I have been doing some Photoshop work for a fundraiser to benefit the sanctuary where I am a volunteer. The idea was to change the backgrounds on some of the pictures I have taken and the resulting pictures would be used in Christmas ornament photo frames and sold at an upcoming event. They aren't the greatest, but they will only be 1.125 inches in width, so a lot of detail will be lost anyway.

Thought I would share a couple with you. First is Monju singing Christmas carols.




Then Dante contemplating the world looking past the commercialism of the season.



I got a little whimsical while I was working on the one for the bear. She was the first resident of the sanctuary and the sanctuary is actually named after her. I thought Ursa Major was a good title for it. The constellation she is looking at is Ursa Major and she is the most important bear at the sanctuary.

As some of you know, I’ve had some family issues here and have not been blogging for awhile. I think I may have things straightened out in my own mind, still a long road ahead, but at least I can see progress.

It’s been so hot this summer, I haven’t been visiting the parks, but thanks to a little cool front, I attempted a 7-mile walk with 40 pound backback on Sunday aftternoon. Not such a smart thing - at least not so early in the season. My muscles are still reminding me of this foolishness!

Actually, I call it my home style EKG test. If I can walk the 7 miles with backpack and still be able to sing "O Daughter of Zion" with all the long phrases, I guess I’m in good enough physical shape.

I don’t often choose to go Sundays. By the time church is finished, it’s hot and there are too many people in the park to see any animals, but sometimes you just have to go when you can.

I saw a few changes this year, for one thing the river was a strange color. Probably from all the flooding we've had this year. A friend of mine lives right on the river and now has a beach that has not been there before.

We seem to have a lot of butterflies this year – and big ones! Dragonflies are scarce and small, so I concentrated on the butterflies. Following are some of the results.


And a little deeper into the woods



And rather a lot of these guys too!

I ordered a GPS a few days ago, and was anxiously awaiting it's arrival. I've never had one before, I think I'm the ONLY person whose never had one, so I wanted to try it out right away.

I was happy to hear a female voice! Maybe my experience with men has had a little something to do with that. It seems that, certainly not all, but a lot of men try to give directions when they have no idea whatever to say. Then, rather than say those three little words that I much prefer to hear, "I don't know", they simply make something up. I can't tell you how many times I've been misdirected by men, on one occassion by almost a hundred miles. Then when an error is pointed out to them, they get angry and say, "Well, you KNEW I meant left, even if I did say right."

So, naming my travelling friend, Miss Streetpilot after Deke's GPS, we took our first ride together.

She's lovely. She's smart, she's articulate (I never have to ask her to repeat her mumblings). She gives plenty of warning for turns, unlike SOME people who scream at the very last second, "Turn RIGHT HERE!!!!!" She's brisk, I have to admit, I think I kind of expected her to respond to my, "Thank you Miss Streetpilot" with a, "You're welcome", which she does not, but that's all right.

We had one small difference of opinion, she seemed to think I lived at the park, a reasonable mistake considering how often I am there, but then I realized, that selecting, Home, and Go wasn't quite enough. I had to press, Save new destination. She had me driving around in circles while arguing with her. I swear she was getting testy on about the 45th "recalculating".

But I think we'll get along well. It's kind of nice to have a travelling companion!

My grandson is coming to visit soon and I was scouting out places to take him. He loves fish, sharks etc. and I wanted to take him somewhere that he could see marine life in the wild. One of the places I was thinking about was Simmonds Park. There is a lot of wildlife, a playground and a small beach with a lifeguard. It looked like a great place to take a young child. Naturally, I would have had him wear water wings.

However...... when I checked out the beach, I found this..... a small black tipped shark. It was just a baby, but where there is a baby, there presumably is a mama. I picked him up, he was probably dead, but just dead, no deterioration at all. I looked in his mouth, I didn't want to put my finger in there or a stick or anything, but I could see farily well and only saw small teeth.

I guess we will stick to the zoo and the aquarium.

Here's mud in your eye.... and your mouth, up your nose, in your hair and all over your shirt!



I was playing with Tequila yesterday. It didn't start out that way, I was actually filling her water dish when she decided to have a bit of a play in it, kind of unusual for a leopard to enjoy water, the tigers love it, but I've never seen any of the leopards take such an interest. Maybe she was feeling frisky in the cool morning and thinking of the heat that would come later in the day.

I would add water with the hose, then she would get both paws into the bucket and swish it around until most of it flew out and combined with the dirt on the bottom of her cage making a LOT of glorious mud! Then she would push her face in the spray and let that water add to the mud too. Occassionally she would open her mouth and let me spray the water inside. She was being so cute in her game, I have to admit, I did nothing to discourage her. Little did I realize she had a plan, a devious and evil one at that.

Then the site manager came along, not as impressed by the mess as Tequila and I were, well, not exactly in the same way. She emptied the water bucket and told me to clean it, then removed the sprayer on the hose to elimiate further temptation. I noticed that she put the sprayer in her pocket, so I think it wasn't just Tequila that she was saving from temptation.

Poor Tequila, I thought, her fun little project ruined.

However..... all this time she had been dragging her long tail through the mud. Just at the right time, she whipped her tail up, saturated in mud and sprayed us both. Before either of us could react, she flicked the tail the other way and did it again. The site manager actually got it worse than I did, she spent the next few minutes rinsing her mouth with the hose, all I got was a light spray over my face and hair.




Time for a rest after all that fun!