Noctilucent clouds.

Posted on June 17, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Astronomy, Atmosphere, Environment, High in the atmosphere, Life, Meteor dust, Meteor smoke, Noctilucent clouds, Reflected, Science, Space, SunlightLeave a comment

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High up in the atmosphere, close to space, Noctilucent clouds start to appear in the summer months. They glow an almost electric blue and are caused by sunlight reflecting off gas particles from meteors that have broken and burned up as they strike the earth’s atmosphere at high speeds. Over the last few years these clouds have become more common and scientists are investigating why.

I see information about these and other atmospheric and astronomical phenomena at Spaceweather.com a fascinating Web page.

Flowers

Posted on May 28, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Colours, Environment, Flowers, Gardening, Geology, Life, Photos, Plants, Random, Spring, WaterLeave a comment

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A few flowers from the garden today. The flowers are starting to develop, the big summer plants are a bit swamped with ivy and scrubby bushes and so we have cut back branches and peeled ivy off trees a bit today. Only what you can do with a pair of secateurs and a small pruning saw.

We need to lay some pathways, and where a spring has erupted in the garden we are going to put a few pebbles to simulate a stream flowing down under the hedge. We live on a hill which is a very old Volcanic plug. The water percolates out further up the hill and we think because that was built on a few years ago it might have got diverted down towards our house. I don’t know….

Whale

Posted on May 23, 2020May 23, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Blogging, Digital art, Drawing from ten years ago, Environment, Life, Nature, Picture, Sketchfu drawing, Whale2 Comments

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One of the animals I regret never having seen are Whales. I know they are endangered but I hope as life resumes that they will be left alone. I have the same feeling about Tigers and Elephants. But there are many creatures that most people have never seen that also are endangered. It doesn’t matter whether its the smallest or largest animal, each have their place in the Web of nature.

As lockdown is reduced, humans are going out and dumping fast food rubbish from their cars. Do they even care? It makes me really angry that eople have no consideration for the environment.

Anyway, rant over. Stay safe.

Saving an economy?

Posted on May 13, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, economy, Environment, Greed, Green growth, HS2, Life, Thinking, Time, Trident2 Comments

IMG_20200416_154522_428 What is life worth? when will we see the green shoots of growth?

I’ve seen discussions on line to cancel the trident nuclear deterrent and maybe HS2, which is a high speed railway line that could take you from Leeds to London twenty minutes faster. These are huge projects in Britain that have been voted for by the government. But surely we should spend the money we have on improving the environment? Think about it. After all, people can hold on line meetings now instead of commuting. The work day could be 9 till 5, no more early starts and late finishes because of travelling to work and kids will get to see more of their parents. And why would we want to bomb people? The virus is causing enough deaths as it is.

When you think about it, the world has had a chance to rest. So instead of going back to normal, chasing greed and growth, let’s give ourselves a chance and a rest.

The garden

Posted on April 12, 2020April 12, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Bees, Blossom, Cherry, Environment, Flowers, Garden, Gardening, Hover flies, Life, Nature, Pear, Plants, Tomatoes, TreesLeave a comment

This is what I was trying to draw. As you can see it’s very complicated. Lots of trees and branches.

Behind me when I took this photo are two greenhouses with green plastic covers, ones got tomatoes in it, the other is waiting for tomato plants that my friend says she will drop off over our gate when they are ready to plant out.

The weather is set to turn, it has been warm and sunny, but the wind whipped up this evening and you could feel the temperature starting to fall.

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I took these photos of cherry and pear blossom. As you can see the sky was starting to darken. There have been reports on the weather forecast of thunderstorms nearby. It certainly was getting windy, I hope some of the blossom gets pollenated before it blows away. And then there was a warning of Frost!

Things to do

Posted on March 21, 2020March 21, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Astronomy, Blogging, Bored, Environment, Facebook, Fun, Life, Random, Self isolating, Sir Patrick Moore, Virus4 Comments

The world is full of bored people. One of the things to do that was posted on Facebook is to close your eyes and choose a book at random. Find page 109 go to the third paragraph and post the first sentence you come to. Also include the author and book title.

Mine was : The radar maps show features of all kinds. (Patrick Moore’s Astronomy), ( teach yourself book)

isbn 978-1-444-10313-7

It’s random, but something to do…..

How did we get here?

Posted on March 12, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Disease, Environment, Illness, Internet, Life, Pandemic, Time, Virus, World2 Comments

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A few weeks ago no one had heard of Corona Virus. Now the world is panicking. From an illness that started in the East, it has spread across the world. At one stage we were told it was less harmful than seasonal flu. Now people are self isolating. The problem is that there is no immunity in the population to it. It’s new, so humans haven’t had the chance to get used to it. Vaccines will be created, but that takes time. They have to be tested before they can be used safely. Now governments are setting limits to how many people can meet, shutting down sports events, and stocks and shares are dropping in value. Its as if the world has gone mad. We’ve watched too many zombie movies and people are trying to make sense of what’s going on. Hopefully things will improve soon.

Tree trunks

Posted on March 12, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Environment, Fun, Funny, Humour, Life, Nature, Photo, Poem, Poetry, TreeLeave a comment

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He has tree trunk legs,

Tree trunk knees,

There is a nest

Of tree trunk bees.

He has tree trunk arms,

And tree trunk ears,

Made of wood

He has a tree trunk soul.

The leaves have fallen,

From his branching head,

The winter comes,

And he looks dead.

But when sap arises,

Come the spring,

He’ll be renewed

And start again.

Panic buying

Posted on March 11, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Environment, In our time, Life, Loo roll, Mad, Self isolate, Shopping, Shortages, Toilet roll, Virus8 Comments

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You know when the world has gone mad when all the toilet paper has gone off the shelves in the supermarket and you have to DRAW a loo roll.

And yet the question is WHY? The virus that is going round makes you have a temperature and a dry cough, followed by possible pneumonia and heart and liver problems in severe cases. There is no detail of upset stomachs? I was listening to the radio and they were saying it’s just the human psyche, big packets of toilet roll look important, so people buy them. It’s the siege mentality, if you are going to have to ‘self isolate’ it is important to have enough food and supplies in to last for a couple of weeks. But, sometimes we humans go a bit mad. One truck at the Blackwall tunnel (which runs under the Thames) was stopped by the highways department because it was overloaded. When they opened it up it was crammed with toilet paper. The driver got a £300 fine.

Street trees

Posted on March 5, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Climate, Climate crisis, Complaint, Council, Environment, Life, Local council, Tree felling, TreesLeave a comment

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I have just written to my local Councillor about a stand of about eight trees that have been cut down as you approach our City centre.

I wrote:

Dear Councillor__________
I was concerned today as I was driving into _____from _____, that a whole stand of mature trees has been cut down on the corner of the ________opposite the new hotel and ____field site (on a patch of land next to the traffic lights). I have always liked those trees and am shocked that the council has removed them. There seem to be more and more of these acts of environmental vandalism. In a time when we should be planting more to mitigate the effects of climate crisis why are you implementing this? I’m sure they were not all diseased. Please consider replacing any trees on a two for one basis. Street trees are recognised as a way of cleaning urban pollution. It has recently been reported that thousands of people die every year from pollution. And as the most congested city in the world last month it should be important to your administration to mitigate these problems.
Yours Sincerely

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Environment