Glitches And Flowers

It seems like yesterday and it seems like years ago. When it was still warm I found these tiny flowers at the end of a dark nature trail under lots of trees. I always meant to post my best pictures of them but my phone glitched and my best pictures were lost.

I took this picture with my big camera and it came out okay, but not the best. I have found that my phone takes excellent close-ups. My big camera does not. And now because of that, I bring both cameras along while I'm out on one of my everyday adventures.

So now after a little bit of unrelated downtime, I've realized I have to become a bit more organized. So I'm making a plan to take along with me on my next little adventure. My problem has always been finding cool pictures I like in the fall. My task is to find them, and I'm going to look in lots of places. So until then, I'll talk to you later.

The Last Sunflowers

Before I had lots of sunflowers. Now I have close-ups of sunflowers for you. After all, I did promise to bring you some close-ups. I must admit though, these pictures are a few days older than the other sunflower pictures. It's because the sunflowers are now gone. The season is over for them.

But it's not over for me. I'll be bringing you many many things new and old. I still have some older things I want to share, and I'm still going out there for more. I'd love to share it all, but I'm sure some good things will fall by the wayside. It's always a shame when that happens.

I recently saw some of those huge sunflowers that are the size of kitchen clocks, but I was too busy that day to stop and get pictures. Unfortunately, when I went back those big sunflowers were already wilting away. I guess there's just no way to get absolutely everything. Maybe they'll be back next year.

The temperature has cooled down a bit here after a hot spell. Maybe it won't get that warm again this year. I'm going to miss the warm weather. Let's see if I have a better feeling about fall this year than I have every other year. I'm going to try very hard, even though I always moan to myself how much I dread fall.

But I've been having so much fun up until this point. It just can't stop now! Can it? Not if I can help it. I'm going to continue my everyday adventures, and soon it will be a new spring and time to start all over again. I'm determined to make it all fun. I'll talk to you later.

The Most Sunflowers I've Ever Seen

I found a field with millions of sunflowers. It's just amazing how many there are. I'm sharing the best pictures of them with you. But I'm not sure my pictures can do the enormous number any kind of justice.

I wish everybody could have been there like I was just watching all of these flowers swaying in the breeze. I had my stereo on in my truck and it seemed like the sunflowers were moving to the music. Such a wonderful sight.

You can't see it, but there is a highway behind me here. I had to pull over and stay in my truck to get these pictures. I also had to be quick about it before some other speeding vehicles came by. I had at least a few seconds because I'm still out in the country, but it's a busy highway for being in the country.

I see deer along this same highway almost every day, but I never have time to get any pictures. I also didn't take any close-up pictures of the sunflowers this time. You can click on the pictures to see them better. I'll give you some excellent close-up pictures of sunflowers in the near future though.

I missed my usual Monday post because I was in the hospital having surgery. I won't say anything else other than I'm fine now. I could give you all the disgusting details, but that wouldn't be any fun. So I'll just leave it at that.

Back to the sunflowers. I did get some great video of this bunch of flowers. I'll include it in my next video. I want to put the video together right so you can see the sunflowers swaying to the music just like I saw them. It's not quite ready yet because I've been moving a little slow with everything recently. I hope to have it up soon though. I'll talk to you later.

Photographing Daisies

I found this field of daisies while I was out driving around the countryside. The sun was burning really bright that day so it was difficult to get any pictures. Sometimes you just want a few clouds to help you get better pictures.

Besides the bright sun, I decided to try and use my big camera to get some of these pictures. I have discovered that my phone camera is much better for close-ups than the big camera, so I take both from now on. The phone camera also does better with bad lighting, bright or dark.

If I had a big zoom on my phone, I'd probably just use it for everything. It has such a good camera that I prefer it over the big one for most things now. Most of my flower and plant pictures are now done with the phone because it's just so much better.

But I used the big camera for these daisies. You can see that it did a good job. That was only for these pictures that came into focus. I have tons of others that were unusable. Once you get the big camera to focus, the pictures actually come out great. But it is kind of a process to do that.

With the phone, all I have to do is point and shoot. It focuses right on whatever I point it at. And if I want to use special settings, it can do that too. And the view screen on the phone is bigger than on the big camera too.

