You may have heard of the the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights. Well, I managed to get a photo of a rare occurrence of the Spider Borealis or Southwestern Arachnids.

Laurie forgot and left a sack of birdseed on the counter in the outdoor kitchen yesterday, and the coons got into it and ran amok rummaging through everything and ransacking the outdoor kitchen. The photo of Lola helping me survey the mess is after I picked up some of the stuff. The coons had opened two bottles of charcoal lighter fluid (one of the wet spots on the deck is lighter fluid), among other things. It’s a good thing they didn’t figure out how to use the lighter!

We recycle cardboard boxes by taking them apart, laying them on weeds and spreading mulch over them. The cardboard helps keep the weeds down and eventually composts into topsoil. I took the box the 55″ monitor came in apart, put in on some weeds, and covered it with mulch — it took six wheelbarrow loads of mulch to cover the box.

While I was checking out the garden this afternoon I came across a blue dragonfly, a black and white butterfly; the fly catcher was busy catching bugs, and Disneyland had a decent bloom.

If you haven’t seen Weird Al Yankovic’s video “It’s All About The Pentiums”, I recommend watching it, then you will understand the where I got the inspritation for today’s title. You can view is video on Youtube at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpMvS1Q1sos.

As you might have guessed, I got the 55″ HDTV I won last week installed. I hung it from the ceiling in the sunroom next to the treadmill. We actually had to do a major reorganization of the treadmill area to make it all work. But now we have a well hung, 55″ monitor in the sunroom. We also cleaned the sunroom really well. Laurie washed the covers on the couch, cleaned the windows and trimmed the bonsais and other plants in the sunroom on top of cleaning and reorganizing. All of it was a lot of work, but it’s all worked out very well.

Laurie got the urge to do a drive-by photo of the construction project on Coors Road, north of Paseo Del Norte. She took my camera a got a few shots as we were rolling past the construction.

I think there is a thin layer of smoke in the air that makes it impossible for me to get a really clear photo of the moon. Three different cameras and lenses all produced the same results. — a soft moon.

Laurie got some photos of our spider lilies. Puck decided to be the background for one of the photos.

Our cats are superstitious. They won’t go out either door if Lola or Osric (both black cats) cross their paths.

While out touring the garden this afternoon, I noticed a mama fly catcher with her two teenagers perched on the power line.  Mama would fly out catch a bug on the wing, fly back, and then give it to her nagging teenagers. There are several photos of her in action after bugs. I never once saw either of the teenagers lift a wing to go after a single bug the whole time I was out there.

I saw a tiny butterfly fluttering around and followed it until it landed. It was no bigger than a fingernail, but very pretty.

While I was photographing the butterfly, I could hear a bird chattering in a dead cottonwood. I looked up to see a beautiful red bird singing at the top of its birdie lungs.

Now that it’s the middle of July the June bugs are out.

Traffic was terrible on Alameda tonight. It took us an hour and a half to get home after I picked up Laurie at UNM at 5:30.

I got spammed last week by one of our lighting suppliers who had a “lighting Roadshow” today. I called our rep last week to give him a hard time about getting multiple emails about the event. He insisted that I drop by and check out the lighting, so after I dropped Laurie off at UNM this morning I went by and checked out the lighting. There was a lot of really cool LED lighting. I talked to the vendors, picked up some catalogs, registered for the door prize and went to the office.

Just before 5:00 pm this afternoon my rep called and said “Dude, you won the door prize!”  I said “Nah, you’re pulling my leg,” — he can be a joker. He told me that I really won the door prize. “Hmmm!” I said. “What was it again?” “A 55″ Samsung LED TV and Blue Ray player.” he replied. “When can I deliver it?”  We finally decided it would be easiest for me to pick it up on my way into work tomorrow, but now I need to figure out where to put it. A 55″ screen is huge. We haven’t had a TV in nearly 30 years so I’m not sure how to deal with a giant TV. Oh well. I’m not going to complain, however.

While I was out surveying the garden tonight, I noticed a spider hanging out at the entrance to its web tunnel. While I photographed it, a fly landed on it’s web and in an instant the spider pounced on the fly, but the fly got away. The spider stood there disappointed long enough for me to get a few more photos before it ran back in its tunnel.

I got spit on by the clouds on the way home tonight, but not really any measurable precipitation. At least the “quatro gotas” cooled things off quite a bit. The problem is, the wind brought smoke with it.

The hibiscus was blooming first thing this morning. The tree goes through a cycle of getting ready to put out blooms one day, and blooming the next day. The blooms close up for the night that night, and fall off the following day as the new blooms prepare to open by coming out as orange-yellow tubes that unfurl into full blooms the following day.

I drove through a brief downpour this afternoon on the way home from pick up Stretch’s water boarding supplies at the vet.

While I was mixing up Stretch’s “desert” tonight, I was thinking about how pet food companies make cat and dog foods in flavors we humans can deal with, but not necessarily the flavors kitties and doggies would really like.  I suppose people would have a hard time buying flavors like rat, mouse, bird, reptile, etc. for their cats. Maybe if they gave them names like rat salad, mouse mousse, parakeet parfait, lizard l’orange and snake surprise people might go for them, but I doubt it.

I’m not sure how dog food would go over — road kill ratatouille, dead duck delight, smashed squirrel saute, stinky skunk stew. It’s making me hungry just listing them.

When I got up at 4:15 this morning to irrigate, the raccoons were the only critters out. I haven’t seen the porcupines since I traumatized the baby by shining a flashlight on it a couple of weeks ago.

While I was getting ready to go out and get Stretch’s supplies, I heard Laurie out on the deck yelling. Turns out a horde of teenage raccoons came running toward the deck and then scrambled under it. She said the runt was tagging along several feet behind. We haven’t seen or heard from the mama coon. Apparently, the kids got away from her.

I worked out in the garden all morning thinning catnip, cutting dead branches out of the chitalpa, deadheading roses and making repairs on the drip system. I also got a series of photos flies and bees.

Thunderheads rolled over earlier in the evening, but it didn’t rain. From what I could see of the mountains they might have gotten a little rain, but I wouldn’t swear to it.