Bookmarque’s Padded Cell 2021 - Just One of My Turns (part 2)

It's July already so here's part 2. Making sure the other thread doesn't get too long.

Squee!!

By a somewhat circuitous route, LT has brought what I just know is going to be a damn great audio experience.

BBC Radio plays of the Marlowe novels by Raymond Chandler and starring Ed Bishop as Marlowe. For my money he is the embodiment of the character and I love his portrayal to bits.

Yes, I’m crazy. Many years ago when audio books were on tape, I got a hold of The Little Sister narrated by Ed Bishop. I liked it so much I copied the tapes and listened to them a lot. Eventually I digitized those tapes and have them stored on various hard drives. Didn’t I say I was crazy?

But now to have the dramas all with Bishop as our dark hero...I’m over the moon.



Yay LT for always bringing me unexpected joy.

Here's the link if you're interested -

https://www.audible.com/pd/Raymond-Chandler-Audiobook/1529127823?ref=a_typ_c1_lP...

Happy new thread!

Happy new thread! I look forward to more book reports and marvellous images.

Thanks peeps. Here's a fawn!

>4 Bookmarque: What a gorgeous picture to start off your thread!

>4 Bookmarque: Awwwwww :D

>4 Bookmarque: Wonderful shot. What kind of leaves are those in its mouth?

Oh, and happy new thread!

>7 clamairy: I also looked at that. Saw they appear to be opposite on the twig, and thought of some kind of maple.

Thanks peeps. Those are maple leaves - probably sugar maple. Wisconsin is dirty with them.

Another shot of Mr. Ruby-throat at the yellow flowers this time.

>9 Bookmarque: Super shot.
Happy New Thread!

What sweet pictures!

Great pictures!

And OMG, I almost missed it - my Thing-aversary is today!

>13 Bookmarque: congratulations!

>4 Bookmarque: and >9 Bookmarque: Starting your thread off in style! The fawn is adorable. I wish we got hummingbirds in the UK, I do love them.

>13 Bookmarque: Congratulations! I look forward to hearing about the books you acquire to celebrate!

HAPPY THINGAVERSARY!

>13 Bookmarque: Congratulations!

The enforcers will doubtless expect a prompt report on your purchases.

And a happy thingaversary over here, too!

Thanks ladies.

I've been buying a lot of audio books lately - audible will keep having sales! Plus a few things end up in my amazon orders when I need more mundane things...lately this lovely tome -

rainforest by Thomas Marent



It has amazing photography made all the more so because it was shot on film back in the days before digital. I shot film for 20+ years so know precisely how difficult it was. Film looks a certain way and I miss it since I'm so immersed in digital photography.

Happy belated Thingaversary!

Belated Happy Thingaversary!

Another belated Happy Thingaversary! And >19 Bookmarque: : isn’t that a gorgeous cover!

Thanks guys. Time flies, huh?

Speaking of, the fawns are growing like crazy and straying farther from mom during the day. This one and its sibling were on the side of the house in front and mom was diagonally across behind the house, closer to the river. I crept around the porch to get this shot and I love the ears!

Wonderful shot! We had two fawns and their mamma at our house today as well, only the background here is much drier and brown than yours. There was a deer at our pond on the patio last week. I would keep a container for them to drink from, but it would make mosquitoes I'm afraid. I've given up worrying about the plants. Enjoying the wildlife instead.

>23 Bookmarque: Beautiful.

Beautiful! The ears are amazing!

Thanks guys. Those ears don't miss a thing. The twins came back the other night while we were putting dinner together. I tiptoed out onto the deck and took a bunch of pics. Of course they wouldn't lie down together so here's just one -



They knew I was there, looked right at me a couple times, but carried on eating, romping and furiously licking each other's faces and necks. Very cute. No sign of mom since they're getting more independent, but I'm sure she wasn't far.

Here's my chance to use my long lost but now partially recovered Long Island accent: It's a baby de-uh!

