It's Wildflower Wednesday here on the Blog! This one is currently blooming in a couple of spots in my yard. This is Wild Columbine which usually blooms in April and May. They belong to the Buttercup family. It usually likes steep rocky slopes and moist soils though this one is growing in one of my gardens.
I got another chance at a Horned Lark image recently. I was bike riding and a couple kept landing in the road just in front of me so I was able to get a couple images. This is the male and you ca see the "horns" in this image. They are actually raised feathers. They like very bare ground to look for seeds and insects so that must be why I see them in the road so much.
Happy Monday and happy new week! I grow this flower but it must not like where it is because it has not bloomed or not bloomed much at all the past couple of years. My Mom-in-law's plant is quite happy with where it is apparently as it was blooming profusely. I had never seem so many flower buds on a stem as this one had. This is a Bleeding Heart. They like shade and rich soil. I am thinking that is what I need to do, make the soil richer. In the photo, behind the main arch of flowers you can see one of the groups of LOTS of buds.
It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog! Today's image is of my new (used) Forney locomotive that I got in Florida with the track. I took this image on the first day of using it and running Live Steam on the layout. Forney locomotives, 0-4-4Ts, are a type of tank engine. They were developed by Matthias Nace Forney in the 1860s. They were used for mining, lumber, plantations and some short haul freight and passenger service. The most well known Forney locomotive is the Ward Kimble built by Baldwin for the Disneyland Railroad in California.
There is a video of it in operation on my layout that I shared last week, HERE if you haven't seen it and would like to.
In the Spring the Cedar Waxwings seem to travel through and spend a bit of time in the trees by my Gazebo pond. I saw them a couple weeks back and did not have a camera with me. By the time I ran to the house and back there were only a very few in the trees and I only got off one shot. Fortunately, it was a fairly good one. I love Waxwings. I have not seen them since unfortunately.
It's Friday, TGIF! It's also a double digit day! 😀 I had purchased a new Poppy this year so I was taking some photos of it including this one. I love the texture of Poppies, very wrinkly, I think it is compared with crumpled paper. The stems are quite hairy as well. Sharing this photo today because I thought the bokeh was rather interesting and Friday's Are Bokehlicious!
We have Collard Lizards in our area and there is a specific place on one of my bike routes that I see one fairly regularly. I almost forgot to look for it while out on a warm day recently so only got one shot of it playing Peek-A-Boo over the rocks it lives under. This has been about the third year that I have seen it there. I looked them up and they can live 5 to 8 years in the wild. This is, most likely, a female due to the color of it's head blending into the rock. Males are more blue-green in color.
