Little flower-like mushrooms

More flower-like mushrooms! Once again, sorry this is not in total focus, but if you too had a dog on a string who was understandably a little impatient to continue the walk, well then you'd know what it was like to try to snap these pictures sometimes and get a clear one!

I am truly amazed I keep running across so many different types of mushrooms. I had no idea there were this many kinds in what is basically a two mile radius. Unbelievable...and quite beautiful!

A little bit rusty

We ran across these on our walk by the river. As you know, I love shapes so these caught my interest. That they were rusty from being underwater was just an added bonus!

Even more leaves

Here is my second set of staged leaf photos. I do think they turned out well. I love the shapes and colors of the leaves I picked up. And it isn't even really Fall yet!

Lonely cart looking for love

This lonely cart is looking for love in all the wrong places. Someone skilled in retrieval, please rescue it and take it back where it belongs. I know we are all hoping it happens before it's too late.

Leaves, leaves, and more leaves

I have to tell you right up front that these leaves are staged. Normally, I love to take pictures of things in nature as I run across them. However, my cousin asked that I take more leaf pictures. On our walk the next day, I was going to focus on leaves. I opened my camera to take some pictures, but I hadn't charged my battery in my camera and it said it was too low to take any. So, I did the next best thing I could which was pick them up during the course of my walk and bring them home to "stage" in my backyard so I could at least capture the variety of shapes and colors. This is the first set of staged pictures I took with the leaves I'd picked up.

Little flower of some kind

I don't exactly know if this is a flower or not, but I like it. I like the light green and slightly orangey-brown of the flower in contrast with the leaves and the grass.

It finally stopped raining yesterday afternoon, which was nice. We sat outside the rest of the afternoon to enjoy the day. In the shade, the air was even a little cool which was welcome after the sticky humidity.

I've got to run some errands today--bank, grocery store, tag agency for a tag for our new car and then I've got to try to get everything together for the art show on Saturday. I'd better start today. I've got my paintings piled on top of each other in my little art room, so have to peel them apart and arrange them in tubs in the hall so I can transport them. I need to make sure each of them has their title and price card (the thirty plus I painted this year don't have that yet as I haven't taken them to a show). I have lots of little things I need to pull together such as how to display my cards, postcards, small unmatted, unframed paintings, etc. I would have started this whole process last week, but didn't want the tubs to linger in my hall longer than they need to. (It is hard to manuever around them, not to mention it just feels out of place.) But right now, I've got to take some little squincher for a walk.

My little yellow flower

This little yellow flower is growing in a pot in my backyard. I leave the pots out there year round and whatever comes up the next year is what is in the pot. This little yellow flower just came up in the past few days. It must have finally gottten cool enough that it was able to grow. It's beautiful.

We have been getting rain for the past few days from the hurricanes and Ike's rain has hit us last night and this afternoon. It is sticky and humid between rains, so not too pleasant to get out and around but it hasn't been too much rain at one time (which is good). It is a relief from the heat, but it has just brought it's own sticky humidity instead of a cool, crisp rain. The forecast is for more rain through tomorrow, then sunny the rest of the week. I hope that holds as my art show is next Saturday and I need a good, not hot, not rainy day so lots of people will come out and look around (and buy a painting or two or three).

Endless Clouds

August turned out to be a really busy month and I wasn't able to post everything that I'd taken a picture of. Some of those things are the above cloud pictures, taken different days throughout the month. I think my favorites are the ones that look like cotton balls. I want to pluck them with my fingers and touch them to my face to see if they are as soft as they look.

Flowers floating in the river

We were walking by the river and ran into these flowers that were floating there by the shore. Couldn't pass them by without taking a picture or two. They kind of looked to me like they had been bridemaids bouquets (there were at least three of them floating around), although to have an ear of corn at the base of a bouquet is a little unusual. I can't imagine them taking their wedding photos by the river, so don't know how these got tossed in but Brownie and I sure enjoyed them. You just don't see that everyday.

Leaves

The leaves are starting to fall, mostly because of all the heat and not enough water. These all caught my eye on our walks. I love the beauty of nature!