My plans for today were to irrigate, clean house, cook and make a flash set up for photographing backlight flowers, fruit and other things; however, I ended up working on the truck and spending a lot of time working on the swamp cooler.  I think I was up on the roof a dozen times today.

While working on the swamp cooler yesterday, I noticed that pads had gotten pretty well calcified. I got new pads at Lowe’s yesterday, but, of course, they were out of the right sized pads, and are not getting any more this season. So I had to buy larger pads. The box stores complain about people buying on-line, but when they can’t figure out the right supply, I have no sympathy. For almost anything else I would have left the store and ordered on-line, but I knew I could make the larger pads work, and didn’t want to wait for the correct sized pads to ship.

I installed the new pads in first thing this morning, then the pump quit working. I hadn’t planned to go out anywhere today, but I had to go out and get a new pump for the swamp cooler, so I made a run to Costco while I was out. I installed the new pump, and it worked so well that the cooler started sucking water off the oversized pads into the cooler and dripping on the floor. After investigating the issue, I determined it’s a flaw in the cooler and tried one remedy. That didn’t work, so I ended up sealing the problem area with silicone.

The kitty water fountain started leaking, so I have to replace it. I didn’t even bother going to PetsMart or Petsco out here. I searched and found a really elegant, ceramic kitty fountain on Amazon and ordered it.

The only critter I ran into at 3:30 this morning when I went out to let the irrigation water in was a skunk. I tried to do a photo but only got a grainy photo of his tail up looking like he’s aiming at me.

I did make one of the best green chile, chicken enchiladas I’ve ever made. The only reason it’s not the best is because I had to use frozen green chile from Costco.

Stretch was working on math with Laurie when she got this series of him working on a problem. He wasn’t shy about showing off after he “licked” the problem. I suppose it’s the kitty equivalent of blowing the smoke of the barrel of a pistol.

I spent most of the day working on the yard, the truck, the swamp cooler, the mower and doing some house work. Our dishwasher died, so now we have to wash dishes by hand. We’ve gone through two dishwashers in three years. This one just quit working. Seems to be a problem with the electronics. We have problems with water pressure, but I don’t know how low water pressure would cause the electronics to mess up.

I did manage to get out in the afternoon and do a few photos.

While I was cooking dinner, I looked out the window and saw a porcupine lumbering by. I grabbed my camera and ran out to photograph it. The minute it heard me come out on the deck it ran to the shed and started making its way through the junk to the trees on the side of the deck. I wanted to get a good profile photo of it, but it can move really fast when it feels like it. I got a photo of it between a dolly and a box on its way to squeeze between the shelves and the wheelbarrow to get to the safety of the tress.

Since I was photographing the porcupine, Guildenstern came lumbering over to check it out. Guildenstern is a big cat, but the porcupine is about 3 times the size of Guildenstern. I grabbed Guildenstern before he got more than he bargained for and put him in the house. The porcupine climbed up in the tree.

We got a couple of downpours today. We got a really short but intense downpour at the office that produced enough rain to fill up the cover on one of our staff’s motorbike cover and knock the motor bike over. Everything was wet when I got home tonight.

We’ve been sitting out on the deck in the cool of the evening tonight listening to Marco Antonio Solis in concert at the Sandia Casino Amphitheater. I hadn’t heard anything by him before tonight.

The clouds that produced some of tonight’s thunderstorms were building up when I left the office around 5:00 this afternoon.

I think I’m having a slight reaction to the injection I got for the PET scan. The left side of my face is slightly numb and my teeth and gums hurt, making it difficult to talk.

I got quite a surprise tonight when I turned on the lights in the catio and stepped out to find a baby skunk, skunking around. I got my camera, but the little skunk stayed against the wall in the shadows where I couldn’t photograph it. It finally crawled through the wire under the steps and disappeared. I guess they can get their bodies through anything they can get their heads through — or else  there is a skunk worm hole under the steps. The wire is the same 1.5 X 3 inches under the steps where the skunk disappeared as it is everywhere in the catio.  I see I’m going to have to put chicken wire around the bottom of the catio in the near future.

The three photos were done this morning and this afternoon with my new Olympus E-620 and Le Long Lens.

I got an Olympus E-620 camera. It’s a four thirds camera so it uses the same lenses as my Lumix L10. The E-620 has 12.3 mega pixels and a wide range of features, especially manual and a combination manual/auto features the L10 doesn’t have. One really nice feature is auto focus with fine manual focus adjustment. But what I was really going for is the extra mega pixels. Since so many of my wildlife photos have had to be farther away from the critters than I would like to be, the extra mega pixels, plus the noise reduction, should help improve the clarity on some of the critter photos.

Now I can keep the big lens on one camera and the macro on the other and be prepared for critters big and small.

I got home pretty late again tonight, so all I had time to photograph with the new camera was Bella Roma, taken with Le Long Lens in a light rain.

My PET was much the same as it ever was. I have a doctor appointment next Monday to get the results.

My new glasses came in today so now I can see clearly again.

There were really great clouds all-round on the way home tonight. I only got a couple of photos, however.

With family in town and prep for my PET scan tomorrow, the night went by leaving little time to blog. A lucky toad was the subject for tonight’s photo.

 

Our butterfly bushes are starting to bloom and attract butterflies. This ragged butterfly made the rounds of the white and purple bushes on either side of the deck. Its ragged wings don’t affect its flight at all. The wings help protect its soft body, and it looks like this butterfly has had at least one run-in with the birds I’ve photographed catching insects on the wing.

A ladybug was taking a tour of one of the sunflowers, hiking through its leafy canyons in search of food. On a neighboring sunflower, Evil Boll Weevil was preparing to attempt a jump to one of the other sunflowers growing among the old strawberry ziggurats.

Honey Perfume had a very interesting asymmetrical shape and was a lovely yellow under the morning sun filtering through the clouds.

Guildenstern and Mama Manx were blocking the door this afternoon trying to keep me from leaving to get fluids for Stretch. I think they’ve been plotting with Stretch.

The lead photo is the winner of the Wet Grasshopper Contest. I suppose more “normal” people go to wet T-shirt contests, but I find wet insects quite appealing. I know, I know, I need to get out more.

Neither Laurie nor I slept well last night. I did a little house work, watering and pulled some morning glories off the grapes today; otherwise, I’ve been dragging around most of the day. I noticed late this afternoon that I had a slight sore throat. I’m glad I didn’t do as much yard work as I was thinking about doing.

When I was doing the Fotóplanking, I tried Leisure Fotó. The problem is it wasn’t very leisurely. A lot of strength I don’t really have is required to laze out on a post and make it look like you’re not straining. If it wasn’t for pushing my “big, scary camera” (as one French woman called it) forward to act as a counter-balance, I don’t think I could have assumed that position.

I got some nice rose photos tonight, but when I started looking at them, I just couldn’t deal with rose photos tonight. Love’s blazing red and green gas and diesel prices I got on the way home tonight and the clouds moving in over UNM I got last night while waiting for Laurie were much more interesting to me.