I do have to say that my phone actually cost me more than the camera did. So that probably factors into the quality of the pictures. Not every phone will do. I use a Samsung Galaxy S7, which is one of the most expensive phones out there, and also one of the best cameras. But try any smart phone you might have. You might be surprised by the quality of the pictures.

So, what about the daisies? I found them by the side of a country road very near one of the many farms scattered throughout the area. I don't like to take too many pictures if I think people might be around, so I took what I could and left.

I find that it's usually easier to not have to deal with other people while I'm taking pictures. And it's usually an annoying complication to have to explain why I'm taking pictures to someone who isn't interested in them. Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe I'll never find out. I'm Grumpy Ratty, and I'll talk to you later.

Butterflyweed

I didn't know what it was when I first saw it. The plant was so small, and the sun was so bright, it was too hard to see what I was looking at. All I knew at the time was that I was seeing some kind of small orange flowers. And I hoped I'd get some presentable pictures.

These two pictures are the best I could do under the circumstances. And I never claimed that this blog was all about the pictures. I think I'm just an okay photographer who sometimes gets some great ones.

The important thing is that I try to share real life with you. That definitely includes the pictures that most people won't show. I'll share the great ones, and I'll share the terrible ones. These pictures today are okay. Not the best, but they have some beauty.

So after all of that talking, and you didn't figure it out from the title, you may be wondering just what it is that I'm showing you. This plant is called butterflyweed, sometimes known as orange milkweed. Yup, it's a kind of milkweed plant.

And since milkweed is one of my very favorite kinds of plant, I just had to share this with you. And you knew I wouldn't do it in a straight forward kind of scientific examining way. I'd give you something a little odd. This way you might remember this plant a tiny bit better. And everybody should know about milkweed. Did I tell you how much I love milkweed? I'll talk to you later.

Flowers In My Backyard

I typically brag that the land around my house is overgrown with weeds. It's something that most people would consider strange. Why would I brag about something so negative? I can't help it. It's a trait that I get from my dad.

My dad would tell people that he could live without modern conveniences, like electricity, easier than anyone else. And he would go about proving it to everyone, including himself. There is still an outdoor wood stove attached to my house, and I use it every winter. It makes things a little more difficult, but it saves lots of money.

I like the land around me to look wilder than is normally accepted by lots of others because it gives me a sense of being more natural. I don't really care about a manicured lawn. That looks kind of sterile to me. I'd live in the middle of a forest if I could do it. But unlike my dad, I do appreciate modern conveniences like electricity and computers.

But this whole concept brings us to these phlox flowers. In all of the weeds, I found these flowers growing. Uncharacteristically, I was going to cut the weeds down and mow the area. But when I found the flowers I had to get a few pictures first.

So by the time you read this the flowers will be gone. I kind of had to do it because the weeds were getting a little too close to the house. I try to keep the area near the house straightened up just a bit. I still like it kind of wild though.

So, what would you do? Would you have cut down these flowers like I did? Or would you have left the weeds growing? I feel like I had to do it. There are still lots of weeds farther away from the house. But only in the places I don't need to go very much.

We'll see if the birds deposit seeds of flowers in some of the more overgrown areas now. That will be a little better. Then I won't have to get rid of them. It's a big area and I'll keep looking for interesting plants. Who knows what I might find? I'll talk to you later.

Cool White Wildflowers

I found some very cool looking wildflowers the other day. They're growing all over the sides of the roads at Broken Kettle Grasslands. I would also share the name of the flowers with you, but I can't identify them. I've looked everywhere and found nothing.

I always admit that I'm not the best at identifying flowers, but these have me particularly stumped. I tried really hard this time. And I am sure these should be easier than this. In the back of my mind, I seem to remember seeing these somewhere before, but I just can't remember anything more.

Oh well. I still have lots of pictures of them to share with you because I think they look so cool. They looked even cooler while I was out there seeing them myself. That's always the best way, but the pictures are good too.

The flowers look kind of big at first. But on the second glance, you'll see that it's the leaves that look so fancy. The flowers are actually very small. They are tiny and white with five petals. It was these fancy leaves that attracted me to them.

