Opus has a new philosophy for photographing flowers and the result is stunning. I couldn’t be more delighted to share them with all of you.
…the spring and early summer has been very good for macro plant photography. I have started thinking of these as plant portraits, rather than just macro photography. …Hope you enjoy seeing them as much as I enjoyed capturing them.
Clover, ©Opus, all rights reserved
Wild Carrot, ©Opus, all rights reserved
The Lily Pond, ©voyager, all rights reserved
This is going to be a strange year for Jack and I. Usually, at about this time of year we pack up the car and head down the highway to the east coast where we spend our summers by the sea, but this year we’ve decided to stay home. My mother’s health has been deteriorating and even though she lives in a nursing home I still worry. I’m an only child so I don’t have a sibling to call on for help. I begged for a brother or sister when I was young, but to no avail. Too bad, an extra pair of eyes and hands would be nice at this stage of life.
When we’re down east in Perce we stay with Mr. V’s mum who is 93 and has been living alone. This mum is still a going concern. Well into her 90’s now she still manages everything well and on her own. She shops and cooks and still bakes cookies because who wants store-bought. She also still drives, irons, gardens and has just found herself a rather nice, very old-fashioned and sweet boyfriend who will be spending the summer with her. He’s just a kid at 78. That means just a bit less worry for us. Our east coast mum will have a wonderful summer even if we can’t be there to share it with her.
Jack hasn’t ever spent a whole summer in Ontario so I’m going to see if I can find a few new trails to keep him engaged. Me too. I like to be outside and I don’t what I’m going to do with myself without my annual hunt for seaglass.
Our tree his week is a bit odd, but I like that in a tree and, obviously, so does Avalus.
The Corkscrew, ©Avalus, all rights reserved
©voyager, all rights reserved
It’s been an overcast and humid day here, but at least it didn’t get overly hot. Still, neither Jack nor I like the humidity so we went out early to avoid the warmest part of the day. We just went to our familiar forest, but a pack of 4 shaggy, black and white springer spaniels livened things up a bit. They bounded up at us from behind, ran a few circles around Jack – all going in different directions and then bounded off down the path without stopping to take a breath. It all happened so fast that Jack didn’t get a chance to say Hi or Bye and he loves to say both. I think he felt cheated so I gave him an extra milk-bone and soon enough the world was right again and off we went.
Mondays are always better with flowers and Avalus has sent us some gorgeous Iris to help us start the week.
There was a beautiful patch of irises that attracted many visitors.
©Avalus, all rights reserved
©Avalus, all rights reserved
Like this bumblebee, just caught while taking off…
©Avalus, all rights reserved
And this leaf bug.
©Avalus, all rights reserved
©voyager, all rights reserved
©voyager, all rights reserved
I was off helping a friend today, so Jack and his daddy had a boys day without me. They are well-trained scouts, though, and upon my return I was told that the poppies are blooming at the end of the street. I grabbed my camera and set out to take a few shots. There are about a dozen flowers in total, but today only one was fully blooming. The rest look set to open tomorrow and I’ll definitely be back to take another look. I can’t resist those blood orange petals or their pompons of purple chenille.
©voyager, all rights reserved
The peonies next door. ©voyager, all rights reserved
Jack and I got a late start today because of rain. I wasn’t really feeling all that energetic either, so we stuck close to home and walked around the neighbourhood. Jack likes to do that every few days so he can keep up with the P-mail. When we’re on a trail I don’t notice that Jack is slow, but in town on a leash Jack dawdles and dithers and takes forever to get all the way around. It’s his nose. It takes him in all sorts of odd directions, even backwards. He inches along inhaling deeply, seldom looking up and stopping often for an in-depth nosing. Sometimes he licks this or that particular blade of grass and sometimes he lifts his head to sniff the air around him, usually with his mouth open like a cat. He carefully leaves his own news in rationed dribbles on important posts and seldom leaves more than a few drops in any one place, believing that brevity is the soul of wit.
It’s a perfectly posed arachnid from Avalus who says,
This spider found herself caught in glassware one morning in our lab. I contained it with a glass funnel to take the photo and released it.
I’ll bet that spider tells the story of this adventure at all the spider gatherings. Not everyone will believe her.
The photo is below the fold
©voyager, all rights reserved
I’ve been waiting weeks for the first and only flower on my new purple peony bush to open. It sat there for the longest time just being a big, plump bud that didn’t change and I’ve been getting impatient. Well, finally, yesterday it started to unfurl and by late afternoon its petals were getting ready to spread themselves open to the sun. I was getting excited… and then the wind started to blow. And then the rain came and then my beautiful purple peony blew open and apart. Well, damn. At least the bees don’t mind. They’ve been busily gathering pollen all day so it hasn’t been a total loss.
©voyager, all rights reserved
These pretty flowers were sent in by Avalus, who isn’t sure what type of plant this is. I don’t know either, but the flowers are certainly beautiful and I’m hoping that one of you can help us identify it.
©Avalus, all rights reserved
©voyager, all rights reserved
The forest is slowly passing into summer. The trilliums have vanished from the landscape and the Jack-in-the-pulpits are fading out, but the false Solomon’s seal is exploding into bloom all over the forest floor. I think their star-shaped flowers look like fireworks and I love the gentle curve of their leaves. Their flowers should last for another week or so and then the white will fade to green and the forest will turn itself to the business of growing the trees another season bigger.
I’ve had the Monkey Puzzle Tree on my list of trees to share with you so I was delighted to receive these photos in our mail this week. It comes from Lofty and it’s a splendid specimen.
An interesting tree that was planted in a local park over 100 years ago, a South American “Monkey Puzzle” tree.
©Lofty, all rights reserved
©Lofty, all rights reserved
©Lofty, all rights reserved
The tree was given the name “Monkey Puzzle” in about 1850 by a British Barrister named Charles Austin who remarked upon seeing the tree in an English garden “It would puzzle a monkey to climb that.” The tree had no common name at the time and so monkey puzzle stuck. The tree is a long-lived conifer and is now cultivated in temperate zones world-wide. Unfortunately, in its home range of South America the tree is on the Endangered list because of logging and fires. – source: Wikipedia
Thanks Lofty. Your timing was spot on.
©voyager, all rights reserved
Jack and I came across a bit of forest cute today; a baby chipmunk. Well, I say Jack and I, but Jack was too busy sniffing and snuffling to even notice the creature. The chippy looked to be fairly young and it sat for a few seconds checking us out before dashing away on some important business.