Foliage

 Plants are growing like crazy and fruiting.  Right before everything dries out.

No matter how much rain we get and we got over the usual amount in June this year, you can be sure the weather people will put up drought maps.  Never fails.  No matter how much rain, no matter how soggy we've been.....it's a sure thing.

So they get ignored on it.   Maybe rightfully so.

After returning 8 of the cats to the Brownsville colony yesterday afternoon, I was in awe once again, at the sheer beauty of the valley.  There's nothing like seeing it from the heights afforded on Brownsville road.

I only stopped briefly this time, to take some quick photos because there are always cars travelling at high speeds along there.

Cutting of grass seed, other seed crops and hay has mostly already taken place.  The fields are cut with windrowers.  The season of death I call it sometimes.  I cringe to think of that Tangent colony I helped with.  They are surrounded in grass seed fields that the cats roam.  If caught out when the windrowers come through, their legs get chopped off.  I think they said they lost two or was it four last year to the windrowers.   It's a horrible death.  The windrowers chop up so many animals and birds in the fields.  The vultures then move in, by the score, along with eagles, hawks, owls, foxes, you name it, to clean up the pieces of the dead and the injured.  For those animals and birds, it is a season of plenty.

In the above video, vultures and eagles soar above the freshly cut fields.

I've still got three Brownsville colony kittens in my bathroom.   Bri, the tech at RAD, is taking the two boys there tomorrow, to be fixed.  She can't take the girl, they're too booked solid.  The boys are quick to get done.

I'm taking them to her late this afternoon, just before I go to the bigger Brownsville colony, where I've already taken 26 to be fixed.  He had a couple tame ones from the colony and she had kittens, only two of whom survived.  Now he claims the boy is trying to mount the kittens and thinks he's a pedophile so wants them all fixed.  Finally!!   My last spots for the summer are Monday, so I better get them done, I thought, and the fifth will be the other Brownsville colony girl kitten.

HCC is low on funds so its a good idea to take summer off.   For that reason too.

I didn't plant sunflowers out front this spring.   I didn't want to water them.  Water here is highly expensive, if you can believe it.  A wet state that charges high amounts in its cities for water.  Too much for many of us to water anything.  As uncertainty clouds my financial future, with medicaid and housing under threat from our admin, I am trying to save every penny.  I don't want to be homeless.  I don't want to have no medical access.  It's a fruitless endeavor.  Anxiety has plagued my nights lately.  Not only over those two things, but over the ancient failing car situation I find myself in.    The apple tree takes one inch of water a week, I read, so I do that.

Yesterday I fine sanded then polished the murky clouded plastic headlight covers on my car.   I try to do something every day to improve things around here.  A few days ago, I replaced a fallen rotted cat yard run shelf.   There are lots needing replaced by now.  The cat yard is 20 years old.

But I had sunflower volunteers out back, from birdseed.

Volunteer Sunflowers and butterfly bushes

Every other year, the apple tree produces fruit.  Too much fruit.   I've been breaking off many of the young apples so those left will have a better chance and be healthier.  But....its a big job.

The hydranga blooms are deep purple.   Just before the bloom, I add coffee grounds around the base.   It loves coffee and rewards with very deep colored blooms.

And my volunteer catnip comes up everywhere.  Good thing because my cats want it, need it, love it.  They're all addicts.

Happy Sunday!!