Around The Countryside...

On May 20th, I took this picture of the phoebes in the rafters, and discovered not four, but five of the little birds! The next day, I went out to capture more photos, expecting them to be exploring a little and perhaps catching them in the act of learning to fly. They were gone. The nest was empty.  This was the last shot, before they left the nest for good. 

Five little phoebes.

 

The off and on again rain has made for some pretty cloud cover. Sometimes we only have a little, other times fluffy puffs float across the sky. Sunrise as we head to the bridge.

A puffy cloud is outlined by the sun.

A closer shot of the puffy cloud.

Buddy surveys the kingdom while Sammy gets a back scratch from Richard. 

This little guy tucked in as soon as the dogs got curious!

Porch sitting at Mom's and Pa's.  The little yellow finches are dominating the South Pole feeder.

Went to The Cook Shack (https://www.facebook.com/TheCookShack/) for dinner and a Luna moth had parked on the window screen all day.  Thanks to proprietor, Pam, for taking the picture for me!

We had to run an errand in a nearby town and took the scenic route home.  The cows in the pasture and the clouds in the sky made for a pastoral scene.

This old barn holds the timbers of its former glory, faded with time. 

The peach tree is fruiting out and is growing tall, too.

The raised beds - left is the potatoes and right is the lettuce, radishes and green beans. We hope to enclose the entire garden area, including the fruit trees and bushes, in a covered cage to keep the wild critters from eating our food!

First harvest of the strawberries. There was only one, the others are still ripening.

Morning Walks...

Almost every morning we walk Buddy to the bridge.  I take pictures along the way if anything catches my interest. These photos were taken on different days.

 

This is right outside our driveway, looking east (the bridge is to the west). Sunrise was very pretty, with the pink clouds and blue skies.

 

A lovely golden sunrise, taken just about halfway to the bridge over an adjacent meadow.

 

At the creek, there's a beaver family, they've been there for years.  We rarely see the beaver, but lately, the animal's been a little less shy and I've taken some decent pictures. Here he completely ignored us, and continued to eat. 

 

I don't believe this is the beaver lodge, it's just a pile of sticks gathered together. The lodge is situated under the bank on the opposite side.

 

The beaver is now swimming towards the lodge. The pile of sticks is to it's left. By the way, the pile of sticks is now gone from the creek a week or so later.

 

A turtle rose to the surface to check us out.

 

A raccoon runs across the meadow and into a drainage pipe to hide, probably from us, despite our distance from it.