6FPS V8#7: America The Beautiful

6FPS
Written By Chuq Von Rospach

Welcome to the new issue of 6FPS.

Welcome to July, where every year we celebrate our independence on the 4th, and I celebrate another year of being vertical (#68) which I consider a win. And out in the garden, the berries are ripening.

For my birthday Laurie bought me a really nice Lego kit that I am looking forward to putting together. I’m a couple of kits behind because I’ve been doing other things instead, but this will be a nice one to display.

I’m a relative newcomer to Soccer/Football, and I’ve only been watching it (mostly Premier League, but some MLS and other random games) for six or seven years, but I’ve really come to appreciate the game and almost understand some of the strategy behind how it’s played.

And right now, the World Cup is going on, and Laurie and I have been watching a lot of really, really good soccer/football. Cape Verde making life really miserable for Argentina was an amazing match.

As I write this we’ve started the round of 8, and I’m almost thankful we’re down to two games a day, because yes, we did in fact watch four games a day at times during the early rounds.

Since last month, I worked with my landscaper to get the last of the plantings done — mostly replacing things that died over the winter or due to irrigation issues. The improved sprinkler setup is working great, and all the new plants look happy and healthy.

So while it’s been a fairly expensive first half of the year, with that behind us, we are (hopefully) set up to mostly enjoy the place instead of work on it. Right now, the only project on the docket is that this fall we plan on planting another 400 daffodil and tulip bulbs. I’ve already ordered those and they should arrive in September.

And future projects? In studying the existing irrigation I’ve found a couple of places it could be better, literally a few fringe areas I’d like to improve a bit further, but it’s on hold to see what I think next year. And after that? The only real project I find myself wondering about is a revamp of the master closet.

It’s rather nice to be able to say I have this place finally where I want it to be.

On the birding front, this place has been exceptional this year. One day I did an extended look across the entire property and logged 31 species, which is amazing. So far, we’ve confirmed 11 species have bred and we’ve seen chicks for each one, and I know we’ll add two more to that list be the end of the season, and there are another five or six we believe are breeding here but which we haven’t seen evidence of. When we moved here I thought it would be good bird habitat and we’ve worked to encourage that, but this is incredibly good, and I love that we’re stewarding this property to benefit the birds.

Summer vacation has turned into fall vacation — as of right now, we’re looking at a drive down I5 for a few days in Morro Bay, then a couple around San Jose, and then back home — probably ten days or so, and the dates for it are currently early October. The reason we pushed it out a bit is to try to get better weather and some improved birding, where going in September would be too early and probably a lot hotter.

If you’re in either area and want to try to schedule a coffee or something, just let me know and we can sort out details when the trip firms up.

In the Workshop

Fun continues in the workshop. Here’s the latest piece I’ve finished:

What is it, you might ask?

Here it is in place. My recliner had a tendency to slide back when I got in or out, leading to a repeating need to stand up, pull it back out, and sit again. So this is a furniture spacer. Because it’s no fun unless I over-design it, I decided to wrap it in padding and then cover it with canvas, because I didn’t want it to potentially damage the wall, That, of course, took a one day project and turned it into a one week project, since I’m incompetent at it, but I enjoyed it, learned a lot and was a lot better at the end.

If I were to do it again? Use higher qualit wood, leave it visible and finish it nicely, and cover the two ends that contact the wall and chair with a rubber/cork skin to protect things. That would cut about 70% of the work out of the project.

And what’s on deck? This:

That’s a cardboard prototype of what will be a valet tray to sit on top of the side table next to my chair. I currently use a nice leather tray, but stuff slides around and I wanted something a bit nicer — and with a storage spot for the iPad, which currently gets plopped down on top of everything. I’m working on milling the wood now, and have the base a three sides done, and I stopped when I botched the cuts on the fourth side for a second time, which is a good indication I needed a break. So far, I’m quite happy with how it’s going. It’s the first of some trays I’m building for the bedroom to hold my stuff on the dresser.

By the way, building a prototype like this is a really smart idea, because I had an idea how I wanted it to look, and when I built this cardboard version, it was immediately clear some of the proportions were wrong, and I could fix them here and not after all of the wood was cut and shaped. It’s something I will likely do for most projects where I’m not sure of the design or the process.

This is proceeding nicely, but it’s going to take some time for me to do, since I really need to work slowly and keep the quality up. While the chair spacer work was “good enough”, this valet tray is something I’m going to be staring at daily, and I am not interested in having to stare at my mistakes constantly. This one is also pushing my skill levels forward, which is, of course, the point — pick something that pushed you and that you learn from, but not so hard you blow it up and give up.

After this, I’ll probably spend some time building boxes, as another way to add organization to my life and continue to get comfortable with the woodworking tools.

