08/17/25

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  I had a neat and unexpected experience in Colorado this summer.  I was out for a walk one evening in the town we were camping in and discovered that there is a manufacturer of railroad locomotive parts, Ulco, located in that town.  The owner had a wonderful grand scale locomotive that he and his father had built years ago.  He operates it every now and then and was going to operate on the day we were going to head home.  We ended up staying later and I ended up firing up the locomotive and getting to operate it for a short distance.  It's an amazingly well detailed and built locomotive based on the ones that the Cumbres & Toltec and Durango and Silverton's Railroads run.  It has many details that the full size ones have.

08/16/25

 Today's image is of an interesting fungus I was able to capture on a branch in a pile of cut branches.  I found it quite interesting looking with the texture but have no idea what type it is.  In searching with Google Lens it looks like it may be Hexagonal-pored polypore.  These are a fan shaped bracket fungus normally found on dead wood so that pretty much describes it.  Google is wonderful sometimes.  😁

08/15/25

 It's Friday, TGIF!  My Black-eyed Susans are blooming over at the Gazebo pond and making the area look lovely.  They seem to thrive in this area even though it doesn't make sense to me as it is very shady and they normally like a lot of sun.  Whatever, I am happy to see them.  I love the bokeh in this image so sharing it for today because Friday's Are Bokehlicious!

08/14/25

 The last couple of evenings I have been able to see and capture a White-lined Sphinx moth visiting my Surprise Lilies.  They come at dusk and getting a photo is challenging as they move so fast and the light is not very good.  My phone does a really good job of capturing video of them though and I have a very short video of it HERE pollinating these flowers as it gets something to eat.  

08/13/25

 It's Wildflower Wednesday here on the Blog!  Today's flower is one I saw while on a bike ride one day and I actually liked how my phone focused on it.  This is Illinois Tickclover.  It is in the Bean family and can grow to 6 feet and blooms from June through September.  There are hooked hairs on the seed pods which gives them their name.

08/12/25

 In June I was able to see and capture a Loon again in Minnesota.  It was stretching as I was photographed it so I was able to get a bit of an action image.  Most times I only hear them but got lucky on this trip.

08/11/25

 Happy Monday and happy new week!  Starting off the week with a nice bright flower that I am growing this year.  This is a variety of Blanket Flower or Giardia.  The usual ones are orange in color.  This is another I will be interested to see if it comes back next year.