There’s a water dispenser in downtown Hawi that’s available 24 hours, seven days a week. Quite a lot of people live off grid here and while they collect catchment water, they often don’t have systems for making it safe to drink. That’s where this spot comes in handy. It could use a new banner though.
The idea of The Numbers Game is to enter a number into the search bar of your computer and then post a selection of the photos that turn up. This week’s number is 198. Captions are on the photos. You can see more responses here.
A Praying Mantis working on its tan.
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Paths and Trails.’ See more responses here.
A Water Lily in the small lake at Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden.
Lately, I’ve been taking photos of heads of coral to see what lurks within. In this instance, I thought I saw something down there and snapped a couple of photos. When I looked again, I thought, maybe that’s just dead coral.
It was only when I got home and zoomed in on the photos that I saw red in the bands on the legs of what proved to be Isabelle’s Hermit Crabs. According to my marine invertebrate book, this crab was unknown in Hawaii until 2003, meaning that it is a new arrival or has somehow been overlooked by previous researchers. The species only got a formal name in 1997, from a French zoologist, who named it after his wife.
Elon Musk is in the news again (when is he not?) thanks to his falling out with Donald Duck Trump. This contretemps was big news, which is somewhat surprising since it seemed impossible for it not to happen. When you get two men with overinflated egos, who behave like five-year-olds, what does anyone expect to happen?
Elon is now backing off government work to return to his private interests, one of which is the electric vehicle company, Tesla. This photo is of one of those vehicles, which is commonly known as the Cybertruck.
This is the point where I should say something nice about the Cybertruck. However, the only thing that springs to mind is that I loved reading that raccoons have been climbing on these vehicles and scratching them. Apparently, they think they’re dumpsters! The downside of this news is that now, every time I see one of these vehicles, I can’t help but shout out ‘Muskrat in a dumpster!’ Yes, I can behave like a five-year-old too.
I’ve seen this Cybertruck several times, and I can’t decide whether the paint job makes the truck look better or worse than the usual shiny metal look. My initial thought is it’s worse. I thought the shiny metal look was the one redeeming feature of these trucks, and I liked the echo of the original Ford Model T, where Henry Ford allegedly said, “Any color the customer wants, as long as it’s black.” I wonder if Ford had any trouble with raccoons?
A Passion Vine Butterfly feeds on what I think is an Arrowleaf sida (Sida rhombifolia) flower. The plant might be indigenous as it grows in tropical and subtropical areas.
