Dragonfly, Dragonfly

Dragonfly, dragonfly
Take me up high
To your little world
Up in the sky

On your wings of blue
I see a flicker of light
That's all you need to see
In the darkness of night

When you're tired
Find a lantern on which to rest
That's when your powers
Will be put to the test

Span your wings
Bathe in heat
But please be careful
Or you'll be a frog's dinner to eat
(author unknown)

There is lots of dragonfly activity in the garden these days. Today I saw blue ones in the pond plants, red ones on the flowers and a brown one checking out the new patio furniture!

That's amore...

When the moon hits your eye
Like a big-a pizza pie
That's amore
When the world seems to shine
Like you've had too much wine
That's amore
(Dean Martin lyrics)

Jeff called on his way home last night and told me I better get outside with my camera as there was a beautiful full moon rising...Thanks Jeff...

THAT'S AMORE!
I'm still practicing on my hummer shots but at least found a speed that captures the wing feathers...
I will really miss these guys when they head south.

Spider web

The spider weaves a sticky web
To capture bugs to eat.
What keeps the spider's sticky web
From sticking to her feet?

Spider webs are very tricky
Because not all the strands are sticky.
Unlike the passing hapless fly,
The spider knows which strands are dry.

But if she accidentally stands
Upon one of the sticky strands,
She still would not get stuck, you see--
Her oily body slides off free.
(Amy Goldman Koss)
I saw this spider drop from a lisanthus yesterday and upon closer inspection saw that it was spinning a web. It created the main spokes (first shot) by dropping from point to point and then started at the outside perimeter and webbed towards the center.
It was still working on the center section...
when this poor little bee flew into the side. It quickly went over and rolled it around and around wrapping it in silk...
and then took it underneath a lisanthus blossom for a private meal. This whole process from starting the web to capturing the meal took about 15-20 minutes...amazing!

hummers...

It is a cloudy, drizzly day so not the best quality photos but there is so much hummingbird activity in the garden I just had to go out and take a few shots. This gal thinks she is queen of the garden and perches up high on the weathervane to chase the others away from her favorite feeder.
Even a lady has an itch... (this one is definitely worth clicking for the larger view as she is scratching her neck)


a few minutes later she perched on a different part of the weathervane and still had the itch...
I am thankful for my zoom lens!

Comments and cameras....

I always love seeing where my readers are from and this past week, I heard from 2 new readers in South Dakota and Michigan. Wow, it is amazing to me to see who is checking out my little "life in the garden" blog and to check out the counter on the right to see the number of hits it receives in a day! The most frequent question I am asked is "what kind of camera do you have?" Well, the answer is a Canon Digital Rebel. For years, I had a 35mm Canon Rebel with a 75-300mm zoom lens and loved it. Then the digital age arrived and the Digital Rebel was out of my price range so I invested in a smaller Canon camera which still took awesome photos but I missed my zoom capability too much! So I started making photo cards and selling them on another website and earned enough to pay for most of the cost of a digital rebel. My old lens now has 400mm zoom capabilities with the extra enhancement of the digital camera and I am once again a very happy "shooter" :-)
The lens allows me to take shots like this one of a butterfly about 20 ft up in a pine tree...
and this one where I am standing about 8 feet away.

Another comment I have been receiving via email is that readers would like to comment more often but find the blogger comment process complicated or they do not want their comment out there for the whole world to see. For that reason I have added a new email address in the profile and it is marsha-garden at hotmail.com. Of course you know to run it all together with the @ sign but it is better for me to write it out with spaces to avoid spammers searching the blogs for addresses.

It's time...

for the annual monarch migration! I noticed large amounts of monarchs in the garden early this morning and so I went out with my camera to check the trees and found exactly what I was looking for :-) They have started the annual migration and I did a quick check back at last year's post, and see they are about a week earlier this year.

"If nothing ever changed, there'd be no butterflies." ~Author Unknown

A butterfly flights beside us like a Sunbeam
And for a brief moment it’s glory and beauty
Belong to our world,
But then it flies on again;
And though we wish it could have stayed,
We feel so lucky to have seen it.
(author unknown)


This is one of those photos that makes a person wish they were just a little faster with the camera! I was taking shots of the butterflies on this branch when lo and behold a hummingbird came to check them out thinking they were nectar producing blossoms! I managed to get the camera half way focused just as he was flying out of view...look closely at the far right hand side of the photo :-)

the fog...

I like the fog
It's soft and cool,
It hides everything
On the way to school.
I can't see a house
I can't see a tree,
Because the fog
Is playing with me.
The sun comes out
The fog goes away,
But it shall be back
Another day.
(author unkown)
The fog descended this morning and the garden is such a peaceful place to be...imagine stillness only broken by the sounds of falling water and the mournful call of the mourning doves.
"Be still, and know that I am God"
Psalm 46:10

they're driving me nuts!

