“Gulch” must have been one of the first words I learned in English (I probably pronounced it “goolsh” and had no idea what it meant). It came up quite often as a place name in one of my favourite cartoons.
The Daltons – the arch enemies of Lucky Luke – tried their luck in Killer Gulch, in Paradise Gulch, in Bottleneck Gulch, in Tortilla Gulch, and others.
If I remember correctly, Lucky Luke has grown up in Nothing Gulch.
For a long time the only pheasants I came across were painted ones like these on the gable of a local hotel.
Then I saw this fine fellow:
I was pretty pleased that I spotted him from my bike while I was pedalling through the fields.
And a few days later I encountered another male pheasant.
Only once I started looking I realised that he wasn’t alone.
Rather dowdy in comparison, isn’t she?
And then he spotted me and waved me off.
A cruse is an old word for an earthenware pot or jar. In the Book of Kings in the Old Testament is the story of a widow who’s cruse of oil never runs try.
I found this mural on the side of a house in Koblenz. This is what it looked with the house attached, so to speak:
I don’t remember much about Disney’s Stitch except that what he was doing he did with gusto!
The mural on this building in Mannheim is called “Nations in Peace – Colourful Cultures”. It has been designed with students from two schools under the guidance of the artist Bahaiden.
This painted pebble has the same message – albeit on a much smaller scale.
Both are necessary.
and some not so much.
One of the many very witty and occasionally sharp aphorisms of Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, a physicist and satirist who was one of the foremost European thinkers of the 18th century.
This wall stands in the middle of a little square, next to the Lichtenbergstraße in Darmstadt. I don’t know if it was purposely designed to invite others to add their thoughts or if sprayers just gravitate naturally to it. The slogans are mainly political (if crude) and their topicality suggest that the wall is at least occasionally scrubbed. I have no idea where the stag beetle comes in.
Thanks to Anita from RDP I learned a new word today: crepidate. Since it is a word describing a sound it is not surprising that I did not immediately have a photo at hand to respond. I am grateful for Anita’s explanation but I had to look the word up in other sources, switching from English to German and found that the German variant is mainly used in a medical context, i.e. the sound bones make after a break when the two surfaces rub against each other (ouch!!!). Then I found this on the English wikipedia site:
“Crepitation refers to situations where noises are produced by the rubbing of parts one against the other, as in:
Grashoppers! That’s the route I wanted to take and although I was sure that I had a grashopper in my archive somewhere I couldn’t find one. Bummer.
So I went with the second definition: “Rales or crackles, abnormal sounds heard over the lungs with a stethoscope”.
Stethoscope I can do. This particular doctor might hear the crepitation in his own lungs, the way he carries it.
pictures imperfect blog 