Day 258

Today, I went out front to see what new growth and things I could find.

Cloud caused by a plane

Tulip tree leaves

Camellia leaf bud

Rhododendron flower bud. This plant take months (almost a year) to make a flower, which only last a few weeks.

Day 183 - Half Way Point

I'm at my half way point in the project. Today, I waited till night fall to take photos.

Up view of pink flowers

Up view of the Camellia bush

Dying Rhododendron flowers

Day 169

Today, I was getting ready for our trip, so I took photos by our house. There have been multi-colored flowers dropping down from a tree in front of the house. I googled to figure out what they were from. I found out they are from a tulip tree. I had to squint hard to figure out which tree they were coming from. It helped that blooms were dropping as I was searching. Once I figured it out, I took more photos of the tree.

The rhododendron is in full bloom and the bees are abundant.

The sun was coming through the trees in a glittery way. It took a few tries, till I could capture the broken up light.

Day 165

Today, I took photos of new plants along the main path.

I think these are some type of rose.

These came from the pine trees.

We have lots of caterpillars and inchworms who have been busy chewing on leaves

This weed like plant has a very long stem. I'm trying to convince my neighbor not to cut it down, just in case it has beautiful flowers.

These are vivid red azaleas

Pink and white azaleas

My white azalea is already losing it's blooms. This bee was taking advantage of the pollen in this one. You can see that a petal of this one has a hole in it. That might be from caterpillars or inchworms.

This is from a tulip tree. Tulip trees are tall  like oaks and maples, so it's hard to see their blooms way up high, to see which of the trees is a tulip tree. I will try to find the tree though.

The rhododendron started opening up it's blooms. I walked around to the back of the bush and was greeted by two large bees. They were so big that the clusters shook when they entered the flowers. It was amusing to watch them from a safe distance, as they gathered and dropped pollen.

This the second bee. It looks like a weird little alien.

Day 163

Today's photos are by the stairs and path to our house.

This ant and inchworm where co-existing and occasionally swatting at each other.

This is a strand of oak tree pollen, which is actually tiny flowers.

Inchworm on a twig, with more oak tree pollen.

The rhododendron buds started opening.

On the railing of the steps, were lots of little creatures. 

There were several tiny green insects moving swiftly.

There were about 6 inchworms inching along the rail. I took photos of a few of them.

These were going in opposite direction. When they inched into each other, they had a bit of a fight. I love how the ant is looking at them, as if it's a wrestling match and it's a referee.

Day 160

Today, I went out at dusk to see how much light my camera would pick up without the full moon showing.

These are trees above our path. I love the painterly quality of these photos.

These are trees at the end of the culdesac. If you look closely in the full size photo (click on this photo to see the bigger one), you can see a star.

Better photo with said star.

The Rhododendron is lit by the path light. I like the contrast and shadows of this.

Day 136

Today, we woke up to a light coating of snow and drizzling rain. The snow quickly dissolved, as the rain continued. Snow isn't uncommon in March, in Richmond, VA (we've had heavy cabin fever inducing snow before), but of course no one recalls that when the snow comes in Spring. Granted having nice days followed by bitter cold isn't fun, but that is what Spring is like here. I'm expecting another 2 months of rain. March, April and May showers bring on the flowers here...so expect a lot of wet flower photos...or in this case wet and frozen.

This is a flower from a Dogwood tree in my front yard. I squeezed this one to see if the water was frozen or not. It wasn't, but that would have been neat. Since the flowers were facing up, they are like little cups when filled with rain.

This Rhododendron had ice melting off of it and rain drops on it.

Some of the Vinca had snow on it. All of it was wet.

The upturned petals of the hyacinth had rain glistening in them. This one is so shiny, you can see me a bit.

Since it was really cold outside, I went back in quickly, to warm up. This squirrel butt greeted me.

Later in the morning, we headed to the city to meet some friends for brunch. After brunch, I took some photos from the passenger side of the tree lined streets. Remember when I said, I wouldn't stick the new fancy camera out of the car window. Well, I lied. Really, I just rested it on the window sill and pointed it up.

As we crossed the main bridge to our house, John said I should take photos of the James River. He purposely drives in the far right lane, so I have a better chance of clear photos. This one has been cropped to exclude the guard rail.

These are the train tracks by our house. They are tricky to photograph, so my husband slowed down when we crossed them.

Day 104

Since I've been taking upwards shots of the trees by placing my camera on the ground, I wanted to try the same thing, but with bushes. I will try this again in the day light, but I started at night, because I like the contrast of the green leaves against the black night sky...yeah, we'll just say that, vs. I was lazy and waited until 10pm...

This is the Camellia bush.

This is one of my neighbor's bushes.

This is the Rhododendron.

A different view of the Rhododendron.

Another bush. I don't know what kind.

Earlier in the day, Pippi's squirrel friend climbed over to the Crape Myrtle, chittered at me for Pippi and then left when Pippi (who was sleeping not in view of the squirrel) didn't answer the request. This is the squirrel staring at me intensely. It's a bit creepy, but cute...only because it's furry. I think this is the squirrel named Oscar. It isn't as afraid of humans as the other squirrels are. It lets me come really close to it for photos. It's the star of many photos in this blog.