Of Tractors & Pterodactyls

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A tractor was out plowing a field and making lots of dust in the cool of the evening. The wind blew the dust over the clearwater ditch and into the bosque. Mr pT, a pterodactyl formerly known as a Great blue Heron, was wading in the clearwater ditch, took flight, and flew through the dust into the bosque.

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Male Queen

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This is a male Queen Butterfly feeding on purple wildflowers in the bosque. You can tell he’s a male by the black, teardrop shaped spots on the lower inside of his wings that are pheromone scales. Unlike Monarch butterflies that don’t use pheromones to attract mates, the Queens do.

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Radio?

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When I told Spunk the exciting news about Felder Rushing asking permission to play Spunk’s song, Dumpsta-Spunk Meowing at the Half Moon, for the “cheesy tune of the week” section on his radio program called The Gestalt Gardener that airs on NPR on Friday and Saturday mornings each week, Spunk just gave me his look of (see above) “Felder??? Radio??? NPR??? Cheesy??? What the catnip are you talking about?” I forgot that Spunk is a Cyber kitty whose main reference to the airwaves is WiFi and Kitty ESP. After I explained that “cheesy” is like “cool”, and that Felder Rushing has a “cool”, but not “cheesy”, website/blog called Felder Rushing’s Blog: Gardening Wisdom and Whimsy, and that he gives “unique keynote lectures, workshops, and informal garden talks, coast to coast, for Master Gardeners (national, regional, and state levels), garden clubs, horticulture societies, botanic gardens, universities, library groups, banquets, and even ‘spouse entertainment’ events at various non-gardening conventions.”, Spunk was much more impressed, but he still doesn’t get the parts about radio and cheesy.

Felder learned about my blog from Susan Rushton.  Susan and I have followed each other’s blogs for a long time. Susan does fantastic photos of the most interesting flowers and gardens. Susan’s blog is Susan Rushton: Celebrating gardens, nature, photography and a creative life.

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Peony
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Dianthus