We got an early start on a much needed deep clean of the house today. Later in the morning Monte was outside sweeping the patio when he told me that there was a praying mantis on one of the patio chairs. I grabbed my camera and started taking a bunch of closeups. The contrast is a bit poor because this bug was pretty much the same color as the chair.
This shot was taken a couple of seconds before he (she?) lept the few inches of space between it and the camera and hung on to the lens. It’s a good thing this Canon D10 is shock-proof as well as waterproof because I proceeded to scream and drop the camera.
Nothing like a close encounter with an insect to get the blood flowing…
Sunrise this morning was at 7:05. I watched the sun creep over the house into the back yard, lighting up the trees as it went. The light at that time of the day is beautiful. I took this shot about an hour after sunrise.
As I waited for the sun to hit the birdhouse, Cat Stevens’ Morning Has Broken kept running through my head. Here’s a youtube link if you want to hear it for real.
Yes, it’s another shot at the hummingbird feeder. This time it’s a pair of house finches. They hung out for quite a while today, while the usually territorial hummingbirds kept their distance.
It got down to a chilly 79 degrees last night, which is putting me into an Autumn state of mind. For as hot as it gets here in Austin, when Fall decides it’s finally ready to appear the weather sure changes very fast. That won’t be for another month or so. Even so, the big Red Oak in the front yard is loaded with acorns. The squirrels are going to have a big year.
Wow, it’s been HOT for the last few weeks. Thankfully a cold front came through at about 5 pm tonight, bringing cooler air and a short downpour.
The pic on the left is from our indoor/outdoor weather station at 4pm. 105.6 outside. The pic on the right is from about 2 1/2 hours later, after the front blew through. The temp had dropped by almost 20 degrees. I wonder if this is the end of the triple digit temps for the year.
The weather station also shows inside temperature and records the 24-hour min/max below each of the inside and outside temps. You can see that the max for inside temp today was 84 degrees. That was about 2 pm today when the old A/C unit seemed to just stop blowing cold air and it got very hot and stuffy in the house. I turned it off for a while to give it a rest and started it 30 minutes later. I’m very glad that it kicked back on. I fear a new A/C unit is in our near future… but we’ll see.
I’m very happy for a break from the heat, no matter how short.
So…. I have my regular appointment with my stylist/hairguy tomorrow that I needed to move out several hours. I called the salon this morning to change the appointment time, and they informed me that Mario is no longer working there as of the day before last, and they had no contact info for him. WHA?! I’ve been going to him for 8 years (!)
Well, Mario called tonight to tell me that he’s got a new gig at the Sax 5th Ave salon in the Arboretum and so we’re on for tomorrow night. Whew.
Unfortunately, this hairline shot that I took earlier today is the only material I have for the day. It may be an all time low for photo blog entries. But, I’ll just call it a self-portrait shot. 🙂 One of these days (apparently not that far off) I’ll just let it go all gray.
A bunch of A, B and E dockers descended on Shades this afternoon for drinks. We met up with Ace, Teri, Michelle, Tony, Lori, Joe, Wally, Rob and Jen.
Had a great sail up to Bee creek, and an aborted Sturgeon Moon raft-up. Very sorry to miss iPod wars and all the carrying-on.
This is a shot of a Blue Heron that had parked itself at the end of a ramp on one of the docks in Bee creek. He sat there for at least 30 minutes. I wasn’t sure if it was real until we buzzed by a second time. He was just hanging out in a bit of shade on another 100+ degree day.
I think it’s time to plan a trip to the coast. Maybe that’s where we’ll go when we take off a week at the end of September. We’ve made many trips down, mostly visiting Port O’Connor, Rockport, Port Aransas and South Padre Island.
I enjoy looking for shells on the beaches. On one trip I found this lightning whelk shell. One of its more unique features is that it is a “left-handed” shell… its spiral is counter-clockwise and so its opening is on the left. It’s actually the state seashell of Texas.
But, I digress….
We aren’t headed to the coast this weekend, but we will be out on the lake.
Since the program started around 1999, I’ve been trying to collect one all of the 50 US state commemorative quarters that have been minted at the Denver (D) and Philadelphia (P) mints. The program ended in 2008 or so, but I still am missing several coins. The P ones are hard to find here in Texas. So, every time I get a quarter, I take a really good look at it to see which state it is, and if it’s a P. Sadly, I can gauge the progression of my old-people’s-eyesight over the last decade by how hard it is getting for me to see the mint marks on these darn coins.
Anyway, tonight I got a quarter in some change and when I looked at it, it was an Arkansas — a new one from 2010. Wha??? Come to find out, the US Mint has started another commemorative quarter series this year (!) and I haven’t even finished with the last one. I must have missed the memo. It’s the America the Beautiful series – 56 more coins – and will release 5 new coins per year between now and 2021.
Great. At this rate, I’m going to be a little old lady before I complete these sets. I think I’m going to need a magnifying glass…
To take this shot, I figured out how to use the manual focus on my camera, otherwise the auto-focus wouldn’t allow me to get this close.
This is chop-down-all-the-crap-trees-that-are-stealing-water-from-the-live-oaks week, in case you missed it. You might ask, “why don’t you use a chain saw?” Weeelllll, that would be the easy way. 🙂
It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t 100+ degrees outside. Monte’s getting quite the work out.
Ugh, i’m starting to bore myself with the last several photos. But, hey, these moments do accurately capture what’s happening with me and how I’m spending my time from day to day, no matter how boring. So I guess I need to do something about that and then I should have better material to work with.
Let’s see, where are we in the year…. mid August. The last vacation I took was back in February (which was WONDERFUL, by the way). Monte and I discussed when to plan our next week off. It’s looking like end of September. I hope I make it that long!
I took a little trip down memory lane today…. On one my conference calls, a colleague said he was taking a couple days off to drive his daughter to college, out of state. It’s exciting and a big deal for their whole family. Several of my friends are getting ready to do the same thing this time of year. My thoughts turned back to the weeks before I went to college. I was 17. At that time I had been living in Spain for 3 years without a visit back to the States. I was SO ready to go back to “civilization” I couldn’t stand it. My mom, dad and 2 younger sisters were staying on in Spain for another couple of years. So, I packed up my belongings for my trip back over the pond. My older brother had left for college the summer before. He and my older sister were visiting Madrid for the summer, and I flew back with them a week or so before I had to show up at freshman orientation. I can’t recall how I got to WSU from the west side. I assume Noreen drove me. But after that I was pretty much on my own — or at least I felt like it. I can only imagine how hard it was for my mom to say goodbye to her kids one-by-one and not see them for a year or more at a time. Equally hard to understand that dad left home when he was 21 and it was 34 years before he went back to Ireland for a visit.
Anyway… it was (gulp) 28 years ago that I went off to college. It’s certainly been a fun and interesting ride. I am looking forward to the next 28.
A most welcome, brief rain shower opened up over us at about six o’clock tonight. The winds whipped up, blowing many leaves off the live oaks in back and off the red oak and ash in the front yard. It seems impossible to keep the patio clear.
This is a shot of the mat outside the back door, full of (dead) live oak leaves. Seeing all these leaves reminds me that fall is just around the corner.
We spent the afternoon cutting and bundling up dead branches from several trees in the yard. Hard work on a hot day. This dragonfly kept landing on this same little twig on one of the cut branches. The detail on his wings reminds me of a Frank Lloyd Wright window/glass design.
Sheila365 