Jaci Dawn

    August’s Blue Moon. I really lucked out: usually the moon is too bright and the digital camera doesn’t want to focus on the image, leaving me with a huge blurry light in the center of the photo. But there was just enough cloud cover to create a natural filter, and I walked away with three nice photos of the full moon on August 31.

I have spent half the summer trying to get a decent photo of one or another of the several hummingbirds I have finally coerced into my garden. This is one of my favorites.  (Female Anna’s Hummingbird)

I can’t tell you how many missed opportunities I’ve had because the darn hummers seem to know when I am sitting in wait with a camera vs. when I am just sitting out in the yard. When I have no camera, the birds are plentiful and friendly, but when I have the camera – they all but disappear!

The male Anna’s Hummingbird. Different day.

I am thinking of putting up a sign next to the bird bath:

Jaci’s Bird & Cat Spa

Birds – free

Cats – $0.25

I doubt it will keep the cats away, but it would be funny.

I do not know what kind of fly this is. It is a fly: two wings. Diptera. My husband suggested it might be a Bot Fly (ewwwww) but I couldn’t find any matching images on the all-powerful Internet (which is not all-powerful but has more images for flies than my Field Guide to Insects by Audobon). It was a large fly: 3/4″ long. Almost as large as a small horsefly and not quite as large as a deer fly. I would have squashed it if it had been a horse or deer fly. They hurt!!

There’s a term for pieces of driftwood that resemble something living, but I cannot remember what the term is. That’s my “squirrel” piece of wood behind the white Chrysanthemum.

What to do with a rotting old stool. Support a Hollyhock, of course!

Why is there an oak tree growing in my lawn? Why is there an oak tree growing anywhere in my yard? I used to blame it on squirrels but I have caught the Scrub jay red-handed with a filbert in it’s beak. I have filbert trees in my yard, too, but we encourage those. The oak must go (although, I confess, it would be a pretty tree…)

Just takes a life time to grow.

(That was a stupid sentence and I know it: of course it takes a life time. The oak’s life time. What I meant was: it takes longer for the oak tree to grow than I have to wait for it to grow.)

Besides, Don will mow over it.

Bags of Hazelnut mulch waiting to be opened and spread around my garden.

Did you happen to notice that I used the term “filbert” and “hazelnut” in the same post? They were Filberts when I was a kid. Somewhere along the line, they became Hazelnuts. We made up a story about that: Filbert died, and Hazel inherited the orchard. So what used to be Filbert’s is now Hazel’s.

Sort of like “The Legend of Falling Rock.” The Legend of Falling Rock is by no means limited to West Virginia mythology: his signs are all over the West, too: “Watch for Falling Rock”, “Fallen Rock”, “Rocks on Road”. My little sister, my older brother and I spent hours in the back seat of the car spinning yarns about Fallen Rock as we traveled on vacations. But our dad always had the best versions.

Honey bees on the Sedum.

I’d love to know whose backyard honey bee hive we contribute pollen to. They should give us free honey for taking care of their honey bees. That’s what I think.

A beautiful anenome. I am so amazed! When I first planted anenomes in our yard, Murphy – the puppy, then – followed me around and dug them all up and ate them. They did not kill him, but I wanted to. This year, I planted a bunch and every single one of them came up and bloomed and thrived.

Murphy must be a wiser dog.

I am so fascinated with the dozens of bees, hover flies and bee flies in our yard! I sneaked up on this drone and started snapping away (digital photography – setting on “Sports” to capture the bees as they moved from flower to flower since the stupid camera argues with me over F-stops and film speed).

And this was a totally accidental capture: the bee on the move! You can see it’s trajectory and the stop-motion as it turned and faced the lens with a little frowning face.

What! Get out of my face, camera! Buzzzzz!

Such a happy photo!

And that’s my life update through my camera lens.