A Portrait of Flowers

We had a lovely stormy day yesterday.  Lots of clouds and rolling thunder, but the temperature was quite warm, so we sat out on the back deck and watched the rain fall.  The wind came up a little bit and the clouds started parting, leaving our little garden moist with rain drops.  Here's some of the things I noticed, after the rain:

Day Lily

Pansy (Obviously)

Hens and Chicks (In full bloom, who knew?)

"Dragon's Blood" Sedum  (At least that's what the tag says

Then I started getting all fancy schmancy.  I love taking macro photos.  So here are some of the better ones.

Centre of the Day Lily

Day Lily stamens

Flower on the Hen & Chick plant

Thyme flowers.

Pansy centre

We've seen a new type of bird in the yard.  It took us a while to find out what kind they are.  (What did we do without the Internet???)  They're called Cedar Waxwings.  They're very smooth and have pretty colouring.  They have a bit of allure, as their eyes are covered with black masks, like they're heading out to Mardi Gras or something.  Our camera isn't good enough to get a picture of them, but here's one stolen shamelessly from the Internet.

Rakish little things aren't they???  They nest very late in the season, so they've been very busy trying to untie our finch feeder to get at the string.  Ron has industriously cut up some jute string and tied it loosely around branches of the pine tree to distract them.  We both love all the birds in our little kingdom, but he's become somewhat of a "Birdman".  Yup, that's right, the Birdman of Freetown.  Catchy!  The weather has cleared and we had a rather lovely rainbow at the end of the day.  Yes, I took pictures of that, too!

Well, I think that's enough bragging for one day.  (I'm exhausted from trying to find enough adjectives!)  Sometimes this place is just the sweetest corner of heaven.  Love to you all!