Lizards do not cavort around in our backyard. The lizard family, however, is a favorite of mine, and I am fortunate enough to see many of them when I travel.

Although the vegetarian iguanas can grow to six feet and the fur ball spitting Komodos can reach 10 feet, the lizards I encounter in the south and southwest are usually in the three inch range. Watching wildlife is always fascinating, and these pint size lizards recently put on a good show.

We were staying on the ground floor of a hotel which had a view of the gravel, cactus and bushes outside the window. A steady stream of lizards were cavorting outside the window. Every few minutes one of them would stop abruptly and launch into a rapid series of tiny push ups.

Curious to know the reason for their humorous work outs, I turned to the computer and found the answer.

New research using robotic lizards indicates that anole lizards living in noisy environments do push ups to attract their neighbor’s attention. Traditional head-bobbing gestures do not work in high decibel urban settings; the more flamboyant push ups are an effective visual alert signal.

There is a lesson to be learned here. If you are feeling unnoticed or left out, throw yourself on the ground and do some quick push ups. Attention is guaranteed.

Click here to see the lizards in action.

Can any sound be more wonderful than the tick,tick,tick, whoosh of the oscillating sprinkler on a hot, still summer night?

Sitting on the porch at dusk, knowing how happy the grass and flowers must be as they soak up the cool water is a wonderful thing to do.

James Agee in his short story,  Knoxville : Summer, 1915, perfectly captures the mood of a summer night when the neighborhood fathers are out watering their lawns:

“So many qualities of sound out of one hose: so many choral differences out of those several hoses that were within earshot. Out of any one hose, the almost dead silence of the release, and the short still arch of the separate big drops, silent as a held breathe, and the only noise the flattering noise on leaves and the slapped grass at the fall of each big drop. That, and the intense hiss with the intense stream; that, and the same intensity not growing less but growing more quiet and delicate with the turn of the nozzle, up to that extreme tender whisper when the water was just a wide bell of film.”

My husband, who knows a great deal about the scientific workings of water, informs me that our sprinkler’s efforts aren’t as good as real rain. “Rain brings nitrogen as well,” he explains.

But I’m still content to know all those roots are lapping away. I’m also aware of how lucky I am to have the world’s fifth largest lake in my front yard. In a world where vast areas are drying up, I have water as far as I can see.

Some things should never be taken for granted. Water is high on that list.

Here is the surest way to get someone not to read a book. Tell your friend that the book is the greatest you have ever read, and they absolutely have to read it ASAP. This method virtually assures that your beloved book will not be opened.

It usually takes several similar suggestions from several dissimilar friends to motivate me out of my reading grooves. That’s how I finally picked up The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith.  I was enchanted after the first paragraph and have gone on to read every book in the series plus others by him. How many other splendid books am I missing by this absurd procrastination?

The deplorable tendency of many of us to delay following up on book suggestions can probably be blamed on English teachers. Take the best book in the world, assign it in English 101, set a deadline for next Monday and most of the joy flies out of the book. Reading for pure pleasure and being told what to read are not a good mix.

So for summer reading, I am definitely telling you NOT to read A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty by Joshilyn Jackson, Raylan by Elmore Leonard or Sophie and the Rising Sun by Augusta Trobaugh.

Americans used to have something called civic pride. Communities would come together to build new libraries, beautiful schools, parks and playgrounds and other civic improvements. Everybody would be uplifted. The common good was a phrase that all citizens understood, even if they called it “home town spirit”.

Those days have faded with the rise of greed, selfishness and a new definition of freedom. Freedom is now defined by many as “free to think only of myself”.

The lamentable Supreme Court decision, ironically named Citizens United, gave Democracy another serious blow as it ushered in a new age of plutocracy. The amount of free speech we get is now equal to the money we have. The wealthiest citizens and corporations (they are citizens now as well) tell us that others have more benefits than we have and promise to take those goodies away. Then the rich encourage us to hate those ‘others’, the ones who don’t look and act like us.

We will hang our flag this Fourth of July, but it will be with sadness. We will hang our flag because my Aunt was given the flag for her service as an army nurse in World War II. We will hang our flag for all those who fought for and believe in true freedom for all, the old fashioned kind of freedom that has civic duty as its partner. We will hang our flag in remembrance of our country’s great achievements, back in the days when we knew how to work together. And we will hang our flag in hope that America gets back its heart.

We designed our front yard to be eaten. Now with wings aflutter and holes in the leaves, the entire front of our house has become a giant cafeteria.

Years ago, I stood in a botanical garden surrounded by butterflies. The sign said that anyone could create this paradise by planting bird and butterfly friendly plants. Why would anyone plant any other kind I wondered? The only problem that I could foresee was that my husband and I are lousy gardeners.

We have been working on this project for sixteen years. Those who know us understand that our failures and mistakes have been monumental such as the fifty cone flower plants that all dropped dead for no apparent reason.

But we persevered, and things are finally coming together. Seven butterfly species were all gorging on nectar the other day and numerous birds including hummingbirds visit every day. Bees are everywhere, some are as big as jawbreakers.

Yesterday my husband captured a magical goldfinch moment. Click here to see and hear the party.