tattletale

Cellpic Sunday — Tarantulas, Lizards, and Weeds

Fandango10 Comments

John Steiner, the blogger behind Journeys With Johnbo, has this prompt he calls Cellpic Sunday in which he asks us to post a photo that was taken with a cellphone, tablet, or another mobile device. He invites us to participate in this cellphone photo prompt by creating our own CellPic Sunday post and linking it back to his.

It’s a little too early for tarantula mating season, which starts around mid-to-late August, so those large, hairy arachnids are remaining underground deep inside their spidey holes, of which we have about a dozen like the one below in the mulchy area of our backyard.

But while our tarantulas stay cool beneath the surface, with the daytime temperatures getting into the 90s, our cold-blooded lizards who scurry around our backyard have come out from under the rocks to bask in the sun on top of the rocks. One of the larger ones, about six inches long, proudly posed for me the other day.

I wanted to also follow up on something I shared with you on my May 26th edition of Cellpic Sunday. I mentioned that our town has a mandate that requires all weeded areas to be cut down or cleared by May 31st as a prevention for the spread of wildfires, and I shared this photo with you taken on May 26th.

I hate to be a tattletale, but I notified the local fire prevention authority that my back neighbor hadn’t met the May 31st deadline to clear the weeds. On June 3rd, the authority emailed me, advising me that my neighbor had been sent a notice that he had until June 11th to cut down the weeds or be fined.

Well, turns out that being a tattletale sometimes yields positive results. This weekend, a crew of workers showed up in the weed-infested yard behind my own and cleared it. Here is what it looks like today!

As usual, all photos have been resized (shrunk) to make them load more quickly and take up less space in my WordPress media folder.

My Last Photo — May ‘24

Fandango10 Comments

Brian, aka Bushboy, posted his monthly Last on the Card prompt, where he asks us to…

  • Post the last photo from your camera’s SD card or the last photo from your phone taken in the month of May.
  • No editing — who cares if it is out of focus, not framed as you would like, or the subject matter didn’t cooperate?
  • No explanations needed — just the photo will do.
  • Create a pingback to Brian’s post or link in the comments.
  • Use the tags “The Last Photo” and #LastOnTheCard.”

I have two photos I took yesterday to share with you today. As a reminder, these photos, taken with my iPhone 15 Pro Max, have been resized (shrunk) to make them load more quickly and take up less space in my WordPress media folder.

This first photo deserves an explanation. Here in Northern California, there is always a threat of wildfires in the hot, dry summers. That is why there is a weed/vegetation abatement program throughout the region. Residents are required to cut back dry weeds and vegetation on their properties in order to create firebreaks in the event of wildfires. The deadline for completing the weed abatement was yesterday, May 31.

Our home is situated on top of a hill and behind our property line is a very steep hill that leads down to a house on the next street. The steep hill up to our property line belongs to the house behind and below ours. It is too steep to be useful and so the owners let it go, never cutting the grass, which quickly turns to brown straw-like weeds once the rainy season is over.

So yesterday I took this photo below of our back fence to illustrate our neighbor’s very overgrown weeds and attached it to an online violations form from our local fire protection service for the weed abatement program. I hate to be a tattletale, but I don’t want to put our home at risk in the event of a local wildfire.

I also took this photo below when I came inside to escape the 90° heat we had yesterday. Our dog followed me into our air-conditioned house and plopped down onto her bed in our family room. She immediately rolled over and assumed her favorite relaxing position.