very hot and dry

It's been very hot and dry lately, my lawn is turning brown really fast, partly because i have plumbing problems and can't water it. Also because it's been over 90 and sometimes over 100 with the heat index, the little rain we have had isn't nearly enough to keep lawns green. So this is kind of a surprise to me. This is part of the huge pumpkin plant that i was growing in the peat pots. Most of the others seem to have been pillaged by various wild animals, but not this one. The plant stretches for a good six feet or more, with several flowers. It's also the most green plant in my yard. Since i haven't been able to really water it, i'm curious as to why it's so green and big, where is it getting water from? Are it's roots that deep? I don't know a whole lot about plants, if you can't tell. ;)

Zack Bunny

This is one of my bunnies, Zack, laying in front of the air vent. I took this with an antique Spartaflex camera i got at an antique store for around $10. It uses 120 film, which i had to send by mail to get developed, as i'm not brave enough yet to try to develop my own film. This is one of the better pictures that turned out, as i'm not quite used to film yet, i'm more a digital person, i just wanted to share this cute picture of Zack.
I will be trying to get pictures around town with this too, but to make sure it all worked i started out with pictures around the house.

River Falls Days Parade, Marching Band Part 3

This is another marching band in the parade, i forget which school it was, but i like the expressions of these kids. I missed posting yesterday, for a very silly reason, i was reading the new Harry Potter and couldn't put it down. When i got done i hadn't realized how many hours had passed.

River Falls Days Parade, Marching Band Part 2

This is from the same group as the last one, but i hadn't noticed how much i like this one and am amused by "The Herd" on his uniform. I'm not sure why it says that, is that the team name? I have no idea.

River Falls Days Parade, Marching Band

This is one of the marching bands that walked in the parade. They always look so somber after seeing the ones in the rain from a few years ago smiling and having fun. This year the weather was perfect, in the 70's with a nice breeze, and the rain waited until late in the evening. I want to point out i like the pictures of marching bands like this, where everyone is looking the same and in a pattern for some reason. I'm not sure why, but they are usually my favorites of parades.

River Falls Days Parade, Odd costume

I just had to get a picture of this guy. He was dressed as a giant Tylenol. It was just so odd and funny to me that i had to get a picture of him. Sadly this was the best one, not many of him turned out very good.

River Falls Days Parade, Cheesehead

Here you can see the elusive Wisconsin Cheesehead. I used to see these hats shaped like a big piece of cheese more when i lived down by LaCrosse, but haven't seen them much up here for some reason. Wisconsin is known as "the dairy state", there are a lot of milk and cheese producers in the state, not sure if it has the most or not, but there are a lot. You see more people wearing the hats at sporting events where the Green Bay Packers football team (American Football) plays.

River Falls Days Parade, Zor Funster

Back to the parade pictures. This is one of the Zor Funsters going around in the little carts they ride. I've seen Zor Funsters at parades for a long time, but i really don't know how to explain what they are. It's like how you see something a lot, and never think about how to explain it to someone who has never seen one. On a related note, this year got me wondering about parade saftey. Several parades no longer allow the participants to toss candy into the crowds, this parade had kids running out and trying to get the candy. I know some kids have gotten hurt at some parades before, not sure about here yet, but i saw some kids get out in the road far before the parents grabbed them back. I also saw older high school kids basically grabbing candy from the very young kids, which also bothered me.

Baby and parent bunny

I'm interrupting my planned River Falls Days posts to bring you this picture of the baby bunny with one of the older ones, i think the parent. You can barely see the baby in the leaves, but you can clearly see that the adult sadly has Shopes. I've talked about Shopes before, and how it keeps me from letting my bunnies play outside so they don't get it, but i don't know if i've mentioned that by the study of Shopes in rabbits, it lead to the vaccine for Human papillomavirus (Shopes is technically Shopes papillomavirus) Jus another thing that we don't seem to appreciate how much the rabbit does for us.

River Falls Days Parade, Pirate

The theme for this years River Falls Days was "Pirates on the Kinni" or at least that is how i think they called it. I rarely make it all the way through the parade, due to weather or heat or full memory cards, but i always end up with a ton of photographs. This year i didn't take as many since i'm seeing a bit too many of the same floats and vehicles, so i skipped over a few and just tried to get more creative with what i got. This guy here made my day, i'm not sure if he was with a float or just walking around like that, but he even had the mannerisms of Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and i know he doesn't look exactly like him, he still put the most effort into his look.

Hot outside

It's been very hot outside this last week, in the 90s with the heat index easily over 100F. It's made me not want to go outside too often, and the bunnies seem to know how to love air conditioning too. This is a picture of two of my pet bunnies, Clover on the stool, and Amanda laying by the vent. When it's hot, the bunnies seem to love either going in front of the vent, or hiding in the bathroom near the toilet, where it's cooler. I have decent air conditioning, but it seems they can sense that it's hot out and take a break. They also shed like monsters during weather like this.

Baby Bunny

It's funny that Abraham over at Brookville daily photo posted a picture of a baby bunny the other day, and today i looked out my front door and saw this little guy. He's really small, smaller than my hand for sure. It's unusual that i see many animals in the front of my house, it's very exposed and several of my neighbors have dogs, so they stick to the back yard that has more vegetation to hide under and eat. Hopefully people aren't getting too sick of me taking pictures of animals in my yard, i do hope to get out there more and get other photos, but these are the ones i have been liking more though.

new birdfeeder

This is one of the new bird feeders i got recently with some of the more common birds i have here besides grackles. I need to shorten the wire holding it up as it's bumping the pole, but the birds still seem to be able to use it and the squirrels will have a hard time chewing through the metal wire.

"Baby" bird

The birds and squirrels managed to open up one of the older bird feeders i had and spilled most of the seeds out on the deck. Luckily the newer metal ones are holding up and not broken yet. ;) I saw this one bird sitting on the deck holding out its wings straight out and shaking them, so at first i thought it was possibly injured. Then i saw it open its mouth and another bird feed it. That's no baby bird, but probably still wanting to be fed it seems. I don't know how long they go before they stop feeding the young ones, but it looks pretty mature. Was still cute to see and get pictures of them. The bright colored ones were actually there, but not in the camera shot, it seemed like several couples of birds and young ones, but this is the best angle i got.