Spruce vs Roundup

I try hard not to use noxious chemicals around this place (it is, after all, not only the place we live, it’s a place we try to manage for the benefit of the birds and other animals that share this space with us.

So when I saw adds for a new (to me) weed killer called Spruce that advertises itself as a safe alternative to RoundUp, I gave it a try.

The results, frankly, were quite disappointing. The areas I sprayed with it pretty much ignored it, and when left on its side, the bottle leaked, leaving a spot of gunk that needed to be power washed off when I found it.

So I’m back to RoundUp, reluctantly, and I use it quite sparingly on the worst areas in small amounts, wash carefully after using it, and I don’t use it at least three days before the gardeners are due to mow. Unfortunately, if I don’t us it, there are large areas of this place that will get overrun.

BTW, when I talk about animals that share this space, that includes two species of squirrel, three black-tailed deer — including a young buck currently growing out a nice 3 point set of antlers — coyotes once or twice a week, a bear or two we see occasionally, and we still have a raccoon or two, although we’re seeing them a lot less often than we used to.

Adobe buys Topaz Labs

This one is interesting — Adobe is buying Topaz Labs, a firm that builds some really nice processing tools for photos.

I find this intriguing; I used Topaz for years with Lightroom Classic for its denoise and sharpening capabilities because I felt I got much better results than I did from Lightroom.

Since switching from Classic to Lightroom Mobile, I’ve spent time with the Adobe tools (and with an assist from Brian Matiash’s YouTube Channel, I got to the point where I felt my sharpening was good enough to drop the Topaz tools from my workflow.

To me, this will be a good win. Getting the Topaz technologies integrated into Lightroom will improve them further without needing a more complex workflow to take advantage of them. Hopefully Topaz got a nice buyout in joining Adobe and I also hope they will continue to do good work within Adobe that we will benefit from in the future.

On the negative side, this is one less thing for people who want alternatives to Adobe, who continues to be the 800 pound gorilla in the photo processing universe. Basically, the only serious option these days is DXO and hopefully nothing bad will happen to them. Unfortunately, Capture One still seems to be in a death spiral, so I can’t recommend them as something to depend on in the long term.

My Favorite Thing (this month)

This month I’ve got two favorite things for you.

As I mentioned, last month after nine years the cats needed dental work. All went well and the cats forgave us after a few days. Back when they were about five, our vet noted that Hunter’s teeth were not doing great and if things didn’t improve, he’d need work on them. They recommended a product from Greenies, to see if that would help.

Well, then next year they said the teeth were fine, and it’s now four years later before they finally needed the dental work, so I call that a big win, and it’s clear the Greenies were, if not the only reason for the improvement, a major factor. We’ve used their dental treats and if you have a cat, you might try them out and see what your cat thinks. Ours consider them a special treat and are grumpy if the dish is empty.

And post dental work, we had to give them a some meds for a few days, so we tried the Greenies pill pockets. They were a moderate success, making giving them their meds less stressful for all of use. Also worth a shot.

And since we’ve gotten in the habit of baking bread, we have fresh bread that needs to be stored. Laurie found the wraps from Beeswrap, and they are amazing. The bread stays fresh but doesn’t sog out or go gummy for the four or five days we might have a loaf hanging around. A really great find and worth considering as a way to protect things without resorting to plastic bags.

(oh, and the bread comes from Wildgrain, and I’m quite happy with the quality, and after some issues with the delivery company, we found their support to be really responsive and pro-active in fixing the issues (and flagging our account so that this particular shipping company is never used again, after they on two orders arbitrarily delayed delivery, ruining parts of one order, and after Wildgrain had a “talk” with them, delivering the second at 10:30PM on a Friday night, just as things were starting to defrost a bit, but it was all in usable shape. So kudos to Wildgrain)

See you next issue!


What’s New From Chuq


America the Beautiful

As I write this, it’s July 4th, the country is celebrating it’s 250th Anniversary, and almost everyone I now is un-motivated to celebrate this year. My take? I think John Scalzi sums it up well.

I decided not to fly flags this year. We haven’t done fireworks in many years, and haven’t gone to see a fireworks show since we moved north (back in Santa Clara the show was in the park literally across the street, so it was very much a neighborhood event).

As someone who lived through and remembers the fun and enthusiasm of the 1976 celebrations, seeing how thoroughly this anniversary has been screwed up is sad, but honestly, it’s pretty much lived down to my expectations given who’s in charge.

President Trump went to Mt. Rushmore to give a speech and celebrate, of course, himself, suffering delays from excessive heat and bad weather. Back in D.C. the heat and weather are just as bad, and as I write this, they have told visitors to the Great American State Fair (what few there are — it has been a dismal disaster on many levels with exceptionally poor attendance) to evacuate to shelter because of the weather.

