DISH dilemma

For those of you that travel with a portable satellite dish, I’m hoping you can understand the dilemma I faced today.  For the last two years, I’ve chosen to just have my major network stations come from Chicago.  I could change them to the local stations at each place I stay, but I quit doing that after a stint near Chicago.  I was able to access those stations no matter where I was in the country, until three days ago.  Suddenly, I had no access to NBC, CBS, and ABC.  My 119 satellite connection seemed to also be shaky.  I attributed that to the emergence of leaves on the oak trees surrounding my site.  So, today Denny volunteered to try to help me find a better signal location.  After over two hours of moving the DISH and trying to locate a signal, we gave  up.  I relaxed a bit, and then gave it another try on my own.  It only took me minutes to find a much stronger signal for both satellites.  Don’t you just hate it when that happens?  Anyway, when I checked for the network stations, I still didn’t have any, so I called DISH and had them change my locals to Gautier, MS.  I’m back in business now, but still don’t understand why I suddenly lost the Chicago feed since I had it for six weeks down here.

Meanwhile, today was a work day for me, and I spent the morning spraying all the sidewalk cracks with “7” to kill the weeds.  Of course, I took time out to enjoy the tiny carnivorous blossoming sundews. 

These plants are only about the size of a quarter, and entice insects to get stuck on those sticky globules.  The plants then ingest nutrients from the insects for nourishment since the soil here can not provide enough to sustain them.  Those flowers are less than 1/4” across, and only come up about 2” above the plant.  I haven’t been able to figure out how to get both the flowers and their  blooms both in focus at the same time.

Another, larger carnivorous plant found on the refuge is the Spoonleaf sundew.  They are about 3-4” across, but won’t bloom for a little while yet.  Unless you are really looking for these interesting plants, you’ll just walk right past them since they’re so small and low to the ground.  If you click on either of these pictures you can get a good view of the sticky spines that attract the insects.  I just think they are so cool!

This little beauty is a Candyroot/Dwarf Milkwort. The roots of this 6” plant smell just like peppermint.  Who figured these things out anyway?  Probably the native Americans, I’d guess.

A few more fungi have cropped up as well.

Fonda and I checked out the finished work on the Dees Trail overlook yesterday.  Since her husband, Denny, did quite a bit of work on this, we had to give our final approval!    Fonda found two of these not so wonderful wood ticks on her on our little hike.  Could it be that a bug likes someone else better than me??  Guess the season for tick checks is upon us.

 

Thanks for stopping by…. talk to you later,  Judy