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So, I've been thinking lately, about Dad's old mailbox... and this was handpicked by Dad, back in the 1980s.
You see, up until the mid 1980s, the house had had a front porch...
This photo was taken in the late 1970s, when Mom & Dad were in their late 30s, and fully in charge of the house...
The old mailbox, seen mid right in this shot, used to be on a post of that old porch.
But you also see that an American flag flew proudly off the next post, to let everybody know this was a good, conservative, American household!
What you can't make out in this shot, is that at the top of the flag pole is an eagle!
And Dad really had a thing for these eagle flagpoles, let me tell ya!.. but they had to have the front porch demolished, because it was rotting away, and so Dad had to move his eagle flagpole over to the side porch... where it encountered all kinds of problems getting snagged on the corners, and the bushes.
At any rate, that's when he bought the new eagle mailbox... so that passers by would still be able to see an eagle proudly displayed near the front door.
And, you know... Dad was many things, but one of them was a rabid Trump supporter, near the end!
And that's when I began to realize what always bothered me about that eagle on the mailbox...
Erm... look familiar? A bit TOO familar, huh?
He had boner for eagles because of the fascist iconography!.. and he and Mom both very much supported what's now being called, Christo-fascism.
In fact, they both still get mail today in that eagle mailbox from extremist groups asking for donations to end abortion in all fifty states!
So... today I finally got on Amazon and ordered this...
A much friendlier mailbox, with a much friendlier bird on the front!
I also ordered a new address plate, because the current address numbers are difficult to read.
The addy plate won't be here until early August, but the box is coming on Sunday. And I plan to also brush the rust off the footings of the rails on that front stoop, and spary paint them black again.
All part of a little makeover for the front stoop... li'l paint... li'l number clarification... li'l de-nazification... like ya do!
I ordered the mailbox at work, but once home, I returned to the other front yard task of de-weeding that curved branch of the front walk, to the driveway.
This is a closeup of the weed that's growing between the pavers... not grass, but something else, that's very hearty, and good at ducking the lawnmower blades.
Each weed has a long taproot, which, thankfully, is easy to pull out if you can get a good grip at the base.
So, I used google lens to identify it and...
It's called knot weed!
I don't see any of this out in the yard at large, so I don't know how it finds it's way into paver cracks so well. But... at any rate... I did managed to de-weed the entire branch of the walk tonight... though it took me until the lights came on...
As you can see... still more work to do near the stoop, but... what was on this branch was, by far, the worst of it!
I'm hoping I'll have time to clear the crevices and get polymeric sand in tomorrow.
After clearing the walk, I sat out in back with a beer to watch the bats, and the lightning bugs.
Again, still not a ton of lightning bugs... but some, and they're still doing their thing, a month after they first appeared, in late June.
However, I DID google, whether or not bats eat lightning bugs and it turns out THEY DO NOT!
"Fireflies — also known as lightning bugs — contain toxic compounds, so bats avoid them. But how do bats know not to eat them, and how do they detect them on the fly? University of Florida firefly researcher Marc Branham teamed up with bat researchers at Boise State University to find out."
That's a link to an article from University of Florida News, that talks about how it may be possible that bats actually helped certain beetles, like lightning bugs, to develop bioluminescence!.. because it signals to bats that they're gross!
So... my long range goal to get more lightning bugs in the yard, by keeping it dark out there, so they can mate and multiply... totally does not conflict with my wish for more bats!
I have a fever!.. and the only cure is more bats!.. and lightning bugs, and field crickets.
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