Well, hello, August

If you want to know how the weather’s going, here are a couple of pix of the view through my back windows:

In a word: ugh.

 

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

Death from above

I’ve discovered a new torment of summer. Recently (meaning, in the last few months), when a mosquito bites me, it doesn’t produce just a small red spot of itching. This has happened twice in the last month alone.

No, it welts up and then spreads to a 2” x 4” patch of inflammation. When you touch the red area, it’s noticeably hotter than the surrounding skin.

Since my back yard is an epicenter of Aedes activity during the season, I’m just not looking forward to the next three months.

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

Snowed in

To my knowledge, the snow-and-sleet storm that hit the region of The District They Call Columbia on Sunday has not been given a name; no Snowpocalypse or Snowzilla. But—at least in the environs of the People’s Republic, it looks to me like we got right much of it, and—since temperatures are not to rise to even the freezing mark for days—it’s going to be with us a while.

I finally took a walk around the block and took some pix. I think some of these cars are going to be there until at least Groundhog Day. You decide.

These guys got dug out by Wednesday; they’re hopeful about getting their spots back.

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

Street crime

 

I had a little flare of Civic Duty last week. On my Wednesday morning walk, I noticed that someone had decapitated a fire hydrant.

Actually, the first thing I saw was that someone had knocked down a street sign in front of the Kinder Care® center:

Then I twigged to the hole where the hydrant used to be, and the tire mark that seemed to tell a story of a vehicle coming off the street, shearing off both the hydrant and the sign, then landing back on the street.

No water gushing, just the hole and one of the little flange thingies. Also—no hydrant.

Only, about 10 meters on, there it was, tossed in a little copse of trees. Presumably the miscreant thought their crime would escape notice if no one found the evidence?

Well, when I got home I called the Fairfax County non-emergency line to find out what agency handles damaged fire hydrants. Turns out it’s Fairfax Water, duh. So I called their report-an-emergency line and connected with a very nice woman named Leah. She took my information (I had to look up the address, because it didn’t occur to me that it might be useful, duh) and thanked me.

(I was a little disappointed that I had to do this by phone, because—I had all those photos. But it turned out okay.)

And blow me—Thursday morning there was a new fire hydrant:

Sign is still down—that’s obviously not Fairfax Water’s problem.

One more bit of info: while you’re on hold with Fairfax Water, they play Handel’s “Water Music”. Perfect.

 

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

 

Not the cherry orchard

We had a lemon tree in our backyard when I was growing up. We used to harvest the fruit, juice them and freeze it in ice cube trays to have it available any time. I was an adult before I ever paid for a lemon and have been aghast ever since at their price.

So, last year I bought three dwarf citrus trees: a Meyer and a Ponderosa lemon, as well as a lime.

The first stumbling block to my hopes of home-grown juice was chipmunks. Turns out they love rampaging through the branches, which knocks off both the flowers and any budding fruits. I wrote off any benefit from the orchard last year, but there’s always Spring, right?

Ah, well—we had several days of sub-freezing weather last February, and even though I had the pots insulated with bubble wrap, I lost all three. (I know it’s a stretch being in Northern Virginia, but what with global warming, we’ve had very mild winters the past few years, so it was worth a shot. Also—my gardenia bush survived fine. It was in a larger pot, though. Besides: there's a guy in London whose banana tree is producing fruit.)

So last month I bought three more dwarf trees. This time, I’ve armored them against chipmunks, involving a very interesting (and scratchy) session with chicken wire. Fort Citrus looks odd, but so far it seems to be working.

Now I just have to keep them watered through the climate-change-is-a-hoax hotter-than-usual summer.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Defensive war

 I have a feeling that this is going to be a bad year for mosquitos in my part of The People’s Republic. Two and a half weeks ago I helped with cluster cleanup and got royally chewed up. Since then it’s like the original bites were the phosphorous flares marking the landing zone for the successive waves of real attacks—and we’re not even at the end of May.

The r/nova sub on Reddit is also indicating that it’s not just here—it’s all over Northern Virginia. So, it’s time for action.

In past years I deployed mosquito zappers, but—satisfying as it was to hear the ZZZZTs—it’s not clear to me how effective they were. Also—although I wasn’t unhappy to see moth corpses in the zapper grille, I don’t know how many good insects met their untimely end as collateral damage.

(If there are good insects.)

I also won't spray indiscriminately for the same reason. Although I have considered it.

But someone on Reddit urged readers to “Google mosquito bucket of doom” as a solution, and that brought me to something I think is worth a try. You partially fill a 5-gal bucket with water, mix in some leaf litter (making an attractive environment for female biters to lay their eggs and for the larvae to develop), but add a Mosquito Dunk, which murders the larvae wholesale. The lady puts all her effort into the bucket, but the babies never leave the maternity ward.

