This piece of wood looks as washed out after the rains as some of flowers and critters and I know they are looking forward to some sunshine.
Washed Out
Things in nature is often fleeting, like seeing a deer for the few seconds before it disappears into the woods or the tree frog I just saw leaping onto a branch, so if you see something looking pretty, you better grab the camera and not plan to get it later. The peonies were in full bloom yesterday morning and this morning after the rain, the ground is covered in pink and the remaining blossoms look tattered and shaggy.
Blossoms Before the Rain
Yesterday I saw fields of hay being raked so it could be baled up. The rake had ten wheels to create windrows which is a lot different than the old dump rakes that were hard to make straight rows for a baler. The old dump rakes would drag and rake the hay and then the operator would ‘dump’ the clump of hay and then on the next pass, the goal was to drop the hay in the same line which wasn’t always easy to do.
An Old Dump Rake
When I approached my pond to take the picture of the Blueflag blooming, I scared up a bird that was near the flowers and although the bird floated like a duck, it wasn’t a duck as it doesn’t have webbed feet. Belonging to the rail family, the American Coot walks like a chicken but swims like a duck and is also called a mud hen. They have big feet with lobed toes and to take flight, the clumsy flier must patter across the water to get airborne which is probably why it didn’t fly off like the ducks do when I go near the pond.
American Coot
This North American native Iris is common is common in sedge meadows, marshes, and along stream banks and shores, so the Blueflag probably liked the last few rainy days, but it was hard for me to get a picture during the rain before the fleeting blossom disappeared. And when the sun came out, the wind was blowing the flower around and made it hard to stay in the frame.
Blueflag Waving