It's Friday, TGIF! Friday's Are Bokehlicious as well so I chose this image for today. I thought the wall behind created an interesting bokeh. This is a Painted Lady Butterfly visiting my Sedum this past September with a bug of some sort incoming as well.
Today's image is one I hope I get to see again this year. I grow Milkweed that is the Monarch Butterfly's main source of food for it's young. I had several caterpillars this year which was very cool. I hope they grew into the Monarchs I saw in my yard later on. I have yet to find a cocoon.
It's Wildflower Wednesday here on the Blog! Today's flower is one I enjoy finding, Fringe Leaf Ruellia. It can grow very low to the ground so often is hidden by taller vegetation, I think I see it most where it has been mowed, usual height is 4 to 20 inches. They usually bloom June through September. It is also known as a Prairie Petunia and is very drought hardy. Livestock will eat it as well.
This bird is one that I always enjoy seeing because it means summer has come to our area. This is a Dickcissel named for their call. They are colored similar to Meadowlarks but are smaller and chunkier. When they migrate, they assemble into very large flocks. It's classified as part of the Cardinal family but is actually difficult to determine it's closest relatives.
Happy Monday and happy new week! It's also a double digit day today! 😁 Today's image is the last flake that I took images of during a snow on the 28th of December. The snow was beginning to break up very badly as it was windy and that made it difficult to take images because it was moving the flakes around as well so this is not my best effort but I thought it turned out fairly well. Hopefully I will have had another opportunity over the weekend for other images as we were supposed to get snow as I type this. This image is a 6 image stack.
It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog! I have a very steamy image for today. This is my Accucraft Live Steam locomotive after it had been repaired this past year for leaky cylinders. I was operating it on a friend's layout during his steam up event. The steam out of the smokestack showed up very well against the sun setting sky.
I was out for a walk recently and there was a spectacular sunset that was wonderful to watch it change and lasted longer than I thought it would. It began with lovely light hues of orange and yellow but ended up with these vibrant reds and oranges. I was lucky to be in a good spot for this color without a lot of houses around. I thought the clouds kind of gave this image a 3D effect.
