Monday, November 18, 2013

Rhubarb in the Garden

24 February 2012

Have you ever seen rhubarb growing? We have it in the garden, and it is a beautiful plant. Look how exquisite the leaves are.


This is the blossom cluster, not yet fully open but you can see the flowers beginning to peek out.

Dewdrops

26 January 2013

This morning we were treated to a dazzling display of dewdrops sparkling in the sunlight. I can never resist photographing dewdrops, even though my photos never seem to capture that elusive sparkle and glow the way my eye sees it.




Raking Leaves

05 January 2013

Spent the past two days raking leaves and ended up with this enormous pile!

 This was a LOT of work, no wonder people used to be healthier when sweeping, raking and mowing were all done manually without motorized equipment.

[NOTE: I am actually writing this entry eleven months later, and I'm delighted to report that I had to get rid of those jeans months ago because I shrunk out of them.]

Fall Critters

08 November 2013

The leaves are falling in piles from the nut trees in the yard. This morning our resident squirrel was up in the tree with a nut in his mouth and tried to scold me with his mouth full, waving his tail and making muffled noises. It was so funny! He is very pretty, the coloring is golden. He didn't sit still for a photo, but resembles this picture from Wikipedia:

Of course, ours is much fatter, having eaten all of the macadamia nuts - he has expensive taste.

I also found this beautiful insect this morning, about 4 inches long. Anyone know what it is?



Sadly, I left the insect where it was after photographing it, and the next time I went outside, my cat Mao had gotten at it. The poor leaf bug was on the ground shaking, and one of its legs was damaged. I rescued it and put it up in a tree on the other side of the house where the cat couldn't see me do it. I hope it can survive the damage to its leg.

When I put it in the tree, which still has green leaves, its camouflage was quite amazing.