins. With dragonflies in the thousands, a pond for water, and their young growing, they have enough food to prepare for their migration in September. They'll leave in large numbers and hopefully return next year.
There are tons of purple martin photos on the internet. Some capture them as they fly, skim ponds for water, and feast for their sustenance during migration. I'm blessed with having them close enough to watch from my porch.
The Supreme Court decision on injunctions appears to be an effort to avoid controversy, doesn't really solve anything, states a non-binding opinion, and will only lead to wallowing in the quagmire of our legal system. If they feel they handled the problem, they're wrong, and without an adult in the room, the children will continue their rambunctious behavior, until they light the curtains on fire.
I'm thinking whoever leaked information on the strike in Iran is probably wondering how long before they go to jail. While they thought they were being slick, it probably was a trap, and they took the bait.
Over my career, I helped place thousands of square yards of poured in place concrete rip-rap on header banks, and other slopes. You've seen them; concrete on the slopes around the sides of overpass slopes. They keep the soil in place, which prevents the earth from washing away.
After the slope was graded, we'd place forms, which consisted of 2 x 4's turned flat, so some wet concrete could spill under the forms. The forms were set about 10 feet apart, and the same amount of space was between each set of forms. This allowed the sections to be finished by finishers on each side. Multiple sections would be poured during the day. If the concrete set enough, the forms were stripped, and the sections in between would be poured. We called it "checkerboarding". After all the concrete was poured, the rip-rap would extend from the abutment to the toe of the slope.
At the bottom of the slope, a toe-wall was hand dug to keep the rip-rap from sliding. At set locations up the slope, trenches were excavated by hand, loose gravel was placed, and PVC pipes were placed with screen on the backside to keep the rock from leaving. These "weeps" allowed ground water under the concrete to drain, and keep the slope from failing.
We always poured from the top to the bottom. The concrete was batched very dry, and little water was ever added. Gravity helped with placing the concrete, and the excess concrete screeded wouldn't pile in front of the screed, which would usually cause the screeded concrete to slide down the slope. Pouring from the bottom to the top could be done, but the work was much harder, and having a section of fresh screeded concrete slide down the slope was the usual result.
Finishing didn't require the most beautiful of concrete. Finishers (which I was during a pour) used wood hand floats and knee boards made from plywood with multiple nails driven through to keep the finisher from sliding down the slope. A rudimentary handle was made with pieces of 2x4 ripped down the middle. With the pours only 10 feet wide, finishers on each side could finish half without having to creep across the entire width on knee boards.
Finishing required most all motions to be uphill. The wood floats worked up enough grout to leave a mostly smooth surface. A finishing broom dragged across the wet concrete was the final finish. Trying to finish with a magnesium, or steel, hand float caused the concrete to slump, and slide downhill.
After the concrete was finished, we sprayed curing compound on it, and either called it a day, or moved on to another section.
The work was hard. With many of the sections, the slope was a one-to-one slope, and spending a day working on the slope would separate the men from the boys. Those that stayed learned something useful, but I never found anyone that relished the task. If you stayed long enough, and learned all there was to learn, you moved from working in front of the screed to finishing. It didn't take me long to know that's were I wanted to be, even though it was just as hard to finish. The more I learned, the more valuable my knowledge became, and eventually I was entrusted with making it happen by pushing a crew.
Could I still do it? No, but I could teach someone, if they were willing to work hard.
I awoke at 1:00 am. As I laid in bed, I listened, couldn't find any sound that was out of place, and realized I had a tiny bit of heartburn, so I got out of bed. I dressed, walked into the kitchen, took an antacid and walked out on the porch.
Outside, it was a typical Summer night in many ways. The temperature was in the upper seventies, the humidity was thick, a few night critters were busy with their cadence, and Scorpio was high toward the south. The difference was to the east.
A cumulus cloud towered toward the heavens. The top was spreading out with the the wispy cirrus, which were almost overhead. The lights of the nearby larger city lit the clouds; a dim, grayish tower reminding me of a black and white photo of the Pillars of Creation. I'd seen such things before. Nocturnal thunderstorms will signify the clash of the cooler air of the land between the warmer, moist air from the Gulf.
I thought I heard the low rumble of thunder; faint, almost imperceptible, and making me wonder if it was just the rumble of a large truck far away. I looked toward the cloud, didn't see any lightning, and was thinking my thought about a truck was correct.
My wife, who was now awake, came onto the porch with our dog. I told her I thought I heard a low rumble of thunder, but didn't see any lightning. She soon thought she saw a flash, while I was looking away. It took a long time, but I thought I heard thunder again. Then, I saw a flash in the top of the cloud, and counted to 40 seconds before the low rumble was heard. Soon another flash lit the top of the cloud. Thirty five seconds later a louder rumble arrived. My wife went back inside, and our dog only waited a little longer before he wanted me to let him in. He doesn't like thunder, and I imagine his more sensitive ears told him it was time to flee what he fears.
I went and checked the radar. It showed a single thunderstorm moving in our direction. I heard a few more rumbles of thunder. It wasn't long before the radar showed the rain right on top of my locations, so I went back to the porch to watch.
There was nothing left of the storm, except a thick deck of cirrus clouds overhead. To the east, pale stars could be seen. To the northwest, Canis Major was clear, and almost setting. Light rain fell, which made the entire event surreal.
If I had rolled over and went back to sleep, I would have missed the event. Such things are rare to observe, and I treasure seeing them. So, I'll stay up a little longer, look once again, and probably go back to bed, or not. I might stay up, wait until 4:00 am, and make a trip to town for donuts.
