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.
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.
A turkey’s lurking in the weeds
I think she sees me, yes indeed
That’s alright miss turkey lurk
I’ll leave you be to dust and scratch
I’ll leave you to your turkey work
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.
For any of you who know Spunk Kitty, you will understand how Spunk will not be outdone by mice, birds, squirrels, and especially lizards and bullfrogs. Spunk was not very happy that I posted Froggyphunk, by Jeremiah and the Lizards, yesterday before he got a chance to pitch his song idea to me. When I got home this afternoon, I got an ear full from Spunk about me posting a song by a stupid bullfrog when he had a song in mind called Meowing at the Half Moon. He insisted I help him record his song that instant. I told him I was tired and that I would rather do it over the weekend. Spunk would have none of that “over the stupid weekend” talk, and told me he would “scratch my eyes out” if we did not record his song tonight. So Spunk and I went into my darkroom/music studio, played, meowed, mixed and produced Meowing at the Half Moon by Dumpsta-Spunk. Enjoy.
The City of Albuquerque kicked off their first Heights Summerfest: Free, family, fun, concert-series last night, with Dumpstaphunk as the national headliner. Dumpstaphunk is a fantastic group of musicians, who put on a great show. We stood up against the barrier at the stage, and enjoyed their great sound as their funky bass and drums vibrated through our bodies (bass and drum vibes will heal what ails you like kitty purrs). Dumpstaphunk’s performance inspired Jeremiah and the Lizards to write and record Froggyphunk, above. Jeremiah and the Lizards are not quite as talented or as funky as Dumpstaphunk, but they came up with a decent tune. Jeremiah borrowed a recording of a “Chorus of Toads” from Laurie’s brother, Lane. Lane recorded the group of toads singing around his pond late one night. The chorus of toads adds a rather unique froggy element to Froggyphunk.
