Almost September

September is only a dream away and things have cooled down here on the east coast of Iowa. Soon the trees will change colors before the leaves fall to the branches bare. The wild critters are scampering around trying to find what they can as they prepare for the upcoming winter while growing longer fur to combat the coming cold.

Our thoughts go out those affected by the hurricane, families of our fallen, and those left behind to fend for themselves. Our prayers also. And we love our country, just not the government at the moment. The global climate change people are chomping at the bit as they believe some recent weather events prove their theory.

On September 11 we will all remember the events of 20 years ago that caused us to be in Afghanistan in the first place. Those old enough will remember where they were and what they were doing when the news came of the attack on the twin towers was reported. We can never forget.

And today Dad has been gone a year. Still miss him every day but know he’s in a better place. Plus, if cardinals are a sign of someone in Heaven checking in on you I’m keeping him busy.

Enjoy our Tuesday as it comes non-refundable. Now for some coffee.

Weekend pics

This critter was just begging to get a picture a taken. While looking for another subject this moth landed and didn’t move until we got a portrait. Even thought the moth doesn’t have have any bright colors we thought the picture worth sharing as he waited so patiently.

This gal wanted her picture taken also so we obliged. It may looked posed but was taken where this girl sat and the vines just made a frame around her face. And yes, she does have some orange coloring on her one side.

This picture isn’t the sharpest yet we like it. Many people don’t see black squirrels so when we see one around here we get a picture. This one was halfway down the alley and we just zoomed out too far. These critters have some amazing tails and seem healthy this year.

When we fill the food bowls, this is the look we get. Almost as if they’re saying ‘what took you so long?’ The squinty eye look reminded us of a Clint Eastwood movie for some reason. There were no such movies playing on the TV when we went back in the house.

Can’t go too many days without a picture of Lil Bit. Here she sits pondering all the worlds problems. Or at least trying to. She was patiently waiting, along with Lil One, when we went out to fill the food bowls this morning and the first one to the filled bowls.

Finally, not a four legged critter. Was running out things to shoot and time to do it when this critter showed up. As an experiment we took a few close-ups and this is the result. Didn’t realize we had caught so much detail in a critter that small. It’s not a razor sharp shot, but we like it.

Enjoy our Monday. Now for some coffee and pizza.

Sunday snicker

A preacher in the Wild West, beloved by his congregation, was famous for never preaching about the same subject twice.

One day he says to his wife, “I’ve got an idea for my next sermon. I think I’ll talk about horseback riding and how it helped America expand west of the Mississippi.” His wife says, “If you do, I’m not going. You don’t know anything about horses and you’re just gonna make a fool of yourself.” But he sticks with his choice.

Next Sunday while the preacher’s walking to church, he starts having second thoughts. At the last minute, he decides to change the subject to sexual immorality. He preaches with vigor and the sermon is a great success.

The next day at the market, one of the churchgoers sees the preacher’s wife and says, “You should’ve been at service yesterday. Your husband gave one of the finest sermons I’ve ever heard him give.” The preacher’s wife says, “Well I don’t know how that could be, considering he knows nothing about the subject. He’s only ever tried it twice in his life, and he fell off both times.”

Weekend thoughts

I had the same look on my face as this cat when we watched the local news last night. During the broadcast it was said that our longest sitting alderman would not seek re-election. Seems he likened progressives to socialists and Nazis so he was taken off his committee and a verbal back and forth ensued. Don’t know all the details, but do know the feeling. Thought this was America and we had free speech. Hang in there Alderman Ambrose.

Saw this critter hanging from a phone line. Believe it is a cicada but thought they were all dark colors. Whatever it is it wasn’t there the day before. Just hanging upside down on the line and not moving I wondered if it was dead yet later in the day when I looked up, it was gone again.

The feral cats were out in the heat yesterday and this one looked to have an attitude. Not sure if this one is the same as the one in the first picture but the face looks the same. At any rate this one just kicked back and was enjoying the day. Or he was waiting for me to fill the food bowls again.

