friday's fringe 22 - pretty in pink!

one Orange-barred Sulphur feeding on a Hibiscus...

 enter a second...

“Follow the spiders.  Why spiders?   Why couldn't it be 'follow the butterflies!’”   

~J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

lk

Blooms. Bee. Butterfly. Birds...DAM!

thanks!

but, nope...i didn't paint this.

'gimp' did.  a (free) photo manipulation program.

 i turned it into an oil painting from one of my blooming Azalea pictures.

 cool, yeah!

the Azaleas are attracting bees and butterflies!

Orange-barred Sulphur

TWO Orange-barred Sulphurs

 that's not the ONLY TWO for ONE i've spotted this week...

a Pileated Woodpecker

 

TWO Pileateds!!

oOo

saturday we went for a drive to Rodman Reservoir...

one of the best DAM places in Florida for Largemouth Bass.

we wanted to check out the campground.

it was nothing special, but it'll do for a weekend of fishing sometime.

a Cormorant

(Snail...this one's for YOU...)

 

 Watching clouds roll by
on a sunny day
Who needs church?
Nature is divine.
~Carrie Latet

 a Great Blue Heron

(not 'gators floating in the background. the reservoir is on a draw down right now

and there are stumps & logs jutting out of what's left of the water!)

well, what do you know...

i actually captured a Bald Eagle flying away with his catch of the day!

blinded by the light...when sam said 'LOOK! an eagle!'

i pointed UP, crossed my fingers and...clicked!

a small piece of weathered wood

stuck between a rock and a hard place.

"can't you give me a little elbow room here! this wood's got to breathe!"

today is an errand day.

and tomorrow i have only one appointment in the morning.

SO,

between this afternoon and tomorrow...

i plan to enter blogland...and not leave until i have circled the world!

have a safe journey & stay cool.

laura

The heart of a mother is a deep abyss 

at the bottom of which 

you will always find forgiveness.  

~Honoré de Balzac

sunday's shuffle

gobble-gobble!

looks like everyone's getting ready for the holidays.

o~o~o~o~o~o

i finished that 'wing, feather & pressed flower window hanger' i started a week or so ago.

if you take a look at my previous 2 posts...

you can see the 'step by step'...

from a piece of glass...

to the finished 'window hanger'.

What art offers is space - 

a certain breathing room 

for the spirit.

~John Updike

o~o~o~o~o~o

the nights are getting cooler. we can open up the windows and let the fresh air in...

without the A/C kicking on! yay!!  it's excellent cuddle weather!

and with the cooler weather...much of the underbrush dies out...

which means we can go exploring deeper into the woods out back.

(another YAY!!)

(dead) tree snail in yard

the rest of the year, the only way to get through there

 is with a machete to cut away the vines...

or follow the little critters' paths...on hands and knees. 

NAH, we'd rather wait until everything dies back naturally.

Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.

~John Muir

a woodpecker feather out front...

now in a jar with other found feathers

air fern and fungi on a fallen branch

last week we had one day with pretty strong winds.

when that happens...we always have dead branches falling out of the trees.

at least we hope...it's just branches. 

we've had entire trees fall over!

"Every now and again take a good look 

at something not made with hands--a mountain, a star, the turn of a stream. 

There will come to you wisdom and patience and solace and, above all, 

the assurance that you are not alone in the world."

~Sidney Lovett 

this is resurrection fern. growing on some of the old oak trees in the yard.

it's an air fern...that will look as though it's dead through drought season...

then 'come alive' after a good rain.

o~o~o~o~o~o

OH! i found another 'owl pellet'...

(the regurgitated stuff that the owl can't digest)

more on 'owl pellets'  here: the tiniest bones

see all the tiny bones?!! 

this pellet is NOT a fresh one, 

like the others i've been lucky enough to find.

next step - dissect - clean & sanitize -

and then try to figure out what little critter the owl feasted on.

o~o~o~o~o~o

...and so...i leave you with a few pic's of plants that are still blooming in our yard.

it's nice to see some spring color...hanging in there...

orange-barred sulpher butterfly

                                      

The earth laughs in flowers.  

~e.e. cummings

happy autumn!

'til next time...stay cool...

discover. wander. get lost.

balance.

open your eyes. open your mind. breathe deep.

harmony.

skip. hop. be silly. laugh.

laura  :]

"How old would you be if you didn't know how old you was?"   

~Satchel Paige 

yard critters and passing MOO's

like i said in my previous  post, frisky friday...

Back to Nature next time. and that...would...be...now.

i've taken some pretty cool pictures over the past few days.

hang on...let's go for a ride...

this is an Orange Barred Sulpher Butterfly.

(want to learn MORE about butterflies and moths? check out this link!!)

 Grasshopper on the front 

                               window screen. 

the Gulf Fritillary Butterfly. 

their wings are a beautiful silver on the under side.

this one was across the street...in the field...

Flowers and butterflies drift in color, illuminating spring.  ~Author Unknown

i love to read...and learn about all the plants, insects, vertebrates that i see all around me. i found this pretty informative  "ID Nature" site the other day 

so i thought i'd pass it along...Discover Life. 

i also added it to the side bar under "more cool places to check out".

this is the Red-Bellied Woodpecker.

 i found this garden site where they have short, easy to understand 

descriptions of the EIGHT florida woodpeckers....

along with nice pictures for ID.

Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something. 

 ~Henry David Thoreau 

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, 

to match your nature with nature.  ~Joseph Campbell 

last week...on my way to a client's house...

(i do ALOT of driving. i'm a massage therapist, 

and have been making in-home visits for 13 years).

i passed this field of COWS. 

it's one of the University of Florida's Agriculture/Beef teaching fields.

"NUMBER 7404 PLEASE STEP UP...FRONT and CENTER!"

and lastly...i caught these two lovebugs with my camera.

as soon as the females emerge...they look for a mate...

attach themselves to each other...

yep - in the mating position...and that's how they stay! 

you RARELY see a lone lovebug!

 if you don't live in the southeast...then you might not know about these tiny 'nuisance' bugs. the good thing is they don't bite or sting. but they can come in swarms...and when driving...their little squished bodies on the windshield can make it very difficult to see, they can clog the radiator, and due to the acidity of their bodies, they can corrode your car's metal if they're not washed off within a couple of days. 

there is/was an Urban Legend...myth...folklore about the LoveBug...

which some people STILL believe...

that lovebugs are synthetic and are the result 

of  a University of Florida's genetic experiment gone wrong!!

you can read more about this and the lovebug here at wiki...

OR go to the UF extension site here for more lovebug info.

Life is not having been told that the man has just waxed the floor.  ~Ogden Nash 

well...'til next time. enjoy nature. stay cool.

laura :]

Honesty: The best of all the lost arts.   ~Mark Twain