More special gifts of summer

Lovely things in unexpected places. Seed pods are so often overlooked, but have their own unique beauty. These are pods on Kathy's Tree Peonies. They bloom earliest and have the biggest blooms and seedpods. I love the fuzzy pods and the highly polished seeds. Like glass beads on velvet.


Spot made his usual morning visit for a second course, after being fed at his own house.
More of the best of this morning's images. The ants are those really tiny ones, about an eighth inch in size. They are in a hosta flower cluster. These big hostas produce a flower head that just keeps on blooming. I counted 50 buds on one stem, in various stages of devopement, each flower only lasts a day, but they just keep on coming.

Visitors in my garden

My morning walk through the yards...a wonderful way to view the new day. This little allium, growing between a rock edging and the driveway, had only a couple flowerheads last year. The allyssum is so vigorous, it seemed the photos would capture the fragrance. Then I noticed the visitor on the allium....I think he's a Black and White Wasp. Not enough white on his head to be a Bald-Faced Hornet. At any rate, he was only interested in his breakfast of nectar. I'd never seen one like this before .





Other visitors in the garden this morning were the little pale spider on the clematis, which I didn't see until I began in to edit the photo. The bee almost hid in the center of the crepe myrtle. The fly on the magnolia pod was a surprise, too. That is a zoom telephoto shot, uncropped. Those fuzzy pods are interesting subjects to photograph. The little late-blooming clematis grows rampant in Kathy's back yard. Several of these photos were taken in her yard, some in mine.

At last. Some new pictures posted!

Here are a few from my August Folder. ( Click photo to enlarge) . The newer doll pictures are on the cloth dolls page. http://clothdollsbyvada.blogspot.com/