These plants stood kind of tall. They were about one to two feet in height.

I liked this one with the bug on it. I took several pictures of this plant because of this bug.

Not exactly related to the flowers is that I like the routine I've fallen into. I'm able to kind of patrol the nature areas near me and report on the current changes. I'm really getting to observe the small details of the natural world around me.

This is what I was able to do back when I was living in Michigan. I felt like I was part of the natural world, and it seemed to welcome me when I would visit. I'm beginning to get that feeling back. Now if I can start to be able to coax deer to come right up to me again, I know I'm on to something. I'll talk to you later.

Looks Like Chicory, But Is It?

Okay, so I found this plant by the side of the road. I was taking pictures of wildflowers that day, so I took several of this one. I barely remember getting the pictures, and I'll tell you why that is something that happens to me.

Whenever I go out with the purpose of getting lots of pictures I forget everything else and I just concentrate on getting those pictures. Nothing else. The real purpose of going out is to enjoy nature, but I forget to do that at its fullest when I get locked in on taking nature pictures. And I go too fast. I always do it and I can't help it at all.

So I only remember taking a bunch of pictures. I don't remember what the specific subjects of my pictures were at the time. I only remember taking lots of pictures. There were just so many flowers out there that they all seemed to run together a bit. I need to slow down and think a bit more. But I've been trying for years. I still have lots of fun though anyway.

So I looked at all my pictures when I got home. I remember getting lots of good ones, and I vaguely remember examining this when I took the pictures. When I saw these specific pictures I thought, "Oh good, it's chicory."

But it looks kind of funny. The petals are thinner than any chicory I've seen before. The plant looks like chicory to me in the pictures. And I did examine the plant while I was out there, but I don't remember enough about it. So I'm just not sure.

I did do lots of searching on the internet and in a few plant guides, but I found nothing other than it might be chicory. I know one person who would have an answer for me right away, but she has become a hermit. So maybe I'll never find the answer. Such a shame.

So after telling you of my ignorance of nature once again, I have a confession to make. I only pretend to be so ignorant. If you dig around this blog and Nature Center Magazine for a bit, you'll see that I'm a terrible liar. I pretend to be a beginner because it's more fun that way for me and for you. While I'm not a super expert, you probably won't find many people with as much knowledge of nature and wildlife as I have.

So now you know my terrible secret. I'll deny all of this in my very next post. I'll be back to bumbling my way through an encounter with a skunk or an elm tree or something like that. It's all about having fun with nature. And I really am having a lot of fun. I'll talk to you later.

Giant Puffballs

I found something fun recently. You'll like it because it's unique enough to deserve its own post. This giant puffball plant was kind of a mystery to me when I took the picture. But I know a little more about it now.

This plant goes by many names, but the name I found first was Western Salsify. The scientific name for the plant is Tragopogon Dubius. Some people think of it as a giant dandelion. I read that it even starts out with a similar yellow flower that turns into these big puffballs.

This plant is considered an invasive plant in the United States since it originally comes from Europe and Asia. You can probably say that about a lot of plants. I still think it fits right in, and it looks unique enough to merit this little post from me. So I think it's just fine.

As always, I might have terribly misidentified this plant. I never claim to know much about plants except what I learn on the internet. And I usually learn as I go along. I will say though that I think I know more than most people about plants because I have actually gathered quite a lot of information over the years.

If you like, you can find more information on this plant by searching the internet. It's pretty easy, and fun too. I'm not trying to be an encyclopedia, which would be terrible. I'm just trying to spark your interest in nature. That is fun too. I'll talk to you later.

Wonderful Common Milkweed

This vicious looking fanged plant is much more gentle than it looks in this closeup. This is what is called Common Milkweed. I have always liked milkweed for the pods it grows later on. But I have come to like it even more for these flowers that look like fanged monsters.

What milkweed plants are really known for is their wonderful ability to attract butterflies. I have some pictures of that which I'll have to share with you one of these other times. But right now this plant alone is the best subject in the world because I like it so much all by itself.

It's difficult to see with all of the green everywhere in the picture, but if you look kind of closely you can see the milkweed plant growing right there in the middle of the picture among all of that grass.

