Wordless Wednesday: Almost Famous

The photos of the Ctenucha rubroscapus on the Butterflies and Moths of North America website are mine! I'm almost famous!

Quiet Times

This Cooper's Hawk has been hunting the yard, reminding me of old times in Washington.
I rescued this Ctenucha rubroscapus moth from the pond. Wading into mucky-bottomed water is definitely not my favorite, but I love these red-shouldered ctenuchas. This guy took a few minutes to recover and then flew off quite cheerfully.

No pic of the very beautiful gray fox that was hanging out by the pump house. I'm pretty sure it had its eye on our kitty cat who was aware of its presence but not enough to sense danger. Our neighbors told us we had a pair of foxes down at the base of our driveway. In the heat of summer we close the blinds on the western side of the house and miss a lot of wildlife action.

Roger is recuperating. Everything takes time.

Something Else Was On My Mind

I had a post planned about our walks in the Arcata Marsh, an incredibly interesting place even in summer, which is not the optimum season for birdwatching. We're still seeing some new species (to us) there, while enjoying being immersed in the ambiance of our new surroundings. We also appreciate the innovative water treatment aspects of this sanctuary. A perfect melding of beauty and smarts. Okay, I admit to calling some of the bodies of water "poo-poo ponds," but that doesn't make me love it any less.

I will definitely revisit this subject soon (maybe Monday), but I just have to write about an email that Roger and I received Thursday morning. A friend of ours wrote to say that she had had a heart attack over the weekend. She wrote at length about what she had been experiencing on Saturday and Sunday, and how she had misinterpreted the increasing pain as gastric reflux disease. The details of her experience are both alarming and familiar. We all have aches and pains that we dismiss, mischaracterize, or worse-- ignore. She ended up in the emergency room on Monday, and had surgery to put stents into two of her FOUR blocked arteries. She will be having additional surgery next month on the other two arteries.
She reminded us how important it is to take our bodies seriously, to listen when we experience pain, to pay attention to the details. You know I could go on a soapbox here and write about how important it is to have universal health care, how we postpone treatment because of cost, how preventative care should be an absolute basic human right. But that's not the point of this post. The point is to remind you to listen to your body. It gives you information all the time, and your life will very well depend upon it. So, what test have you put off lately? Come on, have it done.

Even in a marsh as beautiful as the Arcata Marsh on a sunny day, and seeing this lovely ctenucha rubroscapus for the first time, I just couldn't stop thinking about it.