This is the feral cat we believe to be pregnant. Not the best picture we’ve ever taken, but this cat is still skittish around people so we get a picture when we can. We’re keeping an eye on her and if she shows up skinny one day we’ll know she had her litter and have to find out where.

Finally, when day looked like this we knew it was time to put the camera up for another day. The sky has been putting on some weird light shows at night and we felt blessed to get this one. Just wish we would have gotten it earlier while the day was a little lighter out.

Enjoy our Saturday as when this is finished I’m going out to grill some brats. Now for some coffee.

Just noticed

Saw this squirrel on a nearby roof gnawing on a twig and thought that, other than the feral cats, we haven’t had many four legged critters running around this year. Not sure why the squirrel was trying to eat a stick but hope he finds something a little more healthy before winter sets in.

We have noticed a big increase in spiders and insects this year. This one has been around for a while and we’ve been watching as it builds a web. The lighting for this shot was a lot better than a previous picture we posted. One of these days we might even a front shot.

This close up of a fly on the roof made me think of the old sci-fi movies with evil aliens from other planets. If you click on the picture to enlarge it you may notice this fly looks like it has tusks. Not sure what’s up with that or if I really want to know. These hairy little buggers look a lot different up close.

Not a critter but one built it. Went outside after a recent rain and saw the water drops on this spider web. It is in shrub that is out of the wind so the storm didn’t bother it. Not sure where the spider is as we haven’t seen the elusive creature yet.

Finally, this is one flying critter we all try to avoid as the wife and I are both allergic to stings. This was taken from four feet away with a macro zoom lens. Didn’t turn out the best yet we can still tell what it is. These pictured in this post are the critters we’ve seen the most of this year.

Enjoy our Friday. Now for some coffee and a pastry. Comments are always welcome.

God help us

Yes, we know this is very late. Was all set to a post on studies done across the world that all claim natural immunity is much better, and longer lasting, than the vaccine. That was blown out of the water when news came of a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport.

Last we heard the number is up to 12 service members were killed in said explosion and many more service members and civilians injured. Even heard Biden claim the bomber was not with Taliban. Well, excuse me, but these people are
still dead.

And that got us wondering. Since Biden doesn’t seem to know much of anything, his staff doesn’t even know how many Americans are still stranded in-country, how does Biden know it’s not the Taliban.

When Biden came out of nowhere to ‘win’ the last election some were asking how it was done. Nobody is still real clear on that yet I was wondering who would take such a risk for obviously flawed candidate, and why. Still working
on that one.

Now it’s looking like the American civilians trapped in-country are going to start showing up as data in the formed of those killed in this withdrawal. God help us.

Enjoy the rest of our Thursday as the weekend is only a dream away. Now for some coffee. Comments are always welcome.

Interesting day

We didn’t think much was going to happen yesterday between the heat and the predicted rain, but we were pleasantly surprised with the outcome. Yes, we did have a heat advisory going and later it did storm. It was what happened between those two events that left us surprised. We will tell you with some pictures.

The day started out with these European starlings taking over the old pine tree. We don’t care for these birds as they are invasive, and bullies that run off other birds we’d rather see. Thought that might be an omen for a bad day of pictures. We were wrong,

Then saw this colorful critter darting around and got this picture while in flight. Birds in flight are a whole lot easier to photograph than butterflies in flight is all we’ll say.

After getting the butterfly shot we noticed some shadows on the ground and looked up to see these great white pelicans flying over. They were poetry in motion as the spiraled their way east as we got a few pictures of what that looked like. These birds are huge and soar almost as one as they glide across the sky. This really put a smile on our face.

A lot of people don’t like spiders and we are not in that group. Spotted this one as we were going back in the house and thought the colors were amazing. The lines on on the butt look almost like gold and appear to have a pattern, which means nothing to us except we did get some pictures. An amazing looking creature.

Enjoy our Wednesday as we hope to. Now for some coffee and pizza. Comments are always welcome.

Hot spell

Here on the east coast of Iowa we’re going through a week of hot days. All the people who guess the weather on TV can say is the humidity is “tropical” and the hot weather should last until the weekend. Because it’s been hot the wild critters have been scarce when we venture out with the camera. Here are a few photos from yesterday.