All I have to do to see common milkweed around here is drive around an old dirt road in the country. It grows along the roadsides just about everywhere here. It seems to like the extra sunlight areas very much.

Her above you can see a good cluster of the flowers and buds. The Common milkweed is a pink color, but there are other kinds, with other colors. I'll show some of them to you another time. I like them too.

You can see these when you're driving along the road because of the big wide leaves. Every time I see those leaves from my truck I slow down to see if it's a good plant for some pictures. I don't always pick the prettiest plants. I pick the ones that capture my interest.

This last one was reaching out to the road for even more sun. It was just begging for me to stop and say hi. It was things like these plants being so plentiful that made it hard for me to adjust to nature around here.

Where I lived before nature was a rare thing. Now it is everywhere here. For a couple of years, I had trouble with the concept of so much nature around me. It was almost as if it was too much in my own mind. My brain kind of overloaded. It took me a little time to adjust to this different world of nature being an everyday thing.

Now I'm back to seeking out the true beauty of nature. It may not be the obvious beauty that you think of, but I share the things that make the natural world around us special. These are mostly the everyday things you can find yourself right out your back door if you look for them. I'll talk to you later.

Orange Daylily

I have some nice looking flowers for you today. I found them on one of my many morning walking adventures around town. Oh, you thought I was done with those walks now that I've returned to the nature parks? Not at all. I still do them as often as I can.Not every day. But most days.

These flowers have been growing in this place for many years now. I've been meaning to get pictures of them for a few years now myself. Their growing season has ended every other year before I ever got around to it. This year I've been right there to get my pictures. Kind of.

The two pictures above are what I was looking at every day whenever I'd see these orange daylilies from a distance. You probably agree that it is a beautiful sight. Right? So I intended to get some good pictures on my next early morning walk. I would come away with some excellent pictures for you. Or so I thought.

The picture above and the next two are what I found when I went to these flowers in the morning to get a few good closeup shots. They were all closed up! I quickly realized that these were the kind of flowers that close during the night. But I still wasn't right. As we shall see.

I have been reading that these flowers actually only last for twenty-four hours before they wither away. Each day a new flower grows in or near the old one's place. Which is why this one above looks so new.

These flowers are an invasive plant here from what I've read. They grow very easily and are difficult to get rid of. I don't know who, if anyone, planted these particular plants. The house near where they grow stood empty for many years. And it was empty when I moved here. The flowers were here then.

I had to come back later in the day to get the real pictures I wanted. It turned out to be a much more difficult task than I had anticipated. The sun was up high in the sky and shining down very brightly. I wanted to get close to the flowers to take my pictures, but I cast shadows over them whenever I did.

The brightness of the sun also blotted out the view screen on my camera. I couldn't see what I was taking pictures of. I had to shoot blindly at the flowers I wanted while trying to avoid shadows. When I looked at the pictures later it wasn't a good sight. Most of the pictures had bad shadows.

But in the end it all turned out well. I had just enough pictures to share all of these with you. I'm sure you like them because I took them just for you. But I like the little story of how I got them even more than the flowers because it was a memorable event for me. I'll talk to you later.

Big Country Wildflowers

Driving out in the country, I found these big clumps of wildflowers in many places by the side of the road. These are the ones I decided to stop and get pictures of. I don't know why I didn't stop for some of the others, some of which were better, but these are what I got this time. Some decisions don't always make sense.

I think I liked this picture because of the entranceway that was beside the flowers. While maybe none of my pictures are masterpieces, I do like the way this one looks. I sometimes think I don't have much of an eye for beauty, but I think I do get lucky with my pictures sometimes.

Maybe these supposed wildflowers are really just weeds, but they look like flowers to me. I'm not really sure who decides between flowers and weeds or even if there is a scientific method to determine the answer, but I've decided they're flowers. So there.

I found these wonderful flowers just by driving around out in the country. You can find lots of good things by doing that if you're lucky to live close enough to the country. Try it some time. If nothing else, you might get to see a few cows wandering a field. That's good too. I'll talk to you later.

