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.