Live & Direct from Nowhere in Particular...

Microhyla nepenthicola - micro-frog from Borneo

I want some. they are adorable. Apparently these micro-frogs breed in vegetarian pitcher plants in Borneo. They are less than 1/2 an inch long.

Though, they aren’t the smallest. That honor goes to a little Cuban frog called Eleutherodactylus iberia that is about 1cm long.

Eleutherodactylus iberia - smallest frog in the world

My first upload to YouTube. Incredibly boring, but I did it all on the new iPhone.

Around a dozen toads attempting to mate in my rain diluted, but still chlorinated swimming pool. I hope they don’t expect their endeavors to be successful. It’s amazing how loud they are.

I’m not looking forward to skimming out all the eggs tomorrow.

UPDATE: I rescued 15 live male toads this morning … 3 dead ones. One of which was the female. :^/ Most of them were in the skimmer. So I had at least 18 out there last night.

I decided to do a little math now that I’m at 1700 miles in the Golf. My average mpg in the Golf so far is 38.9mpg. The TT average is 23.2mpg. So, in the 1700 miles I have on the Golf, I have used 43.7 gallons of diesel … and, now that I’m using B5 (95% diesel, 5% bio-diesel), it’s really only 41.5 gallons of fossil fuels. for that same 1700 miles, the TT would have burned 73.3 gallons of premium unleaded. So far I’ve saved 31.8 gallons of dino-juice. Not only that, but the diesel tends to run about $0.10 per gallon less than premium unleaded, so I’ve probably saved about $85. That doesn’t sound like a lot per mile ($0.05), but it should add up. It’s nearly 1/3 of my car payment, and about $1000 per year.

My second tank was 39.4. I probably had a little more highway use with this tank. It also helped that I got 43.8 mpg (indicated … it seems to read low) one morning on the way to work by sneaking in behind a truck on 114.

So, my “lifetime” average is up to 38.5 now.

I’m trying out the B5 from Green Spot Market for this tank. It’s pretty convenient, just the other side of the lake.

37.7 mpg isn’t too bad for my first tank. I need to tweak a few habits I think, to bring that up a bit. I need to find a spot to put the smaller version of these over in the sidebar…

So the Golf gets 62.5% more miles per gallon of fuel than the TT. Plus the fuel is cheaper (diesel is running about equivalent to mid-grade gasoline & the TT takes premium).

OK, here are the results of yesterday’s shopping & labor (click images to enbiggen)…

The Street Garden:

The Lounge:

There are many more after the break … I don’t usually break posts, but you’ll see why I did when you click below…

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On top of washing the cars today, I went to Home Depot & bought stuff to plant out front next to my driveway to replace the stuff that was torn out just as it was looking established when they redid the curbs on my street. This is what was there last May:

This year I think I actually planted too much out there. I’ll try to get some pics of it tomorrow. But for the odd friends of mine that want to know what I planted, here it is in no particular order:

• Lithodora Grace Ward (Lithodora diffusa)
• Sneezeweed Dakota Gold (Helenium amarum)
• Pincushion flower Butterfly Blue (Scabiosa columbaria)
• Creeping phlox Emerald Blue (Phlox subulata)
• Superbells Saffron (Calibrachoa hybrid)
• Dalina Midi Sumatra (Dahlia hybrid)
• Then to fill things in: Marigolds, Blue Ageratum & 2 types of Society Garlic (Tulbaghia violacea and an unknown variegated variety, I had the variegated in a pot by the door last year)

Then for the pots that I have by the sidewalk & bench I got:

• Tuberous Begonia (Begonia tuberosa) - this big pot also has some more Marigolds & Blue Ageratum along with a green sweet potato vine (Ipomoea batatas) and a purple one (Ipomoea ‘Blackie’)
• 2 colors of Gerbera (a bright orange & a red-orange) in 2 little pots
• An Ornamental Pepper with cool purple & white variegated leaves for a purple pot with a teal base

Hopefully most of it lives.