>28 clamairy: And the Oscar goes to…

>27 Bookmarque: Awwwww :)

Thanks guys. Sorry I've been away so long peeps. At least to contribute to my own thread anyway. Here's a juvenile great blue heron catching lunch to make up for it -



There are fires in northern Minnesota and southern Ontario that have been making the air quality pretty shitty and the light pretty strange. I was out in the kayak and it smelled like a campfire the whole time. Didn't seem to bother this young one though. It's standing in the middle of a wide part of the Wisconsin river just below a dam. Super shallow and good fishing!

>31 Bookmarque: Awesome!

>31 Bookmarque: Excellent!

I had heard there were fires in Canada, but then didn't hear exactly where. Awful. :o(

>33 clamairy: Yeah it's super dry right now. Especially northern Minnesota - all the rain just goes south. It smelled like a campfire for days and was really hazy, that's how I knew the fires had to be close. Hopefully they don't jump the St. Croix and move into Wisconsin, although it hasn't been as dry here so it might be the end of them if they do cross.

For comparison here's an adult heron shot the same day as the youngster.



They are the largest heron species in North America and can live up to 15 years in the wild. Young birds reach maturity in 22 months and change to their slate blue coloring during that time. Green herons are smaller and much more skittish than GBHs, but these guys are plenty wary. I was drifting in the kayak, not paddling, and it was pretty intent on fishing. When I raised the paddle it moved off with alacrity.

Those photos are great. The young heron looks like it is wearing trainer pants by comparison with the adult.

Herons are extremely photogenic. I find that when I see one I can do nothing but take pictures. of the heron.

Love the herons! I see them (grey herons) in the park where I work most days but usually they are looking rather undignified as they beg for bread (which they really shouldn't eat at all). Yours look properly wild, almost prehistoric.

Thanks guys. Herons are a lot of fun. I wish I had a rookery near me. When I did (in NH) I didn't have a long enough lens to photograph them well. Irony.

So here's a cuckoo wasp on my deck railing. So quick, fluttery and shy, I managed only one decent shot. IRL it’s about 1 1/2 cm long and very slender. The colors are not exaggerated, the metallic exoskeleton is a hallmark of the family Chrysidines.



Cuckoo wasps are so named because they lay their eggs in living hosts that will be devoured from within by the larvae. Another kind of icky strategy to get ahead. There are some 3000 species worldwide and all are metallic beauties. They are solitary not hive wasps.

>38 Bookmarque: Amazing shot. Nasty reproduction method.

>39 pgmcc: Yeah, it's hard not to think of it that way even though the host probably doesn't realize what's happening. Otherwise I suppose they'd have evolved serious defenses.

>40 Bookmarque: Are they particular about the host species or can it be any creature?

Actually I had the wrong wasp sorry. This is really what they do - The cuckoo wasp female places her egg in the unfinished and untended nest of another wasp or bee. The nest is later sealed by the owner after she has placed her own egg there along with food for her future larva. The cuckoo wasp larva either eats the other larva or starves it to death by devouring all the food.

>42 Bookmarque: ...either eats the other larva or starves it to death by devouring all the food. Or both?

Of course, now you have me wondering which wasp lays the eggs inside a host that is then eaten from the inside out. More importantly, might I be a host to such a brood?

Those are ichneumon wasps like this one, sitting on the same deck railing (she is less than 1 inch long with the ovipositor & antennae) -



They are totally harmless to humans even though they look deadly.

According to Wikipedia - A very few ichneumonid species lay their eggs in the ground, but the vast majority inject eggs either directly into their host's body or onto its surface, and this may require penetration of substrate around the host, as in wood-boring host larvae that live deep inside of tree trunks, requiring the ichneumon to drill its ovipositor through several centimeters of solid wood (e.g., Megarhyssa species). After hatching, the ichneumonid larva consumes its still living host. The most common hosts are larvae or pupae of Lepidoptera, Coleoptera and Hymenoptera.

>44 Bookmarque:
So the hosts will not be me? That is a relief. Thank you for the reassurance.

Loving this nature series. :) Thanks for the interesting birds and bees stories, and the lovely photos.

>38 Bookmarque: >44 Bookmarque: Great pictures and thanks for documenting that we won't be the hosts. Yet.

Both wasps are rather pretty. Or maybe it’s just your amazing photography.

Sorry about the fires in your area. Living with the smoke is no fun.

