Shooting Star

I found a photo of the shooting star flower at: http://www.nps.gov/wica/naturescience/images/Shooting-Star.jpg

This is what the girls were doing when they heard the mewing. I think the kitten is a boy, it looks like it has two dingle ducks back there.

The previous post was prepared by my summer intern, she's 12 and took the photos and wrote the copy, in my voice of course. I think she did pretty well.

What is strange about this cat is that when we got home from South Dakota on the 16th we found our sweet cat Taj dead in the utility room. He had been very ill and we got him over the hump and were able to bring him home from the vet. He must have relapsed while we were gone and the woman who came in to feed and water the cats never saw either of ours about.

So it is strange 10 days later to have a kitten appear in the shrubbery around our house.

I like its blue eyes, I wonder if they will stay blue.

Isn't this kitten adorable? Yesterday at about 7:00 pm or so when the girls were out in the yard playing, they heard this mewing noise, and this little guy (or gal) just scrambled out from under the bushes! It took some coaxing, but s/he turned out to be incredibly friendly, though a bit shy. (Hey, can't blame it.)We called all the neighbors, but no one had a kitten like this one. We've decided to try and keep it, because Rory is surprisingly tolerant and Jake wags his tail and is very gentle with it. There weren't any others to be found, but who knows? Hopefully some weirdo didn't just come up here and dump a batch of unwanted kittens. We haven't gotten a name for it yet, we can't exactly tell its gender, but the girls just call it "kitty".

This is from the Crazy Horse Memorial. The statue in front is the prototype and the head is the first part being carved into the mountain. I really enjoyed the film they showed on site. I'm glad the the Elders decided to have a memorial to Crazy Horse so near to where Mt. Rushmore is, it seems only fitting.

A burro from Custer State Park, they let them go free and wild, they are sweethearts.

Real Buffalo

The long distance shot is at Custer State Park and the ones drinking from the gutter in the rain are from Wind Cave National Park.

On the way back from Lucy's I took a picture of some of the flowers that Adam and Maxine had planted for her. There's also one of an old car that is tucked into the trees on her property. Looks like the birds have used the empty headlight space for a shelter. Some finches on our porch are using a Chinese lantern for their new home. Picture to come later.

After being in South Dakota a week we were wondering how the plants were doing in the greenhouse. Really well. John also put some supports around the tomato plants. I photographed the cable over to the greenhouse that lifts the side off for ventilation, and John's clever pulley system made with odds and ends to do the lifting. A wooden stake keeps it from slipping when no one is around. The seeds planted outside are hardly coming up at all so the greenhouse really does make a difference.

When we were at Wind Cave on our trip I noticed a beautiful flower at the visitors center and Dave found the seeds for shooting stars at the next location, so we are going to start them in a pot at the greenhouse so we can bring them back to our house once they get established.

One little remarkable thing, is that after we arrived home and I finally tuned in to NPR on the computer the first interview I heard was of a ranger talking about buffalo at Custer State Park. I love little touches of synchronicity.

MORE CUSTER BUFFALO

CUSTER, SOUTH DAKOTA LOVES THEIR BUFFALO






Like the cows in Chicago, artists have decorated buffalo replicas with individual personalities. Here are four of them, note the one that has a train track and tunnel incorporated into its body.

Ana took these photos at the park today. I took the girls there to ride their bikes and scooter because there is only gravel here and steep hills, so not so good for those kids' activities. Emma being 8 can stay entertained quite a while, dancing, gliding, playground, bike. Ana 12 got tired/bored after walking/running with Jake and rounding the park a bit on her scooter. So I let her use the camera for fun. Jake was her subject.

What a difference a flash makes. I didn't use a flash on the top photo because I was outdoors, but after trying the flash, I think I learned something!

Poppies on the side of the road by our house.





I wonder how close our elevation is to that of Afghanistan. We only get one crop of poppies in the neighborhood a year, but they reseed themselves and keep coming back each year. I think they are lovely. The girls gave bouquets of poppies to their teachers on the last day of school and we took one to Mrs. Murphy yesterday. She was having brunch, so we left them in a tub on her porch and made a poppy petal path up her drive and stairs to the back door.