Small moments

Late summer drones on for me...the girls are back to school, but the bird action (now that I have some time to get out and watch them) is still quiet.  Babies are grown, the fall exodus not yet begun....

I take what I can get, though.  Small moments of magic. 



I found a flower whose stamens are minuscule Pixie Stix.

(Please click on this to see it larger...)


Glowing Morning Glory.




Did not know an inchworm was also noodling his way through the thistle blooms alongside the skipper.
(This skipper was the size of a quarter.)





A delicate, tiny white flower in the underbrush...



So small and fragile-looking, I held my breath as I took its picture.



Watched water striders' shadows chase them under the water.



I found water so clear, it held the sky inside.



Just the right patch of shade gave me a star.



Stumbled across a bird finally, a solitary sandpiper eating a small fish.



A small moment that was huge for me....
I've always wanted to see this.  A damselfly freshly emerged from its nymph skin. 



Zero defining marks.  Just opalescent translucence.

I've never held a dragonfly or damselfly.  They are too smart, too fast for that.  I've always wanted to, but never had the chance.

And then he climbed onto my fingernail. 

Hodge-podge and a convicted sex offender at the end

Yesterday, I was on the phone with Trixie, discussing things like beading, Sarah Pahlin and sick kids. I saw a raptor-shaped flash out in the backyard. I stood up, and there was a red-shouldered hawk on the fence by the prairie:
"Trixie...there's a red-shouldered hawk in my yard."
"Omigod, really????"


Haven't seen too much raptor activity this summer. The appearances are cyclic.
No bands on this guy.


And then Trixie had to one-up me by talking about the northern harrier hanging out at her house.
Kill-joy.

Isabelle likes to bead whenever I have my beading stuff out. She made a necklace and a bracelet for two of her classmates:

I gave her the planning tray so she could see what the finished project would look like. She did alternating red and purple beads, and it took her almost an hour to string them all. It was perfect. Lorelei's more of a wide-variety jewelry designer.

While waiting for the school bus, I was bored and shooting macro shots of the street. I was pleasantly surprised at the texture hidden there:


Each of these stones are about 1 centimeter wide. A tiny wave of rose quartz, diminutive flecks of blue. Beauty is all around us and we just have to stop and look around once in a while (I think that's a Ferris Bueller reference).

As the bus was arriving, a four-leaf clover peeked out from the weeds growing around the storm drain:

I've read that scientists have isolated the gene that makes a clover grow four leaves, so finding one is not so lucky anymore. Who cares. I found it on our anniversary, so I pressed it and put it in a bag with the date. When we are old and in the Home, we can read the bag and reminisce.

We have been watching this grasshopper in the prairie for a few weeks. Always on the same plant, not too interested that we are near:

The biggest grasshopper in the world. See? It's as big as Hooper!

I had a great program today at a retirement village near RAPTOR. About 100 seniors, which is a nice change from cute little rugrats. I can pull out different jokes with adults.
Storm was fiery as a firecracker, as usual.

But he's also very patriotic.

Now the bad story:
I was just telling Geoff about this nice lady I met while waiting for Isabelle's bus. Lorelei and I had both the dogs with us, and as this lady was getting out of her car, her dog got out too and did her business in their yard. Nellie is usually mildly interested in other dogs, but Hooper does his big loud YODEL and dances on his hind feet and paws the air with his front feet.
This attracted the attention of the nice lady and her daughter, so they came over. Adorable little three-year old (hearing impaired...got to brush off some of my sign language skills on her).
So I was telling Geoff this nice story, and he laid this one on me...
While doing a story about types of neighbors for one of his magazines, he came across this website (I've searched stuff like this before, but it's been years.)
Family Watch Dog.
And there's a convicted sex offender living one street away. He's 21, and while it doesn't go into gross details, it says "sexual conduct with a minor" which sounds like he was maybe dating someone underage, like a seventeen-year old? I know they specify if the victim is under the age of 13....but still.
We looked further and there are a disturbing number of sex offenders in the area (like, more than ZERO!) A few old nasty-looking crackers convicted of "illegal use of Minor in Nudity-Oriented material or performance", and a strange-looking little woman living near Lorelei's school.... convicted of RAPE.
What. The. Hell.

I've shot this otherwise nice post all to Hell and back, but there ya go.

Wrens are egg-cellent.

Word of the Day:

clarion \KLAIR-ee-uhn\, noun:
1. A kind of trumpet having a clear and shrill note.
2. The sound of this instrument or a sound similar to it.
3. Sounding like the clarion; loud and clear.

It freakin' snowed today.
And while I kept shaking my head in disbelief, I had to admit the flowers looked pretty, dusted with the stuff.

Someone jazzed up the front yard of RAPTOR with tulips...

...and it looks like some grape hyacinth has escaped. All over the place. The girls picked me a whole handful. So I put them in a baggie filled with water and hung them in the barn for all the other RAPTORites to enjoy.

I can't stop taking pictures of Lucy. She just rocks.

