It looked like a big leaf with a stem but it was a big rat with a tail at the bottom of the pool. Yuk! I’ve decided it’s better to see a live rat than a dead one because the live ones usually disappear before you get a good look. But when they’re laying on the bottom of the pool with the still water acting as a magnifying glass, you want to turn away but you can’t. So you stare at this humungous rodent with his raccoon hands and buck teeth that can chew through metal, and you think, “If one of these ever gets in the house, I’ll have to move.”

How pathetic is my life that I would be excited to find a ladybug in the back yard?  But that’s the truth.  “Hold all my calls,” I said to my assistant.  I ran and got my macro lens and followed my ladybug around for half an hour.  This shot was just before she flew away.   I have more small moving things on my Photography page.

How am I supposed to get anything done when it’s 75 degrees, the sun is shining, and my back yard is full of flowers? I took this picture today and I think the reason I enjoy taking photos so much is that I can’t draw.  I wish I could, but I can’t.  So my photos allow me to create beautiful pictures with more-or-less no talent.  The only skill I need is to know which button to push on my camera.  It’s the big silver one.

It must be spring because there was a rattlesnake in the back yard (again). I think it’s the fourth one in four years. It was a baby (the most dangerous kind) and the gardener found it, right under my peach tree. He was pulling weeds with no gloves on so I scolded him and gave him a pair of my thick gloves. When I looked out the window a few minutes later, they were in his back pocket. Oh well, he has never been bitten so I guess I won’t worry about it. But now I’m afraid to go outside. I’m staying in to bake cookies.