Just keep walking....

I love natural surprises.

Like seeing the palmettos in the forest.

Isn't it just weird to see palm leaves and pine trees side by side?

Or a fairy ring, with one mushroom heading out on it's own.

I always like to see what was on the under side. The small one looks like a lady in a huge hat!
(This is a good picture to click on to enlarge...)

Check out the Beauty Berries ripening in a blushing tide. (Another click on/enlarge worthy!)

The color gradation makes me think of paint samples, where the colors go from dark to light.

This year's Beauty Berries have been spectacular; the biggest clusters ever!

(And I think if the fantasy story about the baby snake with the crystal ever gets written, it should include Beauty Berries in the plot. And mushrooms that have run away from the fairy ring...)

Other berries are also turning...the black ones shine like the blackest of pearls, and each reflect the scene around them like mirrors. (Yes...click...see the shape of me taking the picture?)

Perhaps they are the fantasy's secret windows to watch out for danger and such...

Isn't there anyone out there who wants to write this story?

How about if I catch a picture of a fairy in action?

Will that do it?

There are blazes of fall color in the outskirts of the woods. The Chinese Tallow trees are turning color already, and disturbingly also turning brown as well.

It has been a hotter summer than normal.

Still...it is very strange to see color so soon in the year.

A new kind of mushroom with a purple brown eye. (Oh heck, just enlarge all of them....)

The top is cup shaped, beneath the petticoat looks like it has been caught in an updraft.

The mushrooms are dotting the forest floor; pushing up between the pine needle blanket that the last tropical storm created. The moisture and high humidity of that storm has made condition favorable for mushroom growth everywhere; neighborhood lawns sport toad stools the size of dessert plates!

Yesterday we were standing out front on the lawn while our real estate agent put up an Open House sign. We were chatting away, and this dragonfly kept zooming through the air around us.

It consistently lit on a fallen pine branch; after about the tenth time I went inside and got my camera.

Try enlarging the pictures for a real treat. Aren't those glassy wings amazing?

Cats, squirrels, butterflies and now dragonflies that are into posing.

Love the bug eyes. (hee hee..)

In case you are wondering how I am finding time to mess around with my camera in the woods right now:

B.'s company is paying to move EVERYTHING, and they WILL NOT insure anything I pack. So I am now stuck...the housesitter will stay with the house until it sells, and at that time everything will be packed and shipped.

Nothing special for me to do for now aside from shipping our bonsai and African violets off (the only thing the company won't cover) and figuring out what I want to take with me that will fit into two duffel bags and will weigh less than 130 lbs total.

I'm really trying to keep up with my usual exercise routines: walking, zumba, yoga, swimming, and biking. When I don't exercise, I find I have more back problems. Right now the back is doing good.

My belly dancing class has stopped, but Jeff assures me I can find another class up in SLC.

Oh yeah...imagine how it must feel being a 28 year old son having to ask where his MOM can take a belly dancing class.

My son: I think I'll keep him!