Catching Butterflies

We have a screened in back porch.  We removed a panel to allow easier access to the backyard for the dogs and for us.  That open panel also allows more leaves to blow in and flies and bees to get stuck bouncing off the corners, and occasionally we get a bird in there. The bird gets stuck flying in circles (always bouncing off the corner opposite the open panel) and the cats line up at the sliding glass door to watch while Leia looses her shit running around barking like mad.

I will go and rescue the bird; shooing it out with a broom and it usually doesn't take long. 

Once I rescued a honey bee by giving it some sugar water in a little dish and putting that dish outside so the bee could fly off on its own - no touching involved.  

The other day Carus called to me - a butterfly was stuck.  Having a butterfly get stuck on the porch is a new one.  I tried passive moving using a flower.  But it wasn't working.

I finally gave up trying to get it to walk/land on the flower.  I don't understand why the butterfly wasn't happy with the flower but whatever.  

So I let the butterfly step onto my finger.  I was worried that it would tickle or twinge me out and make me jump and shake my hand and incidentally kill the butterfly, but I barely felt it's little feet. 

Carus watched from a few feet back.  She was a little squicked out about it and/or me coming near her with it.  It's those little legs and antenna that are too reminiscent of icky squicky bugs.  She took the photos of it on my hand.

It flew off my hand a few times, but eventually it stayed still long enough for me to slowly - very slowly - walk out to the yard and place the butterfly on the leaves of the tree.  

After all that trouble the silly little butterfly didn't want to move off and onto the leaf; and once it finally did go onto the leaf it just sat there long enough for me to take a few more photos before I had to go back inside and back to work.  

It was nice to blow Carus away with me touching a butterfly, and it was really cool to hold a butterfly in my hand. I was surprised how light footed it was. It walked all over my fingers and I didn't feel it at all.  Crazy cool. 

Still no broken bones

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Adam and Carus floating on the river (really a creek).

Sunday afternoon we went out to Robert's coworkers house to cool off and BBQ.  They don't live far from us and they have a creek running through their property, which was a welcome escape from our little heat wave.  Summer has finally arrived and it got up to the high 80s, low 90s Sunday. And yeah, I know that's nothing for most of you, but it's enough excuse for us to go cool off.


We even had a little fire on the water.

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On my lunch break today I went out to the garden to check on things. And I slipped on some mud and fell.  My butt is okay, but the hand I put out to catch my fall was not.  The wrist, and especially the pad of my thumb hurt like a bitch and I became a whiny baby.

I ended up waiting until Robert got home to take me to get an x-ray because with the Monday I was having, I would not have been surprised if I had gotten in an accident if I tried to drive myself.

I didn't break it; and I'm feeling a little jipped.  With this much pain I expect a broken bone. I might have bones of steel or something.  With how much I fall or walk into things, how have I not broken a bone???

In related news, its hard to type one-handed.


*This photo was taken with my phone and processed with Instagram.

3-day weekend for the win!

246/365 - Baiting his hook with a worm.
 
Saturday we took Adam out to Hagg Lake Saturday to break in his fishing pole.  Shortly after reaching the bottom of this hill Carus was stung by a bee or bit by a bee, which pretty much ruined her day - drama queen.  She is better now


Fishing.


Trying another spot.  Even though it appeared Adam and Gramma were getting bites we didn't get a fish.  We think we had a fish or two stealing the bait but not getting caught on the hook.


Gramma fishing.  Hagg Lake is close-by and fishing season lasts until October-ish so I'm sure we'll get another shot.


After lunch Adam's friend (not pictured) came over for a sleepover and we went to Big Al's for some arcade fun.


Carus driving - and having trouble reaching the pedals.


 247/365 - Time for Grandpa Alan's annual Labor Day weekend company picnic. We get to tag along each year and get some free food and have some fun.  The company hires a clown for the kids and rent a bouncy house, its fun. Goofing around with balloon animals.


Burger - YUM!


Robert


Ice cream cone - YUM!


