After the storm....

I thought I was done here at the desk for the evening, but for some reason I'm lingering.  Some might say that most of our time here at home is spent in our office.  That would be true...Why am I still here?  I suppose it's because SGTex is still working hard at it behind me at his desk.  I appreciate that, and I like having him close by. 

As the day wore on, things got better around here.  Maybe it was the thunderstorm working its way up into a full boil...or would that be roil...?  Whatever the word, it was nice to have the rain come down and clear the air for a bit.  It's still warm out there, but not like it was.  There's something awfully romantic about a thunderstorm around here, anyway, so maybe we can stir one up later on... ;+)  It's nice to open the windows and let a bit of the outdoors in. 

Earlier, we had a little visitor.  Sebastian the Havanese Hellboy was in the kitchen and he kept jumping and standing on his hind paws at the back door, looking up at the window.  I was busy at the sink and noticed him doing that (he does this from time to time, and now I know why), and he was extremely, shall we say *intent* on whatever it was.  I opened the door for something and here was a big, plump, long-legged bug, lol.  I called it a grasshopper, and it was caught between the screen and the window, decidedly undecided about how to extricate itself.  So, of course I did the thing that I do, and I called, "Honey, can you come here?"  Honey did, and went out and rescued the poor thing, releasing it into the back yard.  Freedom!!!  Honey informed me that it was a locust.  I was pretty impressed, and both pups were glad to have that little issue resolved.  It was quite cute, and I suppose I can say that because this isn't Kansas or North Dakota in the 1800s and I'm not a wheat farmer with a plague of them descending upon my crop.  I guess one won't do our backyard garden any harm :+).  Things are different around here, bug-wise, compared to the Pac NW, that's for sure.  We had a much less welcome, much less cute visitor in the medicine cabinet last night, and it *hissed*  at me.  Yes, it did!!!  Honey tells me that hissing was its undoing....ugh.  I won't go into that story, but I'm told that 91% alcohol does the trick.  It came to a less fortunate end, than did the locust, thanks be to the gods~and Honey.

I don't know how I got on the subject of bugs, but pictured here is a pretty Hibiscus (Texas Star, I'm told), and we have some lovely specimens of different varieties in our yard.  We're drying some of the flowers to scatter at the park for our wedding morning.  Hey, did you see how many days are left?  WoW.

Having said that, I'd better just say g'nite.

Shawn
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photo courtesy of:  mostlytexasnatives.com 08.27.08 texas star hibiscus