No idea. Just thought it was super cool and never heard of it before.
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Wow! Thanks, Jay. I’ve never heard of that before either! Much less observed anything like it. I would have thought photos like that to be a photoshopped something or other had it not been for the accompanying explanations.
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How’d you hold up? Been praying for you all day.
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I’m fine. Trying to figure out lining everything out lol. Have like 12 jobs ready to go, but the parts are all coming in weird. One place has the liner now but the skimmer is 2 months out. All the rental companies with large equipment is basically but one of them will let me use it Friday to Sunday.
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UFOS!!!
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I had thought the same thing!
Not really: it gets sun (in summer) from about 10 or 11 AM to ~5 PM (those are guesses). It’s cool enough here that it dies back to the roots over the winter (we are at the edge between zones 7 and 8).
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I see with several hours of shade a day and being cooler it’s able to thrive well there.
So when I opened the blinds in the bedroom first thing this morning, my immediate thought was “We live in a snow globe!!” Not having a high tech enough camera in my phone or iPad (or not being skilled enough with them… as likely) to get the depth of field and the exposure to catch all of the cottonwood cotton gently wafting around near and far, the next best thing that I could find was this YouTube video to give a rough approximation – but imagine instead of the sky a stand of 80 foot high trees 60 feet away and the whole void between you and them filled high and low with little floating tufts… just like a snow globe (but thankfully no earthquake required!):
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I was out picking cucumbers this morning, and dozens of giant wasps we commonly call “cicada killers” were buzzing around, as they find the moisture and texture of the garden soil a good place for their solitary nests. While they can sting, they are fortunately quite chill for wasps, and buzz about their business. https://extensionentomology.tamu.edu/insects/cicada-killer-wasp/
Here is a pic of one and a pic of one’s burrow. They evidently do sting cicadas and lay eggs in them in their burrows, details in the link.
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That long shadow resembles a huge insect! 
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You used the wrong emoji, Dale. Here let me fix it for you:
That long shadow resembles a huge insect.
You’re welcome.
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Cottonwood seeds in Telluride, July 2016.
A cottonwood forest that locals call “the Bosque” extends all along the Rio Grande through central NM.
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I remember what must have been cicada killer wasps flying around what I thought was one nest in the dirt right next to a concrete walkway in a slope leading to the outside steps to the second floor of a two floor apartment building. There were at least a half-dozen of them and they were intimidating – I didn’t hang around to see if there might have been multiple nests! They reminded me of yellowjackets and a subterranean nest below a fence line in our neighborhood when I was a kid. You stayed away!
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Mud daubers do that with spiders. Never kill those wasps. They keep spider populations under control.
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I remember a wasp masticating a large tomato worm on a plant in our backyard garden in a townhouse where we used to live and I knew they were our friends. Paper wasps and nests in our front entryway now, not so much. Mud daubers aren’t as intrusive. What I have discovered though is that liquid dish soap and water in an adjustable spritzer takes the paper wasps down quickly without long-lived toxins from a wasp-killing aerosol can!
Southern House Spider male. Often confused for a brown recluse.
Me as a human pillow for my cats while reading Goblin.
I’m not sure of what species this is. I’m thinking some kind of hawk moth. I’ll have to look it up later.
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The hawk moth reminds me of the oleander hawk moth. But I’m under the impression there is a bunch of hawk moths and I’ve never really studied them out. Plus I think they often have different colors and patterns between male and females which makes it further complicated.
It’s a Hawk Moth known as Pandorus sphinx moth. Sphinx and hawk moth is often used interchangeably.
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Maybe you can identify this one. Biggest moth I’ve ever seen. About the same size as the one you showed. I didn’t think to put my finger for reference, but that’s a copper light fixture above it.
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