A WILD-GOOSE CHASE.?
(begun Tuesday 24th April at 6.03am..)

I'd been skiving off on Cloud Nine about five minutes ago, toying with the idea of getting up.. As I watched, a small flash of light lit the passage wall opposite my door... The only light that's on inside the house right now, would be the lamp next to the computer in the lounge.. Did BigEars just dip that light, or did I see something else right then? *interested... While I suspect that's all it was, he's growing increasingly careless these days, and who knows what I may get to see next...

Wednesday 25th April at 4.15am..
Waking up this morning to a dull ache at the base of my skull is a sure sign the Sadist hasn't lessened his attentions in any way.. I've been up for quite a while already, and still feel like I've been kicked in the head.. *shrugs...
I'd woken after midnight when the foster dog had launched himself off the bed, and I'd gone after him to find the GW in the lounge.. Chi had been taking himself out of the side window and had startled Sophie into having a go, was all it was.. Not to be confused in any way with Balliram's party tricks, achieved by bouncing the ultra-sonic frequency at the dog's ears... *yawns...
The overpowering smell of a nearby BushDweller's camp-fire filled the lounge, and I have to say that's a first in a long time...A Patsy, on orders to move into the valley and create mischief, or a passing vagrant taking advntage of a clear night, to doss down under the stars?  We'll have to wait and see....
Sophie had asked to go out just after 4am, and had scuttled about from end to end of our little yard snorting, as if she were picking up a strange scent... *curious..

I'd wandered casually down the side path yesterday morning, and had suddenly noticed that the wasp's nest that had been by the door leading to the front garden, had gone... I'd been meaning to ask Vincent to deal with it for months, and each time I'd forgotten, and he'd obviously taken the inititative on Saturday and knocked it off the wall...
I hadn't even noticed he'd been working around there...hmmm.....
There was no obvious sign of anything been cut back or dug over, until I studied the eugenia hedge that grows between Balliram's and ours....
Some years ago I'd used a pair of black tights to tie back a few of the branches from off the path, and they'd done the job admirably...

Vincent had clearly thought that wasn't all they were good for... Will you check out the green substance that's been streaked on the tights HERE?  How the two pieces of fabric on the shrubs next to it have already sprouted a bright green moss?  Magic, hey?
As the plants no longer need support, I cut away most of the fabric and bagged it in an airtight ziplok bag...
Later in the day I'd popped into mybroadband to catch up, and eventually went over to the Natural Sciences Forum, hoping to find something on holograms...  (I never did master the Search option effectively, but that's due to my own ignorance more than anything else...)
So, nothing on holograms, but Techne had posted a thread that caught my eye instead...Edit at 12.12pm - The thread is titled iofuels, vaccines and foods, (and how I leapt from that topic to include the strange growths in my garden, I simply can't fathom)  My failure to remember anything after a few minutes, is more than frustrating, but I see I've scribbled down that the original post was made on the 7th April 2012... Like that's a help.. *snorts..

Synthetic Biology?  My apologies to the OP if I didn't understand a word he was saying, but dear lord, is that not a perfect fit for all the weirdness in our garden?  The copycat Physcia Grisea lichen, and the white spore-like substance that covered the plants surrounding the metal pond after V's visit on Saturday?  Add to that the odd green streaks on the ancient black tights supporting the eugenia hedge, and you can understand why I fell on the term Synthetic Biology with delight... *beams..
Were Craig Venter's efforts mentioned in that thread, or was it another?  Farked if I can remember right now, but I'll plough on regardless...
Who funded Venter's studies, and am I off on a wild-goose chase again?  Boot up the old PC and refresh my ailing memory, before I stumble off down the wrong path as I so often do?

Check the facts, or chances are that I'll have you rolling in the aisles at my gormlessness again? Hah! I have standards to maintain, so bollocks to that...
IMHO,  the casual observer has never once grasped the sheer scale of the grandiose laser/wireless/fibre Surveillance Project, and it certainly makes sense to me that Universities across the country would've been approached to study means of camouflaging laser-friendly bounce-off points that could be applied heavily in residential areas without the homeowner's knowledge.. *draws breath..

Sure, I could say scathingly that these studies have probably already been done in other countries, and that Venter and his fellow boffs merely adapted the findings to fit the sort of fungi and lichen common to the South African Provinces... Even so, it's bloody clever when all's said and done, and it would be fascinating to find who it is that funds this particular field of research.. Vodafone? Telkom, perchance?  A juicy sponsorship to the Lab team that comes up with the most successful creations?
THIS amazing lump of mossy substance found tossed into the centre a a garvie plant, looking for all the world like nothing more than a bit of garden dirt, until you zoom it in and discover it's covered with rainbow hues and there are a couple of tiny white fragments buried in the soil that surrounds it.. *winks..

The same with the green streaks applied to the pieces of black tights.. Dig a little among the actual growing moss and LOOK what's buried in there... Again - the minute fragments of white substance that I'd lay odds attract the laser beams...
There's nothing remotely like that in your yard?  You think?  If you can drag yourself and your camera away from hunting holograms for a bit, go search for mossy outcrops, and again for the common Physcia Grisea lichen, and see whether your Canon or whatever doesn't pick up the telltale rainbow hues, when the results of your endeavours are zoomed in later...
I've not tried photographing the minute white 'spores' themselves, that now surround the birdbath, but pictures taken from the verandah with the flash, show a remarkable spectrum of colours just around those plants themselves...

I recall blogging a year or more back, of just how smart young Vincent is, and that I'd hoped he'd be given a well-paying job more suitable to his intellectual abilities... Was it my words that prompted Balliram to enlist the young man, and have him installed comfortably over at the Palmiet jondolo, or had he been recruited long before I'd said that V was capable of much more than loading trucks and part-time garden work? Whatever.. Just be careful what you wish for... *chokes..

I'd taken the cheapo camera out onto the front lawn just before 6pm yesterday evening.. Surely the western horizon was still too bright to capture the elusive spheres?  Turns out it wasn't.. Will you check THIS out? Never mind Hitchock's The Birds, as they would pale next to the dense swarm of holograms that filled the air around our satellite dish from edge to edge of the camera screen.*blinks..
For once the GW was at a loss to find a logical explanation for that amazing picture.. No amount of spots on the screen or fungus inside the camera could explain why I now have so many pictures taken on two completely different cameras, proving that we are literally being swamped by those circles of varying light and transparency..
I'd gone up after dark to fetch something from the Polo and had been fortunate enough to net a few more holograms on the back terraces HERE and HERE... Nice hey?  Ag, by now you'll be gloating over your own, if you haven't already amassed a collection over the years...
In which case it's the stragglers I speak to, when I suggest that you get yourself a proper camera and go hunting in your own garden for the rainbow-hued, innocuous-appearing deposits that may have been placed there without your knowledge...
If I've gotten it all wrong, as I so often do - and Techne's post on synthetic biology could not in any way be linked to the amazing finds in my garden, and Craig Venter has never worked on a means of creating normal everyday lichens or fungi that disguise laser-friendly substances, then sue me... *finger..Meanwhile, I must get on..

Now, if you'll just remove the cowardly criminal next door from his ongoing sadistic pursuits, I guess I could safely say that LIFE IS GRAND!
Peace..

---oOo---

Wednesday 25th April 2012 at 9.21am..