248/365 - In case you didn't know, puppies do not really help with sweeping. I got a bonus day off today for Labor Day (whoop whoop) and I spent the morning forcing getting the kids to help me do some cleaning.  It didn't take long after I put Leia in her kennel.  The rest of the day was dinking around, getting Adam's school supplies together and organized in his bag, getting Carus's school work and books together for Wednesday (Back2School time), making dinner, and baking some banana chocolate chip muffins.

Who would've thought I'd actually miss them?

232/365 - I went to a photography workshop at Chimpsy on Saturday. Learned lots! Now let's hope I retain all that I learn.


We were photographing under the Fremont Bridge in Portland.


















After my photography workshop Robert and I met up with some friends for lunch and to go get the guys fitted for suits for these friend's wedding. I really liked the colorful rows of TIES at The Men's Warehouse.






233/365 - Adam and Carus are back! They had a good trip and I'll try to upload their pics tomorrow or something. I missed them! Who'da thunk it?


234/365 - Eeek, yearly review at work was today. I'm nearing the anniversary of my start date of my job - just finished my 3rd year - and every year on/around the anniversary date I have to be reviewed. This is supposed to be my worried face...

But don't worry, the review went well. I AM awesome, of course.*


*I know it's not evident by the photo so you are just going to have to trust me.

Insert witty title #586

214/365 - Pretty sunflower.


215/365 - Watering the garden while filling the pool while Leia plays in the sprinkler.

Show me the button!

I was sitting on my patio talking with my Granny and enjoying how the wind was rustling through the leaves of this tree, and the way the sun hitting the leaves made them seem to be dancing.

Photo processed with a free action from Rita at The Coffee Shop blog, Golden Vintage.*

210/365 - We went and got a little wading pool for the kids and the dog. Okay, mostly the dog. The kids are more interested in going to the big pool. But Leia LOVES it!


211/365 - Sleepy Leia.


212/365 - We went to Big Al's (an arcade/bowling alley/sports bar/sports restaurant/etc etc) for lunch and some arcading and while we aren't huge sports fans we couldn't help but get excited at all the TVs! Especially this big one that had 9 different channels going at once! (Actually 3 projectors, and a portion is not shown in the photo.) Not to mention the 15+ "small" TVs hanging up around the restaurant. Can you imagine the awesomeness of the Super Bowl?


YAY! The hummingbirds have found my feeder! Robert got this picture for me (only cause he wouldn't give me my camera and when he finally did the bird flew off).  Not a 365, but wanted to share all the same.  I was worried they would never find the feeder, but they have, and maybe someday I will have as many hummingbirds as Granny does.  (Which is A LOT.)


213/365 - Big grape, little grape. Didn't like it in color so changed it to black and white and now I'm all artistic and deep....or something.
Photo processed with a free action from Rita at The Coffee Shop blog, Splendor B&W (I believe).


*A lot of my pictures are processed Perfect Portrait action. It's my favorite action, but all of her actions are amazing.  And she does tuturials on how to use them and how to do many things in Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Lightroom, and others.

Our favorite beach

Sunday we did go to the coast for the day to enjoy the surf and sun and have a picnic lunch.  We went to our favorite beach, Arcadia Beach, which is just a few miles south of Cannon Beach on Highway 101.



It was still a bit foggy when we first got there...


But it didn't take long to start burning off.


Leia enjoyed herself, but I can't wait until she has all her leash manners. The whole jumping on me and yanking herself in every direction got old quite fast. 


I love Adam's sense of humor, even when he is driving me batty with his sarcastic and smart-alec remarks to me.
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Lunch time!


View from the parking lot at the top of the trail down to the beach, looking south.


Since Yoda is such a momma's boy and doesn't wander far from me and I can call him back when he tries to go say hi to people, he gets to be lucky enough to be off leash.  He loves when the kids run ahead of me and he will run to them until he touches one of them or circles in front of them and then run back to me.  One downside to him being friendly was some guy was trying to coax him into following him home. Not joking around either, he was seriously walking away from me calling Yoda. 




206/365 - Jumping over the waves.  When did my baby boy grow up?!












Seagull floating on the waves.


My baby doll, who is also growing up way too fast...


Adam running with Leia - he was having a bit of a time keeping her from jumping on him.


Floppy puppy happy to be on the beach.