(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Street Prophets Friday: Other Things [1] ['Marko The Werelynx', 'Greg Dworkin'] Date: 2026-08-28 Greetings and welcome to another Friday-flavored bit of fluff. Just another community posted open-thread for the community to post stuff in. This week I’m going to be cobbling together a little collection of photos taken over the last few months, little things, big things, things that I simply wanted to share without worrying about context or storytelling. This ain’t a journey, it’s a jumble. I tend to think about the following album when I imagine collections of scraps. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh0j2jKofeU&list=OLAK5uy_ljt0xQC9sjbxghLj-yuO2MAVEf5a56pT8 I suppose I’d like to start with one of the last photos I’ve taken: the title image. Yesterday I took a bus up to our little home away from home out in the country because a chimney sweep was coming to inspect the place so we can keep it insured. We’ve got one large chimney made of hefty sandstone blocks and slabs that has been standing there for the last couple hundred of years without much ever being done to it. And we have a second chimney that Mrs the Werelynx’s grandfather began installing in the 1970s and I finished a couple years ago. No central heating in the old farmhouse, darlings. We received a grimy bill of health, chimney sweep approved and I learned a few things, like that the old chimney was once part of a black kitchen, an old style of setting up a cooking area in the base of a chimney which tended to let a lot of smoke and soot darken the room. I knew we had a little built in bread oven, but hadn’t realized that the shelf outside it was part of a since dismantled cooking surface. Um, anyway, that was my excuse for being out of town for a day. I stayed overnight and caught a bus back to Prague this morning. I had a restless night out there by myself and managed to be awake for a bit of the lunar eclipse in the wee hours. I wandered outside around 4:30 and took a picture of the Moon through the clouds. Marko the Werelynx I suppose if you really stretch your imagination, you can see the Earth taking a half-hourish-sized bite out of the Moon. And I fear that’s about as good as my view ever got. By the peak of the eclipse, sometime after 6:00, the Moon had already been hiding behind that hill for an hour. On my way up to our eternally renovated farmhouse, I got off the bus a few stops early, two villages down the road and got lunch. Slovakian Pea Soup with Seged Goulash with dumplings to follow (the latter not pictured) and one of the most beautiful beers a lad could ever hope for. Marko the Werelynx I’m going to make this a tradition I’m thinking. The lunch menu, including my half liter of luscious lager was just the equivalent of $10. I think that pub has been there as long as our farmhouse and I’ve been there a remarkably few times over the decades that I’ve haunted the area. That evening, I scrounged some veggies from the garden, added a couple of beef bullion cubes and black pepper (and cheated by using store bought potatoes rather than digging up the patch in the garden) to make a pot of Minestrone Soup for dinner. I thought my collection of vegetables was too colorful to not to take a picture of it. Marko the Werelynx Sometime back during out first heatwave this year, when we hit 40˚C a few times, I saw a European Blackbird (incidentally called a “Kos” in Czech), splayed out on the ground with its beak open. After I took the photo it hopped off to hide in the bushes. Marko the Werelynx It was interesting behavior, like it was basking in the oppressive heat. I’d never seen a bird do that before. Have you seen a bird do that? A couple weeks ago, the Sun did a thing. Today it was the Moon getting eclipsed, not quite a total eclipse, but then, neither was the eclipse of the Sun when I was hanging out in eastern Moravia. Once again it was the hills on the horizon that spoiled my chances to see the solar eclipse at its peak. sunset/eclipse Marko the Werelynx I liked this shot because of all the bloom and flare from the lens. What I think is rather interesting about it is the little yellow, somewhat kidney-shaped yellow spot in the flare. If you look at the Sun itself touching the top of that hill, it pretty much looks like a complete circle, but that’s the digital camera lying to you. The little yellow kidney spot is the same bright circle being reflected inside the lens and showing its true shape. Imagine if you will, the Moon is moving to obscure the Sun, coming in slowly from the bottom right and moving up and to the left. Now notice how the tiny reflected Sun had a bite out of its upper left. The reflection is completely reversed, top to bottom, left to right. Marko the Werelynx Marko the Werelynx I thought that was kinda cool and worth sharing. Speaking of oddly shaped sunny things … I picked a first, oddly oblong, pumpkin from the garden and