On a warm summer day, the pond is full of activity with frogs, fish, tadpoles, damselflies and dragonflies. This dragonfly was busy laying her eggs in the water. The eggs are surrounded by a jelly-like substance which helps the eggs to stick to plants or the bottom of the pond.
Laying Eggs
When I headed out last evening to take the sunset picture, I spotted a silk moth flying around. It almost landed in the tree but then took off flying towards the road to where I was headed for the sunset, so I picked up my pace to try to capture both. The trip was cut short and I never made it to my destination due to a critter coming down the driveway towards me, one long tail black and white Pepé Le Pew! I slowly headed back to the house without my pictures due to the skunk arrival, so here is a sunset picture from a prior day.
An Uninterrupted Sunset
The old farmstead may no longer have activity inside the buildings without livestock under its roof, but the land is still being farmed. Many farmers were working today getting hay cut or baled up.
Old Red Farmstead
When I was taking the picture of this blossom, I didn’t realize that there was two blossoms stacked together so it makes it harder to identify but I believe it is call Asiatic Dayflower (which isn’t a native flower). If I was closer to the blossoms, I might have noticed it was two but to get the picture, I was on my knees and arm stretched out over the rock and that clump of blue caught my eye.
Doubled Up
When seeing this Great Blue Heron from a distance, I thought it was stuck in a piece of driftwood until I realized it was his wings I was seeing. I had never spotting a heron sunning his wings before so it was an interesting pose to capture.
Birds assume one of several wing postures to sun – such as spread wing, droop wing and delta wing. I believe this pose is referred to as the delta wing sunning pose. Besides sunning, the wings may be held out to dry it feathers, lose heat, show off to rivals or to shades its eggs or babies.
Heron Catching Some Sun
Yesterday the clouds and river had some gentle swirls midday as people enjoyed the St. Croix River in kayaks, canoes and boats before the storms moved in later in the day. The little speck of orange from a kayak looks tiny against the rock cliffs where walls in the Dalles area rise from 50 to 250 feet above the river.
Enjoying the St. Croix River
The barns are filled with new kittens and some are adventuring out and causing trouble but this evening they better seek shelter inside the barn because of the approaching storm.
Innocent Kitten
Since 1776, the Fourth of July or Independence Day, July 4th has been celebrated as the birth of American independence. The holiday activities range from fireworks, parades and concerts to more casual family gatherings and barbecues.
Independence isn’t always very easy, and when the initial battles in the Revolutionary War broke out in early 1775, few colonists desired complete independence from Great Britain but soon the sentiments changed for independence. The young birds sitting in the tree branches this morning hollering for food aren’t quite ready for independence as they depend on their parents yet but soon they will venture out in the world on their own.
Gaining Independence
Some fireworks were heard in the neighborhood last night and some of the towns will have their big firework displays tonight instead of tomorrow night, so there will be a few more noisy evenings.
Early Fireworks
Those hiking through the woods on this long Fourth of July weekend, might see pink flowers looking like miniature fireworks rising two to four feet above the forest floor, ready to burst open while other blossoms are already displaying their beauty.
Pointed-leaf Tick-trefoil
