Lighted Tulips

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We worked on the property all day yesterday, which included putting in soaker hoses on the rose beds where it’s hard to check the dippers, and to have as backups since we can only get irrigation waster every three weeks now. We finally got all the branches picked up from pruning the fruit trees — I think the branches double when you cut them, I took down the last of the chain-link fence that was now in front of our neighbor’s wood fence, and no longer needed. I pulled up several metal posts we had holding up trellis at one point, but since we are reconfiguring the beds, they needed to come out. I went ahead and set up the swamp cooler, although it might be a little early. Springtime is really difficult on our property because it still freezes almost every night and it was 82 F this afternoon. The new water hose will probably crack a few times before it stops freezing. After I got all the other stuff done, I went down and dug out 75 feet of our main irrigation ditch and built up the bank on the south of the ditch in an attempt to keep the water from running into the access between us and the neighbor. The digging was difficult because there are mostly tree roots under the ditch.

 

Dandelion

 

 

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Turtles

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Between photographing Katarina, Jackie, David and Rudy playing with the kids in Family Promise on Saturday, I photographed the turtles sunning themselves under the partly cloudy sky, and swimming around in the duck pond. Thinking about the turtles, and all the playing and happiness those kids and students were having spending the afternoon together reminded me of The Turtles song “So Happy Together” — www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv85y08aA2w

 

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The Matrix

Matrix

 

The water droplets on a spider web reminded me of a matrix. Patti came back to my office this afternoon and said there was a good photo op on Gold in front of Cafe Giuseppe. So I grabbed my camera and went to the front of the building and got the photo of the scooter and the police motorcycle. If I worked at the front front desk in the office instead of the “meat locker” in the back, I would get endless photo ops — but then I probably wouldn’t get much else done. I got another drive by with the low sun behind the Old Town sculptured tower landmark at westbound I-40 and Rio Grande Blvd.

 

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Cuatro Gotas

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We got a lot of wind and dust on Monday, and sporadic rain, wind, snow, and hail yesterday, making the light really strange at sunrise and sunset. I think some places in the metro area might of got measurable precipitation, but it didn’t register on our rain gage. “¡Cuatro gotas!”  (not much rain) as the Spaniards would say —  just enough to leave muddy rain drops all over our cars.

 

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Sunset4-9-13

 

New Tulips and a Dirty Cat

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The new tulips I planted last fall are coming up — big yellow, red/yellow and peachy-red tulips. I’ll have to wait and see if there were other colors in the mix, as I’ve forgotten what all I planted. Guildenstern was out rolling in the dirt, and wanted to be held, of course.

 

DirtyGuild

 

InsideTulip

 

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Chemtrails, Bikers & Puck

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The “chemtrails” as some people call them, more commonly known as “contrails”, made quite interesting patterns crisscrossing under the sun this morning. As the temperatures continue to warm, I’m seeing a lot more bikers on the road. Laurie left the door open to the study so the cats could be in it with her the other night — Puck was very happy to lay in his favorite spots he missed since I put the door on the study.

 

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