Rainbow

I took this picture when a beautiful rainbow appeared Tuesday afternoon. If you look closely you can see a second above the first!

A praying mantis meets a cicada . . .

Put this one in the "nature videos you just have to watch" category. Yesterday my youngest discovered a praying mantis as it was about to devour a dying cicada. The footage (not shot with a real video camera, but rather with the video capability of a digital still camera) is kind of gruesome and the mantis shows no mercy at all -- but I still had to watch. (and take video and pictures, of course.)

Skunked

Right in the middle of the day yesterday my dog was going nuts inside -- barking and wanting to go outside. Usually that means she either really has to go out or that there's a flock of birds in the backyard that she wants to chase.
As soon as I opened the door I knew otherwise.
Molly (our dog) made a bee-line for a skunk that was walking through our backyard. In vain I tried to call her and coax her in. It was only after she had been partially sprayed (and I had the good fortune of getting too close too quickly and receiving some of the waft) that I was able to get her away.
Now my clothes are clean. The smell is gone and Molly has been de-skunked. (Thanks to the recipe on about.com -- we used #1)
We had to leave the windows open all night to get the stench out of the house, tho.
Thank goodness it was a cool night.