Our crape myrtles begin blooming during summer an continue to do so through the fall. I photographed a few of their very first blossoms a couple of days ago. The flowers are gorgeous.

The sunflowers planted in our garden are doing well. None of them have opened yet, but they will do so soon. Although the colorful red sunflower in this photo still immature, it is already beautiful.

       After participating in a track meet, we stopped and ate our lunch at Oak Mountain State Park. This white duck was waddling around the farm yard behind the picnic tables. There were lots of other animals living in the farm as well. We saw goats, horses, pigs, and even a couple of peacocks, but, even though I tried, I could only get a reasonable photo of this duck.  

The sun was just beginning to set when I photographed this granddaddy longlegs spider sitting in our apple tree. It made him look so colorful and brilliant. He was hard to see because he blended in so well with the leaves and bark of the tree.

These big, shiny droplets of dew made the blades of grass in this photo looked beautiful. Since we have our garden planted in wooden raised beds, grass is continually growing up the sides trying to get to the soft dirt inside. That’s what these intruders where doing when I photographed them.

I found this beetle exploring a blackberry flower when I was out taking photos. From this angle it looks like he’s smelling the blossom.

We a rain shower this early this morning. It freshened everything up for the rest of the day. When I went outside rain droplets were still hanging from many tree leaves and some fruit. I thought the droplets made this fig look so fresh. 

I found this tree fungus growing on one of our dog wood trees. It blended in with the bark well, considering how much this type of fungus stands out on other varieties of trees.

The sun was shining on the bark of this cherry tree when I photographed it yesterday morning. The light coming in created a cool effect. It almost looks like a rainforest!

This tiny apple is just beginning to ripen. You can see a little touch of red on the top. I photographed this one on one of our smaller apple trees we planted a couple of years back. It takes new trees a while to start producing. Hopefully we’ll have a crop this year.