Life, Photography, Nature, Cats

Monarchs on Milkweed, Photographing the Eclipse, the Spring Garden, Uma likes to Read about Orioles, an Angel’s Baseball Game, the Cold that Wasn't COVID, and the Orange County Fair Photo Contest

A couple of weeks in photos

Many years ago, we certified our garden with the National Wildlife Federation and dedicated it to the bees, butterflies, birds and other critters. Watching the monarchs return every spring to swoop through the summer breezes, flirt in the air and land on the butterfly bush and the milkweed has been one of the greatest rewards for planting native plants.

The monarchs have been in trouble in recent years with population decline, but, this year, they have made an impressive comeback. They still have a long ways to go to return to the population levels we used to see, but it appears that things are improving for these little sparks of sunshine.

It’s not immediately evident what to attribute their greater numbers to, but I’d like to think that the greater levels of awareness around their plight and the planting of milkweed and other pollinator plants in backyard gardens have helped both the monarchs and other pollinators.

On another note, the Super Flower Blood Moon Eclipse was a sight to behold. These eclipses are harder to photograph though than you might think because it is nearly impossible to get the whole moon in focus in one shot. I think I did get a few interesting photos though (coming soon!).

My husband and I took lawn chairs down to the edge of Peter’s Canyon and set up camp with lawn chairs and tripods and snacks. Would you believe that one of our neighbors called the cops to report us as lingering? I could not believe it. Were they not watching the eclipse?

All ended well though because the deputy realized what we were doing and was so interested in the eclipse that she pulled out her phone to take some photos too and told us that we were fine.

The garden is exploding with color right now. I think that the tall succulent blooms (behind the yellow flowers) might be my favorite blossoms right now. The bees are all abuzz about them. They are like their own little ecosystem — completely alive with fluttering wings.

The wisteria is producing a mysterious second burst of blooms again this year. It did it last year too and I can’t explain it, but I took some time to appreciate its ephemeral beauty.

Bisou really enjoys the garden this time of year. We have catnip growing everywhere and the birds are so noisy and entertaining (all of the feeders are up out of cat reach).

Freyja, also, loves to spend time in the garden. She is an expert tree climber and will show off her skills on demand (most of the time).

Uma enjoys reading the comics and the horoscopes with me.

But she was, actually, much more interested in reading about the Oriole genome.

We went to an Angels’s baseball game. They won. There were fireworks.

And I caught a terrible cold. We had a much more social week than we normally do. We’re still a little careful about being around a lot of people, even though we now have two boosters, but we went to the game and we went to a fancy wine dinner with the Orange County Food and Wine Society (my husband is the newly-elected president — he’s sort of excited). And somewhere along the way, we got a virus. Three COVID tests later, it still does not appear to be COVID, so I guess that is a good testimony for the booster.

While I was in the pangs of self-pity for my miserable condition, I took to the couch with various cats and Isabelle Allende’s (one of my very favorite authors) book — Island Beneath the Sea. It’s fantastic.

I spend so much time listening to audible books these days because I can fold laundry, clean the kitchen, edit photos, etc.. while listening to a book, that I don’t spend as much time reading an actual book. It reminded me of how much I enjoy just stopping everything for a while to do so. Freyja really enjoyed it too, as you can see.

We had a bit of a disaster last week when our Alaskan cruise (set for next month) was cancelled. It’s a small boat and a family operation and they just couldn’t get the mechanical parts or the labor they needed. So, I had to scramble and play travel agent for two days to get the trip back on track.

I ended up finding another small ship run by Uncruise with almost the exact same days (off by one day) that worked. We already had plane tickets and had splurged on a really, really cool (non-refundable) VRBO on a little island in Sitka. So, we’re set to go on June 17th. I’m really looking forward to it.

In the meantime, I have been slogging through the 6,000 (yes — I have made a promise to myself to NEVER do this again) photos that I took last summer. If you’ve wondered why more Alaska travel stories have not been forthcoming, it has been the daunting task of hitting the delete button about 5,000 times. But, I have vowed to get through it before the next trip and I have made great progress.

And I also had to get through at least most of them because I knew there might be a couple in there that I wanted to enter into the Orange County Fair photo contest. I’ve never entered this before, but several folks have encouraged me to do so, so, here we go…..

The hardest part was selecting ten photos.

As always, Emerson and Freyja are very helpful during the day when I am at my desk. They love to sit in their little kitty cups right beside me, or on the balcony, just on the other side.

I hope that you all had lovely weeks.

Erika Burkhalter is a yogi, neurophilosopher, cat-mom, photographer, and lover of travel and nature, spreading her love and amazement for Mother Earth’s glories, one photo, poem or story at a time. (MS Neuropsychology, MA Yoga Studies).

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As always, I thank you Dennett for creating this “week in photos” challenge.

It’s so fun to share about the week and to read about so many other photographers’ weeks around the world.

You might want to check out a few of the others who participate:

Dennett /Anne Bonfert /Eileen Vorbach /Lisa Bolin /Tracy Aston /David Wade Chambers/Kim Zuch /Barbara Radisavljevic /LensAfield /Barbara Dalton /Sasha Meyer /Susan Alison /Diana Lotti /Barbara Dalton /K. Barrett /June Nguyen /Juan O. Aguilera /Ellie Jacobson /Shruthi Sundaram/ Pene Hodge /Tracy Aston/ Sandra Barrett/Jillian Amatt — Artistic Voyages (if I’ve missed any of the “week in photos” tribe, please let me know!)

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Photos and story ©Erika Burkhalter. All rights reserved.