It has taken me a while to absorb the news of Steve Erwin's death, not least because he was one of our greatest warriors when it came to the preservation of wildlife. He was so dedicated and so passionate in his quest that it is hard to believe that there is anyone out there that could replace him. It is unfortunate that he was called "Crocodile Hunter" when in fact his true monica should have been "Crocodile Rescuer" the small consolation is that his children, particularly Bindi, has inherited his passion for saving animals "it is our responsibility to save the universe" she said, at all of 7 years of age. I shall never forget the show when Bindi came home from the hospital for the first time, and Steve, his words just dripping with joy said "and here she is, beautiful Bindi, home for the first time" he was beside himself with glee that his perfect daughter was coming home. Let us all hope that Bindi takes up the mantle of her father and becomes such a warrior for wildlife. Sleep tight Steve, the world will miss you almost immeasurably, I should imagine that as you crossed the Rainbow bridge St. Francis was there to give you a huge welcome and a tame croc to keep you company. The world needs more Steve Erwins and unfortunately we have just lost the only one. At least he died doing what he loved, interacting with wildlife and championing their cause. Who is next to take up the sword?

When I left for work this morning the boxers were quite happily snoozing on the sofas while Lucky was in the bedroom snoozing on the bed. When I got home this evening I noticed that Judy was the only dog greeting me at the door, no Cueball no Lucky. I was quite disturbed by this, until I noticed that the bathroom door was closed. Now this may not seem like a significant event to most people until you realize that I NEVER close the bathroom door as it is Lucky's way out of the bedroom. So the bathroom door was closed. I tentatively opened it and out comes Cueball, face covered in blood and splinters. At some point Cueball must have gone in the bathroom and shut the door behind him. (Please don't ask me how he did this, I have no idea, only Cueball knows why Cueball does things), so I gazed into the bathroom (which you understand is a tiny room, I mean tiny, tiny room, bath at one end, toilet right next door to bath, sink diagonally opposite toilet, I think the room is four foot by eight foot with an ego). Having found himself in this predicament Cueball (being Cueball) decided that the best way to solve the problem was to eat his way out of the bathroom. First (okay I do not know in what order he did these things) he decides to drag all the towels off the towel rail and then eat the towel rail (wood by the way), then he decides to drag all the towels off the towel rail by the sink as well as the entire contents of the shelf above the sink into the sink and then turn on the faucets (and STRANGELY ENOUGH turn them back off again) at which point he decides the only way to get out of the bathroom is to eat the door and the door frame. So I suppose it is off to Lowes this weekend to buy a new bathroom door and a new piece of door framing. Cueball in the meantime has a bloody face caused by all of the splinters he created eating the door frame. Can someone remind me why I like having dogs around the house?

My dogs and cats as you know are spoiled rotten. The cats get the best dried food available to them 24/7, and are given either tuna, salmon or mackerel at approximately 7:30 pm every night. The dogs get the best dried dog food, available to them in a feeder 24/7. Now you have to understand I am not talking about junk dog food here, no generic $3.00 for a 20lb bag junk, no they get Beneful, or Kibbles and Bits (despite the fact that it makes Cueball fart), or Dog Chow lamb and rice etc., you get the idea. At 7:30pm each evening I take two cans of canned dog food and each of my three dogs gets a two thirds of a can (do the math, it works out). So as you can see the dogs are well fed, if nothing else. In addition to the 24/7 dry food and the canned food they get an inordinate amount of leftovers, (I know I know I shouldn't give them human food but it is a heard heart indeed that can throw away left over macaroni and cheese when there are six brown eyes gazing at you.) So WHY can anyone explain to me does Judy, my charming, beautiful, and normally well behaved girly boxer decide that she just HAS to have the empty dog and cat food cans that are in the trash? She will stealthily stalk into the kitchen (while I am on the puter) and will sneak the aforementioned can from the trash can and carry it into the living room whereupon she will lick out the contents of the can. How can a dog who is fed virtually 24/7 feel the need to steal cans from the trash? It is not like she is a rescued puppy who knew what it was to be hungry, she has been with us since she was six weeks old, she has NEVER been hungry. Can any of you dog psychologists out there explain this to me?

