Some Flutterbyes

Heading up for three days of dog-sitting. Son is somewhere in Australia, Daughter-in-law is working and baby grand will be in day-care. The dog needs an hour's walk and usually gets it when his son gets home, but we have volunteered for the next three days. While I love seeing family, there will be periods of exhaustion followed by boredom. So I am sending you some pictures of peace (all except for the demise of the caterpillar) from my yard as the rain moves in.

Please Do Not Poke the Bear

Mother Nature is like a sleeping bear. She hums and purrs and sometimes rolls over and kicks that old bee hive, but for the most part, she is clever and lets us do our thing.  She puts up with us and our greed and anger, both of which change the surface of this planet.  Between the wars and our incessant air, ground, and ocean pollution, she is probably very tired.

But I am sure she is also angry these days and our time is doomed.  My brother and a few of my high school friends live between those three fires in Colorado this week.  The smoke is filling the skies and the photos on Facebook are terrifying.  When I grew up there we did have a scare or two from floods that swept down the canyon from the mountains, but fires were not common.

My brother is using the air conditioning in his newly built "mansion" and they rarely use that in the dry west!  The smoke is not a problem but they have been cautioned about the dangers from particulate in the air.

Last night we got three emergency warnings on our TV about a pending storm with strong winds, medium hail, thunder, and lightning.  It never manifested itself as badly as the civil warnings cautioned, thank goodness.  But I did carefully go down to our dock and took the pictures below.  Mother Nature is both frightening and beautiful.