Good-bye Mary

The Big C has claimed another one.

Mary Travers, the female singer with Peter, Paul and Mary, has died of cancer at the age of 72 in Danbury Hospital in Connecticut.

Topping it off

A next door neighbor had this Cottonwood tree in his front yard. It was probably 50 feet tall. Until this morning. Going out to the mailbox, I noticed tree cutters hard at work. I asked them if they were going to take it down but they said they had been asked by the owner to reduce its height.

A few hours later, the job was done.

I'm not sure why the owner wanted the tree cut back but probably he was worried about windstorms toppling the top portion onto his duplex.

Calling all nervous nellies!

From the north side of Prescott, looking south, a forest fire appears to be encroaching on the city. (Yavapai Regional Medical Center in lower left of photo.)

But it was a controlled burn, one of two today. The next view is from Juniper Lane, on the south side of the city.

The other burn today was on Mingus Mountain but it was so far away only a dim smudge of gray smoke could be seen in the sky.

These controlled burns are done every year but every time they're done a certain number of people don't get the message and are all but running down the streets, shrieking "the sky is falling, the sky is falling."

There is no danger, folks, everything is being strictly controlled.

We're Number 37!

I want a drink!

I had just filled the fountain and a couple of dishes with water.

But Smoke apparently didn't want to drink from the cat dish.

He wanted a drink from the fountain.

Meanwhile, watching from a distance was the long-missing Goldie. Haven't seen him for several weeks but there he was this morning. But he was keeping a safe distance and would not allow me to approach him.

The worst part of a rainy day

Sedona, Arizona is a small town in northern Arizona . . famous for art galleries, crystals and vortexes, not to mention beautiful scenery in the red rocks.

But yesterday a huge thunderstorm rolled directly over Sedona, dropping lots of rain and causing the normally placid Oak Creek to flood in low-lying areas. One place hard hit was Tlaquepaque, a Mexican themed mall of galleries, shops and restaurants with some huge sycamore trees. To see what happened, check out these photographs by Karl F. Mullings Photography: Sedona Flood

The best part of a rainy day

When you expand this photo (by clicking on it) you can see faintly a double rainbow to the right.