Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev.

This is an American Bullfrog. Found near the pond in our neighborhood. Bullfrogs are generally eaten in North America because they have a lot of meat and can grow up to 10 inches (25 cm) in length and up to a pound (450 g) in weight. It’s name in Russian is “лягушка-бык”, in Ukrainian it is “Велика зелена жаба”

Who’s the boss of the pond?

Yuki thinks that waking up before 9am should be illegal. He can rise and shine but just not at the same time. Ok, ok, Yuki added, actually, mornings are wonderful. Their only drawback is that they come at such an inconvenient time of day! Elizaveta Alieva, do you agree?

This geese family is always near the pond so the goslings have been growing before my eyes. We see each other several times a day. Yuki and I keep our distance because we have already learned (a few times) that the geese act rather aggressively to protect their young if they feel the goslings are threatened. I never thought the birds may be so courageous and even fearless. They are always together. It’s so cute;)

By the way, there are a bunch of (likely) new English nouns for you: the collective noun for a group of geese on the ground is a gaggle; when in flight, they are called a skein, a team, or a wedge; when flying close together, they are called a plump. But to be frank I have never heard any of these words from anyone.

Happy woofday, Yuki! One year. We gifted him a piece of a tree branch (for ten bucks), a plastic piece resembling a tree branch in appearance and smell (also for ten bucks), and a real bone. Today he darted between all three, not knowing which to choose. And in the evening, we went to Morven Park in the pouring rain, just to keep life from seeming too sweet.

What we have been hearing the last few nights was (very likely) the call of an American Barn Owl. Simply because all other owls sound different. Does anyone know for sure? It certainly doesn’t help with falling asleep or having a peaceful, healthy sleep 🙂

Wildly interesting lectures for general knowledge about the history of the development of the atomic bomb by Mark Solonin. With a plethora of technical details, explained in an ELI5 style. Here, it’s not just about the atomic bomb, but generally about the path to the atomic industry, with its problems and solutions. And about the bomb as well. Mark’s entire channel is fascinating, primarily aimed at grown boys.

The bird I met this morning seems to be a great supporter of Belgium or Warsaw.

Red-winged blackbird or Красноплечий трупиал. (трупиал! Moreover, there exists a mourning trupial. But this one is the Red-winged)

Just finished reading Life’s Edge by Carl Zimmer. It was the third book of Zimmer I’ve read. Some time ago I decided to read books only aloud. The first book was Harry Potter, a few years ago. Reading aloud helped me stop jumping between paragraphs and resist the temptation to skip boring parts. It also helped me to keep a constant reading speed (which is just 2:20 min per page). I was able to see how the pauses in speech match the punctuation and structure of written sentences. And it helped to start thinking in phrases and word combinations rather than in separate words and grammar rules. It helped to draw attention to how the sentences are built — from time to time it was against my understanding of English grammar (and I googled why and patched my understanding as a result).

These 290 pages took me about 6.5 hours (2:20 per page). I bought the book on Apr, 8, exactly one month ago. On average, it was taking about 15 minutes per day.

I found the book really interesting, but if one has to choose which Zimmer’s to read, then it is better to start with his previous book, “She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity” (2018). “The Planet of Viruses” (2015) was interesting too.

I recorded how I was reading one of the last pages of the book. Since I had never seen that page before, it was not as smooth as it could be. Have you heard my Russian accent? Have you heard my rolling “r”? Interesting to hear some feedback and recommendations from those for whom English is the first language.

I discovered an excellent app for iOS: PiPifier. It’s a Safari extension that enables the use of every HTML5 video in Picture in Picture mode — including Youtube videos which typically don’t support this feature. PiP allows you to listen to or watch Youtube music in the background. It continues to play even if you exit Safari or the Youtube App. Normally, playing in the background is a premium feature (part of Youtube Music). I listen to Youtube while driving, so the background play is tremendously useful.