Mini Pearl

Rosencrantz

Rio Samba

Radiant Perfume

Princess de Monaco

Bella Roma

Simply Marvelous

From my walk in the garden this afternoon.

Rainbow Sorbet

Veteran's Honor

Leaf Hopper on Veteran's Honor. It's either a female laying eggs or a very well endowed male.

I started my third round of chemo today, so I'm feeling like I'm out to lunch.  I'm actually entering photos in some local photo shows. One of them is B&W only, so I've been looking back for photos that I already did in B&W or look good in B&W as candidates. I don't know if I'll enter any of these, but I like them in B&W.

A roadrunner ran across the parking lot in front of me and gave me a silly look as I photographed him running by.

Brocken 30 year old weed whacker. The metal eyelet that held the blade onto the frame broke making it unrepairable.

My 30 year old weed whacker that I had repaired multiple times over the years finally broke beyond repair last week while I was attempting to whack some giant weeds.  I have a newer weed whacker, but the wooden handle had broken a few years ago, and I was not able to find a new handle, so it sat, broken, while I kept the old weed whacker in service. Now that I was out of usable week whackers, I started looking around stuff I have laying around to see if I could find something suitable to make a handle out of.

While I was rummaging around in the shed, I remembered I had a shovel with a broken spade and metal handle in a pile of metal to be recycled at some point. I cut the handle off of the shovel and fit it onto the weed whacker that had the broken wooden handle. The metal handle added weight to the weed whacker which gave it more momentum with each swing, so it cut right through giant, 7 to 8 foot tall, weeds that my 30 year old weed whacker simply bounced off of.

Under a pleasantly cloudy sky, I attacked a small forest of giant weeds that had grown out of control with the recent rains. After a break to let a thunderstorm pass through, I got the weed forest whacked down, and opened up views of the cottonwoods and tall grasses growing on the property.

Broken shovel I cut the handle off of.

I drilled the metal handle so I could bolt it onto the weed whacker's frame.

Weed whacker's blade, frame and new handle in the process of being drilled.

The newly rebuilt weed whacker on a large pile of mulch with the forest of weeds behind it.

Weed whacker on the mulch pile after helping me make short work of the forest of weeds.

Me holding the stalk of a giant weed with Rosencrantz, and the weed whacker.

The weed forest whacked down and ready to be moved to a weed pile.

Victory over the weed forest.

This weed's flowers open at night

Crab Spider

With great sadness I have to report that we lost Guildenstern today. Guildenstern was 16 years old. He had an episode of some type (a stroke or blood clot — we don't know for sure) over the weekend that left him unable to walk. We didn't think he would last through the weekend, but we treated him and nursed him along best we could, and he showed some improvement, so Laurie took him to the vet Monday morning. The vet said he was doing much better, but then he had another episode, suddenly passed out, and the vet was unable to revive him.  Guildenstern was a good friend to everyone and we will miss him greatly. Rosencrantz was with us when we buried Guildenstern in the afternoon, and then he sat by Guildenstern's grave until I went out and got him after dark.

He loved to roll in the dirt and bring loads of dirt into the house

A very young Guildenstern

black on black

Power lounging with Rosencrantz

Guildenstern liked pretty girls even in magazines
 

Catzilla

He was an expert napper

He liked to sit like a person

Pondering medieval

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

pondering freedom

He loved to sit with Laurie

He was always good about modeling

Checking himself out on the computer

Sasha and Spunk like to rough and tumble all over the house on fight nights. Then they take a break and get all kitty kissy faced with each other.