Spider Dance

Just after sunrise this morning I found a crab spider dancing on an iris. She actually seemed to like the attention of being photographed, and posed in many different positions for me. I went out in the early afternoon to move the water, and while I was checking the status of the black iris, the spider presented herself with a tiny wasp she had captured for lunch. On my way to the trash cans this evening, I took another look at the iris, and the spider again presented herself, no wasp this time. I ran in and got my camera, and we had another photo session. At one point she took a dive off the iris and hung on a string of her web. I photographed her dangling off the iris, but between the low light and the wind blowing her around, I couldn't get a clear shot. This tiny spider has been the best little critter model I've had so far.

I ordered two new windows for the house a couple of weeks ago, and had been expecting a call from Lowe's to tell me they were in. I hadn't heard anything, so I went by and checked this afternoon and they were in. We now have new windows in the dance room. They really look great and the cats will like the fact that we can open the windows in the dance room again. 

Puck was lying around in the bamboo this morning, looking as sassy as ever. This was after he climbed up in the peach tree, presented himself and jumped down while we were inspecting the damage from the frost on Wednesday. Laurie got a photo of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern lazing around on the deck (the last photo).

After I left to get the windows, Laurie said that Puck was chasing Mama Manx; then Rosencrantz stepped in and had a round with Puck. You really don't want to mess around with Rosencrantz, AKA claws and fangs, as he is a vicious fighter. Laurie said Rosencrantz chased Puck down and threw him on the ground near the fire pit, then they locked in a cat spat.  Puck managed to get away and took refuge in the bamboo while Rosencrantz circled it looking for him. Laurie finally got Rosencrantz to back off using a broom, after which all the cats calmed down. I noticed several clumps of hair from Puck by the fire pit tonight, and after inspecting Puck, I think Rosencrantz pulled out a couple of Puck's mats in the fight.

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I don't understand the media's obsession with royalty. Unless you are completely off the grid, they forced the royal wedding on everyone. I don't know any more about the wedding than the headlines and a few photos on all the news' web sites. But that's too much, as far as I'm concerned. Maybe it's a distraction from the reality that the US is bankrupt. 

The dollar's value is based on the US's good will, and ability to support its allies through aid and arms deals. While the current administration has done everything to erode the US's standing with its allies, gone to war against countries that have not threatened it and it has no diplomatic relationships with or strategic interest in, other countries are dumping the dollar — the possibility of hyperinflation is very real.  

The Federal government spends 8 times more than it takes in, and the Fed continues to print money. Congress acts like it's cut the budget to the bone by theoretically reducing spending by $38 billion — but the deficit grew by over $50 billion while they were haggling over funding for Planned Parenthood. 

As Walter Williams pointed out, if the Federal government leveed a 100% tax on all income of $250,000 or higher, confiscated all the assets of billionaires, and took 100% of the profits of all corporations in the United States, the total would run the government at it's current spending level for less than 8 months.

Now that the wedding is over, what will the media find to distract people with? There's always Lindsey Lohan, Charlie Sheen and the latest fatalities of Dancing with the Stars and the reality shows! Do people really care that much about loser stars and superficial TV shows? Or like the media's obsession with royalty, they are distractions from a flailing Congress, bankrupt government, and economy suffocating under the weight of regulation and a soaring Federal deficit.

Death by Frost

If I hadn't checked the thermometer this morning and seen that it was 18º F at 7:45 am, I might have blamed the wilted iris on aliens mutilating them during the night. I wonder if the British tabloid, "The Daily Mail Online"  would pick up a headline, such as, "Iris Mutilation a Mystery, Aliens Suspected!" They ran a piece on the cattle mutilations that happened in Eastern New Mexico in the '70s about a week ago, so why not current Iris mutilations?

Annie framed the pick I extracted from the DVD drive and brought it in with a double espresso this morning. I photographed it with a couple of my console screens on my monitors in the back ground to have a unifying "green" theme.

On the way back to the house from surveying the frost damage in the garden, we carried Rosencrantz and Guildenstern on our shoulders. Laurie led the way with Guildenstern looking a bit disgusted and digging his claws into her back, because he wasn't ready to go in for the night. 

Speaking of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Laurie got a photo of them lounging together on the chase lounge on the deck this afternoon. On cool mornings, they like to lay in the sun on the chase lounge, but it was too cold this morning, so they waited until the afternoon to lie around on the chase lounge.

Laurie moved the bags of beans to storage so Stretch is a little sad tonight. He was really getting the hang of the '60s — lying on the bean bags, groovin'. He wanted me to set up a black light, tape a psychedelic poster on the ceiling, and play Jimmy Hendrix.

The Rolling Iris "Sticky Petals"

Some of you might remember the insert card for the Rolling Stones Album "Sticky Fingers" that had the red lips and tongue on it and became their logo. One of our yellow iris, sticking out its orange tongue, reminded me of the Rolling Stones' logo. I remember not long after that album came out, a friend's mom bought it, brought it home, took off the cellophane wrapper, unzipped the pants on the cover and said "Is that all it shows?"

