Today's Flower: Camellia blossom way ahead of schedule

I couldn't believe it when I spotted a full bloom on this camellia bush last week. This bush normally starts setting its buds in late fall/winter but the blooms wait for early March. It looked so odd to spot one full bloom on an otherwise resting bush. I'm glad I took the picture before Friday night's frost.

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Photohunters: Technology

The photohunters theme this week is technology. Motricity develops and provides mobile technology. They have offices in Durham, NC at the historic American Tobacco Campus. After the big tobacco companies left Durham, their historic buildings were converted for new mixed use, including businesses, retail, restaurants, arts centers, and apartments.

Construction technology was employed to create a river which runs through the campus. Beginning at the old train tracks and loading docks the water descends to the courtyards and has a number of layers and waterfalls.

The UNC public radio station is housed in the campus and technology makes it possible for the radio programs to be broadcast not only on conventional radios but also on the internet.

Digital camera technology and the internet brings you this post. For other participants, please visit the home of photohunters.

Nature notes and Green Thinker Award

Rambling Woods the host of Nature Notes and Signs of the Season, has kindly created a Green Thinker Award. I appreciated her mentioning my blog with others who visit Rambling Woods and who she's presenting this award to.

She asked that we post about how we try to take care of the planet by living green, when we accept the award. I have decided to combine that post with my nature notes post this week. I'm even earlier than usual with my nature notes because I wanted to go ahead and write the combo post.

To be honest, at this point in my life a lot of what I do in my own home suits my lack of energy as well as the environment. I've been an organic gardener for a long time, and still am, but it's a lot less active at this point. By that I only mean that I recycle leaves, and organic refuse back into my garden but rather than spend a lot of time turning and sifting compost, chopping leaves, etc., I let the leaves break down where they sit.

I do rake up some leaves and put them where I have paths and don't want grass and weeds to grow, and in the spring I will rake them away from bulbs and areas where I want the spring flowers to emerge, but it's a low key effort and depends on strength and how I'm feeling.

The first photo was take this week of my nandina berries. The second shot was taken today from my neighbors sidewalk showing how my nandina hedge provides privacy for my back garden. The two shots above are small areas in my front garden where the leaves are falling in suitable spots with no help from me.

I have a lot of overgrown bushes which provide privacy but also provide homes and shelter for a wide variety of birds. The shot above was taken today of one of my many enormous azaleas. The shot below is of the same azalea from last spring. I get color in the spring and the birds get homes.

On the other side of the same azaleas (also a spring shot) you can see how it provides one side of the privacy screening. Joining the azaleas at a right angle is the nandina hedge pictured in earlier shots.

Below is the seed head from echanasia (purple cone flower) and I shot that today. I let flowers go to seed and leave the seed heads up until the birds have gotten what they want. They always leave enough for new flowers to come up in the spring.

The shot below was taken today and shows about 24 hours worth of leaves in my driveway as I raked yesterday. The leaves all go back into my garden. The bushes at the bottom of my driveway always have nests in the spring and new babies.

The shot below is of the same bushes but was taken in the spring. I was standing in the street facing my house instead of standing at the top of the driveway shooting down like I did in the shot above.

In the shot below (spring of course), I'm facing across my front yard and you can see one of my smaller azaleas (white) which also provides a home for birds.

I think I'll stick with spring for the rest of this post and show more of my bushes/bird homes. I also have nesting boxes which are always used but the overgrown bushes are the mansions.

I used to grow most of my fresh produce in my back garden and used mostly compost from my composting heap for fertilizer. I don't have the energy for the kind of gardening I used to do. The good news is sometimes thinking green means doing less. Less pruning, less watering, less chopping down, can result in a suitable habitat for wildlife and humans alike.

Please visit the home of Nature Note, Signs of the Season, and Green Thinkers for other participants as well as interesting posts with good information for green thinkers and nature lovers.

Today's Flowers: Looking back at Past Roses

Now that the last of my roses has dropped to the ground, I thought I'd look back at old photographs not posted yet.