Thanks guys - they are pretty although it's taken me a long time to come to appreciate them or not run screaming.

Here's another wasp we have in abundance -



It's a spider hunting wasp doing what it does best. She's stunned or killed the spider and was dragging it across my walk to where her eggs were laid (presumably just into the grass a bit). Since I'm a spider lover it was a difficult moment for me, but it's how nature works so I got over it. The wasp itself is 2 cm long or slightly less and is a lovely iridescent navy blue.

The insect photos are amazing! The detail of the iridescence is just wonderful.

>49 Bookmarque: Fascinating.

Thanks guys. Have been in an odd mood lately so haven't been online much. Haven't been shooting much either, but I did get out on a river last week for five hours. Didn't shoot much, but a couple of turtles. First a painted turtle getting some sun. I love it when they do this!



Second is a first for me - both seeing and photographing - it's a wood turtle and are rare in Wisconsin -



The DNR has this to say about them - Wood Turtle (Glyptemys insculpta), a Threatened Species in Wisconsin, prefers rivers and streams with adjacent riparian wetlands and upland deciduous forests. This species often forages in open wet meadows or in shrub-carr habitats dominated by speckled alder. They overwinter in streams and rivers in deep holes or undercut banks where there is enough water flow to prevent freezing. This semi-terrestrial species typically remains within 300m (984 ft) of rivers and streams. This species becomes active in spring as soon as the ice is gone and air temperatures reach around 50 deg. F, which can occur as early as mid-March. They may remain active into late October but have been seen breeding under the ice. Wood turtles can breed at any time of year, but breeding primarily occurs during the spring or fall. Nesting usually begins in late May in southern WI and early June in northern WI and continues through June. This species nests in open or semi-open canopy areas containing gravel or sandy soils, typically within 61m (200 ft) of the water. Hatching occurs in 55-75 days (mid-July through mid-September) depending on air temperatures. This species does not overwinter in nests, unlike some other Wisconsin turtle species.

The first picture is wonderful! It reminds me of seals, who raise their heads and tails when they are happy and look like bananas!

And how lucky not only to spot but to get such a good photo of a rare species.

More turtle yoga! :)

Thanks guys. I can never resist a turtle. One of these days I've got to sit still long enough so a soft-shelled will pose for me.

Here's another thing I can't resist -



I have no idea what kind of car it was, but it was off trail in a nature preserve that might have been a logging camp at one time. Or bootleggers. It would be cooler if it were bootleggers. I have no idea where the wheels went, but the trunk was nearby.

Turtles are so awesome!

>55 Bookmarque: very cool! It brings to mind the book Tuck Everlasting. Not sure why, though.

Thanks, catz. I'm not familiar with that book, so I can't say.

Peak fall color is upon us so I've been going out with the camera a lot. Here's a little nameless pond -

>57 Bookmarque: Wow.

>57 Bookmarque: Beautiful!

>57 Bookmarque: Great shot! You are several weeks ahead of us when it comes to fall color.

>57 Bookmarque: I name that pond Autumn reflection pond. Or perhaps Soul pond.

Thanks everyone. I love these tiny water features. They are small, but mighty important to the overall ecology. Plus they're lovely and untouched.

Love the bugs and the turtles. Hope your odd mood has passed.

Incredible Fall colors! We're still 97% green here. And the scuttlebutt is we're going to have short-lived somewhat dull season. I hope they're wrong.

Wow! Those colors!

Thanks you two. The mood is dissipating. Am heading a bit further north today than I have been and I'll see how the color is hanging on. It will be raining now and then though so I might not see much. Will be learning how to navigate by compass & map & GPS though and hopefully will come away with a valuable new skill.

>57 Bookmarque: Pretty!

Thanks Narilka - fall is so fleeting here it's crazy. Here's a river image for you that I just love -



Photographer and tripod in water!

>67 Bookmarque: Super image.

>67 Bookmarque: That looks so serene. I love it.

Thanks guys. I love that part of the river. It's magical all the time.

Went out in the foggy forest yesterday morning. I don't know if I was surprised or not to find this -



I mean, it's not unusual to find odd stuff like this in northern Wisconsin. I've found odd things before, but a tractor is a new one considering it was fairly far away from the nearest field. Judging by the chains, I wonder if it was driven here in the winter.