I know any number of Christians who, if this kind of repeated problems were occurring to “the other side” would gleefully declare that God is expressing anger — this is God’s will. Of course, when it happens to “one of us”, those same kind of opinions can’t be found.

In reality, of course, it really looks like we’ve hit a tipping point in climate change, and the growing extremes in weather are becoming un-ignorable (unless you are in the current Administration, which denies this exists).

Maybe we shouldn’t have broken the planet for short term profit.

I know, I know. I normally try to avoid overt politics in this newsletter, and I apologize for doing so here, but this July 4th feels to me like a very clear look at just how screwed up things are right now, and how in the short term, I expect things to get even worse.

That said — as someone who’s read a lot of U.S. History in the last 15 years — this country is amazingly resilient, the problems we’re seeing are serious and hurting many, but this country has gone through similar (and in some cases, like the Civil War, even worse) issues in the past, and yet every time people have figured it out and gotten things back on the right track again.

I believe the same will happen here; it won’t happen quickly, and fixing what’s been broken will take time and energy, but America as a people has somehow muddled through and survived it’s problems I the past, and I expect we will here as well.

If I can make one suggestion we can all contribute in trying to fix things, it’s this: vote. Yes, sometimes it feels like choosing the lesser of two evils, but if you don’t, you’re making it easier for the greater evil to win — don’t forget that one big reason Trump won his second term was not because the Republicans voted in great numbers, but because Democrats stayed home rather than for for Harris. Are we better off because of that today?

And yes, the Democrats are a seriously flawed party today, too, and a big aspect of that is that the oldest leaders have refused to allow the younger members to take leadership roles, causing many younger people to just not get involved. I’m seeing this start to change, in many cases over the objections of those elders (who need to shut up and step aside) and I’m more hopeful to see the Democrats fix themselves than I am for any other positive action in the political realms, so while I sometimes hold my nose, but I still support them politically. Because non-votes, or voting for non-viable parties, are destructive options

So while some of my neighbors are setting off M-80s (and to be honest, this year is a LOT quieter than the last couple of 4ths so far), I’m contemplating where we’ll be in five years, hopeful things will be getting better again, but wondering how we’ll explain to our kids and their kids how we saw all this coming and let it happen, leaving them a mess they’ll need to figure out how to deal with.



Recent Photography

As I create new images and re-process older ones, I post them on my site in the Recent Work area.

I finally had a chance to visit Seabeck when the tides and weather cooperated, so I spent a couple of hours with the eagles, and they did not disappoint.


For Your Consideration

Birds and Birding

Photography

Science and Technology

Interesting Stuff

Free Wallpapers just for Subscribers

New Wallpapers (January, 2026). A new set of 12 wallpapers are now available.

You can download this new set from the 6FPS Secret Wallpaper. The previous set of wallpapers are now with the full public set at Public Wallpaper page.

These are available only to you, my favorite people who happen to be subscribers to 6FPS. The previous set of images I released here are now available to the general public.

 

Download an E-book

I have eight e-books available. All are free for you to download and read with no obligation. You can download them from my e-book page on the web site.

These are the books that are available:

  • Birding 101: Hints and Tips for the New Birder

  • Merced National Wildlife Refuge

  • And the Geese Exploded: A Life With Birds

  • Birds of Santa Clara County

  • 2021.1: A Year of Transitions

  • 2020.1: Images from the year when Covid changed everything

  • 2019 (1)

  • 2019 (2)

About 6FPS

6FPS (Six Frames Per Second) is a newsletter of interesting things and commentary from Chuq Von Rospach (chuqvr@gmail.com). 6FPS is Copyright © 2025 by Chuq Von Rospach. All Rights Reserved.

Coming out monthly on the 2nd Monday of the month, I will place in your inbox a few things I hope will inform and delight you. There is too much mediocre, forgettable stuff attacking your eyeballs every day you're online; this is my little way to help you cut through the noise to some interesting things you might otherwise not find.

And with that, I'll see you in the next issue. I'd love feedback on this, what you like, what you want more of, what you want less of. And if you have something interesting you think I might want to talk about, please pass it along. Until then, take care, and have fun.

Where to Find Chuq

Copyright

All content is Copyright © 2026 by Chuq Von Rospach. These images are not public domain. Please contact me if you are interested in licensing an image for use. Commercial use is prohibited without explicit permission.

All of my images are copyrighted and are not public domain. They may not be used without permission. Commercial use of this content is prohibited without explicit permission from Chuq Von Rospach.

Chuq Von Rospach

Birder, Nature and Wildlife Photography in Silicon Valley

http://www.chuq.me
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Seabeck Eagles, July 2026