As you know I have a lot of birds in my backyard. Mostly because I feed them. They are not unlike Penny in their affection for me based on their feeder fullness quotient analysis.
This week this rather cheeky yet uncertain little guy showed up.
He hopped along the deck railing, back and forth, seeming unfazed by the bird traffic all around him.
He picked at the husks of seeds left behind by previous diners.
He stared at me.
And then, eventually, he flew off.
I’m thinking he’s a juvenile red breasted grosbeak. Maybe male, given the yellowish breast? I’m using the logic that red headed woodpeckers have brown heads when they’re juveniles.
But it could be a female too, they have a yellowish cast to their chest feathers.
Mom’s super busy and she’s not paying attention to me (par for the course lately) so I figured I’d check in with you guys.
In front of one of my gardens. Mom makes me do this every. single. morning.
Life is going along like normal around here which is to say boring. Mom says boring can be a good thing. She says I should be glad both she and daddy are home with me all the time now.
Sometimes mom and I hang out on the porch.
I suppose.
Mom tried to get me to like the pool. I did not.
She says I’m going back to school in a week or so and I better remember all the things I know and not goof off this year. She’s says we’re both gonna learn some obedience.
I’d rather spend time at Katie’s park. Or any park.
Huh. It’s about time mom learned some obedience. And I stand my ground and repeat — there better be lots of treats. And the good kind too, not just kibble from my supper. She doesn’t think I know she does that. I’m a sheltie. I know everything.
Mom and me practicing stuff at Katie’s park one evening.
Anyway, mom’s been taking me to parks and stuff. I’m not totally ignored.
At one of my parks!
But geeze…I feel like I need a real adventure!
After my Friday evening group walkat another of my parks!
Your suggestions are truly appreciated.
I’ll just catch a snooze while I wait for your ideas.
I’m working on watercolor cards for the Truck Safety Coalition’s annual Gala silent auction. They’ll be getting 3 sets of 5 cards. I’m almost finished with them, but I wanted the last card to be a watercolor of a fall oak leaf. I didn’t find anything online that I liked particularly, though I did find a great tutorial about how to paint an oak leaf.
I watched the tutorial but I wasn’t sure about freehand drawing something similar. Three oak leaves plus acorns. Maybe I could do it but it sure would be easier if I could trace around a real oak leaf. I looked out at the oak tree in my back yard. The limbs were way too high for me to grab a leaf.
I decided to think on it a bit and went to collect the garbage can from the curb since the truck had emptied it and moved on down the road. And there, beside the empty can was a bit of oak tree branch….complete with the top part of an acorn.
Like it was waiting for me. I smiled and gathered it up, rolled the garbage can behind me as I pondered how things work out.
After I took the picture of my prize I went back out to the front yard to see what other treasures might have blown off my neighbor’s oak. I found several leaves to show me colors…
…and another bunch of leaves attached to their twig, to show me how the stick part might look.
Oh…and this ginkgo leaf apparently traveled inside on the bottom of my shoe.
So I got to work. I copied a few of the leaves…
…and traced that onto a page of my practice book.
Then I got to painting.
So fun….
Now, if I can just do it again on the actual card.
When was the last time I set out on a photo shoot specifically to find barns?
It’s so long ago that I don’t remember. Sure I’ve grabbed barn images on my way to and from other places. But to go out looking for barns?
It’s been forever.
Last Sunday morning the blue sky sported fluffy white clouds as accessories and I just could not stop myself. It was physically impossible not to get into the car and start driving.
I tried to keep it reasonable. After all, gas around here is regularly over $4.00 a gallon. And I was driving a new car with low mileage that we’d like to keep low. At least for awhile.
But still…blue sky and barns. Maybe the soybeans just north of us would be turning yellow. It was a possibility given the lack of rain lately.
Blue sky and barns and yellow soybeans. Yep I could see it in my head. Would I find it in reality?
I drove for a total of three hours, slightly up north, a bit over to the west, around big country blocks, looking for the image in my brain.
I never found it, exactly. The soybeans are a persistent green, though if you squint you can sort of see a yellowish cast in small parts of the fields. Or that could just be me and wishful thinking.