I'm a fur, fur, furry, squirrel,
With a bush, bush, bushy tail,
And I scamper here and there,
Scamper everywhere,
Searching for some NUTS!
I've got nuts on my nose, nuts on my toes,
Nuts on my head, nuts in my bed,
Nuts in my paws, nuts in my jaws,
Pop, crack!
Yum, yum!
(Jackie Silberg)
These guys are getting quite brave at the feeders and not even running when I open the window to scare them off. Yes, I know they are one of God's creatures too but do they have to damage all the feeders? I have been slowly switching to all plastic/metal feeders as they chew the wood ones apart to get at the peanuts and sunflower seeds.
There was a little squirrel.
He ran up a tree.
When he turned around
He threw a nut at me.

I wouldn't be a bit surprised if that was his next move!

a world of loveliness...

"I am sure it is a great mistake always to know enough to go in when it rains. One may keep snug and dry by such knowledge, but one misses a world of loveliness." ~Adeline Knapp

It has been a rainy weekend and a drizzly Monday morning but it is still a beautiful sight for our drought parched fields and gardens. Thank you to Laura, for identifying these mexican shell flowers for me after I posted the unknown red one earlier.
Rain or shine the garden is an active place to be. There are bees everywhere and they are busily gathering pollen...look how much this guy has stored up.The hummingbirds were also busy flying from flower to flower in the drizzle last night. I braved the dampness (after all I didn't want to miss the loveliness) to get some close ups but found it was almost impossible to focus before they flew out of range...another skill I will have to practice at :-)

Afternoon reflections...

After spending the afternoon working in the garden...I took a break to sit in the shade with a cool drink and my camera. First I noticed the reed's reflected in the pond's surface as well as their shadows striping across the lily pads.
Then I watched a little red breasted nuthatch hang upside on pine boughs eating the seeds from the cones.

My last shot is another "Where's Waldo" one...can you spot the little warbler?I've kind of gotten away from my favorite plant of the day posts so this maroon leaf one is another plant I highly recommend. It is a "Maple Sugar" hibiscus from Proven Winners that is such a large and showy plant. It has not bloomed yet, but the foilage alone is worth it.

Blue = no worries...

I just read this quote in a magazine.
"The color blue reduces the body's physical response to worry. So when you start to feel overwhelmed, take a minute to admire the beautiful blue sky!"
The sky is pretty but I relaxed this morning while photographing this blue butterfly...his back almost looks like it has fur!

the B..B..B..B's

B is for Bumblebee
and a Bath for a flicker
and for Butterflies
and a Blue Gray Gnatcatcher!

In birdwatching, a "lifer" is your first time to spot a new bird which you then check off in your bird guide. Yesterday, I was lucky enough to spot this guy flitting around the back of the garden. I had to get out the trusty "Encyclopedia of North American Birds" just to identify this little guy who is a lifer for me. Today, I took the other 3 photos to round out my "B" shots and you had to settle for the flicker taking a bath because the bluejays weren't very cooperative :-)

Blessings...

May flowers always line your path and sunshine light your day.
May songbirds serenade you every step along the way.
May a rainbow run beside you in a sky that's always blue.
And may happiness fill your heart each day your whole life through.
~Irish Blessing



No words today...that Irish Blessing says it all!

Red

Cherries are RED,
Daylilies are too;
But did you know...
the head of a sandhill crane was too?
No, we didn't go back to Door Co. this weekend, those cherries are in the backyard of Jayme & Scott's. We had a great weekend up north visiting the newlyweds and enjoyed their hospitality and homegrown cherries, raspberries and blueberries. We saw these sand hill cranes in a field on the way home. Sorry for the photo quality but I had to really zoom in to get a decent shot.

Hop, Hop, Hop

Hop, Hop, Hop
My, what strength
A grasshopper hops
Twenty times its length
Hop in the grass
Or on a single blade,
Hop in the sun
Or hop in the shade.
Farmer says, "Grasshopper,
Stay off my crop!"
There goes the grasshopper,
HOP, HOP, HOP

I've been seeing plenty of these guys in the garden this week...
is this a sign that summer is almost over?This beautiful bloom is another one of those cheap packages of bulbs I bought at Menards this spring. I can't find my package so I don't even know the name but it sure looks exotic in a MN garden!
What the well dressed garden dog is wearing these days :-) She had surgery on Tuesday and needs to wear a clean t-shirt everyday to keep her from licking/scratching her incision...actually works very well! So far, she's been fashionable in navy, white & red...
I'll have to see if I can find an old pink one :-)