Roadside Wildflowers

I decided to take a drive around the countryside yesterday. The beauty of living around here is that you don't have to go to a nature park to find nature. Nature is all around me. So I decided to look around at some of that nature, and I found these wildflowers on the roadsides of the country.

You have to really explore sometimes to find flowers around here, and I got lucky to find all of these on just one trip. I'm not sure why wildflowers are so rare, but it's maybe only because I haven't searched enough until now. I'll have to keep looking to see if that's right.

The first thing I did this time was to find the dirtiest of dirt roads. Sure it's easy to just go up and down the main highways, but it's best to really get out into what some might call the middle of nowhere to find the best of nature.

I found this little bee walking around in this wild rose. It didn't seem to mind that I was there so I took a few pictures of it. Now the bee and the flower are both famous. They'll be seen by people from all over the world. And they thought they were just there for South Dakota people.

The leaves of this wildflower were interesting to me so I decided to show them to you too. The camera seemed to like them too because it focused on them instead of the flower.

If you'd like to find out what kind of flowers all of these are then here's a nice flower identification tool I found just for you: MyWildflowers.com

Here's one of these with all of the leaves showing too. Flowers are good, but the rest of the plant is good too.

These wildflowers are very small. I just zoomed in really close with my camera. I recently found out my phone camera has an 8X zoom on it. That's much better than I thought a phone could do. The camera also focuses on small stuff better than my big camera can.

As you can see, I have lots of pictures today. I didn't want to split these wildflowers up into several different posts. It would seem like the same post over and over with slightly different pictures. So I just decided to give you one big post. You probably like it better this way anyway because there are lots of flower pictures.

Right now I have so many pictures from my everyday adventures that I'm not sure I can keep up with them here. I'm posting as fast as I can, but I'll have to see if I can go even faster. I used to have a post every day, but I'm not sure I'm fast enough to do that anymore. I guess we'll see what happens. I'll talk to you later.

Wildflowers And Stuff

I have some slightly strange stuff to tell you today. Then again, all my stories are slightly strange. So I guess I have some normal stuff to tell you. Maybe it'll still be interesting. Let's see.

I'm a day later than I had planned with this post. The reason is only because I was just randomly distracted by stupid stuff. I warned you about that kind of thing a couple of posts ago. Still, a few posts a week is much better than a few posts a month.

As you can see, I have some wildflowers to show you today. This time I do know what they are, but I don't think I'm going to share that information. I'm going to let those of you who are interested find out for yourselves. A quick image search on Bing or Google will reveal all. Just type in a description. It'll be fun.

Sharing your findings in the comments section might be helpful to anyone who can't quite figure it out. Make a game of it. We all love games. and it'll make you very popular. I've actually seen a couple of other posts on other blogs with the lavender colored flowers, complete with the name. Those bloggers visit here, and I know they know the answers.

I'm still taking my morning town walks. That's how I found these flowers. I wish I could say I've been to a nature park already, but I haven't yet. I'll tell you all about why I haven't really been anywhere yet.

I was driving around last week when I found out the brake lights were out on my truck. It was the left one and the middle one. I replaced the one on the right last year. And when I say I replaced it, I mean I had to replace the whole fixture, not just a bulb. The plastic on the connections on these lights seems to melt after a few years, so the whole thing goes bad.

So I have now replaced all five lights, including lenses, on my truck. I had to replace the headlights last month because the lenses had become so cloudy that ther light wouldn't shine through. But now they are all good, and the truck was mostly ready. But I had one more thing to do.

The only problem left was the weather is getting hot and I had no air conditioning in the truck. So I went to work on the truck again. After a little bit of reading, I fixed the air conditioning. It was the first time I ever did that on any vehicle, and I'm kind of proud of myself right now. The air conditioning now works great.

So now I'm finally ready to go to any of the local nature parks. All I have to do is choose a good day to go. I wish I could go every day like I used to, but there is just too much other stuff to do right now. I'll try to go at least a few times a week though.

And now I come to the end of my thoughts. I always say that it's hard for me to talk about flowers, and this was no exception. I kind of weaseled my way out of it in the end, didn't I? But I did have a nice goofy story for you anyway. So that's something. I'll talk to you later.