>71 Bookmarque:
Wow! Great Halloween picture. It is shouting out “Spooky story!”.

>71 Bookmarque: I have a photo of a skeleton on a tractor, but it isn't creepy. It's in the middle of a sunny field. Now a skeleton on yours would be cool, although the atmosphere is just as good without.

Thanks guys...that would have freaked me out a little. The land owners could play quite the practical joke on people. Once out exploring around Versailles, KY I found an old train that people staged as a haunted house thing at Halloween. Check it out -



Fog would have been better, but what can you do?

>74 Bookmarque: Excellent!

>74 Bookmarque: Very cool! But I really love that tractor pic.

>71 Bookmarque: love this pic!

Thanks peeps. Here's a shot of the Wisconsin river from September - the water level was low and revealed the elaborate shapes the water has carved over the millennia.

Ooh, gorgeous!

>79 Sakerfalcon: I agree. Another I would love to hang as a print on my wall.

>78 Bookmarque: super picture.

beautiful!

Peak color is gone, but it was gorgeous for a while. Here are some shots I've worked through lately.





Both are from the Porcupine Wilderness in northern Wisconsin. The lake is gorgeous and completely wild. I'm bummed it's a long way from the road to the lake and no wheeled vehicles are allowed so taking my kayak all the way down there is a little much to do alone. Oh well.

>83 Bookmarque: But very worthwhile when your admirers all around the world see the results! As always, your pictures are breathtaking.

That is a stunning location, and I guess the difficulty of accessing it means it is unspoilt by too many people. Wonderful photos.

Awesome photos. Would you say the colors out there are as vibrant as they usually are in New England? We had very little color where I lived in Northern Illinois, and when I first moved to Connecticut I often came close to driving right off the road because I was ogling the maples, etc.

Hey guys, sorry for my absence. Crazy goings on with family and just life.

Colors are as vibrant, clam, but there is less red among the trees since our maple mix is different. We are awash in sugar maples and a lot of silver maples here in the river valley. Right now the tamaracks are turning that gorgeous gold they do. The birches and the aspen are the first to turn and are long spent. Oaks are in their tawny glory now. Here's a shot from earlier in the month on a gloriously foggy day.

>87 Bookmarque: Strength and sympathy as needed with the crazy goings on.

>87 Bookmarque:
Sorry about the crazy real life issues.

Your picture is very atmospheric and just right for Halloween!

>87 Bookmarque: That is serenely beautiful. I hope it provides an oasis of calm to whatever else is going on in your life.

Thanks guys. Here's a treat just for Halloween -

I see that went over well, lol.

Been kind of busy and traveling a little. On the plane I watched a documentary called Booksellers made in 2019 by, of all people, Parker Posey I believe. She was a producer and did some voice over anyway. It's about antiquarian booksellers - a little of the past and most of the present day and how the business is going or not going. Fascinating and shot well with excellent sound, too. I particularly noticed how good the sound production was. Anyway, here's the website - https://booksellersdocumentary.com/ - and ways you can watch it. Definitely worth it.

>91 Bookmarque: lol, I actually did appreciate the photo, but for some reason no comments. I used to love hunting for bones and skulls in our swamp when I was growing up. I only ever found animal ones though.

>92 Bookmarque: Thanks for the link! I think I got caught up in trying to figure out what the skull was from, then my mind wandered and it was all over.

What >94 Karlstar: said. I couldn't figure out what it was and that was the end of it...

Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

>94 Karlstar:, >95 clamairy: Ok, since @Bookmarque appears to be running running a Skull Identification Contest, my guess is for sheep.

You guys are too funny! Doubtful it's anything except a deer. A doe specifically. Big eyes placed directly on either side of the head indicates not a predator. It's about 8 inches long and pretty much anything this big is a deer, but without the nose and the jaw it's harder to tell.

>97 Bookmarque: No fair. No scale included.

Yeah, just twigs and pine needles so not so great for sizing.

But here's something to cheer you up - bird take off shots!!

