Post Birthday Birthday Celebration Celebration Post

That peculiar title actually does make sense, if you think about it long enough.  

My birthday was last month, but since I missed talking about it at the time, I thought it would be fun to celebrate the celebration.  It was a fabulous day all the way around.

The festivities began with an impromptu fete by Baloo's dog walking pals and their people. Katie's (she's the toy poodle/shih tzu mix) and her mom brought along a beautiful bouquet of home grown roses, snap dragons, hydrangea and phlox. They've got one of the loveliest garden-yards I've ever seen. Nice job on the flower arranging, no?

A very delightful side dish of fried green tomatoes from my brother's garden was a flavor I hadn't experienced since my parents used to argue about whether to use the first tomato in the garden green in this manner or wait for it to ripen fully.  (Dad was the advocate for fried green tomatoes and my mother craved the first ripe tomato of the season.)

My brother cooked some lobster tails on the grill and I turned them into a salad for our dinner on a bed of garden greens and radicchio with avocado and a side of creamy fresh lime and dill sauce. Yum.

Sadly, it appears that we ate the raspberry pie before I remembered to take a picture. Clearly too much revelry was going on.....  It really is too bad, too, because it was one of my sister-in-law's lattice crust creations and worthy of commemoration for both loveliness and lusciousness. 

So, I had a marvelous day with my family - who could ask for a better birthday than that? 

Random Wanderings

Totally random as far as the pictures go...  But, it is actually a window into the routine of many days. Baloo and I wander around looking at things a lot!

Both the bluebird boxes in my back yard ended up housing families of chickadees this year. I often eat my meals out on the back deck and I have enjoyed watching several nestings and lots of comings and goings as busy parents went about the business of raising their youngsters. This one is emerging from the box with its face stuffed with something. Perhaps a little housecleaning? 

There's a pond on the way to one of Baloo's favorite walks that hosted several families this year. Madame Wood Duck, for example, raised a lovely brood.  They were so fast darting around her that I felt lucky to catch two of the little darlings in the picture with their far more sedate mother.

Watching the changing skies over the water is always a delight. Baloo always requests - no, wait - that should be demands a sunset walk every evening. I have to appreciate the fact that he rousts me out from whatever I'm doing to enjoy the ever changing light show!

You can tell that this one is still from early spring, since the trees haven't leafed out completely. It almost looks like the house is on fire with the sun setting behind it so brilliantly. 

Finally, we return home to rest - or maybe hope for a little play time.

Happy Labor Day to all!  :)

Eastern Royalty

See? I told you we'd come back to the eastern kingbird. And here you thought I was getting ready for a nativity scene really early!

I have been watching these aerial acrobats all summer long. They can turn on a dime in mid-flight to snag an escaping bug.

I've seen them fan out their tails and suddenly stop and seem to hover before darting after their prey again. 

They sit in the tops of trees or bushes, waiting for hapless insects to fly by and they are lightning quick, very determined in their pursuit and beautiful to behold in the process. Of course, I haven't been fast enough to catch them in flight (except a wing or a tail in an otherwise sky blue background). If you ever have a chance to watch them in action, take the time to do it - it's worth every minute. 

Floral Fancies

Returning once again to the flora of early June, we turn to the bellwort.

These look like pretty unassuming little flowers, but I enjoy the way the petals almost twist into spirals, as if they have naturally curly hair that flows in ringlets.

Yes, I know - I'm a fanciful fool, but I have a lot of fun!

This one was a new acquaintance for me - I took a picture so that I could look it up and we could become formally introduced.  It's a blue cohosh.  Don't you just love the green on green effect?  The flowers look like tiny pinwheels.

Here we have a group of jack-in-the-pulpit plants.  They're so erect and proper, I can almost imagine them as they face their different directions delivering homilies to the surrounding forest. Yes, definitely fanciful! Baloo doesn't seem to mind, though. 

Baltimore or Bust

We are still loaded into the late May - early June time capsule for these pictures, as you can see from the newly emerging greenery surrounding the birds.   

The big field where Baloo and I walk just about every morning is a fabulous place to look for birds.  The brilliant Baltimore oriole stands out against the fresh spring greens so dramatically that he had to be included in the walk down our little memory lane.  

I tried to entice a pair to hang around my yard with offerings of grape jelly, but they didn't like the nesting opportunities my yard afforded, so they moved along and I just admire them while passing through the field on our daily walks.

This oriole is sharing his perch with an eastern kingbird (who will appear again in later time travels). See what I mean?  While Baloo has his nose to the ground looking for rabbits and ground squirrels, I can have my nose to the skies in search of festive feathers!

The Thrill of the Trillium

Thanks to the few people who were brave enough to answer the riddles of the Northern Sphinx. Those who responded get their way! Everybody I heard from wanted me to go ahead and post out of season photos, so I'll start with these. (Loading up the time-travel capsule to late May - early June.) About the time I let things lapse for most of the summer, trilliums were blooming all through the woods where Baloo and I walk.  

The most common one around here is the Trillium Grandiflorum.They are grand, indeed!  

One of the lovely things about these spring ephemerals is that they change color as they age, blushing a very pretty pink after going through the white phase.

Here is a picture of three blooms of different ages. Whole hillsides can be covered with these blossoms creating quite a breathtaking scene. 

In this picture, you can see the subject of June's Stampeaz invoice image. No, it isn't the big, black puppy face in the foreground - look closely for a bit of pink just to the left of his nose.  The protected pink lady slipper was one of my mother's favorite wildflowers.  I expect there will be more detailed pictures in the coming days, but Baloo had to put his two whiskers' worth into the post, right? 

The Northern Sphinx

The Northern Sphinx has some burning questions to ask anyone who cares to respond.

First, have you missed the invoice image spoilers?  Do you want to see more of them revealed here on the blog or keep them as a surprise when your package arrives? 

Second, do you want me to go back in time to the photos I took during the spring, or just forget about them and go on from here?  There are some good ones, but they are totally out of season at this point so I don't know if I should prepare and share them or not.  

Here's a golden opportunity to help shape the nonsense that gets posted here for the next little while.