At least the swimmers weren't frogs or rats. Speaking of which I haven't seen many of either this year. I'm a bit worried about the amphibians, wondering what happened to them. Usually by now we've had some nightly frog chorus serenades, especially following a rain. Not this year. While last winter didn't last as long as normal, it was harder than usual with some really cold days. I'm not certain how frogs survive the winter, but I think they burrow into the mud and hibernate. Perhaps the frogs didn't burrow deep enough.
I managed to finish the top item on my TADO list in time to mow the yard before the rain. Actually, I've been mowing the yard, just not picking up the grass. The more I dug into the MCS project, the more problems I found and the more time it took to get the parts. MCS. Material Collection System, that's what John Deere calls what I call a grass catcher. It lay scattered across my saw table for several weeks, and I was fortunate that John Deere has assembly pictures on their web side because I had completely forgotten how it went together.


Several weeks ago we had a fast-moving weather front whistle through and I snapped this photo of the leading cloud interface. And yes, that's a raindrop on the lens.
