A pink crabapple bud from the tree in my front yard.

A Prairie Fire crabapple tree in my yard.

A spot of color for ya.

Autumn in Mills county.

A floating seed that was temporarily stuck on a very thin strand of web which is barely visible in the full-size version of this shot.

A tiny morel mushroom forces its way through the leaf litter.

I was burning last year’s sunflower stalks when I made this photograph.

Some people actually try to kill these things !!!

I just want to say thanks to those of you who still stop by here to check out my work. Once I get off this slow dial-up connection I’ll get back to visiting everyone’s blogs & websites more often.

I hope everyone has a great holiday weekend. Cheers !!

Some Downy Phlox I saw when I was out mushroom hunting.

A morel mushroom at an undisclosed location

Another one from last weekend.

I found this small tree yesterday at Foothills Park that was scraped by deer and the sap had attracted Mourning Cloaks, Question Marks, a Red Admiral, and several flies.

Another shot from when I burned weeds last month.

I was burning weeds yesterday when I snapped this shot with my Canon Powershot SD1000. It has no manual controls but I was able to manipulate the shutter speed by varying the amount of sky in the frame.

Not very exciting…I know.

This was the first Monarch I saw last spring. I posted an open-wing photo last May. I’ve wanted a photo of one of these tattered travelers for a long time.

The lens was partially obscured by a tree branch blowing in the wind. That’s why it looks green. Not exactly the effect I was going for, but I like it anway.

Terry, crowing his little heart out. He’s a nice rooster. He hardly ever attacks people, and even then they’re mostly just scared. Mostly.

I thought it was a puffball growing by my compost bin - until it popped and there was nothing inside. I’ve never seen anything like it.

A strange little puffball-type mushroom I found in my yard. If you know what it is, let me know.

I found this one when I was out mushroom hunting last May. It appears to be from the previous summer.

May 2007 was a very photographically diverse month for me - a grass fire, flooding, fighter planes, plus all the usual stuff. And I almost got a funnel cloud too !!

Alright. It’s cold, windy, & gloomy outside and I don’t have anything new that’s worth uploading.
Let’s have another look at 2007 and a bunch of photos I never got around to posting…

Aside from Christmas, all I can remember about December 2007 is alot of ice & fog. How many ice storms were there ? Five or six ? I lost count.

Ice encrusted honeysuckle berries.

A very foggy morning at Mile Hill Lake.

The fruit of an Eastern Wahoo tree. I shot this one last Fall.

Looking down from the bluff at West Oak Forest in the Loess Hills near Glenwood.

Powdery snow shining in the morning sun.

A very foggy morning at Pony Creek Park in Mills county.

A sunny Sunday morning with hoar frost in the trees.

We were very lucky here - the power stayed on. There was major ice damage just 40 miles away.

A honeysuckle branch completely covered with ice.

A Locust Treehopper (Thelia bimaculata) on a Black Locust tree in my yard. (That’s a thorn in the background.)

ISO 800
1/250
f/16
300 mm

Canon EOS-20D
Sigma 150 2.8 EX Macro + Sigma 2X TC
Sigma EM-140 DG Macro Flash

These cicadas were in my yard a couple of nights ago. As numerous as they are, I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen a pair mating.

Parasitic wasp eggs on a Catalpa worm. This catalpa tree was full of them and there were about 20 hanging like this with eggs on them.

This was the most googled image on my old site so I thought I would post it again.

A Monarch perches on an aphid infested milkweed plant.

I’m not sure what this one is called.

Another daylily from my Dad’s place.

An unknown daylily at my Dad’s place.

I’ve got lots of pics from my vacation. This first one is an unknown flower.

Somehow, the two posts from this week were lost by Wordpress. I am reposting both right now. Unfortunately the comments were lost as well. I apologize for the technological snafu.

A top-down view of a purple coneflower.

A close-up of a Canada Thistle bloom.

A Canada thistle in my yard.

A pair of honey locust seed pods caught on the branch of an elm tree.

A controlled burn at a local park.

It’s that time of year again !!

This Black Racer (I think) has taken up residence in an old wren house. It seems to like having its meals delivered.

This should put a smile on the faces of a few Bluebirders, seeing as how they don’t like wrens very much.

I shot these over a few days. The snake has good vision and is extremely wary.

My favorite kind.