made some soup with it. Marko the Werelynx You can tell how dry and crispy the grass was that week. The hot dry weather was unkind to one of the permanent residents of the farmhouse. This little bat flopped down on the grass out by the garden one day. Marko the Werelynx I think it’s a Common Brown Long-Eared Bat (Plecotus auritus) I dipped its nose in some water in a jar lid and Mrs the Werelynx set up some shade for it with a little red umbrella. It was pretty adorable watching it drink. Marko the Werelynx We kept half an eye on it and I gave it a couple more little drinks, dipping its nose then watching as it quickly worked its tiny mouth to drink up the bead of water that had formed on it. Talk about your squee-worthy nomming! I checked on it later and it had folded its wings in against its body. The next time I came out to check on it, it was gone. Two nights after that we spotted a bat flying around the yard and for every night after that for the rest of the week. This morning, after I’d gotten up to see if any of the eclipse was visible at 6:00, I saw two bats chasing each other around the yard. Dare I hope for adorable bat babies? We’ve always had bats around the place. I wish I knew where they hide themselves in the winter. Here’s hoping Hogshead stops by and sees the beets we canned this year. Leftover piece of foreground horseradish, because beets are delicious with horseradish. Marko the Werelynx This is representative of the broad range of results from my patch of sweetcorn Marko the Werelynx Last Friday, Mrs the Werelynx and I went to a live performance of music and dance in the crypt of the wonderful baroque hospital of Kuks. Marko the Werelynx Marko the Werelynx We arrived in a downpour and parked at the bottom of the hill that the old hospital sits on. We got out our umbrellas and walked across the bridge and then up the steep path (more of a shallow stream at that point) to the entrance to the crypt. The performance was called Memento Mori, an appropriate theme for the venue. There were a lot more people there than I’d have expected for a 10:00 in the evening performance and the audience, standing in a semi-circle around the most ornate of the tombs, managed to shuffle around and be pretty distracting. Overall it was a memorable evening and was done in a respectful manner I felt, knowing there were bodies interred there. The highlight for me was when the performer who personified Death, walked through the crowd, beckoning for us to follow, and strode slowly down the long entryway of the crypt and out into the storm. Her long, dark dress billowed out behind her as she marched into the wind blowing through the open door of the crypt. We all followed her out, grabbing the umbrellas we’d left at the door and stepping out into the rain to find she’d already vanished. We just kept walking. Walking quietly down the stone path, a few people lighting the way for themselves with their phones, down, down and across the bridge and the now rushing river beneath it. Back to our car and away. Marko the Werelynx One nice thing about all that rain is that I didn’t have to spend nearly so much time watering the garden. A look down a row where you might pick out a horseradish leaf (far left, bottom corner), some fennel plants and a row of poblano chili peppers. Marko the Werelynx The next bushy tangle is mostly potatoes (foreground) then a row of carrots, two rows of beets and another row of carrots Marko the Werelynx Here’s a nice close-up of the poblanos Marko the Werelynx I pounded a few short wooden posts into the ground and wove some willow branches between them and around the pepper plants which were beginning to have trouble standing upright with the increasing weight of their peppers. And one of the tomatoes was in need of another pole for some extra support. I cut a lot of the lower leaves off the plants, hoping that I’d delay the horrid brown molds that come with the cooler wet weather we usually get as autumn rolls in. Marko the Werelynx Things are doing better after the rains last week. Sweet peppers line the front of a raised bed with Lemon Grass, Asparagus and Basil in it. Marko the Werelynx The cucumbers would have been nearly done anyway, but the dry weather took its toll on them. Still, we managed to get a few more jars filled last week. Marko the Werelynx Sharp eyes can spot a few glints of red in my frame to protect the habanero peppers Marko the Werelynx There are a few more pumpkins out there, but they don’t seem to be getting any bigger. Marko the Werelynx I posted a photo of the rarer, mountain variety of this flower last week. This week I thought I should share a more common variety— found growing in my yard next to the pumpkins. Marko the Werelynx All the truly great stories have toads in them. Spotted outside the front door many an evening. Marko the Werelynx Thanks for stopping by. This is an open thread. 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