bagpipes, furnace?, millipedes

[eub]

When we biked by the park, a bagpiper was practicing in the middle of the field, playing a deep second base. He was pretty good; even so the middle of a field is the polite place to practice, but he didn't need a bigger field. It makes me nostalgic for CMU. I like the sound of a bagpipe in the distance.

I may have spoken too soon about nothing else going wrong with the furnace.



I got a few peas germinated, but not many, and went back to fill in the spaces. The soil seemed peculiarly well-populated with millipedes; I dug up one of the dud peas and it was completely surrounded by a writhing mass of small millipedes. Blaniulus, I think. Maaaybe it was dead before they started eating it, but I'm suspicious.

See them writhe.



What is this flower? I like them. [Note: if you are skipping the lj-cut you do not wish to go to the previous photo from this one.]

Comments

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Wow. I like millipedes, and even to me that is rather creepy. Could it be that they're eating bacteria or fungi growing on the pea? Does the pea appear nibbled? (The Arthropod Pet leaves obvious munch marks, but they're pretty small, and it's a lot bigger than those guys.)

My current bombardment by floral catalogs allows me to answer that the flower is Ipheion.

[eub.livejournal.com]

I have to confess I didn't handle them enough to look closely at the pea. I know in my head they're fine glossy millipedes but they felt like creepy parasites anyway. Their coloration does them no favors. The pea at least wasn't grossly eaten away, so they may be innocent... but on the other hand the pea didn't have a visible payload of fungi etc. either.

Thanks for the ID.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

What's the newnews with the furnace?

[katybeth]

It was making some sounds it shouldn't have been, the other morning. At least, I think it was the furnace. It stopped every time I tried to go investigate.

[ehk.livejournal.com]

Doesn't sound good. Could you tell if the furnace was running when you heard the noise?

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

Or if it was in trying to start the blower motor, that the weird sounds were being made: motor doesn't have enough power to spin up the fan/fan bearing getting old.

[eub.livejournal.com]

Currently the burner and the draft inducer and the blower all run and sound normal. But I will not be surprised if the blower in particular fails.

[katybeth]

I think it may have been that. We'll see if^H^Hhow soon it recurs.