My lunchtime activity today was extracting a guitar pick from the DVD drive on a Macbook. The second photo shows the parts of the disassembled Macbook on my desk, and the third is Annie holding the DVD drive and the guitar pick I got out of it. The pick was in a position that my old eyes couldn't see it, but I asked Annie to look in the drive and she spotted right away. It took a bit of coaxing to get it out of the drive. 

How the guitar pick got into the DVD drive remains a mystery; but it seems a 21st birthday party and Boone's Farm wine may have had some influence on the matter. After extracting the errant pick, I got all but one of the 40 odd screws that came out of the Macbook back into it.  The DVD tested good reading and writing CDs.

Our orchids are slowly fading as they finish their blooming cycles, but the white one is still in good shape. The orchids are really a bargain for how long they bloom. One orchid dropped all its blooms after two months and another one is down to one bloom after being with us for 10 weeks. 

Puck was being a closet viper tonight, lying in wait for Laurie to put her hand in the dark closet and attack it. He also likes to do his viper routine by the light switch in the bedroom — we walk into the dark room, reach over to turn on the light, and our hands are grabbed by claws and fangs wrapped in soft fur instead of finding the light switch.

Stretch Lounges On Bean Bags

I had to drive to Los Alamos today in the howling wind. The dust obliterated the landscapes along the way, and the clouds were low and snow was falling in Los Alamos, so the only good photo opportunity out of the drive was a panorama of the Sandias from Rio Rancho above Bernalillo, late in the afternoon on my way home.

The wind was blowing so hard in Santa Fe that a young couple at the rest stop between La Bajada and La Cienaga were walking to their car backwards against the wind to shield their coffee cups, so the coffee wouldn't get blown on them. The wind still blew the coffee out of their cups, so by the time they got to their car they had half the coffee they started with.

A rust colored iris bloomed this afternoon, showing off interesting color and patterns. I'm still waiting for the black bud to bloom. I'm pretty sure the iris will be purple, but I curious to see how dark of a purple it will be compared to the lavender iris next to it.

We got a shipment of Anasazi beans today. Laurie put them on the counter and she said within minutes Stretch was lounging around on them. She did the photo of him on the bean bags. He's still curled up on them as I write.

I got some photos of Puck on pink, but caught him off guard, so he looks like a soft, sweet, sleepy kitty. He threatened to scratch my eyes out if I posted pictures of him on pink looking like a sissy cat. He has his reputation as a demon cat to keep up!

Stretch Haz New Bowl

Stretch likes roses in his water, but until we start getting roses I got him a new water bowl with flowers on it. He approves. He likes to drink by sticking his paw in the water and licking it off his paw.

A peach colored iris bloomed tonight and the one of the iris buds is really black. I think it will bloom to be a purple and white, but a black iris would be something.

Laurie noticed a tiny spider on the blue iris. The spider has its legs bunched up, and the iris is rather abstract.

By the time I got out to photograph the iris tonight, the sun was very low, so I couldn't get much depth-of-field on the bunches of iris in the bed. I liked the photo of the iris in the foreground in focus.

I Am Kitty Here Me Roar

Diné was being a lion this afternoon, lying in the grass ready to ambush. When I got down to photographer her, she roared at me, then charged and attacked — I was lucky to survive.

Austrian Copper is producing the best blooms ever this year; however, it also has a few mutant blooms with one yellow petal. The odd petal reminds me of Johnny Ventura's song "Capullo y Sorullo".  Capullo and Sorullo are married, have 9 kids, 8 are blond and the last one is black. Sorullo asks if the black kid is his "Dime Capullo es hijo mio el negrito?" She answers  'Olle Sorullo el negrito es el único tuyo!" The black one is the only one that's yours! A video of Johnny Ventura performing the song can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXqrPW-Adj0.

We cleaned up and reorganized the catio today. We moved shelves from one wall to another, cut out the dead and out-of-control trumpet vine, reoriented the weightlifting equipment, got the bonsais out of the cold frame and on to the shelves. The bonsais are really scraggly and need to be groomed — that will be one of the projects next weekend.

I picked up the last bonsai in the cold frame and there was a big, black beetle under it. I got my camera, caught the beetle and put him on a piece of fabric laying beside the cold frame to photograph it. It didn't like the light, but I told it I was going to put it back after I photographed it; it settled down and was one of the best bug models I've had so far. When I was done, I put him back under a piece of wood and closed the frame. 

We are going to have to get out our chain maille, and prepare to battle the black bamboo dragons again. I got this photo of a bamboo hydra, which started dripping venom when I got close to it. The stand of black bamboo doesn't look like it survived the sub-zero nights this winter. It's pretty with it's black canes and yellow leaves; however, in past years most of the canes put out new leaves, this year none of the canes are putting out new leaves. The shoots that are coming up in the stand will have to eventually replace it. The errant shoots will be slain.

