where's Waldo?

Wood duck drakes on a wooded shore of Canyon Lake. I never saw the 3rd one when I took the picture with the telephoto lens. See him?

Missouri pin cushion, common in the dry plains of South Dakota, easy to find when they are blooming, nearly impossible when they are just vegging for the summer. All the ones in the empty lot across the street are the typical pale yellowish color, this little one in the same 10 square foot area chooses to be pink, instead. It is the only pink one among several dozen. I like a non-conformist.

april Showers

Shower's over, out comes the sun

rock Solid

Prairie agates from the plains of western South Dakota. The biggest one I hauled home from a hike less than a mile from the house. That piece of land has recently been fenced for summer cattle pasture, so it is no longer accessible for rockhounding. 

Agate is a variegated quartz noted for its layered varieties which can differ greatly in color and translucency, as well as in compactness and porosity. The prairie agate has a rounded irregular shape and is popular for jewelry, being considered a semiprecious stone. This one is a nice big specimen about the size of a football, I was lucky to stumble upon it.

a Puzzle

Baby spruce tree, is your bright green new growth a Fibonacci sequence?

a bundle of Beard

Bearded Iris

Bearded Gentleman

Earth Day 2012

a tiny golden orb salutes the Orb Supreme on Earth Day

spring Babies

The clump birch has gotten tall enough that new baby leaves are right outside our bedroom window on the 2nd floor. For some reason, one of the three stems of the trunk always leafs out first and colors up in the fall first. The local chickadee tribe are a frequent morning foragers, "phoebe-ing" back and forth to each other before sunup. I am not sure what is for breakfast out there, but I noticed a tiny spiderweb between the top two leaves when I looked at the photo on the computer monitor, so maybe it is arachnids? (you can see it if you click on photo)

another Alteration

sometimes a painted concrete block wall needs a hint of something, a piece of broken bottle discarded by a saloon patron adds that "je ne sais quoi" to finish the sculpture.

shadows and Rust

LOVE the way the elements came together here under the stairs. Shadows are awesome creatures!

altered Reality

the altered reality of the mud puddle on my side of the driveway

welcome, rainy Day!

Almost steady rain for the past 24 hours, a most welcome stranger. The first genuine April showers we've had in a long time. The thirsty Earth has been absorbing every drop and the rooted things are looking happier than they have in weeks.

safari Solved

Daughter #3 is taking a film photography class at Black Hills State University, working old school style with black and white film, she had a project to do. I took the digital SLR and we went looking for "accidental art". The kind folks at Ace Steel and Recycling let us prowl the salvage yard after work had finished for the day. We found all sorts of cool stuff to photograph and discovered just how different we see things through a camera lens.

the safari Continues

photo safari most Unusual

In to a jungle of a different sort

on the Boulevard

My friend Tracy and I watch this magnolia tree from earliest spring, waiting for it to blossom. You would think it belonged to us (covetous gardeners) instead of the nice folks on West Boulevard.  It is a variety called "Butterflies", hardy in zone 4. It is the only one I know of in Rapid City. It is a little the worse for wear as we had our first thunderstorm of the season (with hail, thanks Ma Nature) just before I planned to take pictures. 
A favorite of mine, not because I am from the South, but because I am from the North. My grandparents had a big saucer magnolia in their yard in northern New York that bloomed spectacularly every spring. It wasn't supposed to be hardy that far north, but my grandfather had it wrapped in a tall cedar hedge that created a microclimate that it thrived in. We grandkids thought it was the most exotic thing ever when it had those huge white flowers all over it.

happy Easter

Hope the Bunny found your Easter Basket and filled it with goodies!

pigeons and Angles

Sunbathing pigeons on a south facing roof on South Street

the moon at Noon

As inspired by Marianne at Northview Diary....

and to the East

click on picture for best view

From Skyline Drive at Dinosaur Park, looking east over the original townsite towards the Badlands, Rapid City, South Dakota

the male of the Species

Populus deltoides, better known as cottonwood, these are the male flowers. With their partners, and a little help from Ma Nature, it won't be long before we see a spring blizzard of drifting cottonwood fluff on the wind.

still life with robin and Dandelion

still for only a moment

Needing fresh air, and the soothing sound of  flowing water after an insane day at school, I wandered along the creek bank with camera, to see what Ma Nature was offering up today. This gentleman posed formally for just a moment, then resumed his day's work among the dandelions and cottonwood catkins.

the creek, early April

Weeping Willow curtseys to her partner, the Creek

posies for the Mailman

Squill by the mailbox, with 86F temperatures Sunday, they really are one of the Spring ephemerals this year.

mountain Snow

Narcissus "Mt. Hood"

Mt Hood, Oregon (Don Seibel)