Yellow Flowers

These are just a bunch of weeds along the river but some of them are quite stunning looking. Apparently they are quite happy in the hot weather, without rain, right next to the river like this.

This lush cluster of yellow buttons is called Northern Dune Tansy.

The green and yellow beetle with black spots is a Spotted Cucumber Beetle. The field guide says they eat foliage, flowers and pollen of cucumbers, melons, corn, potatoes and peanuts. Maybe this is the bug that attacked our Sunflowers.

This Bird's Foot Yellow Trefoil looks like wild peas, except for the bright yellow color of the flower.

Orange Sun Reflection

I took these two photos late yesterday afternoon. I tried getting the entire scene into a single frame but the exposure settings were too drastically different. I aligned them here, above and below each other, so you can see what it actually looked like with the sun above the trees and the orange reflection in the river water below. Our smokey weather is still with us, and probably will be until in begins to rain in September.

Hazy Sun Through Smoky Sky

We have so much smoke in the air these days that it is actually reducing the amount of sunshine we get. They tell us the smoke is coming from British Columbia wildfires but the air doesn't smell like smoke at all. I think at least half of this air pollution is just smog from automobile traffic. I took this photo of the sun at about 6:13 AM yesterday (Aug 5, 2017). Looking directly at the sun with the naked eye was no problem since all of the UV is being blocked out by the air pollution. Looking at the hills in the distance I estimate the visibility here is less than one mile.

Last night there was a nearly full moon. It was high in the sky and very dark orange as well.

New Bicycle: Cruzbike T50 Deluxe Black Cruiser

As part of the Cruzbike "kickstarter" program, I was able to purchase this limited edition "Deluxe Black Cruiser" T50 model. There were only ten of them put together with the wooden fenders, luggage rack, gumwall tires, and rear view mirror. But like all Cruzbike models, this bike has front wheel drive. Putting your feet on pedals that are attached to the front (steering and balance) wheel is a little tricky to learn but even an old codger like me can do it. I've been out on two shakedown rides now, other than coasting up and down the street in front of my house. During the first, about 20 miles, I noticed that I wobbled a lot, but during the second one this morning I discovered that the bike began tracking a much straighter line. It only wobbled a bit when I got tired or stopped concentrating on keeping a straight line.

The front fender has not been installed yet, due to a packaging problem at the assembly plant. I added the water bottle cage behind the seat, the orange pannier, headlight, tail light, and air horn.