Another lazy Sunday afternoon watching the clouds going by even if small like popcorn kernels.
Popcorn Clouds
Picture of the Day for August 31, 2013
The Last Rose of Summer is a poem by Irish poet Thomas Moore in 1805 while at Jenkinstown Park in County Kilkenny, Ireland. Moore’s poem starts out ” ‘Tis the last rose of summer, Left blooming alone; All her lovely companions, Are faded and gone;” and this the wild rose has long faded and is gone from sight.
Wild roses bloom from June through late summer. The petals come in varying shades of pink, with yellow stamens decorating the flower’s center. The rose has been around for about 35 million years and grows naturally throughout North America. The petals and rose hips are edible and have been used in medicines since ancient times.
The Last Wild Rose of Summer
Picture of the Day for August 27, 2013
With another hot, scorching day, all I can think of is the western movies with the desert scenes and the vultures waiting for the next victim.
The Skull
Picture of the Day for August 26, 2013
The heat and high humidity continues and the sun even appears hotter than normal.
Hot Sun
Picture of the Day for August 23, 2013
This newly opened sunflower is smiling in the sunshine and many others are smiling because it is Friday and the weekend is near.
The sunflower (Helianthus annuus) is an annual plant native to the Americas. The earliest known examples in the United States of a fully domesticated sunflower have been found in Tennessee, and date to around 2300 BC.
What is usually called the “flower” on a mature sunflower is actually a “flower head” (also known as a “composite flower”) of numerous florets (small flowers) crowded together. The outer petal-bearing florets (ray florets) are sterile and can be yellow, red, orange, or other colors. The florets inside the circular head are called disc florets, which mature into seeds.
The flower petals within the sunflower’s cluster are always in a spiral pattern. Generally, each floret is oriented toward the next by approximately the golden angle, 137.5°, producing a pattern of interconnecting spirals, where the number of left spirals and the number of right spirals are successive Fibonacci numbers. Typically, there are 34 spirals in one direction and 55 in the other; on a very large sunflower there could be 89 in one direction and 144 in the other. This pattern produces the most efficient packing of seeds within the flower head.
(And for those who haven’t had math class is a while, the Fibonacci numbers are the numbers in the following integer sequence: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, …, where the first two numbers in the Fibonacci sequence are 0 and 1, and each subsequent number is the sum of the previous two. And the sunflower uses 34 and 55 or 89 and 144.)
The Golden Sunflower
Picture of the Day for August 18, 2013
Watching the clouds go by on a warm, lazy, summer afternoon.
Lazy Summer Day
Picture of the Day for August 17, 2013
The center of the black-eyed susan is soaking up the sun and later this fall, hundreds of seeds will land on the ground and some will take root for more yellow beauty next year.
Black-eyed Susan
Picture of the Day for August 16, 2013
The evening waning light, summer crickets chirping, the rustling of leaves and grass swaying in the breeze.
Swaying Grass
Picture of the Day for August 15, 2013
The lilies are dancing in the summertime sunshine and adding bright colors against the green backdrop.
Dancing Lily
Picture of the Day for August 14, 2013
One often thinks of a cardinal as a winter bird as its red colors stand out against the white snow since they do not molt into a dull winter plumage but they are rather striking in the summer time too. In summer, their sweet whistles are one of the first sounds of the morning.
Only a few female North American songbirds sing, but the female Northern Cardinal does, and often while sitting on the nest. This may give the male information about when to bring food to the nest. A mated pair shares song phrases, but the female may sing a longer and slightly more complex song than the male.
Northern Cardinal
