A Trojan Horse was parked on Silver behind the office this morning. Bruce thought it would have been an even better photo op if it had been parked in front of Ms. Zachary’s Castle just a half a block away on the corner of 2nd and Lead (you can take a photo tour of “The Castle on Skid Row” at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703909904576051950137854170.html#slide/1).

I walked out of the office at 1:30 this afternoon to discover a beautiful, stormy sky that eventually delivered a little rain. I took the final photo at 3:00 am Sunday morning when I went out to turn in water to irrigate.

The transit of Venus will occur tomorrow afternoon when Venus will crawl across the face of the sun between 5:00 to 7:00 pm. I plan on photographing it if the sky is clear.

When I first saw this spider waiting in its den, it was much farther out in the opening, in full view, but when I shook the bush trying to get my camera into position, it retreated into it’s tunnel, out of sight of my lens. I stood patiently in the same spot, and after some time it slowly crept forward, showing one leg, then another leg until in finally peaked around the corner of its web, settled in, and just looked at me.  After snapping a few shots of our stand-off of sorts, I snuck around to the other side of the bush where I could see the spider’s profile from the low sun lighting up the inside of its web from behind the spider.

I spread mulch around the vegetable beds and the areas that Laurie (mostly) and I have been weeding for the past few weeks. I decimated two large piles of mulch in the process. There was a very black dragonfly flitting around this morning landing in the bamboo, but it would not let me get close enough to photograph it. This dragonfly, which may be the one Laurie photographed the other day, is much less skittish and allowed me to get really close to it.

4:13:28 PM — A baby sparrow awaits its mama, perched outside our bay window.

4:14:39 PM — Mama shows up, and junior flutters his wings asking mama to give him the tasty bug she has in her beak.

4:14:42 PM — Mama feeds junior the insect.

4:14:43 PM — Junior asks for more food.

4:14:48 PM — Mama lectures junior about being an unappreciative, demanding, gluttonous little bird brat — junior hangs his head in shame.

4:14:49 to 4:16:06 PM — Mama hops around from branch to branch, with junior following and continuing to beg.

4:16:07 PM — Mama takes a break from branch hopping and starts lecturing junior again. He just closes his eyes and waits for her to go find him more food.

4:16:40 PM — Junior waits patiently, looking for mama to return with more food.

4:19:46 PMv — Mama returns and feeds junior another insect. Papa observes from a distance.

4:19:48 PM — Junior asks for more food. Papa ducks in anticipation of mama’s response.

A Two-Tailed Swallowtail butterfly got so involved with the flowers on the deck that it didn’t seem to notice Laurie had my camera. I’ve seen these butterflies flitting around, but they are normally skittish and usually don’t let you get near them with a camera.  Snails, on the other hand, are not the quickest critters around, therefore, other than hanging out in dark, wet, slimy places, they are easy to photograph.

 

With the holiday, anniversary and party over, we get back to life as usual — a daily celebration of us and the kitties living through another day.

 

I had seen a few dragonflies zip back and forth across the yard over the past couple of days, but none of them landed in camera range. So Laurie ended up getting the first dragonfly of the season this morning when it landed on one of our plants on the edge of the deck.

We got a chicken spinner (that’s a rotisserie for those of you who don’t speak Viking) for our 30th wedding anniversary, and spun a couple of chickens for our anniversary dinner. Our nephew coined the term “chicken spinner” several years ago when we gave him a Lego Viking ship that had a chicken on a spit that turned over a Lego fire — we’ve used the term ever since.  The recipe we used for the slow cooked rotisserie chicken is from the most recent issues of Fine Cooking Magazine. You make a tarragon butter that you spread under the skin, and put a sprig of tarragon under the skin over each breast. Laurie wanted to see how the spinner handled two chickens, as she plans on making this recipe for her book group in July. The chicken came out super moist, tender and very tasty. We had asparagus sautéed with shallots, bell peppers, garlic and orange juice and potatoes with the chicken. .  Laurie made a wonderful Tres Leches cake for desert, which we had with coffee. Altogether they made a wonderful anniversary meal.

A spider caught a little bee this morning, and the first photograph shows the spider biting the bee. In the second photo, spider is dragging the bee into its web tunnel. A ladybug posed nicely for me this morning, as well, and the rest of the photos are of some of the wildflowers and cactus from yesterday’s venture back out to the area west of Rio Rancho overlooking the Rio Puerco valley and Mount Taylor. Laurie did some sketches and paintings of the landscape and wildflowers. The photo of her painting shows the layers and diversity of plant life in the area.

Believe it or not, we got light frost last night, which wilted some of our vegetables. We covered the vegetable beds tonight in case we get frost again. I thought we were going to get by without any late frosts this year, but it seems May cannot pass with out a late frost on the property.

The moon is white tonight and I can see the stars, but last night the smoke blotted out the stars and turned the  moon orange. While I was out photographing the moon from the front porch about 10:30 last night, I felt a presence, like someone was watching me. I looked up at the roof and could see the outline of pointy ears, so I pulled out my flashlight and there was an alien looking kitty staring at me. I thought the kitty would have run off since the light shining in its face, but it sat there intently looking at me while I talked to it. It didn’t act afraid at all, since it was out of my reach.

We went out to look at wild flowers and the landscape where we watched the eclipse last week. We were planning to go out yesterday, but it was too windy. Since we just got home, and I don’t have time to go through all the photos tonight, therefore, I’m only posting a photo of Mount Taylor at sunset, with the giant windmills at the base of the mountain shinning in the low sun, and a cow I photographed in the twilight on the way home.

 

There was not much smoke until about 7:00 PM when the winds died down and the smoke they blew in settled.  This butterfly looks almost completely black when it flutters around, but the morning sun reveals a lot of reddish brown in the wings.