The new hours have been conducive to different experiences. It used to be when I walked Ruby, we would be out at sundown and afterwards, meeting the nocturnal wildlife like the armadillos, possums and owls. Now we are out at the crack of dawn, and meet the box turtles, rabbits and hawks. We get to listen to the birds awakening rather than going to bed.
This morning I heard chickadees, who evidently had three or four youngsters scattered about, all demanding food from their fussy parents. There were also song sparrows, the ubiquitous blue jays, eastern peewees, several varieties of sparrow, cardinals, robins, and an indigo bunting. The bunting sat still for about three seconds and I managed to capture this out-of-focus portrait of his glorious blue.
I know it is a male because the females are a very sedate grey-brown, easily mistaken for house finches.
Anyway, the dew this morning was glorious.
I like the last one the best because the refracted image of the meadow is in the larger drops.
And yes, that is why I am still here at the computer and not out running the lawn mower. The heavy dew has yet to evaporate from the grass enough to make it possible to mow and actually pick up the grass, which we are using for mulch in the auxiliary garden across the street at the tenant’s house.
We are very odd landlords. Our tenants are getting a real deal on their rent. We wanted use the vegetable garden spot over there and run water from their tap to water it when it was necessary, so it seemed fair to charge them a bit less than the going rate. They were happy with the arrangement.
While I was out with Ruby this morning I noticed how many yellow floral stars there were out there, so I decided I needed to do a “Yellow” version of “Stars and Stripes”. This one has a squash blossom, some cucumber and melon blossoms, tomato, hypericum (St. John’s Wort in two sizes), horse nettle, flea bane, sedum, and tansy. The stripes are variegated liriope leaves. (Please note the ultimate sacrifice of me picking tomato blossoms, which means that those flowers will never develop into tomatos. A similar sacrifice is not being made with the cucurbits, they are all male flowers.)
After I did this one, I decided to make a more formalized mandala version.
I’m not sure which one I like better. They both have their points.
And yes, I knew that was a pun when I wrote it.
the havens 