Remember Mighty Mouse?

 

 

The little sprig of a Lantana that was just barely there.

 

 

We came back from our trip and the little plant has done quite well in our absence!

 

 

It has been a hot dry summer.  With a little water this little flowery bush should really flourish now.

 

 

The fall hummingbird migration is on

 

 

It just showed up today.  All of a sudden, instead of an occasional hummingbird or two, we’ll have 10 or 15 all at once.  I put out more feeders so they can chase each other back and forth between them.

 

I can’t get very many in the frame all at once.

 

I’ll have to stake-out for some better pictures.

 

We let Merlin, the bird I.D. app on the phone, listen to pick out which hummingbirds we’re getting.  Most of them are ruby-throated, but we still have the resident buff-bellied, and the occasional black-chinned and rufous.

 

One more thing

 

 

Driving (riding) in the Tesla.

 

It doesn’t need me.  All it needs to know is where I want to go and then I become superfluous.  An image comes to mind of our kids in booster chairs in the back seat with the pretend steering wheel in front of them, spinning the wheel and driving like crazy, having absolutely no impact on what is really happening.  That’s me.  Pretend driving now.

 

 

 

 

Dog day afternoon

 

 

 

For a squirrel.

 

Walking along that fence must be exhausting!

 

 

 

Common Mergansers

 

 

 

Fish eating diving ducks.  They hunt cooperatively in groups like this.

 

These mergansers were working upstream past us while we were in Yellowstone.

 

They don’t nest on the ground like other ducks, they nest high up in trees in cavities.  When the babies hatch, the first thing they have to do is jump out of the tree to the ground or water below.  At one day old!

 

Black-capped Chickadee

 

 

 

Loving him some suet.

 

But then, who doesn’t?

 

 

Places

 

 

We travel all over the U.S. and we see all these places.  And each place has a name.  New England.  New York.  St. Louis.  Denver.  Longs Peak.  Pikes Peak.  San Francisco.  All these places were “discovered” and named by “explorers” in the last few hundred years.

 

So we, the people of European descent, “explore” our way across an entire continent, which is already populated.  (The pre-“discovery” population of the Americas is estimated to be about 50 million to 100 million.)  And when we roll into town and encounter a distinctive place or feature, what do we do?  Do we ask the people who have been here for ten thousand years, “Hey, what’s the name of this place?”  Not often.  We say “Wow, look what we discovered”, and make up a name for it.

 

Does that make any sense?