The Wilderness will Rejoice & Blossom…

The desert and the parched land will be glad;

the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.

Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.

The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;

they will see the glory of the LORD, the splendor of our God.

Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; 

say to those with fearful hearts, "Be strong, fear not; your God will come,

He will come with vengeance; with divine retribution He will come to save you."

Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped.

Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy.

Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.

The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs.

In the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.

And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness.

The unclean will not journey on it; it will be for those who walk in that Way;

wicked fools will not go about on it.

No lion will be there, nor will any ferocious beast get up on it; they will not be found there.

But only the redeemed will walk there, and the ransomed of the LORD will return.

They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads.

Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

Isaiah 35: 1-10

A Tale of Three Lizards …

If you’re not fond of reptiles, you may want to skip this post.  If, however, you don’t mind a lizard or two … or three, read along for a humorous story. 

 

About a year ago, Big Dude found a quite large alligator lizard under our bar-b-que.  The Teen decided he wanted to keep this particular lizard (unlike our usual catch & release modus operandi) and bought and built a habitat.  Because we’re all well versed in Swamp People characters, we named our alligator lizard Clint.  Problem:  two weeks later “Clint” layed eggs.  So we renamed her ‘Lizbeth (another Swamp People character).  

 

Then, this last December, while doing yard work, we found an even larger alligator lizard in our garbage can.  Because it was a particularly cold snap, we kept this lizard too, albeit in a different habitat.   Alligator lizards have a fierce reputation for not getting along.  We named him Clint.  Post-cold-snap, we released Clint in our backyard. 

 

Fast forward to this week.  We found this humongous alligator lizard hanging out on Liz’s cage. 

We thought this lizard must surely be Clint.  Alligator lizards aren’t exactly populous in our yard.  LARGE allies are even less frequent.  And this allie was mild-mannered and friendly (totally not typical), just like Clint had been.  The coloring was a little different and the tail seemed longer, but we figured he could have changed in the last few months.  Anywhooo, long story shorter:  it’s mating season, and we let him into the cage.And we watched.  Clint checked out the whole habitat; climbed here, climbed there, licking everywhere.  I stopped watching after awhile, came inside, and then heard the Teen agitatedly saying, “No, GET HIM OUT, he’s EATING HER!”  (remember:  allies are stereotypically violent with each other)

 

I did a quickie Google search and determined that he was definitely not trying to eat her.  The dudes let him go back in, and the duo quickly got down to bizness, lizard style: Within the hour, yet another big allie showed up on the habitat mesh.  The Real Clint.  Stubby tail and all.He chased off the imposter.  And took up residence himself.  The two are, so far, living happily ever after.  We’ve already googled how to incubate the eggs we’re sure to find in a couple months.

Thus concludes this week’s tale of three lizards.  I promise to post more poppies tomorrow to bring pretty back to the blog.

Poppies.

Details:  all macro, all 100mm.  Wrong time of day (noon).  Way too windy (boo).  I bumped my ISO a bit:  400 (for the sunny shots), 800 (for the shady shots) in order to keep my shutter speed high enough to combat the wind.  Because of the wind, I left my tripod at home and utilized my "lazy man macro" technique, outlined here.

Just a little light night reading …

If “sarcasm” is your language of choice, these are the history books for you.  All my peeps read them just for fun and not because I told them they had to. 
Ray’s Horrible Books has a huge selection and the best pricing I’ve found.  (ps. not a paid endorsement.  just a company I happen to like.)