July 02nd, 2020

The little lizard is actually standing on a flood marker.  It means July of 2001.  But I thought it was amusing that the day we saw that was July 1st,  yesterday.  And that means that we are now officially half way through the year 2020 and thank goodness for that.  I think we can all agree that this has not been a banner year. We made it halfway through, so it makes me believe that we will make it all the way through.

But meanwhile, could you stand one more photo safari report this week?  Yesterday Joy and I got really brave, doubled our bug spray, and headed back to Sleeping Turtle Preserve.  The last time we were there we were literally driven out by killer mosquitos swarms.  

This time however, either the mosquitos had moved on to wetter pastures (it's been unseasonably dry lately) or we were better prepared. Either way, off we went, cameras in hand, ready to face whatever surprises awaited us.

You know how I always say that  each of our hikes ultimately has a theme?  Well the surprise this time was that there was no theme.  No one single thing that we noticed over and again.  Didn't happen this time 'round.  We did note that all of the places that were completely flooded out or at least mucky were dry yesterday so we actually had more trails to hike. That was nice!

Are you ready?  Here we go:    Three yellow flowers.  One by itself, one with a fly and one with a butterfly.  (sometimes I think I'm so dang clever - even when I'm not)

And then we saw this giant flying stinging thing.  Fortunately neither of us got stung by it (whew!) because it looked very scary.  Not so scary that we didn't take photos of it of course!  Yeah, I know we are kind of crazy

One of the coolest things we saw was in a clearing that had one tree in the middle.  The tree was gigantic!  Really huge!  And it was surrounded by a very impressive thicket of all sorts of shrubs that were pretty tall themselves.  We noticed a lot of birds in the area and moving in and out of the thicket. So we crept closer and closer and eventually realized that they were cardinals.  There were multiple pairs of them and it was awesome to watch them.

Other unusual and beautiful flowers, naturally because they are everywhere!

And as always photos from my miscellaneous file:

So there you have it.  One last Photo Safari report this week!

I'm going to take a 3-day weekend my friends.  I wish you a safe and enjoyable Independence Day Weekend!  Meet you here again on Monday!

Hugs all 'round!