This bloom was actually near the ground, but the bush does get pretty tall.

I rode my bike 77 miles this week. Not bad for a cripple. I rode with Ro today and got in 30 miles, which was double the longest ride I had done since I started riding two weeks ago. Between biking, exercises and stretching, my back is slowly getting better.

 

 

Sundance, Gemini and Sorbet Bouquet were beautiful this afternoon.

 

 

A panorama of a rainbow Laurie took from the car on the way home yesterday.

I stopped and took this panorama of the stormy sky over the city on the way home tonight.

There’s often talk about making English the official language of the US. In preparation, we are studying Old English. If they make English the “official” language, we will have to go back to the English from between 500 AD and 1066 AD to get the most pure English. After 1066, and all that, English becomes riddled with French, Spanish, Italian and Greek. Take the rose,  Sceptered Isle, featured in the lead photo as an example. It’s a David Austin “English” rose, but while Isle is derived for Old English, sceptered is Greek. While “sceptered isle” is from Shakespeare referring to England, in reality no Anglo-Saxon god or king would be caught dead holding a mariconada (oh no Spanish) scepter. A battle axe, yes, scepter no.  Therefore, Sceptered Isle would have to be changed to Battle Axe Isle.

Pope is derived from Old English, and there is probably a lot of liturgical Latin in Old English by 500 AD. However, Sorbet Bouquet is a real problem for the English purist. All French, with no good Old English words to replace them. Once English becomes the official Language of the US, we will have to dig up all our Sorbet Bouquet Rose bushes and throw them out.

I did my midterm re-qualification for my CCL tonight. I scored 100% with both calibers. It’s actually very easy to score 100%, but surprisingly enough, about half of the 14 people who took the refresher tonight did not score 100% on the shooting. I felt I especially had to score 100%, since I didn’t want to be put to shame by our governor who scored 100% on her qualification a couple of weeks ago.

Kitties rule tonight on the photos. Rosencrantz and Diné like to snuggle up on the bed which is like a landscape with the “cat magnet” blanket covering all of our pillows. Guildenstern was pensive on the step, and Puck poofed when Rosencrantz and I walked around the corner of the house yesterday morning.

It’s 4:00 AM! Do you know where your arachnids are? This one built its web on the gate at the irrigation ditch, which I discovered when I went out to turn in the water at four this morning. The web was destroyed when I lowered the gate to dam the water. With each turn of the wheel, the web slowly collapsed until it disappeared once the gate was down. The poor spider held on till the last minute then dropped on a thread toward the water. I grabbed its thread and pulled the spider back onto the wheel —then I headed back to the house in the muted light of an overcast moon.

The moon is almost full tonight. It was quite striking rising behind the cottonwood trees. The moon is so bright that it’s difficult to expose for the moon and get any detail surrounding it.

Our Frankenflower sunflower is still producing beautiful blosoms and Sorbet Bouquet continues to produce interesting blooms.