Daylily: Aztec Gold = Spectacular

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Buying something wonderful and classic, like this Daylily (Hemerocallis), from Home Depot has always seemed somehow wrong to me. But I can't argue with results like this. I have always loved Daylilies, having been raised in Virginia by a gardening Mom. I look forward to having giant beds of naturalized Daylilies all over my garden.

This spring, I bought two of these Daylilies from 'Depot, and two more called Ming Toy. The Mings are starting to send up bloom stalks, and the Aztecs were blooming when I brought them home and planted them. Now they have exhausted the first round of blooms and are sending up more. Wahoo!! I MUST get in the habit of buying more like 5 or 7 from now on. I love bringing home new plants, but I do get lazy when it's time to get out there and plant them all.

Clearwater: Infrastructure: Metal Rings

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On a recent walking wandering photo safari, I came across an area of road construction, strewn with a variety of hardware parts. Snapping as I went, keeping a low profile so as not to be mistaken for a terrorist, I caught some neat shots in amongst the piles of mayhem.

Backyard Garden: Zinnias Have Zest AND ZIP!

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Yeah, did I mention I planted Zinnias too? Yuppers... one of my favorites too! Okay, I admit it, I love lots of flowers and have many, many favorites.

Backyard Garden: Spectacular Sunflower Closeup

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What can I tell you, I LOVE Sunflowers! If you click on the image above you can see this one at 1200 pixels across, twice the size. If you click here, you can see it at 1600 pixels across.

I love gardening. I hope you like this shot, I'm kind of proud of this one.

Backyard Garden: Four O'Clock Beauty

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I am proud and happy to report that I grew this beauty myself, in my backyard flower garden. Not too shabby. No, I can't take credit for creating it... just planting and nurturing it.

Life Is A Mystery... Get Closer!

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It's just a little thing... but as someone has been quoted as saying: "GOD is in the details!"

Yeah, well, that could mean a lot of things, eh? But seriously... When you look at this closely, it's easy to think it might be man made, machine made, constructed rather than evolved or grown...

I think Dr. Seuss had the right of it when he wrote Horton Hears A Who!

Life Is So Incredibly, Frighteningly Fragile

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I found this beautiful baby bird, a baby Mockingbird, in the lawn. It seemed as though maybe it were trying to learn how to fly, and not quite having the hang of it yet. So I put it up in a tree, safe from cats I hoped, and let it be.

Well, that is, after I took a dozen pictures of it.

Whenever I ponder non-human living things for more than the few minutes it takes to de-Disney-ize them, it strikes me how terribly fragile life is. No matter your species, you are always only a slender step away from death.

As always, if you'd like to see the photo above at twice that size, click on the photo. However, if you'd like to see this one REALLY big, click here. The detail is pretty cool!

On Life And Living Pt 1

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Sometimes, it seems as though the littlest thing, the most minor glimmer, can set my mind to ponder the biggest things. What ABOUT life? What is it all about? What is the purpose? Can it be so simple... can it be as simple as this: The purpose of life is to enjoy the beauty and wonder of a tiny little flower growing at our feet by a mailbox at a small house in a small neighborhood in a small town in Florida?

After all, what more is there? What of more importance is there in this world? If we cannot appreciate the wonders at our feet, what else is there? I work with people who would not give that flower a FIRST thought, never mind a second thought. Their purpose in life revolves around profits and reports and volume growth.

Other people I know wrap their world around their children. No doubt, children are important. But are they the purpose of life, or merely the propagation of further life for a purpose that may or may not be fully understood at the time of propagation? Are children the purpose, or the result? A directive or a side effect?

I don't expect to find answers to these questions. I suspect that the answer is different for each of us. But I also suspect that some answers are not valid, while others are. For some, the purpose of THEIR life might just be earning money, acquiring power, controlling others. But I don't think that qualifies as the purpose of LIFE.

What about you? Any ideas? What do you feel is the purpose of YOUR life?

Duck's Eye View: Perspective Re-Programming

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Have you ever wondered what the world looks like through some other person's eyes? What about the eyes of another species? This is what Alamo Lane, in Dunedin, Florida, looks like from the level of a duck's eyes. Wow, very different isn't it.

What Spring Looks Like

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Green is my absolute favorite color, and this is pretty much why... it's a GROWING color. It is life. It is nature. It is, to me, spirit and fresh and alive! This picture captures the newest leaves on an oak tree that is growing on the bank of Lake Paloma, in Dunedin, Florida.