I'm SO NOT a bird photographer, but I recently spent a few days in Arizona and for one of them I was out in a boat in Lake Pleasant with a couple other photographers. The lake is near Phoenix and is very popular with boaters. It's undeveloped, but busy which makes the birds a little more tolerant of us. That's one reason I got some of these. Others were just luck and right place/right time.

These first two are the same heron taken a few minutes apart, the first a take off from a cliff and the next from the shore where it had gone to -





And a red-tailed hawk launching -





And finally a cormorant -



Phew! It was a great experience and maybe, just maybe, I can turn myself into a bird photographer. Just don't look in my trash bin at the hundreds of photos I deleted! lol

Three of my favorite local birdies! Lovely, thank you for posting! I especially love the heron shots as I can't get close enough to ours to get decent shots with my phone.

>99 Bookmarque:
Brilliant shots.

>99 Bookmarque: Amazing, thanks! I didn't know there are cormorants in the US!

>99 Bookmarque: Amazing photos!

Those are amazing!

>99 Bookmarque: Amazing action shots!

Thanks everyone. It was a great time on the boat with a lot of keepers. Not all of them were flying, some were swimming -

No wonder coot rhymes with cute -



Grebes are some of my favorite birds, this is a Western grebe -



And a pair of cormorants just before take off -

>99 Bookmarque: They are beautiful.

And that is the wonder of digital photography; failures are not a waste. It does not matter what is in the Trash bin - only the good stuff counts!

Thanks, but I still work to improve my keeper rate. At least the bad ones are just 1s and 0s. lol

Lovely! My grandmother would be so envious of photography today. Also she would be thrilled. She worked so hard to take beautiful photos and it was heartbreaking when something went wrong that she wasn't expecting. No telling what you got until the film was developed, so no second chances.

Thanks MrsL. Having shot film for 25 years, I know what that's like. The unknown and the waiting, hoping your knowledge of exposure and composition were good enough to maybe make an enlargement. I still try to shoot that way, but always have ideas for processing in my mind when I'm out there.

>106 Bookmarque: Gorgeous was usual. I'm surprised there are cormorants in AZ! Yes, I know the entire state isn't desert.

Thanks Clam. I guess cormorants are everywhere.

My LT posting has certainly been way down this year. This is only my 3rd thread for this year and it's a way off from being eligible for continuation. It's a combination of things that contributed to my absence and absence of enthusiasm, but I hope I can do better next year.

To take up space and finish out this year I'll do my stats and compare how the breakdowns look between what I track and what LT now tracks. I think the biggest difference is going to be genre. For example, unless a book is specifically about homosexual relationships or acceptance or societal history of gayness, etc, I don't consider that to be LGBTQ+. Just because a character in the story happens to be gay it's still a thriller or a mystery or whatever. The one book that showed up under that genre on LT was a thriller that happened to have a gay couple as the lead characters. It wasn't about their relationship (that was an element of the story, but not the main focus), it was about their attempt to scam a rich guy out of a lot of money. So I disagree with the genre, but would tag it as having LGBTQ+ characters. If that makes sense.

Anyway...I finally got my tallies to agree between the LT yearly book count and my spreadsheet tracking. 157 books.

Here is how the genres broke down according to LT -



I tried explaining the way I'd like the chart to read, but the LT folks didn't either understand or do it, so I had to mark it up myself.

And here it is from my tracking sheet and how I assign genres -



I'll pick out the big discrepancies next.

And I will add a few piffle posts to help you along.

If you don't mind, that is.

Piffle away my dear woman!

Home & Garden and Art & Design is a book about treehouses. I just put it as non-fiction.

Fantasy snared Mythos by Stephen Fry which is a retelling of Greek myths and also Book of Lamps and Banners which is a pretty gritty and violent thriller in the Cass Neary series by Elizabeth Hand. Sure, she writes fantasy, too, but this ain’t it. The third one it snared is pretty much right on, but it never occurred to me to use the label since I read so little of it.

Horror snagged some of the graphic novels I read, which honestly is more correct, but I tagged them GNs in my list so I could keep track of how many I read. It also got some that I called Gothic, but it’s pretty close. A couple that I call thrillers LT calls horror. Funny.

