Cashmere and Cashlin's first Garden

They ran the pond over yesterday (girls!), which is not really a bad thing. It overflows onto the grassy area on the Northeast side, where the herb and flower gardens are.

First Day of Summer

And it is perfect. Bill executed the large water turtle and is now after a small one that he saw swimming around the pond.

Tomorrow might be finish the waterfall day, for sure none of us will be attending the alumni festivities.

Some rain

Two hours of incredible lightning and thunder, then 2/10 of an inch of rain. Kind of nice.

Poor focus but nice colors

No storm - big storm - who knows?

Even though I realize that Southeastern New Mexico is not considered to be a part of the state by the rest of the state, and even though they are correct in that the people are more like the people in the Texas towns on the high plains (we don't speak like Cheech Marin), I still watch the Albuquerque weather programs which ignore us, rather than the Lubbock weather programs which are always relevant, accurate and timely regarding all of the communities on the Llano Estacado no matter which side of the state line they are on. This morning and at noon I watched the Albuquerque weather and heard that no part of New Mexico could expect precipitation for the next five days. It is now 2 pm, a huge storm has been building for the past hour, and (Lubbock) weather has advised extreme winds and the possibility of softball sized hail.
I guess I enjoy the surprise.

This catfish is 6 to 7 inches long

The water plants are starting to bloom and the flower and herb beds look great.
Already extremely hot, and the humidity is lingering.

These catfish are just under 3" long -

and are busy, exciting little creatures. It seems that when I go to the pond specifically for pictures, I have to try harder. When I go for other reasons (to get water for a little tree), the neatest things just appear. A hummingbird was also hovering around in the same area.

What great colors

It almost could be this, and there are a lot of caterpillars eating milkweed plants.

Just after sunrise

We are expecting a temperature of around 104 today so I checked out the pond earlier than usual. The only strange animal was this uniquely colored butterfly.

No turtle even if you squint and imagine one

If you squint and think about what a turtle looks like, you can almost see him.

I went out to change the water and was standing on the berm, I guess fairly still and looking into the pond, and the turtle surfaced. He is really cautious and I tried to aim the camera without using the viewer (which didn't turn out well). Several fish were swimming around him but he ignored them and swam over to some vegetation and started nibbling on that (salad before the main course? I don't know.) Anyway he surfaced completely and swam out to where I could have gotten a great picture but when I moved, he was gone.

Is this naturally introduced predator a bad thing? The thought of him just randomly chewing on the fish isn't good, but is an ecosystem of organisms which doesn't have all elements of the predation system in place (due to overseer control), a healthy niche? He might stir them up, but that could be the difference between fat, lazy aquarium/zoo fish, and fish with real lives. I don't think I'll tell Bill about this "browsing in the noonday sun" habit yet.

Muggy and Green

The last weekend of the spring. Interesting season.

Cashlin peers through my fence yelling "hi" when her mom and grandmother are working in that area (flower and herb beds) and sort of expects me to come over and take her picture. The place is cool for most of the day, and looks good and smells great. It is the perfect playground for someone almost 17 months old. She is 7 months younger than Camron was when the pond was created.