Yesterday I used my very sophisticated photograph taking technique to try and get some butterfly shots. I named it "stand (or sit) by the lantana and wait for something to land" technique, and it works like a charm. Okay it can be uncomfortable when the temps are in the 90s but yesterday I sat partially under the gazebo and watched my "accidental" flower bed where the largest lantana is planted. I call it the "accidental" bed due to the way it is planted. Every spring I turn over the soil, remove the grass and weeds, trim back the lantana (it is hardy here) and then generously scatter a collection of seeds on the soil. The seeds range from those I had collected the year before from things such as Zinnia, Sunflowers, Mexican Sunflowers, and Marigolds. I also include lots of 10 for a $1.00 packets of wildflower and cutflower mix seeds that I pick up from the dollar store. Then, other than a cursory weeding every now and again to keep the grass at bay I leave it alone and wait to see what has "accidentally" sprouted. This year the majority of the plants are Zinnia, Mexican sunflower and Lantana, which to my delight are those very flowers beloved of butterflies and other pollinators. So I sat and waited and watched. As I watched I noticed that this bed, which is a circle no more that 4 feet in diameter contained its own little universe right there in my garden. To begin with there were of course butterflies. Here is a Silver Spotted Skipper, which are the most gregarious of butterflies, they love an audience and have virtually no fear of humans, particularly this human.



Here is a Palamedes Swallowtail



As I waited for the next butterfly to land I noticed the leaves of one weed (missed at the last weeding) moving in a strange way, all of a sudden I saw this little face peering over a leaf at me



He watched me as I watched him and then eventually he climbed a bit further up the stalk and promptly fell asleep, I swear I could almost hear him snoring, so much for being afraid of the big threatening human. In another "That leaf is not moving normally" moment a baby lizard (to be technically correct a baby anole) began stalking his way through the leaves and blades of grass. I am not sure if you have ever watched a baby lizard hunt, it is a bit like watching an elephant tap dance, both amusing and alarming. While the baby lizard knows that it has to stealthily creep up on its prey, and it does just that, its motions almost fluid as it creeps, in its excitement the baby lizard does not realize that its tail is thrashing around behind it like a snake on steroids, thereby warning anything that the baby lizard happens to be stalking. The baby lizard is walking the walk, being stealthy and smooth whereas its tail is virtually screaming at the baby lizards potential prey "LOOK OUT YOU ARE ABOUT TO BE EATEN" it is a wonder that the baby lizard ever grows up to be an adult lizard but obviously they do, so I am assuming that they just get lucky sometimes, probably by using their own version of my technique "sit on a nectar rich plant and wait for something to land". I particularly like this shot as the baby lizard is precariously perched on a blade of grass, giving you some sense of scale as to how small he is.



I noticed that a couple of yellow and black garden spiders had spun their webs in the bed, obviously trying to take advantage of the potential glut of easy prey, one of them had a recent catch in its web, the other one sat there patiently waiting...



A grasshopper was casually eating a lantana flower while I watched, which should have made me mad but it didn't, knowing that, more than likely, the offending grasshopper had the potential of becoming spider or lizard food in the near future so I let it munch on the lantana and plotted its demise....



There were a great deal of tiny, fuzzy, white caterpillars patrolling the plants, I am not sure what they are, unless of course they are the baby versions of the "golden bear" caterpilllars, still they were fun to watch.



Other than that there were several other things going on that I did not get a shot of, a small brown spider began building his night time web at about four o'clock, making the ever decreasing circles of the web as I watched. The Hummingbird stopped by to drink some nectar from the zinnia and mexican sunflowers but you know that in my excitement I missed the shot. In fact this particular female hummingbird hovered right in front of my face and looked at me, as if to say "what are you doing sat there?" Dragonflies landed on various plants at the time and occasionally took to flight to grab a mosquito that was attempting to land on me, then they would land and devour the mosquito. I am sure that I missed alot of things that were going on in that tiny universe, but my point is this. If that amount of life can go on in a flower bed no bigger that four feet in diameter then can you imagine what is going on in my other, much larger flower beds, they must be teeming with life. So when you look out of your window and admire your sterile, lifeless lawn think about that, dig up that nasty, useless grass and plant a flower bed, mother nature will thank you for it.

You see I am surrounded by slobber, my main slobber bandit is Cueball, (my pure white boxer) whose slobber projectiles can hit items that you would not believe, I have found dried Cueball slobber on items as high as 10 feet off the ground. He comes in the house, slobber hanging off his jowels and then shakes himself, whereupon slobber flies in all directions on all sort of objects. My main complaint with Cueball and his slobber is his intent to share it with me in the mornings. I come out of the bedroom, clean and nicely dressed for work and as is my want, I go pee (I drink alot of tea in the mornings) Cueball, as is his want, comes up to me and proceeds to cover my clean nice pants with slobber, in his attempt to sit on my lap while I am sat on the toilet. This evening, sat here as I am on the computer, one of my cats Patches, jumps up on top of the computer monitor (which appears to be a favorite place for cats) and proceeds to shake her head and cover me with slobber. Now I am not familiar with cat slobber, as cats tend not to be prone to slobber, but tonight, for some reason Patches was a slobber machine and decided to share. I am being taken advantage of I can tell you.