The first shot is of my first roses to bloom each year and the first to stop blooming. That shot was taken in early May of 2009 and the red roses are in front of my raised beds which are in front of my greenhouse. My greenhouse is attached to my green storage building.

The rest of the rose shots are my Sutters' Gold which bloom in front of the storeage building, starting sometime in June and finishing up in the Autumn. I have been posting them a lot lately because until recently they continued while others were already done for the year.

These rose shots were taken in October of 2009. The last of this variety of roses finally dropped it's petals this week.

I like the way these rose are so diverse. They look quite different from each other as well as change a lot as the bloom opens and matures.

I have four other varieties of roses which I have posted in the past, and have other shots not yet posted which I may use in future posts because winter will limit my choices for current Today's Flowers shots.

Please visit the home of Today's Flowers for other participants.

Photohunters: Birds with a musical bonus

Last week I got confused and did a bird post and then realized, after posting, that the theme was music. I hurriedly added a photo of my guitars for the music theme, but kept the birds up because I have so many bird photographs.

I decided that this week I would only use birds shots that I took this week and would add some music at the end. If I hadn't been in a hurry to add music last week I would have used some recent shots from a folk museum.

The first shot of the male cardinal in my pecan tree seems to me like an example of how well coordinated the feathers are to the leaves. The second shot of the female cardinal bathing was harder to get because the males hog the bird baths. I have many more shots of the males bathing than the females.

The robin above was singing to me which was how I spotted it. The little sparrow below blends so well in with the leaves and deck that they are easy to miss.

The birds often swarm to the wires and I have managed to get a lot of shots lately when I'm at stop lights of this phenomenon.

Now for the musical bonus. The Amy Aldrich Rockerfeller Folk Art Museum in Williamsburg, VA has an exhibit called Cross Rhythyms: Folk Musical Instruments.

Unless the drawer is removed from the chest of drawers above it looks like a normal drawer. However, it has a built in piano. Because the piano is hiddlen unless the drawer is removed one guess is that the family's religion may have prohibited music so the piano was hidden. No one knows for sure if that was the case but it seems like a reasonable guess.

I enjoyed the exhibit with various instruments. The banjo below caught my eye.

I also like the mixed display below although I don't remember any information about the instruments.

For other participants, please visit the home of Photohunters where entries are posted starting on Saturday.

Nature Notes: Raindrops continue as a frequent companion

Another seven days between nature notes and the majority of those days have either been raining or cloudy part or all of the day.

However, when I look back through the shots I've taken since last nature notes I notice that I have a lot more pictures with blue skies.

Besides the fact that it's easier to take pictures when the sun is out, I know that at this point everytime I see a bit of blue in the sky I head outdoors as soon as I can.

I never lose sight of how important rain is but we've had enough rain to cause periodic flooding issues. Nothing too bad but it wouldn't hurt to have a few more clear days in between the rainy ones.

I have to say that in spite of how wet it has been, we've had an unusually beautiful fall. I know that dryer weather is supposed to be good for optimal leaf color but you wouldn't know it by the year we've had.

I can't think of a year where we've had more beatiful or prolonged color. At this point some trees have lost their leaves while others are reaching their peak.

Before long all the leaves will be on the ground but I enjoy that too.

I was surprised on Sunday to see the city trucks out collecting leaves from the curbs. They usually do that during the week after most of the leaves have dropped. I guess with flooding they have had to get a jump on it since the sun actually came out on Sunday.

They even got some of my leaves which is unusual. I rake all my leaves into big piles and move them to my back garden. I even rake the ones which fall over the curve, into the area where the city picks them up, back to my yard so they don't get removed. However, they caught me off guard by going by with the trucks on Sunday.

All of these shots were taken over the past 7 days so as you can see there are still leaves left to fall. For other participants, please visit the home of nature notes.

Today's Flowers: Pansies doing well around town

I love pansies and this time of year the beds and planters at shopping and office centers have a lot of pansies, replacing the spent summer flowers.

I like the way pansies can survive as the weather gets cooler and even do well in light snow and frost.

Pansies don't make it all the way through the winter here but do last longer than almost any other flower. The rose below is one of mine.

For other participants, please visit the home of Today's Flowers.