Apparently June was waiting for summer to arrive to show us what it has in store for us. Ready or not, there is no turning back now.
For now, I am going to share my thoughts about some things for which I am grateful. Dyanne of Backsies Is What There Is Not is the host of a blog hop called Ten Things of Thankful which is a wonderful place to plant some seeds of happiness which is what one feels after acknowledging the good, the beautiful, the awe inspiring, or the humorous moments that make you smile, etc. The make up of those ten things may vary from week to week or they may be things constant in your life, but the important thing is to recognize and express gratitude. Click the Ten Things of Thankful link to see what others are expressing this week, write your own TTOT on your blog and link up if you want.
1. Saw a beautiful four point deer with antlers covered with velvet (Apparently the identification of a four point is not the same in certain parts of the country.) By the time I grabbed my phone to snap a photo he was gone. The first horns that appear are just a two single horns referred to as spikes. The deer had grown two horns branching off of each spike and looked like the deer on June 1 in the video below. I imagine he will be looking for a tree or trees to rub his horns on in the fall to remove the velvet. Nice for the deer, but not so nice for the trees.
2. Learning that masks are sometimes helpful for those wanting to capture a short range photo of an animal (in this case a doe) who is used to seeing human faces, but is totally confused at the sight of a human wearing a mask
She took the let’s wait and see approach to see if she could determine if she (or whatever that is that kind of looks like a human) was friend or foe. Meantime it allowed me not only to get my phone out of my purse on the front seat of the car where I had left it with the intention of unloading the groceries from the back of the car first. (I had put on my mask when I got out of the car, rather than risking dropping it while carrying in the groceries.) Grocery unloading was delayed while the doe just stared at me and allowed me to take a couple of snapshots of her. Note: When I saw the buck mentioned in #1, I was inside and he was walking quickly across the property and not looking at me. There was no time to try confusing him by me putting on a mask.
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| Doe confused by seeing me wearing a mask |
3. On a full-moon night this week I heard the sound of two great horned owls calling to one another. We have heard great horned owls before, but never this close to our home. One sounded like it was in one of the big oak trees on the lane, and the other in possibly a fir tree on the property below ours. I loved listening to them. When they stopped calling one another, I tried playing the calls on an online site which was perfect until the site included some of the warning calls. My hope was that perhaps I could bring the owls back with the sounds, but hearing the distress sounds probably sent them flying off to far away places. HaHa. It was a great idea, until it wasn’t.
4. Some of the cooler days we have had most of the week, which a month ago I would have considered hot, now have made my TTOT list. With the knowledge of the forecast for this weekend, I am feeling grateful for the temperatures earlier this week that caused us to turn on the AC, because Sunday the latest forecast is for 115° F which is unheard of in this part of the state. Like many things, it is all relative.
5. This time of year I am once again grateful for light weight water hoses. They make outdoor work so much easier.
6. Being able to snack on a few fresh blueberries from the bushes we have before the heat puts a sudden stop to that because the berries in whatever state of ripening burn very quickly
7. The entertainment that watching the flight patterns of hummingbirds brings to me, especially when they are vying for the hummingbird feeders in the early evening hours
8. Shade for people and for animals on hot days
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| A grove of banyon trees offered great shade on one of our trips years ago |
9. Water, food and clean air which is so vital for life
10. Talented musicians
What a cool observation/application of the mask and animal thing. Makes perfect sense. That is the sign of exception thinking, creative interpretation of ordinary events.
ReplyDeleteJealous of your giant thermometer temperatures. We've struggled to get into the eighties so far.
Have a good week.
Thanks, Clark.
DeleteAs hot and dry as it is this week, people are pleading for people to not resort to any pre-4th fireworks for fear of them causing a fire.
The deer antler video is fascinating! We have white-tailed deer here, but I've never noticed their racks looking that knobby and velvety, and I've even had one crash into my driver's side of our Sequoia! So interesting that the mask threw off the deer in your yard, not unlike with people in the grocery store! We have barred owls around us (they say "who cooks for you") and great horned owls at the lake. I scared one away doing the exact same thing you did - playing owl sounds from a website until I identified which owl I was hearing. Hope you made it through the horrid heat all right and hope there's some way to reverse global warming or at least stop it from getting worse.
ReplyDeleteOh my, that must have been scary having a deer crash into your car. My husband had one hit his windshield when he was driving in another part of the state years ago. Vic wasn't injured but the deer didn't survive. I would love to hear those owls again. We have heard the sound of mourning doves lately which is kind of cool. One was sitting on top of our house.
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