More Autumn, More Wheels Falling Off

Today was the Ring of Fire eclipse.  Spokane was under a heavy cloud cover, so we saw none of it.  It did seem darker than was warranted by the clouds, we suppose that was due to the eclipse.  About noon, the sun popped out and all was bathed in sunlight.  We decided to not waste the day and got the bikes on the car and headed out for the trail head.  

Yesterday was also a gorgeous day, but we decided it was time to cut the hydrangeas back, as well as the peonies.  There was also removal some of the wretched dead flower blossoms dropped by the wretched Rose of Sharon.  We have a piece of shade cloth over the window well closest to the hibiscus, the spent flowers are sticking to it which makes clean up difficult. 

I have some photos.  This was about a week ago, when the trees were turning yellow.

The hydrangeas have turned brownish and are dropping their leaves.

Our neighbor is growing these.  They're very cheerful, what ever they are.

These are from the lake today.  It turned out to be a very cold ride.  As soon as we got on the bikes the clouds rolled in and it was not nearly as pleasant as we had hoped it would be.  However, we went anyway, rode fast because we were cold, and ended up with our second best elapsed time ever on this route. 

Well, once again the wheels are coming off everywhere.  The republicans can not get their act together to elect a speaker.  All it would take is for five moderate republicans to vote for Hakeem Jeffries for speaker and work could actually be done.  Currently funding for Ukraine and the United States of America are in jeopardy.  Apparently Israel is asking for aid, as well. 

I'm not talking about Israel and Hamas, anything I say is likely to be wrong or offend someone, so no talking about that.

Let's talk about Leonard Leo.  This guy is undoubtedly one of the biggest, if not the biggest, threats to democracy.  He's responsible for the six conservative judges currently sitting on the Supreme Court.  He's also working on filling lower level prosecutor and judgeships with people he likes.  He's unafraid to threaten governors who go against his will.  It's an absolutely disgusting abuse of dark money.  Propublica has done a bang up job of documenting the entire sordid mess.  It's worth reading.

Here is a nice photo of Leonides, a Mexican Hairless dog who lives with Molly Jong-Fast.  I was wrong!  He's a Chinese Crested.

Here is the Powderpuff form of the breed.

That's it!  That's all I've got.