A smattering of topics

In case you were wondering, the baby mockingbirds are doing great. As far as I can tell there are three of them.



Toby has become less interested in harassing the parents, but he is happy to defend the yard against neighbor cats. I may need to supervise him more once the young birds start leaving the nest.

The monsoon is a wonderful time to be at home in Arizona. As I sit and write this a sudden rainstorm has begun and the sound is amplified by the sheet metal over the porch. Monsoon storms often bring wonderful sunsets. We watched this one from the roof.



In other news, the weeds in the front and back yards have finally been vanquished! It even looks rather nice. Now if only the weeds in the back-back yard were under control.



I mentioned before that I remembered the orange flowers in our front yard from last year at the Santa Rita Experimental Range. Last Saturday we were pleased to discover that the range is again knee-deep in a carpet of orange. I took this picture on what I hope will be my future study site.