Black

One Word Sunday: black

Wordless Wednesday…waiting

Southern California lockdown

Waiting for results is like this

This is how I’m starting to feel after almost three days of hanging out in my room, now waiting for Covid test results. Even if I do have it, my symptoms are so mild that there’s nothing to do but wait for any fever to go away. Yeah, that’s a good thing, but still boring. 🙂

BUT…the good news is that last night I got my test results back, in only one business day, and they’re negative!! Hurrah! I’m still on the mend from whatever it is, but I can come out of my room and that’s great because even a lovely room can be confining.

Snake, rattle, and roll

The desert is snake country as we were reminded along the trail at the visitors center at Saguaro National Park where we saw several of these signs. You can be sure I was thrilled to learn that of the 36 species of rattlesnakes that live in North and South America (rattlers are found nowhere else), 13 call Arizona home. That’s a good reason not to hike with headphones, since a rattle is the snake’s way of letting you know they’re there and would rather you weren’t. And since the desert “summer”, or at least the season when it’s hot enough for snakes to be out and about, lasts from April to October, it behooves a hiker to take a good deal of caution about where s/he puts hands and feet and to listen for that warning sound, something you can’t do with music or a podcast blaring in your ears.

As I was taking photos along the trail, my husband called to me, saying our daughter had found something I’d want to photograph. She’d first thought it was a plastic bag, but a closer look showed that it was a long, intact molting of a snake. Now I don’t know for a fact that it was from a rattlesnake but after having seen several of the warning signs, I think there’s a good chance that it was.

Wordless Wednesday…feeling chipper

Tired Tuesday

Horses don’t actually sleep standing up, but they doze a lot in that position. Try that without falling over! But a horse can easily due to something you don’t have.

But how can a horse snooze while standing? Horses have a unique anatomical mechanism in their hind legs called the stay apparatus. This allows a horse’s knee cap to pop out of place and lock the hind limb in a standing position. Although it sounds painful, in horses, it’s no problem at all. When dozing while standing, this stay apparatus will lock in place in only one hind leg; the other hind limb will be relaxed. Often, the horse appears to be leaning on one hip. The Spruce Pets

When a horse is in that position, we say it’s hip shot.

Sometimes, though, you just have to take a rest, even in the middle of the corral.

Wordless Wednesday…wonderful Wyoming

In a fog

A few days ago, my morning walk was other-worldly as I walked in a literal fog. If you look in the very bottom of the river, you’ll see the shape and shadow of a lone heron surrounded by geese. The fog lent an air of Impressionism to the shot.

Wordless Wednesday…Doe, a deer, a female deer