Happy Autumnal Equinox!

Hot Enough For Ya?

I really should be doing other things (oh, and I will be! *sigh*), but felt compelled to share this fire souvenir first.

All the lush plant growth in the ravine behind our house burned, leaving nothing but charred stumps and ankle-deep ash... and revealing several years' worth of trash that some slob (I'm being charitable) who used to live here tossed there from the deck, shooting much of it during its trajectory - cretin that he was. So I've spent several hours cleaning up all the beer bottles, beer and soda cans, shards of clay pigeons, shotgun shell casings, etc, finally finishing that infuriating chore on Wednesday. The fire burned so hot down there that most of the intact glass bottles were as thin and fragile as eggshells, crumbling as I picked them up, and rocks were actually split in two by the heat. But I think this melted beer bottle illustrates it best...

And let me conclude with the righteously indignant observation that people who throw trash in Mother Earth's face should have hot tar poured in their nostrils.

"Butterfly Baywatch" (lol)

My blogging hiatus continues, due less to a slump or lack of things to blog about than to available time or energy. (Same old post-fire crap, mostly.) But a new post is way overdue, so here's a bloggable story and accompanying photos...

I was doing chores in the back yard this afternoon when I happened to notice a beautiful butterfly dog-paddling her little heart out in the dogs' water bucket. I suppose she fell in while trying to get a drink (note to butterflies: the shallow birdbath is a better idea!), and I had no idea how long she'd been struggling, but I scooped her out pronto. Poor thing was too wet, bedraggled and weary to fly, so I placed her in the sunshine on the Russian Sage, figuring she could dry out and enjoy a snack while she recuperated. :-) She was content to stay where I'd put her and I enjoyed getting to observe a butterfly close-up and sitting still for once! I was so enthralled with watching her furl and unfurl her proboscis and wave her little antennae about that it took a while before I thought to grab my camera, and I only got these two photos before my batteries died! The butterfly was dry and rested enough to fly away after about 15 minutes. She'll have quite a story to tell and I've got quite the photos to share, so all in all it was a pretty good trade, I'd say!

(And how do I know this butterfly is a female? I don't.) ;-)

Click on them to see larger, more detailed versions...