Guildenstern gets this look about him that reminds me of Godzilla. He was rolling around in the mulch tonight then he gave me his Guildzilla look when I pointed my camera at him. The other kitties were doing the same thing.

More roses are blooming, but as normal with our first blooms, some of them are beat up and thrippy; however, there are a few rose bushes that are putting out nice blooms, such as Betty Boop and Falstaff.

This spider waits at the entrance of its web tunnel for insects to get it its web and then it pounces on the victim with lightning speed. It also retreated into its tunnel at lightning speed when I stuck my camera in its face. I made several attempts before it decided I was not a threat and held its ground.

The smoke from the fires in Arizona has blown into the Albuquerque area; it’s thick around our house. My sinuses were getting better — so much for that!

I finally found a lady bug that was holding still enough to get a clear shot of, and a tiny bee was working it’s way through the Ballerina rose.

In a galaxy of roses with Canada in the name, the morning sun highlights its buds. A backlit hibiscus takes in some rays early in the morning as the sun peeks through the clouds.

I had my PET scan this morning. I’ll see my doctor next Tuesday to get the results. The PET scan was routine — I got the radioactive sugar shot, was put in isolation for 45 minutes while the radiation got distributed through my system, then in the scanner for 30 minutes.

It was 34º F on the deck at 7:00 am which means it got down to around 30º F in the garden (the garden thermometer quit working so I couldn’t check the temp im the garden). More roses are blooming, although timidly. Pillow Fight had some of the best blooms we’ve gotten so far. Pink Cascade has the most interesting center of all our roses.

While walking around the garden looking for photo ops, I came across the dreaded rose viper lying on the wall, hiding behind a rose bush ready to attack anything that got within its reach.

Critters root around in the mulch every night, and I assumed it was either raccoons or skunks or both. I went out at 4:30 am Sunday morning to put down the gate and let the water in, and came across a large critter waddling toward the ditch. It was a very large porcupine — so large and fat that I think it was a pregnant female.  Ever since I stepped on a skunk in the dark a few years ago, I don’t go out in the yard at night without a flashlight. Now I have even more reason not to walk around in the dark without a flashlight.

When I went out to shut off the water there was a damselfly covered with mud on the edge of the gate.  It couldn’t fly and a spider was going for it. I picked it up and carefully  rubbed some of the mud off it’s wings. It flew a little, decided it was still too had to fly, flew back and landed on my finger. I rubbed a little more dirt off its wings, then photographed it while it worked on getting the mud off it’s head. It took another test flight, flew back to my finger and I again worked on rubbing mud off its wings, while it scraped it off its head. We finally removed enough mud that it flew off toward the rising sun.

A tiny preying mantis got on my arm. It was so small I could hardly see it, and I might have squished if I hadn’t noticed it. I coaxed it onto a rose bush and it posed nicely, although it was so small I had a terrible time focusing on it. Then a fly landed next to my plate and started rubbing its front legs together like it wanted my food. The photo ended up looking more like it was praying, So I called it a praying fly.

We were sitting on the deck while I was writing this blog, but the temperature was dropping fast and drove us back inside. Hot, windy then cold — totally silly weather.

It’s gotten very late, so tonight I’m writing a quick rundown of the day with photos of our anniversary dinner preparation.

After irrigating first thing this morning, cleaning house, installing firmware updates on my cameras, and herding cats, I gave myself a kitty bath (licked my arms, put on deodorant and changed into some reasonably clean clothes), then Laurie and I ventured out to the nursery and bought a hibiscus and a color bowl for anniversary presents.

Dinner included the Vietnamese beef dish, stir-fried vegetables with black sesame seeds, brown rice and sparkling wine. Family came over for dessert. We all sat out on the deck and had a wonderful evening.

Rosencrantz wanted to me to put a “Got Milk?” ad on my blog — being a cat, he doesn’t understand the milk mustache that celebrities sport on the ads in the magazines. He thinks everyone should lap milk out of a saucer like cats, and quit wasting it on their upper lips.

The line-up for our anniversary dinner includes: Vietnamese style beef, stir fry vegetables. brown rice, Asti sparkling wine and devil’s food cake. Although it may seem a little dull, the recipes are from our Fine Cooking magazines, so they are anything but dull. The cake is made with buttermilk with a chocolate ganache frosting.

I made one of my best ever carne adovada stews this afternoon. One change I made was cutting the potatoes into small cubes and frying them like hash browns before adding them to the stew. The stew has Anasazi pinto beans, carne adovada, potatoes, fresh onions and garlic, red chile, smoked paprika and herbs. I made about 14 quarts that we will freeze in lunch-sized containers.

I was messing around with my camera this afternoon and made a pinhole lens out of an extension tube. The photograph of the chairs and table are done with the pinhole lens. I need to do a little more experimenting with the different lengths of of the extension tubes and different sized pinholes. Laurie thinks it’s silly to make a pinhole camera out of a modern DSLR, but I think it’s cool!

One think nice about hot days is the nights are very comfortable for sitting out on the deck to work on photos and blogs. The rose today is another bloom from Cherry Parfait. Laurie thinks it looks like the coloring was affected by the cold. The pink peonies are still blooming and I found a stink bug and made it pose for me. It was very reluctant and raised quite a stink.

We sat out on the deck tonight and watched the Sandias turn red as I worked on photos and Laurie made a shopping list for the meal we are going to prepare for our wedding anniversary on Sunday.  We are celebrating 29 years on the 29th.

The insects and spiders were in pretty good form tonight, and Rosencrantz looked good peeking out from the deck chair he was sitting on. Tonight is the warmest night we’ve had this spring, but the mosquitos are starting to pester.  The temperature is supposed to be 90º F tomorrow with cloudy skies. As long as the wind doesn’t blow that forecast is fine with me.