Barbarians At The Gate

Last Saturday morning, I poured myself a cup of coffee and looked out one of our kitchen doors, when I saw two raccoons in our side yard.  I thought that once they saw me, they'd scamper off.  Not so!  Instead, the brave one came right up to the door and stood up as if "begging" like a dog for food.  Not happy with only having his mugshot taken, they turned around and left...

 
 

Belated Mother's Day

Sunday I went for a long walk with my camera and took tons of pictures of neighborhood flowers. It reminded me of the Mother's Day that Kim and I went through town with a brown paper bag and cut one flower out of each yard we passed and nonchalantly tossed it in the bag. (I remember justifying it to ourselves by saying it was just one flower. People probably wouldn't even notice.) We went home and (I think--made a cake) and arranged all of "our" flowers and waited for mom to get back home from sailing so we could give her her Mother's Day present--our beautiful bouquet of stolen blooms.

But now, I've given up my stem snipping ways and just take pictures of them instead. (Far less risk of angering the neighborhood gardeners.)

So Happy Mother's Day Mom.

This was my favorite shot of the day:

In Mid-Air

This tuft got caught in a spider's web near our bbq.  From a distance it really looked like it was just floating in mid air, suspended from nothing.  I thought I'd better get a picture of it before the next bout of rain/wind hit and took the wonder right out of it.

 

Leaves I Couldn't Leave Behind

These leaves were lying on the sidewalk on my way home the other day.  I picked them up and brought them home so I could take some pictures of them: