Geez. I care about my phone.

[Sue Ann (Suna) Kendall]

What personal belongings do you hold most dear?

Why do I hold my phone dear? It is my memory. It contains all my photos, all my communication with friends, access to my memories in the blog…and yes, I can get to all those things from my laptop. Yuck. I think I hold some bits and bytes or whatever cloud storage is made of. That’s really depressing. What else do I hold dear? Things made by my loved ones. My mom and stepmom’s art. Dad’s woodcraft stuff. Gifts they gave me. Things that tie me to them.

Mom painting

New thought: I’ve started letting myself write in incomplete sentences! They’ll soon be taking away my Grammar Police badge. My take is that the incomplete sentences are not as unpleasant as those two blogs I dictated and then was too woozy to properly review. Poor Sue had to endure proofreading that. I don’t pay her well enough for that! (I do not pay Sue; she’s just nice.)

You’re under arrest for omitting verbs!

Another part of the phone I love is the camera. I was at a Master Naturalist outing at my friend Carolyn’s place, which I’ve showed you before. I got some images I really liked there. I don’t need to show you all 125 species or 25 birds I recorded, but I want to share a few for those of you who always want more nature pictures.

Purple Pleatleaf (Alophia drummondii)

This one was new to me. It’s an evening primrose that grows five feet tall. Wow.

Four point evening primrose (Oenothera rhombipetala)

And here are a few more plants.

Beautyberry

Truly beautiful

Winecup mallow

Maroon blanket flower

Texas sandmint

Spotted horsemint (Monarda)

Drummond phlox

Butterfly pea

Blue pigroot

We also saw lots of animal life. There was more than I expected, especially the suspiciously friendly raccoon. But it’s harmless.

Eastern Phoebe

Phoebe

Artsy catfish

Original- photo by T Brickey

Rocky likes sunflower seeds

Swamp rabbit

Sweaty human

Boss squirrel

Common checkered skipper

Common whitetail

Pipevine swallowtail

Dusky blue hairstreak

Red harvester ants

Other animal news? No one’s come looking for Benny. He’s still over here trying to hump Carlton.

He thinks he’s top dog.