Across the Road Close-up

It has dried out enough to take the dogs walking again. I haven't taken my camera lately because it's cold and I have three leashes and the Ball Thrower Thing and my hands are too cold. (Don't laugh if you live where it snows. I'm still cold.) Rusty wrote a post about his perspective of the latest walks. Here is what I see when I walk with the iPhone. You know those gloves with the special fingers that are supposed to let you use your phone even with the gloves on? I have some too:

Do you know what I think when I see these photos? Or when I'm looking at the ground while taking the photos? What if these were satellite photos and these were mountain ranges? Can you see that?

The rain has started things growing. This is in a huge patch of thistles.

There are a few mustard flowers blooming already.

Perspective again. What if that little red rock in the hole was really a house? Then those cracks are canyons.

Uh oh! That perspective thing would make this a very scary photo indeed! Raccoonzilla.

Speaking of another perspective. Three dogs and me.

Orchard Trails

It's dry enough now to ride my bike Across the Road. I take Ginny to try and wear her out a bit. Yesterday I took a different route and decided to veer off the road that borders a walnut orchard. I don't know why I haven't done that before--veering off the road. Maybe because at other times of the year it's muddy or weedy (including puncture vine, also known as goats' head that puncture tires and dog feet) or being harvested. Or because I'm not the sort of person that goes off the trail. Maybe it's that I am not a big fan of orchards in this area. Almond orchards seem to be taking over the valley and the landscapes that I love are hidden once the orchard has been in a couple of years.

Anyway, it was beautiful view from within the orchard.

Peaceful.

Colorful.

Orderly.

However, I still love the broad landscape that is outside the orchard. This is one of the few black walnut trees remaining around the fields.

The mountains are almost obscured by the young almond orchard  that is across the big canal but at least I can still see the sunset.

Sunflowers-April through June

We have only 10 acres here, but having the field Across the Road makes it seem as though we have much more. We are careful to be good neighbors and we are grateful that we have permission to spend time exploring that property. So I feel kind of like the crops grown there are mine although I have none of the work involved.  This summer's crop was sunflowers--one of my favorites. I have way too many photos so I'll break this into two posts.

April 12. You can just see the tiny plants.

April 27

May 2. Cultivating.

June 11. They're growing up. I sound like a proud parent.

The rest of the photos in this post were taken throughout June.

Birds and Butterflies

Last week it was impossible to go to town or walk Across the Road without running into butterflies. The orange sulphur butterfly (Colias eurytheme also known as the alfalfa butterfly and in its larval stages as the alfalfa caterpillar), I found out by googling, is widespread in North America and can be a significant alfalfa pest in high densities. The alfalfa field just south of where I walk had been cut, the sunflowers harvested, and butterflies were doubling and tripling up on field bindweed flowers and any other weedy flowers they could find.

I thought that I'd be able to get photos of butterflies in flight. Do you know how hard that is? Not possible, at least by me.

But speaking of things that fly, I did get some bird photos. I don't usually see great blue herons in the trees.

The snowy egret is dwared by two great egrets.

Great egret in flight.

On my way home I spotted these cattle egrets which I photographed from the road.