I'm not dead, I'm taking pictures.

For about a week now a couple of the trees near the entrance to our community have been blooming. And every time I drive by them I make a mental note to head back with my camera to capture the blooms. And every day, for about a week, something always came up.

Finally, on Saturday afternoon I found myself without a child, but with a dog who needed walking. So I hauled out the camera bag and away we went. I was slightly concerned about the distance as he is getting weaker, so I made sure to have a backup ride planned in case he needed a lift home.

Luckily (for the walk) the brisk wind put a bit of a spring in his step and he had no problem meandering there. The trip back was definitely slower, but he eventually made it home. Unluckily (for the picture taking) there was a brisk wind. Brisk winds and macro lenses don’t really match, and the blooms were fading a bit (see the first paragraph about waiting a week to head out to take the pictures). So I ended up with this:

and this:

Neither of which I’m completely happy with.

But do you know what are fairly immune to gusts of wind? Low lying flowers like the one pictured here:

I’m always fascinated by how beautiful dandelions are close up! (They’re even prettier when they’re not in my lawn.) After amusing a few drivers (picture me trying to take ground-level pictures while Chet’s doing those things dogs do on walks..digging, wrapping his leash around me, knocking me over – good times) we took a detour down one of the little paths around here, and and I was thrilled to find this guy:

A fellow path-traveller wasn’t so thrilled to find me in something akin to the child pose on the side of the path. It apparently looks very similar to someone who has collapsed while walking their dog. He seemed to take me scaring the bejeepers out of him fairly well, and for now I’ll operate under the assumption that I’m still relatively new here, and that the neighbours will get used to me soon.

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