A Miniature World of plants

     I don't have a very big yard, but I do have lots of different plants and insects living here with me. Many of them seem tiny, in a good way. 

     It's fun to zoom in really close on bugs and blooms, seeing things you can barely see with the naked eye. Today I was amazed at how well my cell phone camera was able to focus on the subject and blur the background. I got some pretty nice shots. Here are a few of them, submitted for your approval!

I think this is golden rod. The bees sure like it.

I'm not sure what plant this is, but all the flower heads have dried up and gone to seed. It was pretty tall. I enhanced this shot a little to contrast the sky.

I'm sure you recognize this as Queen Anne's Lace. I love the way this flower is designed!

Check out the antennae on this bug! 

This flower looks bigger here than it really is. I don't know what the name of it is.

This is Thistle. I had one large plant in the back yard that the bees and moths loved. Was hoping for some gold finches, but no such luck. I didn't set up any feeders because of that bird disease that is happening this summer.

I've always been fascinated with moss, and this moss is really cool! Now I know where moss rose got it's name. I think those tiny flowers are them, or at least in the same family. I never saw that on moss before. Those red stems in the background are runners from tiny wild strawberry plants that appear to be too small to bear fruit. I was surprised to see that.

Here you can clearly see the strawberry leaves. The moss is growing nicely in cracks in the concrete.

Last picture of the day, though there are many more I'll save for next time. This is an oak leaf that is being eaten by that brown blob. I have to look up what that is. Maybe I'll have more information in my next post. 

It's fun to find interesting things in your own back yard. I love to find patterns in nature. If you like this post, please comment and share! Be sure to check out your own surroundings too!





 

Nature is wherever you are

     Can you believe I started this blog in 2014, and never published one post? It was a spin-off of a blog I started the previous year called "Karin's Yard and Garden 2013". Well, the year, yard and garden are long gone, but at least I'm still around!

    My new town is suburban, but there is plenty of wildlife around. My new yard is much smaller, but there are woods behind the house, and further down a brook, but it's not on my property, so I haven't seen it up close. 

    But that isn't stopping me from finding nature and taking pictures of it. Here is what I've found in the past few weeks:

I don't know what kind of weed or flower this is. But the lady bug likes it. We have a lot of ladybugs in the yard!

Another wild flower in the back yard. I'm glad I didn't pull it out before it had a chance to flower!

    

This is a close up of a tiny little pink flower. I couldn't see the patterns on the leaves outside. 

    

Here is my beautiful "pet" butterfly. I see it almost every day. I'm going to miss him if he migrates in the fall. I had a lot of milk weed in the front yard before my neighbor mowed it down. But there is still plenty of it out there.

Here is a pretty dragon fly we had in early July. Never saw him again after that.

Here is the milkweed. It is really quite pretty when flowering.

Here's the deer! In spring I saw three of them together, but ever since just one alone. This was the first time he came down this close. He was so cute going back up through those bushes. I got a short video of it I'll save for another time. 

    I'll be back another day with some more pictures! I hope to go exploring some of the nice trails around here for some more natural beauty! Enjoy the remainder of summer, it will be gone soon!