May 2026 – a curious nature

NATIONAL RESCUE DOG DAY

Celebrating Luna

May 20, 2026

Zentangle patterns: Galubuntu, Riggle, Butria, Spindrel, Bumble Buds, Coy Manu, Fento, Diondea, Knot, Dandi, Membranart, Vline, Fenglish, PdA, Rosie

All the benefits of being adopted by an immeasurably lovable canine is celebrated annually on May 20th ….. National Rescue Dog Day!

Officially designated as a National Day on May 20, 2018, to honor the inspiring ways rescue dogs become a part of the human family, the Day also increases awareness about the number of dogs in shelters. Given a chance, rescue dogs fill their forever homes with unconditional love and unabandoned joy with every belly rub.

#NationalRescueDogDay

According to the ASPCA¹, approximately 3.3 million abandoned and abused dogs enter shelters every year, each one needing a forever home. They are Rescue Dogs and their potential is limitless.

Always able to nuzzle, fetch, kiss or beg their way into your heart, rescue dogs provide comfort, security, and friendship as family pets. And with training, they can:

restore independence of people with disabilities as service animals;
provide comfort as a best friend to the elderly and infirmed;
make excellent teachers by showing children about caring and kindness;
provide a variety of therapeutic benefits to people with autism, mental illness, PTSD, anxiety, and depression;
rescue us from dangerous situations, help us investigate the cause of a fire, search for missing persons.

When it comes to our four-legged friends, they improve the human condition by leaps and bounds, barks and yips. It is hard to imagine a more helpful, worthy companion. Bring out the treats!

How to Observe National Rescue Dog Day

Get involved in the lives of rescue dogs. Here’s a few ways to share your puppy love.

Volunteer at your local shelter by taking dogs for walks, grooming, and giving them plenty of affection.
Make donations, from financial to providing things like blankets, toys, food, treats, and leashes.
Consider fostering. Many dogs abandoned in shelters require some medical care or rehabilitation in a home setting before an adoption can take place.
If there’s room in your life for a rescue dog, consider adoption and giving one a forever home.

Is there a rescue dog in your life? If so, share your story. Here’s mine!

Luna – from Felon to Forever Furbaby!

The year was 2017… we’d moved cross-country 2,000 miles to New Mexico, bought a home, felt settled in by December, then realized things were too quiet. We had somehow lived two full years without a dog in our lives and decided to begin our search for a furry companion. By mid-January 2018, we had visited several local animal shelters, but there were no puppies or even young dogs available for adoption. But when we toured the Los Lunas shelter an hour south of us, our luck changed. In a very small cage, separated from the big dog kennels, was a small puppy hugging the back wall of her cell and looking very scared. We asked the attendant why the pup seemed to be isolated from the general kennel population, and he replied, “she’s being held for 30 days for the owner to claim her.” We asked if he knew when the puppy would be released for adoption, and then left to check on the date. Meanwhile, we had some time to get a better look at this little pup! She appeared to be a pitbull cross, all jet black except for a few white paws and a bright white blaze under her chin down to her chest. As she greeted us with kisses and butt wiggles, we decided this girl was as cute as could be! We were in love! No matter how much longer her incarceration might be, we would wait.

The attendant returned with a big smile on his face and said this was the pup’s lucky day because “today is her release day; she can be adopted!”

Of course we wanted to take her for a test drive, so as she was being removed from the cage and leashed up, we asked, “but really, why the 30 day sentence? What’s her back story?” He smiled then chuckled a bit before saying, “it all began in Albuquerque.”

“There was a group of kids looking for a joy ride through town. Not having their own car, they stole one and began racing around neighborhoods at break-neck speeds. It wasn’t long before the driver wrapped the car around a light pole. Not wanting their fun to end, they stole a second car and resumed their fast touring of another neighborhood. By this time the cops had caught wind of the speeding car and began their pursuit. The young driver, seeing two fast approaching cop cars, headed for the nearest I-25 on-ramp and punched it. Knowing they’d be in deep do-do if caught, and still with a sizable lead, they flew off the next exit and entered another neighborhood, coming to an abrupt stop in someone’s front yard but not before taking down their fence! Car #2 wrecked. Without blinking twice, the kids stole the closest car they saw, fired it up and raced away, getting back on the interstate and headed south, out of town. In about 5 minutes, the cops (now there were 5 cars in pursuit) were back on course, finding themselves in a high speed chase, determined to stop the kids before anyone got hurt.”

