Flash Flood

I had to reschedule my mystery shop today. We got 5 inches of rain in less than 8 hours. This on top of 1.5 inches last night. I live in a flat area, we just can't absorb this kind of rain fall.

I made it home from work - just barely. My car almost stalled going across an intersection. My tires actually threw water up over my sideview mirrors (and I was only going 10mph). I saw a car stall out in front of our house right when I had to be leaving to do my shop. I just couldn't get there.

I hate having to cancel things, it makes me feel unreliable.

I wish I had gotten pictures. We have a grass strip of about 5' wide between our sidewalk and the road. The water was all the way up over the sidewalk and into our yard. The people across the street had their soaker hose float down the street. Trash cans were floating down the alley (and these are the huge trash cans - 200 gallons or so).

But 3 hours later? Just the barest puddles on the road.

Help Identify a bird

We have parrots in our neighborhood. They're red-crowned parrots and we're used to seeing them (but we still get excited to see them).

Tonight we heard a different sound than normal. I thought it was either the whistling ducks that are thinking of nesting in our Washingtonia palm skirt and then maybe a grackle. But it just sounded like a parrot, but not our parrots.

We finally spotted the pair of them. They were parrots, but they had a yellow head. Their call was less harsh than the red-crowned parrot and they almost seemed to laugh (I think they were laughing at me thinking they were whistling ducks, but well, I tend to be insecure, so ...). They did appear to be smaller than our red-crowned parrots, but only marginally so. They had the squared off tail we are used to seeing in our parrots (in other words, when they flew off, they had a noticeable "parrot profile").

Honestly, if it wasn't for the yellow head and softer voice, I'd have thought they were our normal parrots.

Anyone know what we saw? Alas, we didn't have a camera to get a pick.

Nature!!!

I need a camera. I have one, but it eats batteries like mad, so it's like not having a camera at all.

Today I got pissed at the vine on my trellis, it grew way too fast and now it's just a mess at the top and hardly any on the trellis. So I decided to be ruthless and cut it off at the top. While doing that I managed to uncover some anoles. Poor things, they were in the middle of some lizard love.

Then being the freak I am, I ran to get my boys to show them. Okay, what kind of mom shows a 6 & 8 year old two lizards having sex? A freaky nature mom, that's who. They were interesting though, they didn't move while having sex, the male just moved her tail aside, clamped on and then they sat there.

There was another, smaller male hanging out. I don't know if he was waiting his chance or what.

I knew this was mating season for the lizards, I've been seeing them EVERYWHERE. The other day, I walked out and saw two on the siding of my soffits (which are brown). They were bright green. I walked down to look at the one that was a little lower. By the time I turned around, the other one had turned brown to match the soffit color.

Be Still My Heart

On our walk tonight, we came across a tomato hornworm. It was being attacked by fireants (I don't know if it had somehow managed to appear to be a threat or if they were hoping to fill their coffers with some gooey insect protein goodness).

The boys wanted to save it, but the damage these things have done to my tomatoes and peppers over the years taxes even my liberal heart. I did agree to move it a short distance and knock the ants away so that we could study it.

We discussed that insects have 6 legs, and then I flipped it over and asked them to find the legs. Hyperion pointed at the true legs, Oceanus got confused (or just wanted to disagree with his brother) and pointed at the prolegs. Fun teaching moment to explain the difference and allow them to observe the function.

Now, I do this all the time. Earth Sciences are my passion. Hey, forestry degree here. Usually they roll their eyes and gripe. But tonight? They were both excited and talked about how cool it was that I taught them that. Of course, we were on our way to McDonald's so they could have just been buttering me up.

On the way back, we found it almost where we'd left it, but curled up and almost dead. I suspect the venom from the ants was just too much for it. If you've ever been bitten by a fireant, you'll know what I mean. If you haven't, think of the worst steam burn you've ever had - the way it kept burning long after you've cooled the burn and that approximates the way these bites feel. They burn for hours.