CELEBRATE!

To all of the dads in the world lean back, relax and have a great day of being honored today.

Oh wait! 

It's also the first day of summer so get thee to the grill and burn some meat for dinner.

Speaking of summer and burned meat, the period (hopefully brief here in the mountains or high desert) of "extreme heat" is upon us. Be careful of it and remember . . .

THE ANNUAL WARNING

Contrary to what you may have heard, the 15-year drought in Arizona is not over. It is dry out there.

And with that dryness comes the annual fire danger warnings. Right now there are no fire restrictions in our local forests but 24 abandoned campfires have been reported in this area in the last two weeks. With hot dry weather just one of those could spell disaster.

It is true that we had a wet spring but that has turned into a dry summer, with temperatures already reaching 95 degrees F. and humidity as low as 6 percent. It doesn't take many days like that to totally dry out the forest. And it's not even summer yet! The solstice doesn't hit until just after mid-day tomorrow.

So as Smoky the Bear always said: Only you can prevent forest fires.

And as Sergeant Esterhaus used to say on Hill Street Blues "Let's be careful out there."

FRIDAY

I'm not posting the Friday Funnies this week.

I don't feel funny.

I feel sad about my country.

Instead of laughing this weekend, join me in a few moments of meditation on the tragedy at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

THROWBACK THURSDAY

Father and Son

Some years back, two Taylors - - Bruce and Scott - - in an Italian restaurant in Scottsdale. I don't know whether the meal put him to sleep or it's just relief that I have my wallet out ahead of him. It was a fun evening.

UN LAPIN MALADE

The other day I wrote about our wildlife in the neighborhood and mentioned that SWMBO was mourning the lack of bunnies this year. Well it wasn't two days later that we were watching the warblers taking turns flying to their nest over our front entryway feeding a new baby when a bunny hopped right into our front yard. He then found a spot partially sheltered by some shrubbery and parked himself.

To SWMBO's delight, he then assumed a rock-solid equanimity and barely twitched a whisker for about half an hour as she watched him and the warblers.

This second picture is taken from my unsteady stance and through a screened window, hence the fuzziness. But, come to think of it, fuzzy might be just right for a bunny portrait.

Which brings to mind a bit of doggerel from my childhood:

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear.

Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair.

Fuzzy Wuzzy WASN'T fuzzy,

was he?

With that bit of second-childhood nonsense I'll close this and leave you alone for awhile.

Oh and if you don't read French, the title of this blog post is Francaise for "a patient rabbit." (And I do know that it can also be translated as "a sick rabbit" but this one was definitely healthy. And, for the moment at least, free of bobcats.)

TUESDAY TRAVELS

Contrary to the signs, I think this was in West Missouri.

But I could be wrong. Show me.

ALIEN VISITORS

I have recently learned that we should have one of those huge signs that states, in very black letters, capitalized with an exclamation point, kind of like this: YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

What brings this to mind was an elderly couple (well, elderly like me, probably) driving very slowly past the front of my house in a bright blue Volkswagen Beetle convertible the other day. Wondering if they were looking for someone that I might be able to help them with, I stepped out. They backed up and the man asked me if I had seen the bobcat. 

"Bobcat?", said I. "No. Where?"

He said there had been a bobcat sitting in either my front yard or my neighbor's the night before and that it had then turned and leaped over the wall between our houses and disappeared.

Well!

Now another neighbor who works nights and comes home in the early, early morning had told me once that if I was up very early I might see bobcats, deer, coyotes, javelinas (wild pigs), and assorted other wildlife just walking down the alley between the houses or in the middle of the street. But I never have. Seen any of them or been up that early.

Oh, wait. One time a couple of months ago when SWMBO and I had been on a rare nightime outing and were coming home after dark our car's headlights had picked up a coyote at the side of the road. But that was in a ravine, not real near to houses.

Back to the fellow in the VW. He was a chatterer. He told me had lived in 31 different places in his life, around the United States and in Europe and Asia and he believed this was the best place he'd ever been. When I admired his car, he said it was his wife's toy. I jokingly said to her "but he doesn't let you drive it, eh?"

They laughed and he said that she calls him her chauffer.

He also said that they had been married for 62 years and that she was a Texas girl who he had chased and chased and chased until finally she caught him!

Anyway, he asked if I had any small animals. I replied that we had two cats but they were "inside cats" and he said "don't let them out or that bobcat will get 'em. They go after cats, rabbits, even small dogs."

Later, it occurred to me that I should alert my neighbor, a lady who lives alone but is presently caring for two medium-sized dogs. She was quite surprised about the bobcat but then told me that she had come home fairly late one night recently after attending a play and saw a pronghorn (frequently and mistakenly referred to as an antelope) standing in her front yard.

Well!

I'd have loved to have seen that. Or even the bobcat. Through a window from inside my house.

I did see a herd of cows in the savannah the other day. And I occasionally see a cottontail or a jackrabbit. But that's been about it so far this year.  SWMBO has been mourning the absence of "her" bunnies. Last year she had a steady group of them in our yard that she was feeding with carrots and lettuce. But this year none at all.

Maybe the bobcat got 'em.