In the morning the western sky looked like this. It felt cool out in the early morning but when the clouds floated away late morning the oven came on and was set to broil. The little bit of rain we got the night before quickly turned to dust also.

Got this picture of a wet spider web in the early morning and by noon it was dried out. Not sure where the spider goes during the rains as he was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he has a pool in the back to cool off in. At any rate the web was still there this morning.

Even Lil Bit didn’t spend much time in the driveway as she practically ran to food and water bowls in the shade. It just didn’t take her long to look at the driveway. After getting her food and water she wandered across the lawn to find a shady spot.

The feral cat found pleasure where he could. In the shade of the neighbors Jeep scratched his itch and put on a happy face in the heat. After he finished that task he decided it was nap time. What a life.

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Walking around and taking pictures I noticed these feet and tail sticking out from under the wifes car. First thought was she ran over the cat and didn’t realize it, until I saw the tail moving. If you’re a feral cat, and it’s hot out, this would be the place to find some shade as it’s close to the food and water bowls. These wild critters sure know how to beat the heat.

Enjoy our Tuesday and stay cool. Now for some coffee and pizza. Comments are always welcome.

School daze

Here on the east coast of Iowa, today is the first day of school. If you’re out driving past our schools please pay attention and slow down in the school zones. The kids have enough problems without having to dodge any drivers who aren’t on the ball. Thank you, and now we’ll share some pictures from the weekend.

Lil Bit looks determined to get the best of her brother as they wrestled around. You may noticed her brothers white paw to the left of the picture. The scuffle didn’t last long and no cats were harmed during the taking of this picture.

Saw this plane flying over and thought of the old “Sky King’ TV series of years ago. If you’re old enough you know what we’re talking about and the younger folk will just have to take our word for it. Either way, it was a neat looking plane to watch as it got smaller and smaller in the southern sky.

This one may be a little tricky for some but there is a grasshopper hiding in plain sight in the center of this photo. Kept waiting for the critter to get out in the open for a clearer shot and that didn’t happen so we took this one. Almost felt like this was one shy bug yet we can’t be sure. We noticed the bug as there were no feral cats out and about in the heat.

Or at least we think it was the heat. Went out yesterday morning to feed and water the cats and were surprised to see a large hawk taking flight from the top of our old pine tree. Didn’t get a picture and the hawk didn’t get a chance to swoop down and grab one of the smaller cats. We’ll keep trying to get a picture of this hawk.

And Saturday night into Sunday morning was the full blue moon and we got a shot of that later Saturday night. We have to wait as we have too many things like houses and trees in the way to get an earlier shot. As we waited we did notice the moon was fairly bright yet saw nothing special about it. And, as long as the man in the moon is happy, we’re happy.

That’s a little taste of our weekend, enjoy our Monday. Now for some coffee. Comments are always welcome.

Sunday snicker

In a small church in a midwest town the pastor was having problems. Their church organist played beautiful music fitting of a religious ceremony but the petite lady had huge boobs which bounced as she played.

A steadily rising stack of complaints came from wives in the parish and they all claimed they couldn’t get their husbands to stop gawking at said organist. After weeks of receiving these complaints the pastor called a meeting with just the wives and told them the organist was too good to fire. He also told them breast reduction surgery was not in the church budget.

One woman stood and said she had been to see a local old voodoo woman and the old woman said the large breasts that so distracted the men could be reduced with a simple salve made with berries and other natural ingredients. She continued that there was a warning attached to using this cure.

She was told that if the salve is used under no circumstances should any one try to lick or taste the salve as it did smell, and taste good. However, if you get any on the lips it would cause a reaction with symptoms of puckered lips and problems speaking. All at the meeting thought the idea the best and plans were made to make and apply the salve the day before the next services. It was decided the pastor would apply the slave.

As the ladies filed into the church for Sunday service they were all smiles as they saw that the organist now had boobs more appropriate for her body. The husbands were not as happy. Soon the pastor walked in an began the services.

The pastor stepped up to the lectern and said “Ere woon be ony sherman aas I con sweem o tolk.”