Dried flowers

 I love walking in the Julington Durbin Preserve this time of year. All the flowers have gone to seed, but they're still beautiful.

I'm using the macro setting on my camera. The flash is kaput, so I try to keep my hand steady, with mixed results.

If I focus the camera while it's pointed toward the ground, it automatically widens the aperture, so that when I aim it up at the flower, it doesn't take a dark picture.

It's been kinda cold

The good news is that means I get to take some pretty pictures. Saw palmetto, covered with frost front and center and then bonus! colored leaves in the background where the sun was just hitting everything.

What the dog saw

 Here's a series of pictures of my dog, Miss Daisy. She's sitting well off the path while we wait for a man with two border collies to pass us. Daisy likes other dogs, she's just not very calm around them. I usually have her sit and wait for whoever else we see on the trail to walk on by. It's easier that way.

I usually have some pepperoni in my pocket to help me keep her attention. On this day, alas, I did not bring it with me, and so I couldn't get her to look at me instead of the very interesting animals going by.

It's okay. She's getting there. It's not that I worry about her so much, as I worry about other people's dogs. They're almost always off leash when we see them and whoever is walking them doesn't appear to have any control over them at all. If they're friendly dogs, no problem. But some of them are aggressive.

Daisy is not, but she's always on high alert when we meet anybody else. She hasn't learned yet not to jump up on strangers. This is my solution. If I have her sit to one side, people assume that she's aggressive and they put their dogs back on leash and walk carefully around us. It all works out.

Evidence of life

 A snake skin. A pretty big snake skin. Actually, I would have walked on without noticing it, being completely entranced by wildflowers, except the dog, Miss Daisy, stopped at the side of the trail and would not be moved without a fair amount of tugging. So I walked back to see what was so interesting and saw this. While I focused my camera I tried not to think about how it was probably lurking nearby waiting to swallow me whole.

This is more my size. Rodent tracks. I don't mind them at all out here in the preserve. Up until last week I was finding them in my kitchen cupboards. It's funny how adorable they are outside and how creepy they are inside.

This is an anthill, I think. It's like a button made of dirt.

I love wildflowers

 They're amazing. And there are so many out in the preserve right now. They're growing in clumps and drifts in so many pretty colors. I've decided I need to learn how to take better pictures of them, so I'm going to start bringing my tri-pod with me, at least until the blooms give out. And maybe after, too.

Surprise!

 I noticed the flowers while I was out walking today. There are so many different kinds out in the woods. I don't know what their names are or if they even have any, besides "weed". I think they're pretty. But they're hard to get right with my camera, sometimes. Especially the purple ones.

The flower in the top picture is sheltering a bumblebee. I love how hairy the blooms are, like anemones.

The yellow daisies were a surprise. I'd been gone from the woods for only a couple of days and when I got back this morning, poof! there they were, like big, yellow smiley faces.

Ant lions

While I'm out walking I see ant lion traps everywhere.

When the kids were small, Steve taught them how to tickle the sides of the traps with a piece of grass or a twig. This would fool the ant lion at the bottom into bursting out to clamp onto it.

I always jump when the ant lion comes out. They're so fast.

Fire and water

This morning it was a good time to walk out in the woods. The air smelled particularly sweet. I have no idea what I'm smelling as I walk along, but it's nice. Started out looking like the woods was on fire as the dog and I left the parking lot.

Further along, the light turned quite magical, with electric greens and the glow of the rising sun on fallen pine needles.

Then, at the end of our walk, I saw dew on the green stuff along the path and tried to take a picture of it. Spotted this big grasshopper in the middle of this flowering feathery grass, no doubt drying off after pulling an all nighter.

My favorite thing

It was so cold out in the woods this morning, I had a hard time hanging onto the camera. My fingertips hurt, my nose was running and it was dark, besides. But then the dog and I walked around a curve and saw light coming through the trees, cutting through the cold fog. It was sweet. But tomorrow, I'm wearing my hoodie and gloves.

How about this?

I was walking in the Julington Durbin Preserve yesterday and got to thinking that it was time I started putting more words out there, my own words, I mean. And then I thought about how I really don't always have something to say about my family. Sometimes it's just about what I'm thinking or seeing while I'm going about my day. Boring, right? But lately the woods are so pretty and I wanted a place to share the pictures with anyone who cares to look. So, that's what this is going to be. Mostly a photo blog.

I hope you like it.

This is a picture I took this morning. Lately, I have fallen in love with the tiny flowers that are all over the place out in the preserve. These little white ones seem to float over the long grass behind them, like a constellation in a wavy green sky.