Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all!

 

 

The Autumn Leaves

Fall Yard Cleanu-up Time.  The oak leaves are dull, and a lot of them to be picked up, but the little red maples are beautiful, even as the curl and shrivel up, and the poor frosted hosta offer a last bit of color. These pictures were taken in the late afternoon light, overcast sky.

Saturday afternoon views

Frosty Mornings

 

Rose with frost melting in the morning sun.

Oak leave with hoary frost fringe.

I might be purty, but brrr, I'm cold!

Loves me, loves me not....

Loves Me, Loves Me Not...

Wha...Zat!??

Really Red Japanese Maple.

Screened Porch View

Pin Oaks....today's edition

Roses in November, have survived a few frosts.

This Fall's First Frost.....

 The mandevilla has been so lovely, gave us 6 months of continuous blooms. But the first frost always kills them, so I buy a new one in the spring.


End of the road for the morning glories, too.
The shasta daisies produced a few late blooms. This one is the home of this little crab spider. She looks rather menacing, huh?

Cartoon of the day

Bugs on Blooms and Beetles on Beans

Japenese beetle on green beans.

Do you know what these are? Some kind of aphid, I assume, with very wooly 'brows'. That's my finger  behind the base of a mandevilla blossom.

Update July 3: I asked Cindy at Bug Safari if she could identify these little guys. Thanks you Cindy!   Here's her reply:

Your little mystery bugs are planthoppers, which are sort of "cousins" to aphids. Many of the planthopper nymphs sport fuzzy "tails". I looked on BugGuide, and yours seem to be a good match for the genus Acanalonia.

Pests on Petals. Small shasta daisy.

This little guy: less than half an inch long.

One Wish

'Wall Flowers' (lantana in foreground)

Welcome to the Seed Cafe

 Waiting line at the Seed Cafe. I have just refilled it, and here is the cardinal family and a bunch of sparrows. About a dozen different kinds of birds here, as well as the squirrels, who knock most of it out onto the ground, which there also feeds the chipmunks and the baby squirrels, who have not yet learned to climb the feeder pole.

The cardinals are rather bossy, and don't like to share with anyone.

 These two were sharing it all with a flock of sparrows. The chipmunk really has his cheek pouches stuffed. These pictures were all taken through a none-too-clean kitchen window, so they are not as good as I'd like them to be. I fill the feeder (about half full) every day, and consider it very 'cheap intertainment'. These little guys are such fun to watch. Spot catches a chipmunk every now and then. He tried to give me one as a present, this morning.  He looked so proud of himself, and not too pleased when I made him let it go.

Seeds for lunch

Oh, Boy, Lunch!

Yummmeeee. 

But I knocked it all on the ground for the little ones.

Table for three.

Dewy morning in mid-May.

Beads of dew on strawberry leaves.

Modified with 'watercolor' effect.

Every little point decorated with a clear bead.

Campion (a weed), about a one inch flower.

Christmas Cactus in mid-May.

Metamorphesis

Dewy Rose.

Potted begonia in the screen porch.