The nature of things

A marvelous harvest moon

Garden spider in stripes

Ring-around-the-rosy?

Who could resist this face?

All photos and copy © 2011 Mary Owen

Gathering of leaves

Such glorious fall days ~

Feathery mix

I wonder what bird left this?

Northern Flicker annoyed at our interruption.

Why a duck...

Cattails (Typha) on the wind

Something completely different

While attending a concert at the local philharmonic, we came across a couple of unusual phrases in the program guide:

"The piano plays short fragments that coagulate into the main theme of the finale..."

(Thank god the fragments coagulate; we certainly wouldn't want the finale to bleed to death)

"After the customary recapitulation, the composer launches an enormous coda..."

(Our cat has been known to launch an enormous coda from time to time)

A few scenes we came across during the weekend--

Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil?

 

As always, your comments welcome...

Two views

Looking through

Looking up

At sunset

Feathered friends

Still blooming

From the Rose Garden in Julia Davis Park.

Warning

This is serious! We mean it! "Absolutey"!!

Small creatures

I think this is a type of dragonfly. Love the way its wings sparkle in the light.

Not sure what kind of moth this is, but it was definitely happy in these purple blossoms.  

In the upper right, there's a bee buzzing its way to a Trumpet Vine tubular.

And soon we'll go out for an evening walk amidst the sound of frogs and crickets.

Rose glow

In memory of Mom.

Soaring...

 

 

In remembrance.

Moving into Fall

The days become shorter. 

Day lilies bloom. This would make a lovely stained glass window.

The change of season may bring a change of fashion.  

And the daisy family reigns in the garden.

Gone wild

This white duck must have gotten bored with life on the farm. Or perhaps it escaped the butcher's hatchet just in time..... 

Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath. 
~ Michael Caine

Road Work

I saw on the internet that Arizona was dealing with some unusual traffic problems this morning. 

And it reminded me of this sign (also from the internet) that greeted motorists a couple of years ago on their way to work.

Have a good commute -- and watch out for rogue road signs....

Blooms and bugs

 

Echinacea visited by a bee. (won't you bee my honey tonite?) 

Black-eyed Susans with a Pine White butterfly, which, according to my butterfly book, is "a pest of pines and balsam firs in the West". 

And here are rose hips, sans bugs. 

Catching Trochilidae

Earlier this year I said I'd try to catch a hummingbird  -- in a photo, of course. I don't quite have the proper equipment, but here are a couple of attempts of a female Black-chinned Hummingbird. In this first one, she has her back to us as she's taking a drink. 

Here she's perched -- for a few seconds. Even when they perch, they seem to be vibrating. 

According to Wikipedia: The Aztec god Huitzilopochtli is often depicted as a hummingbird. The Nahuatl word huitzil (hummingbird) is an onomatopoeic word derived from the sounds of the hummingbird's wing-beats and zooming flight.

I'll finish this with a tableau of Morning Glories and Daylily we spied while taking a walk.

Bee-havior

I love the vivid red of this Rock Rose blossom, and by chance I happened to capture a bee in flight while taking this photo. The strange thing is that the bee looks to be flying upside down. I don't know much about bee flight. Do they do acrobatics while buzzing from blossom to blossom, like little stunt planes? Any apiologists out there who know?     

Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.  
~ James Russell Lowell

After the storm

It looks more like a parade has passed through than a storm. Even with all its violent energy, perhaps a storm is a kind of celebration? 

The greater difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests. 
~Epicurus

Antidote

A respite from summer heat. 

Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability. 
~Sam Keen