Busier than we’d like to be on a sunny summer afternoon. Still, always time for a good Capitol Hill Seattle link or four.
A big bright moon out your window. A breeze in the leaves of trees. Have you heard a spooky wail and chatter? Coyote yelps can be a little creepy and, romantic notions of the wild spirit aside, inconvenient if you’re trying to sleep. When we read neighbor pffft’s report of recent coyote-induced sleeplessness, we thought, aha! Full moon!
Turns out, coyotes could care less about the moon:
Prairie folklore suggests that coyotes (Canis latrans) increase howling when the moon is full, yet menstrual patterns of coyote vocalizations have never been formally investigated. Thus, our purpose was to determine whether howling by coyotes is related to lunar condition. The study was conducted in July and August 1992, and from June to August 1994, in the Cypress Hills region of southwestern Saskatchewan, Canada. Coyote howling was surveyed immediately following dusk for 90-120 min, and was categorized by lunar condition. Group howling and group-yip howling were negatively related to increasing moonlight, but there was no relationship between lone howling and moonlight. These results might be explained by changes in the social behavior of coyotes with respect to foraging behavior and territory defense.
So, there you have it. Lonesome coyotes don’t howl more when there is a full moon and coyote crowds — we love the terms “group howling” and “group-yip howling” — actually howl less. Of course, this study only looked at coyotes in Saskatchewan way back in the 90s before Seattle’s coyotes broke big and got famous so Capitol Hill’s packs might exhibit a completely different set of behaviours. Howling at leaf blowers, perhaps. Yip yip yip!
Our nomination for nastiest pothole of the year goes to the growing menace just past Republican on 19th Ave.
It’s not the largest or deepest pothole we’ve ever encountered but it’s perfectly placed on a slight curve making it nearly unavoidable without swerving into the oncoming lane or sideswiping parked cars.
The city has this handy site to report your neighborhood ‘holes or you can call 684-ROAD. Hard to believe that nobody has reported this one but apparently it’s not yet on the city’s radar. Either that, or their “two business day” promise is a fraud.
It is basically impossible to rise to the master gardener standard of the Capitol Hill yards, at least for those of us who need to really focus to keep the houseplants alive. Our neighbors’ yards are full of gorgeous flowers and drought resistant native species, that all seem to be doing wonderfully. And somehow they don’t have weeds, either. Our yard is charitably described as organic, which means we don’t do much of anything, not that we indulge the plants with compost tea or even weeding. But sometimes you get rewarded for sloth, as recent studies show that bumblebees LOVE messy gardens. They like to nest in undisturbed ground. What with all of the concern about fast disappearing bees, it’s good to know that we’re doing our part.
Not only are we big fat whiners about the Blue Angels, we hate the Seafair pirates too. It’s creepy when adults take make believe too far. We put them in same category as balloon twisting clowns in that there should be required licensing and successful issuance should be rare. Plus, they have those damn cannons that make us and babies cry. We’ll shiver your timbers you big loud bullies!
More palatable in concept, at least, are Seattle’s Madison pirates. These pirates drink expensive rum, wear plastic jewelry and get giggly. They often pilot Subaru Foresters and have very friendly dogs. They have also been known to engage in spontaneous volleyball matches. The BottleNeck Lounge honors these pirates this Saturday with their Pirate Party. There are drink deals and prizes for pirates that show up in their work clothes. Everybody else pays $5 and walks the plank.
Speaking of the fuzz, Capitol Hill Times has a Q&A with Capt. Paul McDonagh the new commander of SPD’s East Precinct. Sounds like you may run into him at the police officer coffee joint of choice in our ‘hood, Tully’s:
One big difference might be that I like to get out and back the officers on calls, see what they’re doing, see what’s going on in the community. I didn’t ask Landy this, but I think I’m probably going to be out driving around more. I might have surprised some officers already by being out a lot.
Firefighters, by the way, go to Fuel.
Our cousins at the Miller Park blog remind that Friday is the last day to register your street to be part of Aug. 7th’s national Night Out. It’s a cool way to take over your street for a night and meet some neighbors — if you don’t live on a major arterial, you get to throw up roadblocks and own the pavement for a neighborhood block party. It also gives you an opportunity to work with the fuzz without wearing a wire or having somebody putting a knee in your back before throwing you in the slammer. More info on the SPD site.
Seattlest does a before-and-after on Smith’s infamous trout & ham dish. We’re not sure why Smith doesn’t just do it campfire style like us and make you cook your fish on two sticks over an open fire. Maybe the whole hunters’ lodge thing is just posturing.
Our introduction on Facebook — click here to check out the CHS Facebook profile — is already paying dividends. We have 8 connected buddies now (that’s more friends than we have in real life!) and neighbor Elizabeth has hooked us up with local fishing intel:
Apparently Elliott Bay has been rough but the Kings are running and humpy season is about to start.
That is friendship gold right there! You should be our Facebook friend too — what can you offer us, hmm?
We have a soft spot for Seattle street fashion blog Pike/Pine — not a lot of times in life where you want something to come along, then it does and it’s better than you expected. Plus, we like to think about being fashionable sometimes. So here’s a plug for Jasmine from P/P’s TV debut — she says she’ll be appearing on Wednesday’s airing of Northwest Afternoon at 3p.
