Category: Picture of the Day

Picture of the Day for July 22, 2012

When I was taking pictures of the purple bee balm, a hummingbird clearwing moth appeared briefly. They move rather quickly so it is hard to get a shot of them. I have lots of shots with the flower only as they darted away as I pressed the button.

The Hummingbird Clearwing, is a moth of the Sphingidae family but you first might think it is a hummingbird by its flight patterns as it hovers, sipping nectar from the flowers a few seconds before finding a new flower.

Hummingbird Clearwing

Picture of the Day for July 18, 2012

This morning I found my old maple tree on the ground. It had weathered a lightning strike, wind storms but finally succumbed to the forces of nature and the beautiful maple is no more. It will no longer wave its bright colored leaves in the fall for the sun to see. Instead it will slowly decay back into the soil but hopefully some of last year’s seeds survived and a new maple will takes it’s place.

Autumn Maple Leaves

Picture of the Day for July 16, 2012

I had a new visitor show up at my place, a cute baby little red squirrel. I have had gray, black and even white ones for a few years but this is the first red one. And he has such a high squeaking chatter compared to the other squirrels that I was able to find him the next day by following the different noise.

He sure is a cute little critter and about the same size as a chipmunk. I thought it was a chipmunk at first running up the side of a tree until I saw the bigger tail.

Picture of the Day for July 15, 2012

As kids, we would pick this grass and try to tickle each other with it (and that’s reason we always called it tickle grass). And while it’s pretty to look at, especially a full field waving in the wind, this foxtail barley grass is not a grass farmers and ranchers want to see in their pastures and fields. Foxtail barley grass has sharply-barbed awns that can cause sores at the nose, eyes, and mouth of livestock.

Foxtail Barley Grass

Picture of the Day for July 14, 2012

The work never ends for farmers and ranchers. It is a tough job since the livestock don’t recognize holidays and they need to be fed in blizzards and storms. There is always the gamble on the weather, whether or not the crops they planted will mature and be plentiful enough to make it to the next year.

Right now the oats are being harvested and hay is being baled. And the day continues well past sunset like this rancher moving his big round hay bales off the field so the new crop of hay can grow.

I take a lot of sunset pictures but this one was a hard shot to get since I was on the road when I spotted the tractor on the hill and for some reason it didn’t stop when I hollered whoa so the first shot had a tree through the tractor and this was the second shot and there were no more shots to take as it disappeared off the hill.

Working Tractor at Sunset