“It’s 20 miles from the south end of Albuquerque to Los Lunas, and those kids drove that stolen car almost the entire distance at speeds exceeding 110 mph. Then something happened ….. either the driver lost control or a tire blew, but just before the exit the car careened off the highway, hitting a ditch and rolled and rolled, coming to rest upside down. Car #3 totaled! Well, the cops were instantly on the scene and able to not only pull those four kids safely from the vehicle but retrieved a pretty shook-up puppy too!”

“Everyone involved, including the puppy, was charged and sent to jail … the kids for reckless endangerment and grand theft auto, and the pup for aiding and abetting. And because the kids wouldn’t admit to the puppy being theirs or to stealing her, the cops brought her to us (the shelter) and made us lock her up for 30 days without bail. So you see, the puppy could’ve been with them from the very beginning of the escapade or just happened to be in one of the stolen cars, a victim of dognapping.”

We adopted that little girl on the spot, and forgave her if she was, in fact, a member of the gang of felons. But we prefer to think we rescued and rehabilitated her from a life of crime. After a quick stop at the Los Lunas PetSmart to buy now-urgent supplies (like puppy food), we headed home with that adorable bundle of fur sitting on my lap looking at us with big brown eyes. I said, “what should we call her?” Verbally tossing about a few silly names, the perfect one came to us both simultaneously ….. “Let’s call her Luna!” It all made sense …. we rescued her in the city of Los Lunas on January 16, which happened to be the day/night of a new moon – the darkest phase facing earth, and our little girl is the darkest black we’ve ever seen. To close the loop of coincidences, in Latin “Luna” means “the moon.” Besides, she perked right up when we called her by name!

Luna today …. A most excellent trail dog! Always looking out for sneaky snakes on her her daily hikes

And the rest is history. Veterinarians have agreed she must be a pity/lab mix, and was probably about 4 months old when joined our family. Today Luna is about 9 years old, still acts like a puppy, sits on the couch, chases squirrels away from the bird feeder, hikes a trail every day with us and alerts us to snakes, loves everybody (including her two cats), always gives us the best kisses, and is the sweetest best friend we’ve ever known!

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Please remember to spay and neuter your pets. Overpopulation is the number one reason shelters exist.

As always, thanks for stopping by!

¹ American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

Tulips: A Matter of Mold

Lessons in Experimenting

May 17, 2026

“I have been careless, and so have been thwarted by luck and chance, those wreckers of all but the best laid plans.” ~ J. K. Rowling

Have you ever set foot in a place of business and the first thing you laid eyes on became yours?

That’s exactly what happened to me on April 13th ….

Adoption

Upon entering a local grocery store, I immediately fell in love with a beautiful display of tulips growing in glass vases, their rooted bulbs producing bright spring green leaves surrounding fledgling flower buds and blossoms! Without hesitation (or consulting my shopping list), two healthy looking plants landed in my buggy! Like a proud parent, I proudly carted these treasures about while finding the actual items on my list, all the while justifying such a frivolous selection (the lovely tulip nearly in full bloom would be a gift for a dear friend; the other with a wee whisper of a bud would be mine to ‘nature journal’).

Nature Journaling

In a few days, my friend was enjoying her new tulip, and I was busy charting the growth of mine in my nature journal. It was amazing how quickly that little bud grew. When it broke free of the vase’s rim the petals and sepals (tepals) began to open, and the yellow became more intense while their centers grew more orange. It was very exciting to see these changes.

Disaster

Then on April 24th, something changed. Tiny white dots appeared on the bulb’s papery cover (the tunic) and the tepals drooped. Over the next few days, the white dot population steadily expanded over the bottom of the bulb, along with soft white threads that seemed to reach out from the dots. Mold! A fungus was aggressively devouring the poor defenseless tulip bulb! Why and could it be saved?