Viz:

I hope this is enough to get me through the summer. Through June, at least.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

PSA

I think we here in the District They Call Columbia are in what’s known as the Spring of Deception:

Which means that we could shift rapidly from yesterday’s temperatures in the 60s to blizzards next week.

So, I want to remind everyone: do not be this schmuck:

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

How it's going

When last we met, the Big Snow of February 2025 was just beginning to fall Tuesday afternoon. Here’s what it looked like yesterday morning.

Wasn’t too bad, really. Spent a brisk hour shoveling snow and clearing off my car. Then I was free to enjoy it.

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Take a seat

Over the years, I’ve been documenting lawn chairs in the neighborhood. I don’t know why I started, but I’ve kept it up on my walks.

There’s one family of them in particular that has interested me.

We started in 2020, with these chairs facing a grassy vista.

In 2021, this was the configuration.

They dressed it up for Independence Day.

A few months later, there was this arrangement.

By the time we got to 2023, we had this.

And this is what it looked like yesterday.

Well—life moves on.

 

 

©2024 Bas Bleu

 

Holey ground

About a month ago, I noticed there was a hole in my back garden. And then I noticed a second hole, which made me wonder about who might be digging them. Like…snakes?

I notified the management company, who sent out a pest control guy to check. He pointedly looked at my bird feeders and asked if I was feeding squirrels. (Implication: if you’re feeding squirrels, you can expect snakes.)

Well, no—I’m feeding birds. And if squirrels are attracting snakes, they took their sweet time getting here, because I’ve had feeders and squirrels for seven years with no holes in the back yard.

Well, he stomped on the holes to close them and told me to call him if they reappeared.

A week or so, I noticed that the larger hole was back. I stomped it and it came back.

Well—Friday afternoon I discovered who was doing the digging.

I’ve ordered stand down on all interventions, and put out some carrot pieces beside the bowl of water on the ground.

And I really hope that, if there are snakes, they play nice with everyone else.

 

 

©2024 Bas Bleu

 

Snowbirds

Yeah, we got maybe a couple of inches of snow through Monday night. That’s enough to shut down schools, but really not bad if you don’t have to go anywhere.

But for perhaps the first time ever, I shoveled the patio, because I didn’t want the birds to have to dig through the snow to get to the seed I tossed out. I had a carpet of juncos, cardinals, sparrows, bluebirds, wrens, titmice, doves and bluebirds.

That was worth the work.

 

 

Growing season

I noticed yesterday that my car has lichen growing on it.

Perhaps it’s time I gave it a good wash?

 

Macro plastics

Monday is recycling day here in the ‘hood. Fairfax County stopped taking glass a few years ago, so you have to take that down to designated dumpsters (there is a grand total of two in the People’s Republic). Dunno what happens with them—the county probably dumps them in the landfill with everything else, but at least you feel like you’re making the effort.

They do continue to accept plastic, aluminium and paper. So I suppose we should be grateful.

However, I noticed one of my neighbors had this out for collection, and I was appalled:

I don’t know what period of time this barrelload covers, but how can people go through this many 16oz plastic bottles of water? The ratio of content to container is just criminal; why can’t you at least buy gallon bottles and pour glasses? Or get five-gallon delivery?

I absolutely despair.

 

 

Hammered

There was this story last week in WaPo about a new invasive species in the Northern Virginia environs: hammerhead worms.

These are toxin-excreting flatworms that can grow up to 20 inches or so and if your try to kill them by hitting them with a shovel, their little segments will all spawn new worms. Evidently the only way to extinguish life is to stun them with salt, seal them in a plastic bag and freeze them.

I may never leave my house again.

 

 

Customer service

As a rule, I don’t showroom. Unless I’m going to a Big Box store to check out an appliance or piece of electronics; then I’ll generally order it online (or even from a smaller retailer) because they’re pretty much a pox on civilization.

And for the past several years, I’ve bought my walking shoes from Potomac River Running, a small chain local to the environs of the District They Call Columbia.

(Even though a couple of years ago one of their salesmen tried to pawn off a pair of men’s shoes on me. That was weird.)

However, in recent weeks, I’ve tried to buy Asics Kayanos to replace the pair that’s a year old, and the salesman kept telling me they don’t have my size in stock. I’ve asked when he expects to get more, and all he’ll say is they get shipments of new merchandise on Tuesdays and Fridays, and I could check back then.

Not even an offer to get one of the other shops in the region to send some over.

So last week I finally went online and ordered two pairs from Asics, which arrived in three days, and cost me marginally more than a single pair would have cost me from PRR.

Enough is enough.

 

 

Nature's mysteries 8

It’s time for another round of help Bas Bleu identify local plants.

These…things are along a stretch of the W&OD Trail.

What I find interesting is the circular growth pattern. Is it some type of grass? I dunno.

Help a girl out, here. #IDme