I can spend hours wandering around the yard looking for new flowers, interesting butterflies, changes in cloud formations and even trying to catch the early colors of fall at the tops of the trees. But sometimes I can look down to the mossy path between the oak trees and find this gift at my feet. Mother Earth is a most crafty entity.
This is where I take most of my sunset photos. This outdoor furniture is definitely not from Crate and Barrel or Frontgate or even that hoity toity GrandenRoad catalog which continues to arrive in my mailbox even though I have never ordered anything from them. This furniture is from the place in the woods where the pine heaved a big sigh two winters ago and then lay down to rest across my driveway. (Almost all the trees in my woods find some way to lay (lie?) across my driveway when they are ready to 'leaf' this world.)
And if I have been very good that day, and it has not rained recently, I can watch this masterful painting commence comfortably. If there has been a recent rain, the end of the log, where I place my butt, holds the water like a sponge and makes sooty marks on my back side as I ignore that icky cold wet feeling seeping through my shorts while watching the beauty unfold as shown below.
Every summer I try to grow moonflowers, Ipomoea alba. I plant numerous seeds (hard as rocks they are) soaked in wet paper towels for days and nicked ever so slightly. A few germinate in my little pots and because they do not like the transplanting process even fewer survive when I move them to a warm sunny area. Being the tropical exotics that they are, they like it hot and it isn't until August that I begin to see any real growth in the vine. Finally on August 8, I saw this bloom at the far side of my deck as I was heading back into the house at the end of the day. This one bloom makes the whole deck smell like a lovely perfume store or an evening in Bali. The blossoms last only one night, do not bloom until after I head indoors as they are waiting for the sun to set, and the plant itself will start to suffer with the cool nights of September. But every year I am rewarded for my patience with these few precious weeks of beauty and fragrance.
The hummingbirds are regular visitors to the feeders these days and the goldfinch are raiding the seeds from the fading zinnias. I saw a dozen geese in the finger of the creek just yesterday. Rains are now coming with greater regularity. It appears that voluptuous lady with the hot wet kisses and the heavy fragrant perfume will soon be packing her silk butterflies and gossamer webs into that old trunk. She will be heading on down the highway once again as she does every time this year. Just when you feel she has overstayed her welcome and you are tired of sweating all the time, you get that impulse to want to hold on tight to her chubby hands with the well-polished nails for just another week or so.
You know it has been a long hot summer when your county is designated by the weather folks to be in a severe drought as our county was during the month of July. The lawns have gone brown, the tulip trees are shedding leaves that fall like big yellow butterflies and they have being doing that for weeks. The chickadees and titmice fight over the bird bath, and I only go outside in the early morning or late afternoon to survey my room without walls.
But you really understand that concept of a long hot summer when the evening arrives and it looks like this and you get excited! And yes, it was followed by the most cooling rain.
While heading out to fish on the river a few weeks ago we went close by a local osprey nest. You must look carefully, but she had three little ones hunkering down in the nest which was so pleasing to see. Unfortunately, I stayed a little long taking photographs because she appeared to become concerned and let me know it by the majestic spread of her wings. Not wanting to loose part of my hair or an eye(!), I left soon after this photo was taken. Motherhood is same everywhere it appears except for those few species who abandon their young.
Just some natural non-drugged beauty to respect all the heat we have endured.
(I had to reduce these and convert to .gif because I have been told that people are stealing photos and using them as their own on the net and perhaps putting up in places we would not approve! Any of my readers could certainly have a file if they wanted and were willing to give attribution---just ask. )
The fresh water marsh behind the barrier islands that I have been posting about in an earlier post is shown above. This nature preserve is lovely and peaceful and felt somewhat mystical to me as I stood there with my back to the ocean wind. I could still hear the power of the pounding surf not far behind me when I took this photo, but the view in front was quiet like a painting or the entrance to another world.
The wading birds take advantage of this area all year but more so during the migration times of seasonal change. Further in toward the land the water was not so high in the marsh and actually dry in places during the time that I was there. This is a carefully 'managed' marsh with flood gates and water levels closely monitored and changed by man. The natural resource folks want to make sure that this area does not face drought or flooding to the extent that animals or plants would be adversely impacted. (The hubris of mankind...) The gates are hidden by foliage so it all looks perfectly natural and wild.
The grasses flow like green ocean waves against the expanse of the blue sky.
Just messing around. Feel free to use as screen savers if so inclined.