And now...drum roll...the first eggs in the yard for 2007:
I was out in the front yard trying to get pictures of the crows who have been hanging out in the trees but refuse to come down to eat what I have to offer. A brown blur caught my eye, and as I turned, I saw one of the Carolina wrens flying away from the nest box by the garage. I walked over and tipped the box a bit to see what was going on in there. And another wren came barreling out and scared the bejesus out of me.
I reached in quickly and felt at least two warm eggs. Damn. I flushed her from incubating!
I went back in the house and waited for her to come back, which she did. The whole time, I was talking to her (myself)..."Come on, get back in there. Please, please, please!"
A bit later, I walked out, stayed far away from her, and took a picture.
And I almost deleted it. On the camera's monitor, I couldn't see anything, but when I zoomed in, I saw this:


A bright, wary eye just peeking up from a throne of eggs.
I'm thrilled that wrens are making themselves at home here, and think this is a good enough place to raise a family. I am sure that they have nested here before, but I've never found the evidence. I have no idea when she started sitting, so I will call this Day +/- 2.

Sunday at the old homestead

I love Indiana. I may live in Ohio now, but my roots stretch all the way across the state line.

Mom's weeping cherry tree is taller than her house now.

I love my Macro function. Anyone tired of close-up flower pictures?
Too bad.

Isabelle is the Bubble Queen. It can keep her occupied for an hour straight. That's a good thing.

And Lorelei is the Queen of Photo Ops.


I had to tackle and hold down Miss Thing to get a picture of her laying on the grass.

Look! It's Earl's Uncle Ralph!

Mom's pond is teeming with critters. Water striders, diving beetles, crayfish, bullfrog tadpoles and two different types of snails. It's a great place to go "pond scooping".

Sorry. This is a really bad shot of a crayfish.

When I first saw these guys, I thought I was looking at a fish (though there haven't been fish in this pond for about 30 years) because they were the largest animals in the pond. Then I thought they might be really really big tadpoles. But I saw two different kinds...orange/brown ones, and green/brown ones like this. Salamanders??? Newts???

I don't know from salamanders. Who knows what kind of salamanders or newts would be living in a pond in southeastern Indiana?

Another type of snail. Some had the pointy type of shell, and others had the classic swirl shell.


And what trip to Indiana would be complete without some four-wheelin'?
My sister-in-law is storing this four wheeler for her Dad until he can find a place for it, so I took the girls for a high speed spin around the pasture and through the back field. I thought they might be scared, but since they are MY girls, they loved it to no end and begged me to go faster! I look sort of demonic in this picture. Sorry. I was trying to look happy.
I will catch seven kinds of Hell from my mother-in-law for this picture.

And a continuation of Sunday Sketches...I need a new pen:

Bubbles....lots of tiny bubbles...

As Mary stated yesterday, it is SO NICE to be photographing color. The promise of Spring makes Winter bearable, doesn't it?
The backyard red maples are full of tiny flowers that somehow I never really looked at before:

The forsythia is sending little pokey flowers up the stems:

The azalea is thinking really hard about blooming:



And I wanted to share a cool little product I got for the girls. Regular bubbles are nice, but I found a bubble solution that makes bubbles that DON'T pop when you touch them!
It's called "Hold-A-Bubble", and I got it at Walgreen's.
It reminds me of the stuff I used to play with many moons ago...that stuff that you would put on the end of a straw and blow into mini-balloons. This solution makes about a trillion bubbles in one blow, and after a few seconds the bubbles harden and you can actually stack them on your hands. They eventually lose air and become little flat sacks.
Even after about 20 minutes, there was still a blanket of bubbles laying on the grass. And in our hair, and on Nellie, and on the trees...
If you know a little kid, or if you are a little kid, get these!







Nellie was not impressed. She likes bubbles she can bite, not bubbles that stick to her face. She wanted to play ball.
"Kick it, Mom! I wanna run!"



I like this photo. On the left you can see the reflection of the purple martin house, and in the middle you can see me!

And this one is for Swami:
I was returning a part I didn't need back to the dealership (I got my car back!!!!!) and saw this sign for a place that can jazz up your car. Swami likes unusual animals...He has given the girls stuffed animals like "Baby's First Armadillo" and "Baby's First Weasel" (Where does he FIND these things?)

In honor of the anniversary of the birth of Swamette

Word of the Day:
apotheosis \uh-pah-thee-OH-sis; ap-uh-THEE-uh-sis\, noun;
plural apotheoses \-seez\:
1. Elevation to divine rank or stature; deification.
2. An exalted or glorified example; a model of excellence or perfection of a kind.

Today is my mother-in-law's birthday. You know her as Swamette.
I know her as the single best mother-in-law I could ever ask for. To use the Word of the Day:
"Rita is worthy of apotheosis in song of her mother-in-law skills."




Kevin and Rachel brought this beautiful cake for dessert.

And it had a wee sugar bird on it!

Rita and her oldest, my Geoff.



I couldn't stop taking pictures of the cake. The icing was delicious.

The Wall of Fame at the yurt...Jim and Rita have photos up of everyone who is important to them. I think I am in there somewhere...


Butterscotch (Jim calls him Quagmire), quite possibly the coolest cat in the world.

He even watches TV!

Rita's crocus bed.

I love the Macro function on my camera, now that I know how to use it.



Our daughters are never safe from...
"Attack of the Swami" !!!

Happy birthday, Rita. I love you.

***
Update:
I started a blog on Blogger for RAPTOR. Let me know if you find any glitches.