Water & Cotton

Our Majordomo texted me last night that there would be water to irrigate in the morning. I went out at dawn, but there was not much water in the irrigation ditch. There was a lot of sticks and cotton floating on top of the water. Therefore, I didn’t want to open my gate before the water was flowing over the main gate because a lot of the debris would clog up my culverts and ditches. I texted the Majordomo and asked when the water would be let in, and told him I’d be back home around 11:00 am to let in the water if it had come up by then.

I went to work, and we moved the remaining file cabinets, shelf units, tables and cabinets out of the downtown office. We put some of it in the storage room on the south end of the building, and loaded the rest of it into 4 pickup trucks and delivered shelves to a church in northeast Albuquerque, and then I delivered file cabinets and desks to our pharmacy in Corrales on my way home. At 10:30 am the Majordomo texted me that the water was up. I thought I would make it to Corrales by 11:00 am, but then an employee at the market asked if we had more desks. We did, so he got his truck and we loaded it with 3 file cabinets and two desks. I wasn’t going to make it home by 11:00 am, so I called Laurie and had her open out gate and get the water started.

Speaking of cotton, not only does it cling to plants and other things, it clogs up our swamp cooler. The above photos are the swamp cooler all clogged up again after I had cleaned it on Monday afternoon. I have to pull out the pads and brush the cotton off of them, and then I have to use a hose to spay the cotton out of the vents in the panels that hold the pads.

Around 1:00 pm, storm clouds were building up. It started raining around 3:00 pm.

This native bee was working the Shasta Daisies. The insects really love the Shasta Daisies while they are in bloom.

The rain stopped around 4:30 pm. I went out to shut down the irrigation gate at 5:00 pm and the storm clouds were breaking up.

A Pearl Crescent butterfly was also enjoying the Shasta Daisies this afternoon.

A yellow lily started blooming this afternoon.

While I was checking the progress of the irrigation water, I noticed we had one yellow Bing Cherry on our cherry tree. That’s the biggest harvest I’ve had in years. I think we had four or five cherries in 2018. The cherry was delicious.

Pre-sunset at around 8:00 pm looking southeast. Resa’s tree lighted on the left, Dale’s Peach tree in front (it has peaches), and Rebecca’s Black Bamboo patch with yellow tops in the middle right background.

Closer to sunset around 8:15 pm east/southeast. From left to right: Tiffany’s tree, Gabriela’s tree, Gigi’s tree, Teagan’s trees behind Gigi’s tree, and Susan’s tree.

Sunset looking west.

Sphingidae — Sphinx Moth

A Sphingidae — Spinx Moth, AKA Hummingbird Hawk-Moth, was fluttering around feeding on our Purple Salvia with the bees and the butterflies. I made a short video of it and added one of our recordings of Caña for background music (I’m playing and Laurie’s dancing). The only sound on the original video was the wind.

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Bugs & Bunnies

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Glazed bunny cakelet

Before Covid-19 set upon us, Laurie and I got “Backyard Bugs” and “Bunny Cakelet” baking molds for Spring. Laurie made really good carrot cake bunny and bug cakelets, and a glaze to cover them with. She gave a couple of bunnies to her parents, and the bugs and a bunny to Tristan.

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Dragonfly and bee cakelets

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Glazed dragonfly, bee and bunny cakelets

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Backyard bugs

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Laurie testing the glaze

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Bunny cakelets

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Another view of the dragonfly and bee

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Bunny Cakelet mold

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Drone view of bunny cakelets

Clouded Colors

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The echinaceas are attracting the various colors of clouded sulfur butterflies: green, orange, yellow.

Green Clouded Sulfur (Colias philodice)

I was able to get the orange sulfur (Colias eurytheme), also known as the “alfalfa butterfly”, above with it’s wings open as it landed on an enchinacea. Clouded Sulfurs rarely open their wings to a flattened position when they are perched. The solid black around the edges of the wings indicate that this one is a male (females have dots on the black edges).

Backlit orange.

A male Orange fluttering around an unfazed female Green (the green has spots on the black edges of her wings).

Yellow Sulfer (Colias croceus).

 

 

The Red Antson Song

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Over hill, out of scale, on a dry and rocky trail, a red ant carries a bee. Over logs, over rocks, a little ant hopscotch, dusk falls and the ant carries on… Then it’s hi hi, he he, here in the bosque, only one ant a silent drone. For wherever he goes, the ant always knows, he carried that bee all alone.