Soul Fire

For the last week or so, the Northern Robins have been passing through on their way south. Our local Robins dipped out, in early August before the big hurricanes. There were no birds for awhile, not even a Finch, Blue Jay or Cardinal until a few weeks ago.

A Dove couple moved into an old Robins’ nest in the front plum tree. I heard their mating calls for awhile and noticed the couple sitting like rocks in the deserted nest. They wouldn’t even move for a noisy mower or weed wacker. I’m guessing that they’re tending eggs. My research says that Doves build flimsy nests. Nothing about them taking over seasonal nests, but it makes sense. I see them taking turns, but no shells on the ground or screeching noises yet. It seems a little late in the season to raise young, but it’s a new young couple.

While trimming back the crawling thyme in my strawberry pot, about a dozen yearling, native Praying Mantises flushed out. I saved their Mom from a hard frost one night last year by putting her on my mature catnip plants next to a warm brick wall, Oasis 1. I watched her pray on pollinators late last fall. She liked my oasis so much that she left an egg brood on one of the stems.

They hatched out in mid July and we observed them on our patio window screens, TINY little things about 2 to 3mm or so. I expected them to hatch out sooner in spring, but there isn’t much e-info on mantises. It’s hard to get pictures because they are so small. Definitely natives as they and Mom are a few shades darker and smaller than the imported larger, lighter green Chinese mantises that I’ve seen.

I hope I didn’t ruin their sanctuary and that they continue to inhabit my Oasis. I don’t know if it was the Thyme or the shelter of the undergrowth that it provided that attracted them. Maybe the wealth of prey? I wish they would eat the tomato caterpillars.

CentOs, where have you been all of my LINUX life, and why am I just finding you now !? All work, all the time, just work and; it just works. You talk Open, Cloud, Servers, Distributed Computing with your Cross Platform Business Class core. Your dark, crisp polished GUI contrasting a warm clean experience, smooth install and; can serve, cloud or virtualize like no other out of the box! The quickest split screen app gesture ever, drag a window to any side it splits in half vertically or horizontally, then sticks to that side. Ready to share the screen with another app , work area or display while giving you other hovering options, until you drop to choose. Yum looks like an apt clone, or apt-get for you depreciated types. The Gnome Chrome integration is sweet where it’s maintained and when it all plays nice. Overall, simply stunning in every respect!

Another batch of Robins came through last week, ahead of the northerly storms, but they were just passing through. They must have been Canadian Robins.

Yesterday I saw 6 Robins and heard several singing their Happy Return Song! Phil did not see his shadow, meaning an early Spring! The Robins are not our local ones yet, but are more than likely Canadian Robins on their way north. Considering seeing Robins and Phil’s prediction, I’d have to proclaim that “Spring Is HERE!” We might expect a rogue snow storm or two.

I turned off all of the legacy, unsupported, fancy graphic heavy skin in favor of slim, fast, dynamic, cross device, more secure skin. Now I have to tighten up the spacing in CSS, it’s too loose and too much scrolling for my taste. I’m still working on the color scheme so bear with me please. I wonder how long I’ve shaken my Script Kiddies? Time will tell.

Now that SSL and basic site security is in place, I’m hardening it. Security through obscurity! Good luck to all of my new found “Script Kiddies” out there, thank you for poking at the existing holes in WP and leaving me bread crumb trails so I can prioritize my efforts. Keep up the good work!

For those looking for the Soul Fire group forum, hang tight while I make it private and do a little testing, it proved to be not as easy as expected.

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