Mama manx was rubbing around on one of the catnips in the raised beds this afternoon. She rolled and rubbed and really hammed it up for me. Laurie thinks I need to make a flip book of the series of her loving on the catnip. Rozencrantz and Guildenstern can be seen in the background coming up to see what we were talking to Mama Manx and laughing about, and to get in the way of the photos.

Let There Be Light

Guildenstern was reaching out his paw as I photographed him helping Laurie with her math. Was it AT&T that had the "reach out and touch someone" ads? I remember the ads, but we haven't had a TV in so long I don't remember.

Messing around with Photoshop, I figured out how to do the water reflection effect, so I included a photo of Austrian Copper half submerged in water.

The color on the blue iris in correct. I used manual settings for the exposure, because light blue flowers often photograph as a deeper blue to purple using the auto settings. Blue is one color rose hybridizers have never gotten.

Photographing those little white butterflies was so much work, I had to include another one in flight in tonight's photos.

The lead photo is one of the Easter lilies I brought home last week with the low afternoon sun shining on it. In order to get detail in the white flower, the background ended pure black. It's actually a very nice effect and appropriate for Easter.

I spent much of the morning reattaching trellis the plants had pulled off the wall, cursing them the whole time. The plants were heavy and completely out of control. The problem is I only have two hands, so I had to use my head to push  and hold the plants and trellis against the wall while I attempted, multiple times, to reattach the trellis. One problem was in order to get the stepladder close enough to the wall so I could pin the trellis against the wall with my head, I had to set it sideways. Physics has these certain properties, so whatever force you apply one direction, the same amount of force goes in the opposite direction, so the ladder kept pushing away from the wall, and was on only two legs instead of four while I was pushing the trellis against the wall (with my head, of course).

The add insult to frustration, I dropped two out of three screws I tried to drill into the trellis. I got so frustrated with the wisteria on the west side on the house, that I finally screwed the branches to the wall because 3 inch screws were not long enough to secure the trellis. The wisteria had grown in behind the trellis, which helped pull it off the wall.

I finally prevailed after a long battle, but not without wanting to give up on gardening as being way too much trouble.

Flight of the Butterfly

These tiny white butterflies have been very shy, but tonight they were playing around and feeding in the vinca just before sunset. They land for only a moment and have their wings together, so unless I'm on the ground, I can't get a profile shot of these little critters. From above they look like knife edges until they fly, then they beat their wings very fast and fly in random circles. I ended up hovering over the vinca and when one would land anticipate when it would take flight again.

The flowers tonight include a dried up tulip, a purple and white iris, honeysuckle, Easter lily with shadow, purple and yellow iris, and dianthus. There where a couple of dragon flies out tonight, but they wouldn't let me get near them with a macro lens. I will probably have to use a telephoto for dragon flies.

Puck gave us a really hard time about coming in tonight. He figured since it was nice out, and there was good sport in chasing the neighbors' cats around the yard, he didn't need to come in. Laurie finally got him, but it was no easy task.

Yahoo news had an article about a calico cat the wound up on the shore of Governors Island in New York all wet. The island's staff believes she had to swim a mile from the Jersey coast to get to the island. The story is at http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20110421/od_yblog_upshot/calico-cat-does-the-dog-paddle if you would like to read it.

The Same As It Ever Was

I'm starting to feel like the line in David Burn's "Once in a Lifetime" where he hits his forehead with the palm of his hand, while he repeats  "Same as it ever was!" over and over. The song is on the Talking Heads album "Stop Making Sense", which I think I managed to do some time ago. Befitting "deja vu all over again" I have more photos of kitties, flowers and tonight's sunset, although the sunset is a panorama looking north to east.

I read Ben Stein's diary today. He is truly interesting — traveling all over the country, meeting interesting people, and giving talks at all kinds of venues. He is in movies and commercials so he has notoriety — something I don't have outside work and family. 

I've really noticed lately how my activities have really narrowed — between dropping Laurie of at UNM, going to work, picking Laurie up from school and going home, watering plants, a little gardening, and trying to irrigate, I don't do much else. I get a few photos on the run, but mostly I photograph the kitties, flowers and critters in the yard, and I write this blog. It's all well and good, but I realized it's pretty dull after reading Ben Stein's diary. Who knows, he might wish for a duller life, but while he lives the "once in a lifetime" life daily, I'm stuck with "the same as it ever was!"

Laurie says this "dull" life is a good life, and asked me what more can I ask for than driving her to school in a sporty car three days a week and coming to flowers and happy cats? Exciting can be getting attacked by a bear (we just read some stories about bear attacks). So basically, she thinks I need to quit complaining, keep doing photographs of the kitties, garden and critters in the yard, and not think about Ben Stein!