Butter Side Down

Ever hear of the USNS Mercy? No? Well, her missions are ones that can make every American proud. She’s one of two Mercy-class hospital ships that belong to the United States. She’s a state-of-the-art 1000 bed floating hospital with 12 operating rooms, a blood bank, CT scanner, recovery and ICU wards and medical transport helicopters.

USNS Mercy’s skipper has started a blog, the Skipper’s Scrivenings,
documenting the ship’s current humanitarian deployment.

It’s a fantastic real-time example of how well combining military resources with those of NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) works to help those in need.

Go. Read. It’ll make you proud of not only the USA, but also of all the different countries, NGOs and volunteers from all over that world that are working together to make good things happen.

Whoa! As of this week I totally have to quit complaining that my butterfly bushes aren’t attracting many butterflies! Today alone, this beauty, and two more like her, were on the bushes when I went out this morning. She’s a female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly.

I’ve never seen the black variant like this one before and to have three at once! All black Eastern Tiger Swallowtails are female, which as a horse color genetics ‘hobbyist’ I find fascinating. (Yes, I study equine color genetics as a hobby. No, I don’t think that’s unusual. So… what are your hobbies?)

*Sigh!*

Isn’t she gorgeous?

Meet Juan’s little sister, Hay!

She’s much shier than her brother Juan - but enjoys chomping flowers almost as much as he does. Since I still can’t really use a computer much, I’m going to start posting photos with an itty bit of commentary until this shoulder/neck/back thing calms down. So… here’s Hay!

Most wild bunnies don’t have any white on them, but Hay has a very distinctive white spot on her forehead.

Guess who? This is Big Sis, Hay and Juan’s big sister! She’s from Petunia’s first litter, born in early spring. Big Sis has Petunia’s unusually colored fur (it’s very blotchy) and is exceptionally shy of humans. She’s the only bunny that’s still here from that spring litter. All we usually see of her is a flash of her white cottontail as she dives into the ferns!

Hay (back) and Big Sis (front)! Although they look similar in size in this photo, it’s only because the perspective I shot it from is rather distorted. Big Sis is at least twice Hay’s size.

Lots more photos to come…