Last night, a solitary question mark butterfly stopped in the yard. It didn’t stay long. The yard might have felt lonely and empty after it left, if not for these two rabbits.

I wondered about the second rabbit’s ear damage. Frostbite? Maybe some kind of infection? While the yard’s rabbits seem healthy in general, I do see a lot of ticks on them, especially on their ears. It’s a bit odd, because I rarely find ticks on myself or the dog.

Speaking of the dog, she’s too old and arthritic for rabbit chasing. Or any other kind of exertion. So I was curious, a few days ago, when she treed something in the wax myrtle.

The squirrel waited, shifting its grip now and then, until Indigo and I went inside. Then I watched from the kitchen window as it scrambled down, grabbed one last mouthful of birdseed, and scurried across the fence into our neighbor’s yard. Where the neighbor’s dog promptly treed it again.

None of these photos were taken today, because today has been rainy and gray. It’s a dreary deluge that pours and eases and then pours again. As I worked on this post, the butterfly’s bright orange and the yard’s exuberant green tempted me to fret over our much-needed rain. So I changed the photos to grayscale…