Continuing with my look back to my flowers of 2010, this week I thought I'd show you my May roses.
The red roses in front of my greenhouse put on a big show early and then they are done before most of my other roses start blooming.
Below is a May rose in front of my storage building which is attached to the greenhouse. They bloom early but also continue into the fall.
I enjoy how my storage building roses are a mix of colors.
Below is a wider shot of the red ones.
The storage building rose below has a visitor inside its petals.
As I often repeat, I may not live in a rose covered cottage but in the spring, summer and early fall, I have a rose covered storage building. That will have to do.
Click for the home of Today's Flowers.
I take a lot of shadow shots but don't post them very often so I had a wide selection to choose from in my photo archives for this theme.
There is a weekly theme I've seen bloggers I visit participating in called shadow shots.
I've considered participating in Shadow Shots but at this point I'd need to start dropping weekly themes before I add any more.
I enjoy participating in weekly photographic themes but I do so many between my two blogs that it can be time consuming.
Photohunters is the first weekly theme I started doing. I didn't know about themes or memes or whatever they are called before I joined in with photohunters.
I enjoy playing with shadows although some work better than others.
I was trying to avoid the shadows in the shots I took at the NC museum of art until I realized that they were kind of interesting.
They were double shadows for some reason.
I saw the shadow from the trees on my back porch as I got out of the car and couldn't resist shooting them.
It is remarkable to me what light can do on surfaces.
I always notice the shadows when crossing bridges.
Sometimes the shadows become a little fussy but I like them anyway.
This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of my shadow shots because I have a zillion of them.
The Shelley Lake bridge below is one I frequently shoot with shadows in mind.
I think the goose was kissing her shadow.
It certainly appeared to be a case of shadow infatuation.
I had already searched my archives for shadow shots and prepared this post to publish later when I spotted the shadow of the tree on the ice. I decided I'd add it since there was something about it I liked.
Click for the home of photohunters.
For this post I'm going to begin with shot I took this morning (Wednesday) and move backwards.
The junco above is looking for seeds that have fallen off the deck wall and table where I have feeding stations. The nuthatch is having a snack above the junco in the shot below.
You can't tell from these shots but everything still has a layer of ice from Monday night's freezing rain and Tuesday's freezing drizzle.
The house finch above is pausing from partaking of its breakfast. The waxwing below is stoically sitting on an icy branch.
It's very rare to see robins in the winter although I know they are around but they rarely eat seeds on the deck in bad weather. This one must be hungry to join the rest of the birds.
Yesterday the watering can was an ice water can.
The grass was almost as slick as the harder surfaces.
I wasn't strong enough to use my snow shovel to break up the ice for walking paths but I found it works pretty well as something to balance on when I took out bird seed.
The blue jay is perched underneath icicles although they are hard to see.
The rest of the shots are moving back prior to the ice storm although it was cold. The female cardinal is enjoying some fresh water.
I think there is a mix of waxwings, sparrows, and juncos in the shot below.
They seem rather companionable on perched on the branches.
It almost looks like a ghost is flying towards the red-bellied woodpecker below.
I am surprised how many cardinals are about. There are times when I've spotted dozens of them, about half male like the ones below and half female.
There are always a fair number of brown thrashers too.
The roufus-sided towhee is kind enough to sing for me, although it's far more vocal in the spring. I just noticed there is a sparrow on the far left of this shot. I didn't even see it until I started writing the post.
The grackle is quite stylish with his black and blue feathers.
The tufted titmouse is a flighty fellow.
The squirrel approaches while the brown thrasher ruffles his feathers.
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For this week's Today's Flowers I am looking back on Iris shots I took in my April 2010 garden.
I had a lot of shots of my Iris that I haven't posted which comes in handy for winter posts when flowers are scarce.
I don't have any flowers blooming now so they are not only scarce but non existent.
I have less and less iris returning in the spring and I know part of the problem is I need to divide and rework the beds.
It's physically hard for me to to anything terribly strenuous in the garden at this point in my life.
Fortunately I still have some flowers continuing to return and hang tough in spite of neglect.
I love iris and have a number of other varieties but these are the ones I saw in my April photo folders. There are probably others in May and maybe June.
Since last week I posted some March 2010 flowers, I thought I'd go with April this week and I'll probably keep going through the flowers of 2010 until I have something blooming in 2011.
I like how each iris looks a little different even when it's the same variety. This post included three different varieties.
Click for the home of today's flowers.
