Here it is May 1st, which means there’s only ten days felt before we leave for France. In the meantime, we have finals to study for, backup watering systems to finish, salsa dance on Friday and work. The kitties were lying around reflecting this afternoon as was a band’s tour bus that I moved my car for so it could take my usual parking spot this afternoon.
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.
Marisa is graduating from high school next month. These photos were done in the bosque and along the river.
René discovered a chip that he thoroughly enjoyed. His feathers are growing back in after molting and over-plucking after his beak was cut back so he could use it. Yet he still doesn’t know how to properly groom himself, so I have to give him showers and brush his wings. We’re trying to get him to learn grooming from our other bird, but it’s slow going. You can read the history of René (formerly known as Joey) at http://photoofthedayetc.com/2012/12/30/joeys-big-adventure/.
A fly was hanging around in the window caught in a spider’s web this morning. One of the reasons I like spiders.
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
Austrian Copper put on its first bloom yesterday. We had hard frost the past few nights, so some of the older tulips are showing cold damage. The purple parrot tulips finally bloomed, despite hanging their heads from the cold the past few mornings; and a hummingbird moth was making the rounds when I was out photographing the tulips.
Guidenstern came up with a new kitty fashion for laying around on the deck — “Leaves and Filtered Light.” Kitty fashion is like sand painting — it only lasts one day.
Laurie and Tristan finally talked me into dumping my dumb phone for a smart iPhone 5. I think the smart ones in this matter are T-mobile and Apple, because the monthly service and the iPhone 5 work out to be 7.5 times higher than the service for my old dumb phone.
When I went out to the ditch late this afternoon to check on irrigation water, I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye, and when I looked I saw the wild, gray kitty “snaking” me like Stretch used to do when it was time to waterboard him. This kitty hangs around a lot, but I normally only see glimpses of it running away from me. This was the first time it was still and let me talk to it and photograph it for a few minutes before it ran off.
The rest of the photos are of the tulips blooming along the fence on the west side of the house.
On my way home, just before the sunset, I saw this Western Cattle Egret hanging out with the geese in a field along Corrales Road. I turned around, went back and photographed it. I never saw one before, and it’s a little strange that it was by itself among the geese, ducks and crows in the freshly watered pasture — they are normally in a flock like the other birds in the field.
Off Center & Not Even 