Although I’d been careful not to submerge the bottom of the bulb in water, the occasional slip-up had occurred. That, combined with the poor ventilation in the vase and the presence of fungal spores that float naturally in the air made for the perfect mold-loving environment. Even the use of filtered water wasn’t precaution enough to prevent this disaster. Even after gently rinsing the bulb, cleaning the vase and replacing the water with fresh, wasn’t remedy soon enough to save the bulb. The brief life of my adopted tulip had come to an end.

Lessons Learned

Following the demise of my tulip, I scoured the internet for diagnostic clues of a fungal attack and effective first aid. Apparently moldy fungus growth on tulip bulbs is very common, and I learned quite a bit about identifying and treating it in my post-bulb moments. Most importantly, never having grown a bulb of any kind in water (hydroponically), had I begun my aquaculture experiment by searching for helpful tips, my tulip bulb may still be alive. That’s my hindsight lesson.

However, knowing full well my passion for research into any and all things, had I 1) paused just a ‘sec’ and admitted to my lack of knowledge and experience in hydroponic tulip rearing, and 2) gone home to conducti my research in a careful and thorough manner, and 3) returned the next day to buy the two tulips, well ….. they might’ve been sold! (In fact I did return the following day and noticed the tulip display was gone.)

There’s something to be said for spontaneity!

“It’s good to be prepared, but spontaneity is very important — just to let yourself go and let it be whatever it is.” ~ Aron Eisenberg

If you’ve successfully raised a bulbed plant in water, what precautions did you take? If you’ve had an encounter with bulb mold, if you were able to stop it’s rapid spread, what measures did you take to save the bulb?

Hope you enjoyed journal pages I created to chart the life and death of my tulip bulb. Because I was conducting an experiment in hydroponics, I decided to experiment with various watercolor techniques, including trying out something new in adding backgrounds. Please let me know if and which compositions and/or colors you liked. I found experimenting with different watercolor materials and color mixing added valuable lessons for future journal pages. (On my pages I provided a brief description of what was used to color each stage of growth.)

As always, thanks for coming along on my nature journaling journey!

Rose Heath – Page 9 .. The 100 Day Project (2026)

May 9, 2026

Rose Heath (Chaetopappa ericoides)

When the last Spring snow melts and the runoff soaks into the nooks and crannies of dehydrated soils, there’s a thirsty little shrub that eagerly drinks its fill. The leafy stems of this tiny shrub, so easily overlooked in the winter, rapidly grows on bare ground, around the drip line of pinyon and juniper trees, in the negative spaces between rocks and broken branches, and through beds of dried grasses. Then in a day or two a very small flower bud forms on the top of each stem, and in half a week the buds open simultaneously. What a spectacular display of brilliant white daisies ….. bouquets of light!

Barely ankle high, each flowerhead can have up to 24 white ray florets surrounding a rich buttery yellow center of 12-25 disc florets. And don’t fret if you notice the ray florets have curled downward in the evening. They magically unfurl to their full length by mid-morning the following day.

This annual Spring show, which takes place all across the U.S. west and western Great Plains, is brought to you by the “petite” perennial called Rose Heath (Chaetopappa eriocoides). (Widespread and common in New Mexico, Rose Heath is adaptable to a variety of soils, elevation, and drought.)

The show typically begins in late March and continues into early May. And for those craving more, flowering resumes in August and can run until November; no charge. You just have to get out there and see for yourself!

Origin and Etymology – What’s in a Name?

Origin of the Scientific Name, Chaetopappa ericoides

Augustin Pyramus de Candolle, a Swiss botanist, named this genus Inula in the early 1800s. But in 1827, it was the American botanist John Torrey, who named the species Inula ericoides, from a specimen collected by botanist Edwin James along the Canadian River during Major Stephen Long’s Expedition of 1819-1820. Since that time, the species has undergone more than a dozen name changes including Leucelene ericoides (Edward Greene in 1896) and finally Chaetopappa ericoides (Guy Nesom in 1988).

