Life in the milkweed patch

Over the summer, I have been checking out the milkweed patches close by.  The abundance of small, interesting creatures that dwell there has provided me with hours of quiet entertainment.

I had never seen this red bug before.

 

 

 

 

 

From far away, this looked like a mosquito; but up close, it looks like something else.

Monarch butterfly catterpillar.  I had to look up which end is the head.

"Nature does not hurry, yet everything gets accomplished."

Lao Tzu

"How I spent my summer vacation"

Remember those "How I spent my summer vacation" essays we had to write when we were kids.  Me, and a lot of my friends who lived on farms, spent a lot of the summer working.  Of course there were days of fun as well, but I really disliked those essays.
This summer I came across a photo challenge: create a photographic essay with the theme "How I spent my summer vacation".  I thought it might be fun to do a photographic essay about a day at the farm - updated considerably from my days as a youngster.

Ready for servicing.

"It is only the farmer who faithfully plants seeds in the Spring, who reaps a harvest in the Autumn."

B. C. Forbes

The colours of rust

The colours that are found in rust are incredible once you see them.

"Color is a power which directly influences the soul."

                    Wassily Kandinsky

Morning walk

I don't have to walk far with my camera.  I just walk and the images materialize before my eyes.

"Walking is man's best medicine." Hippocrates

A robin's nest I never knew was there.

 

 

Morning sun through the birch leaves

Green foxtail in the breeze.

Clover on the camera's "soft focus" setting.

Lilies and daylilies

These are certainly some of the most beautifully coloured flowers in my garden.

 

If you have two loaves of bread, sell one and buy a lily.

Chinese Proverb

Summer morning

When I'm on holidays, I find it easy to get up with the sun and head out with my camera (and a cup of coffee).  On a recent holiday, I did just that.  This occurred during a week of hazy skies due to the smoke from forest fires many hundreds of miles away.  The normally clear sunrise of a summer morning became something completely unexpected.  Alone on a deserted beach for an hour or two is the perfect way to begin the day.

 

The wildlife strolled by, completely unaware of me.

"It was a splendid summer morning and it seemed as if nothing could go wrong."

John Cheever