A few books with admittedly romantic elements got put there instead of mystery or just fiction as I categorized them.

And of course every book with a gay or trans person has to be LGBTQ+ even if it’s not a major part of the story. Ugh. There’s got to be a better way. I guess maybe queer studies or something like that to designate something about a relationship, way of existing or societal roles/acceptance. I guess tagging LGBTQ+ could be useful for finding characters that fit those identifiers. It's crazy.

Science fiction got two of my graphic novels that are more adventure books than anything, but they do involve some semi-fantastic or supernatural elements, mostly mythical creatures. Funny.

Back for a bit more piffling.

>117 Bookmarque: I did Mythos as an audiobook read by the author. I loved it.

>113 Bookmarque: Wow! Lots of mysteries and thrillers there!

Yeah, that's the bulk of my reading. Several series, you know how it is. I listened to Mythos, too. Anytime I get to hear Stephen Fry is alright with me. I have his follow up, Heroes, on deck!

Here's how things broke down for borrowed or bought books and then if they were new or used when purchased -



And one present from my hubby this Christmas. No one gives me books. All the used ones come from the Friends of the Library sales that happen a few times a year down in Wausau.

*panting* Trying to catch up with all the thread growth over the last couple of days. As always, your stats are a joy to behold. Will be back for piffle if I can ever get caught up with reading threads.

Have you been watching anything fun lately? I enjoyed the new Leverage series, perhaps the premise is wearing a bit thin, but still like the characters and situations enough.

I watched Red2 last night. I don't know why, but sometimes I just like to watch people fight. Not in real life, in the movies. It's like a dance.

It was 30° here this morning, but the violets and narcissus are blooming.

Ok, that's all I got.

Shouldn't we be seeing a 2022 thread now? I want to wish you a happy new year.

>128 Meredy: She needs to hit 150 posts to do the thread continuation thing.

So we must help her get there.

One post at a time.

Oh, of course. I'm sorry. Here, let me help:

There was an old man of the prairie...

Oh you guys are great!! Thanks a ton. I am lame, I admit.

30 degrees and flowers?! That's hard to beat. We are in the single digits overnight and teens during the day. Hope to get out and do some snowy river work this week after the husband departs for NH.

Haven't been watching much in terms of series. I LOVED the first season of Leverage back about a million years ago, but dropped it in season two. It got too weird and forced. At least as far as I remember.

If the Bosch spinoff about Honey gets going we'll watch that. And any Mrs. Maisel that gets out.

Red and Red2 are awesomeness itself. Just because everything works. I especially like Malkovich and the pig.

This is right. My totals on the LT stats are so wrong. Probably my fault, but there it is.

Format comparison through the years -



And the trend line -

With the advent of Audible Plus and Kindle Unlimited in my reading life, I decided to track where I borrowed things from. Up until these two it had only been my local Library system, which is still going strong.

I added a few new writers this year. I do every year. They don't always stick, but I'm not sure how to track that. The one and done folks. Hm...



How ingrained Pac Man is to us...old people.

Can I help with the piffling?

What’s the weather like there? Have you been having the horrible negative temps?

It’s cold here, but no longer in the single digits. There is snow on the ground and more in the forecast.

Happy New Year! Thanks again for all of the fantastic photographs.

>99 Bookmarque: Gorgeous photos, thanks for sharing them.

I concur. Your photos are amazing. Thanks very much for posting them here on LT for all of us to appreciate.

Looks like you are closing in on the magic 150 posts so...

Here are a couple more posts to help...

...get you nearer the goal.

I do love your pictures!

And your stats are interesting, but I could never do it.

Only a few more posts to get to 150!

>126 MrsLee: I'm a bit envious of your 30° and flowers! Here it is -27°C, no flowers. And the forecast is for colder weather. There has been some pretty hoarfrost, though.

OK, only two more posts needed, so here is one.

And another!

Last lap!

Aww, thanks you lovely people. All prepped and ready to go! And so I will start a new thread with some wintery photo goodness.

It is only -3 F here, but no flowers. Another 5 months for those give or take.

Here is how the gender split fell this year -



No teams or non-binary authors this year. Not to my knowledge.