Etymology of the Scientific Name, Chaetopappa ericoides

The genus “Chaetopappa” is Greek for ‘bristly pappus’ (pappus refers to the score of tiny white bristles surrounding the disc florets; the same bristles, one per seed, that helps carry Rose Heath’s mature seeds up, up and away. The species “Ericoides,” also Greek, means ‘similar (“oides“) to Heath’ (“eric”); i.e., the plant’s tiny, overlapping leaves are similar to those of some Heaths (Ericaceae is the scientific name of the Heath Family.)

Common Name, Rose Heath

From the previous paragraph, it’s obvious where the name ‘Heath’ comes from, as Rose Heath does have stems and leaves very similar to a heath plant. But why ‘Rose?’ What I found is ‘Rose’ is Latin in origin, derived from “rosa,” referring to the flower. Because the daisy-like flowers of Rose Heath don’t resemble a rose flower, deeper diving was needed. I discovered that throughout history ‘Rosa’ and ‘Rose’ have represented love, passion, innocence, and beauty. So perhaps ……. ? If you’re familiar with Rose Heath or have seen photos of the plant in bloom, do you love or could you love its beautiful floral bouquets? I think whoever thought to call this plant by the common name ‘Rose Heath,’ must’ve loved its stunning display!

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Have you seen this beautiful plant, Rose Heath?

As always, thanks for stopping by!

References

inaturalist.org

npsnm.org/wildflowersnm

Stevenson, M., 1915 Ethnobotany of the Zuni Indians. SI-BAE Annual Report #30, p.55 (as referenced by iNaturalist)

swbiodiversity.org

swcoloradowildflowers.com

Western Meadowlark – Page 8 .. The 100 Day Project (2026)

May 4, 2026

Western Meadowlark (Sturnella neglecta)

When male meadowlarks return to the grassy meadow north of the old rusty water tank and begin singing, you know it’s Spring!

There’s something wonderful about his song ……. At first he stutters a few practice notes; rough and rusty like the old water tank. But as daylight lengthens and temperatures warm, his song grows long, strong and melodic. Having perfected that signature song, he sings intently from sunrise to sunset, defending his territorial boundaries against all invaders. And he sings lovingly to announce his breeding readiness, enticing not just one, but two female meadowlarks to mate with him.

While walking the perimeter of the meadow in mid-April, it was easy to hear a male singing at the top of his lungs about 1/4 mile away. After a few moments scanning the tops of the widely scattered juniper trees with binoculars, I spotted him. (Males seem to favor these trees as perches, perhaps because they get a great view of their territory, and their voices really carry!) Able to get only 50 yards closer, I managed to take a few telephoto pics before he flew to the top of another juniper. Western meadowlarks are very skittish around people, so I held my ground and just watched and listened. It was a wonderful encounter.

Below are a few more fun facts about Western Meadowlarks, in addition to those on my illustrated page ….

If you’re lucky to see a Western Meadowlark, you’ll notice they’re a robin-sized bird but chunkier and with a shorter tail. Their flat head and long, slender bill are visible above a round-shouldered posture that nearly conceals its neck. They have short rounded wings, and a short, stiff, and spiky tail.

When flushed, Western Meadowlarks fly low, wings below the horizontal, gliding and flapping with short, stiff, quail-like wingbeats.

Other than perching on tall trees, don’t be surprised to find males singing from atop fence posts, bushes, power lines, and anything higher than their surrounding habitat.

John James Audubon gave the Western Meadowlark its scientific name, Sturnella neglecta; Sturnella meaning “starling-like,” and neglecta because he felt most explorers (after Lewis and Clark) and settlers who traveled west of the Mississippi overlooked this common bird.

The oldest recorded Western Meadowlark was at least 6 years, 6 months old when it was found in Colorado in 1965.

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When was the last time you went Birding? Meadowlarks are calling!

As always, thanks for stopping by!

References: allaboutbirds.org and inaturalist.org