I didn’t shoot any amazing barns, though I saw three really beautiful ones while I was on a busy road with nowhere to pull over. You’ll just have to conjure those up in your own minds.
But I found some pretty enough barns and experienced a few faded memories of driving these same roads years ago on other barn hunts.
It was a nice day. The sky, in the end, was the star of the show.
And I smiled at it on my drive back home. In my experience you can almost always count on the sky to come through for you, day or night when you’re out looking for something pretty.
It was a short, sweet and fun barn hunt that sort of eased the wanderlust in me. For the moment anyway. I know there are barns out there just waiting to be found. And maybe there’s one in the middle of a yellow soybean field if I get lucky and time it right.
I haven’t gone on any camping trips this summer, but I’ve had the tent up in the backyard a few times. Today I took it down for perhaps the last time this season. It had been up for a couple weeks and last night when I slept out there I was freezing! It seems silly to sleep in the backyard and be cold when I have a perfectly fine bed in a heated home.
Right?
My tent, tucked into a corner of the backyard with the rain fly already off.
Still, I feel sad to put it away.
I’m also sad because I didn’t get Penny comfortable with the tent this summer, though we tried several times. Out of all our attempts to sleep out there together, she made it through an entire night only once.
I have great hope for next summer though.
Today as I disassembled the tent I found the usual daddy long-leg spiders hanging out. I always find a few of those, no matter if I’m in my backyard or at a campground. I don’t know what attracts them to the tent. I always move them gently to a shrub nearby.
Today, here in my own backyard, I found a couple more insects hiding out. I don’t know what either of these is.
The dark one looked kind of scary, and when I went to move it off the tent it leaped off on it’s own. I only jumped a little.
But the most surprising thing I found under the rain fly, but still on the outside of the tent, were four, yes four, tiny tree frogs.
They are adorable and about the size of a dime, maybe a little bigger.
I’ve never found tree frogs on my tent before. I wonder about these guys and what caused them to climb up the tent and hide in the folds and under straps.
I hope I found them all.
Next season maybe I’ll put the tent up in a spot further away from the woods.
Next summer I’ll be older and more mature, mom.
Until then I’ll dream of listening to the frogs and bugs and coyotes sing all night while I’m snug in my real bed nice and warm.
This week I was washing dishes and caught this Coopers Hawk sitting on my deck railing.
I quietly slid away and walked silently to the living room to grab my camera. Amazingly enough Penny moved silently next to me.
I didn’t really expect the bird to still be there when I returned. They generally don’t wait for me.
But he (or she) was still there, seemingly unfazed. I watch it for a long time, even moving to a better window. It picked up one foot and tucked it into it’s chest feathers.
And then suddenly it flew. I expected that to be it.
But it only flew about 3 feet, to the corner of the deck where it could inspect the ground under some shrubs.
We used to have quite a few chipmunks. I haven’t seen one in awhile.
Then it flew away, and I figured that was it. But it showed up again about 10 minutes later, back on the deck railing, watching the back yard, inspecting the ground and the sky.
Turns out he or she was being harassed by bees.
When it left, being pursued by the bees, I was SURE I wouldn’t see it again.
Until about 30 minutes later when I walked through the master bedroom and guess who was on the bedroom deck railing? I didn’t have my camera with me, so these were taken with my phone.
Yep, our favorite (or perhaps least liked, depending on whether you’re a chipmunk) bird.
But…is this the same bird? Or a different one? Perhaps they’re a couple? Or parent and child?
I’ve been gone for a week, and when I came back I was surprised to see how well the zinnias were doing. Along with other stuff. But mostly the zinnias.
Last evening I took the dog out after her supper. The garden was mostly in shadow. But there was one beautiful monarch zipping among the blossoms.
Notice the tongue slurping up the nectar.
We went back inside for the camera. Poor Penny had to wait to do her business while I stood there, foot on her leash and shot over 200 images.
She’s a good girl. Patient about her mom taking pictures of stuff not her. I promised her I’d take her to the park soon.
Change Is Hard 