for Palestine, the Ukraine…and of course {“America First!”] our good ol’ USA! Meanwhile,

Memorial Day for the good ol’ USA up here was the Planet X Pottery Sale, or the Saturday of it

wherein L. and I shamelessly indulged in treats from the grill and toured the various galleries,

modestly settling for a couple of cups [one shown] and a bowl but no paintings as paintings

we always have way too many of our own.  While at the X, however, we met Kyle from the Great Basin Water Network and his wife Silvia, arguably the most beautiful attorney in Nevada, who were on their way to see Dave at Parker to talk water conservation and fly drones.  They visited us later* for a small tour before moving on to Gerlach for dinner and camping, then hiked up Five Springs Canyon Sunday to the Five Springs while we spent the morning expecting Ned

and a dozen birders from the GBBO who arrived just at lunch, forcing us to eat inside with the dogs as they ranged about identifying more birds** in an hour than I’d witnessed in thirty years.  Ned and his girlfriend were back the next day, birding and again coincident with when

we would normally be making lunch, to point out a tiny Bewick’s Wren making a nest in one of my decorative bullet-perforated cans by the pond before moving on to Gerlach and the last day of the PXP sale .  Meanwhile Dave, who’d arrived Thursday, unpacked and began to assemble

and install the customized autonomous GPS-keyed solar-powered airport strobes** with Sonny and Seth that had arrived the previous Tuesday and array them from west to east across the Smoke Creek Playa, a trial run for a project he and fellow Long Now board member Kevin Kelly.

had been talking about since before Covid.  By Sunday all ten were placed in a row 1/3 of a mile long and firing off, the effect in our house reminiscent of Dogpatch nights on the 15 Third line

back in the eighties albeit fortuitously lacking the noise or the shaking house.  Refinements were constantly needed, so following a late lunch after Ned and Megan had come and gone

Dave invited me out Monday afternoon to see the work [our house, there in the distance]

up close as he made adjustments [his house, below, in the distance]

up and down the line,

after which we investigated a long-neglected spring at the southern edge of Parker Ranch with the idea it might be a site where our peripatetic caretakers could settle. Not shown, but we’ll

[or he’ll or they’ll] see.  Meanwhile May’s weather continued mild and colorful

as the second

week of summer brought

uncertainties, sculptures [two from Omaha remain to be installed

and we still await Willey to analyze that, evening after evening],

magpie fledglings, frogs…

and myriad tasks unrealized.

*Silvia later confided to Linda she’d spent the droning time napping in their camper.

**Click on the name of any bird on their list to see a picture and get info on it; very cool.

**After cold-calling numerous manufacturers of runway lights who wanted nothing to do with the idea he finally connected to a small company in upstate New York whose CEO, upon hearing it was for an art installation in northern Nevada, immediately grasped that it was for Burning Man [the final iteration will be 30 lights tracking the speed of the rotation of the earth for a mile] and jumped enthusiastically on board. He’ll be out for it, too, but it won’t be his first burn, turns out. We’ll be in Colorado, hoping it turns up on the BM webcam…