Hoping For Cooler Days

I leave quite a bit of my property wild to encourage critters from all around to come over and say hi. I've seen quite a few birds attracted to these plants above.  I frequently see goldfinches flying away whenever I get close to these.

I thought I was going to go out today and get a lot of pictures, but we're having another heatwave here. It doesn't feel as hot to me as similar temperatures did back in Michigan, but the heat still get's to me pretty quickly. So I'm mostly staying inside for a few more days. It will cool down pretty quickly after tomorrow.

So I thought I would write a rambling post about this and a few other things. Maybe I'll go out later tonight and take some night pictures. I've never done that in the summertime. We'll see what happens. I often see rabbits and other animals out late at night.

I don't really do much advertising on any of my blogs because this is really all just for my own enjoyment. But I thought last week that I would try out adsense for Nature Center Magazine just to make enough money to breaqk even on the domain name.Unbelievably, they rejected the site because they say there is not enough text content. The site is almost all text!

So I decided maybe it was a mistake. The only problem is there is no way I can find to contact them for clarification. I decided maybe I'd try again on this site or Rat Tales, but then I found out I'm now being completely blocked. I guess that means the adsense people are telling me where to go. I hope they get there faster.

I'll try out some other sources of advertising when I get the time. I've never really done any unless somebody came to me with it. I've been interested to know how much I might make since Nature Center Magazine gets quite a bit of traffic now. Whatever.

I took this last picture because I liked the way the trees opened up. This was right above my house. The house is surrounded by three huge trees that give plenty of shade to keep most of the hottest days cool inside. I'm glad of that. And I'm even more glad for air conditioning.

How do any of you handle the heat? Do you stay inside, or do you like it enough to go out and have fun with it all day? I stick to the indoors on the hottest days because I get sick too easily. Hopefully the weather reports are right and it will cool off soon.

Grasshoppers And More Pictures

I have a brand new critter for you today. I don't exactly know the name of this big bug. It's one of those grasshopper type bugs that fly around for short distances. They actually look like butterflies when they're in flight. This one is about as long as my finger.

I saw this bug fly into the air from a place in front of my foot. I always watch them carefully to find out where they land. This one is the first one that I was ever able to find after it found a good place to land. It thought it had a good hiding place from me among the weeds, but I guess it was wrong this time.

The good thing about these weeds are that they're tall and skinny, so this one moved with the weight of this bug. I was able to see exactly where the bug landed. I've been searching through these weeds quite a bit because many animals seem to like hiding out in them. Birds, bugs, frogs, snakes, and even cats.

I'm going to have to do some more searching through these weeds for new critters in the next few days because I don't have any pictures to share right now. I didn't take any pictures either on my little break, so I've got some adventuring to do. I'm looking forward to that.

The good thing is that I don't really have to go very far to get pictures. I can either choose to stay here around home or go to a nearby nature park. That much nature can be a bit overwhelming for someone like me who lived most of his life in a city.

It's taking me a bit to get used to that kind of thing. It was wonderful when I first got here, and it stayed that way. But I soon discovered that there was so much nature I didn't know what to do with it. Now I'm finally beginning to sort things out just a bit. Now I'm off to get those pictures!

Out Of My Cocoon

It's hard for me to get started up again since I've been gone from here for so long. But it's finally time for me to be back. I said a long time ago that I wasn't happy with what I was writing here. I felt like it just wasn't me anymore. I felt like I had lost all of my creativity. So I took some time off until I finally really felt like I could do things right again.

It was kind of like a caterpillar going into a cocoon for a rest, and to grow, and coming out as a butterfly. I locked myself away from all things about blogging. I made one short little attempt to come back that still didn't feel right so I closed myself back off. I missed everything terribly, but I had to do it that way until I began to feel right again.

I never got tired of blogging, but I simply lost the things I wanted to say. When that happens, it's time to take a little break. But now that I'm writing this post, I feel a little rusty. That's actually the feeling I was hoping for because I'll be looking at things with a slightly new perspective now.

I also pulled myself away from nature for that time. I kept myself indoors, and did a bunch of geeky computer stuff. I wanted to pull myself completely away from the things I loved so I could appreciate them even more when I came back to them.

Finally, I looked up at my computer screen and felt that emptiness that comes from hours of playing meaningless video games and doing other solitary computer things. I used to love that stuff when I was younger, and I still do. But a person needs to exist in the real world as well. Nature is the ultimate real world.

Nature and being outside exploring is better than any meaningless video game. You can touch and feel nature and the world around you. Video games are just fine, but you never get that great feeling that reality can give you. And blogging urges me on to go out there and explore the real world around me.

Blogging is itself a wonderful extension of the real world, full of real people and friends from around the entire world. Part of the ultimate reality. You can't get that from a video game or some other solitary activity. Blogging about nature and similar things is what I love the most. I'm glad to be a part of that. And I'm glad to feel like I'm truly back.

A Toad On My Porch

It's been awhile, but I'm back. And I brought a little friend with me! I found this big old fat toad on my porch a few nights ago. He was just sitting on the edge there relaxing. I happened to look down while I was letting the dog out on her chain, and I saw the fat toad sitting there.

I quickly shut the door and ran to get my camera. I have to tell you that he dog was highly disappointed that I didn't let her out quite yet. I was trying to protect this fat green morsel from her. She'll eat anything, even something she shouldn't, like this toad.

When I made it back outside with my camera, the toad was still waiting there for me. But you already figured that out, didn't you? I then took about a half dozen pictures before nudging the toad off the porch and away from the view of the dog. I tyhen let the dog out, and it was a happy ending for all.

Some of you know that we've been suffering from a terrible drought in my part of the country. Not only has it been too dry, but it's been much too hot as well. So I haven't really been going out much. The heatwave seems to finally be over now, so maybe I'll be able to get back to my little adventures.

I haven't really had much to write about because of all of these problems. I did get obsessed with a video game called Skyrim while I was inside hiding from the heat. I haven't played video games in years, but this one got me hooked. I won't say much more than that about it.

But now I'm back, at least most of the time, from this hypnotic game. And these fat old toads are everywhere around here. I saw another one hopping around in the vegetable garden the next day. I didn't get any pictures, but I got some pictures of some other interesting little creatures. Now I'm hoping to get caught back up with everything that is blogging in the next few days.