Our World, My World

Hello and Happy Monday!

Officially Veterans Day is Nov 11th, but today is the day workers in the USA celebrate Veterans Day. I am thankful to all those who serve. 

We were happy to watch our son's dogs Nibbles and Chewy for a long weekend. I think they had a little doggie vacation too.  We took them for walks on the fire road once or twice a day. This walk is about 1 mile round trip from our house. We have many fire roads around our neighborhood for walking, at this time of the year we have to watch out for the deer hunters.

Grand-dogs Nibbles on the left and Chewy on the right go for a walk. 

Below some various images of the sky, the woods next to our house and the grand-dogs.

The mosaic below shows some of the red maple trees along the driveway this fall and the rhododendron and the window where the Screech Owl likes to sit.  As of 11/09/18 I have still heard and seen this owl in our front yard. 

Thanks for your visit today!  I hope you enjoyed my post and photos.

Thanks to Angie the new host of  Mosaic Monday

Thanks to the hosting team of Our World Tuesday!

I hope to see you there. Thanks to the host today. Enjoy your day and new week.

As always I thank you for stopping by and as always I appreciate your comments.

Our World, My World

Happy Monday, wishing everyone a happy day and new week!

On Oct 23, hubby and I took a walk to the lake looking for some colors in our neighborhood. This is a short walk, less than a mile round trip from our house.  Here are some views of the lake and I managed to find my first of the year Brown Creeper. 

Views of our lake and some fall colors. 

Two Double-crested Cormorants found a spot to perch in the middle of the lake. 

There were actually 3 Cormorants, two together and one just a little further away. 

Sun's reflecting on the lake. 

Canada Geese come in for a landing. 

The Canada Geese have landed on the lake.

Some pretty red leaves.

My FOY Brown Creeper.  I also heard some Kinglets nearby. 

A view of the trail as we headed home. 

Thanks for your visit today!  I hope you enjoyed my post and photos.

Thanks to the hosting team of Our World Tuesday!

I hope to see you there. Thanks to the host today. Enjoy your day and new week.

As always I thank you for stopping by and as always I appreciate your comments.

Fire Road Walk

Happy Monday, enjoy your day!

We have been having fun looking for and finding mushrooms and fungi during our walk on the local fire roads near our house.  Some are beautiful colors, neat shapes and sizes. 


The fungi below reminds me of the coral you find in the oceans.

These mushrooms were tiny and very hard to focus on, especially with a tree branch in the way. 

I think this may be Cortinarius, I am guessing there are many different species of purple mushrooms.

This is a view of one of our daily fire road scenes.  This trail is closest to home and we go as far as we want to walk and then turn around and walk back home. We are still seeing a lot of greens but there are plenty of brown leaves covering the trail. 

Below, the mushrooms were growing at the bottom of a dead tree, they are a pretty color and have some weird bumps on the tops. 

We take a little trail to the lake, you can see a tiny bit of fall colors near the lake. Not much! I did see a Double-breasted Cormorant fly by, took quick for a photo.

Thanks for your visit today!  I hope you enjoyed my post and photos.

Thanks to the hosting team of Our World Tuesday!

I hope to see you there. Thanks to the host today. Enjoy your day and new week.

As always I thank you for stopping by and as always I appreciate your comments.

Our World, My World

Happy Monday,


My world lately has been enjoying some walks during our nice weather days. We still very green here, not many leaves changing yet. One day we walked on the fire road to the lake and another day we walked on the NCR Bike trail in Sparks, Md. These are images from those two days and the first week of October.

We spooked a Great Blue Heron that was standing close to the lake.

Along the fire road and in the forest we found lots of berries and mushrooms.

Lots of fungi and mushrooms were being seen, the Great Blue Heron, Double-crested Cormorant flying by, some ferns and flowers and the dam.

We saw a Black Rat Snake on the fire road.

The fire road to the lake, this fire road ends at the lake. There are a lot of Devil's Walking stick plants with berries. The berries really pop with a pretty color.

I have posted often on different section of our walks on the NCR bike trail. This part of the NCR trail is in Sparks Md. We took a walk first and then went to do some food shopping at the Wegman's Hunt Valley Md store.

 The NCR trail follows the Gunpowder River in places, the river is close to the bike trail.

Scenes from our walk on the bike trail.

Back at home on 10/3 18 the Cape May Warblers are still being seen eating the berries on the Devils Walking stick.

Thanks for your visit today!  I hope you enjoyed my post and photos.

Thanks to the hosting team of Our World Tuesday!

I hope to see you there. Thanks to the host today. Enjoy your day and new week.

As always I thank you for stopping by and as always I appreciate your comments.

Thankful Thursday!

Hello and happy Thursday!

Hubby and I enjoy our fire road walks checking out all the different mushrooms along the way.  I am not sure of all the mushroom id's, I just enjoy seeing their colors and shapes. I also included a view of our lake, it was a little cloudy that day. We were dog sitting for my son's dogs. It is nice having the grand-dogs for a visit and they love to go on walks with us.

"All good things are wild and free." A cloudy day at the lake.

We are lucky to have these fire roads just a walk away from our house, it is like we have a park and the lake at our doorstep.

"If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere."

I am guessing this is a Eastern Wood Pewee, I heard the song before I saw the bird. I like the bokeh showing up in the tree canopy.

I am thankful for all my nature sightings. All nature is grand. 

I am thankful for all your visits and comments. 


Thank you Michelle for hosting Thankful Thursday. 
Thank you to the hosts of   Skywatch Friday


Happy Monday, enjoy your day and new week!

Thanks so much for visiting and for your nice comments on my previous post. Have a happy day!

Saturday's Critters #198

Welcome to Saturday's Critters!

If you love critters like I do and also like to blog about them and take critter photos this is where you can share your critter post. Link up your post and share your critters, join in with my critter party ! You can share any kind of critters the real ones, pretend ones, statues and paintings, a new or old post!

Can someone tell where September went, this month just flew by. These are some images from our more recent fire road walks and walks around the lake.

This Great Blue Heron was way across the lake and the photo was fuzzy, so I used Lunapic to make more of a watercolor painting of my Great Blue Heron.

This may be a snapping turtle swimming in the lake. It looks kind of big.

We found a Red-spotted Purple Butterfly sitting on the fire road near the lake.

The Double-crested Cormorant can be seen on our lake.

Some of the birds seen along the fire road, the Indigo Bunting, American Goldfinch, I believe the bottom right is the Eastern Wood-PeWee

I had a problem with my latest blogger "theme" , it was not compatible with Mr Linky for my  Saturday's Critter party. So once again I had to change my theme. I am not sure if it will stay this way, maybe just until I find one I like better that will work for the linky. 

I appreciate and thank everyone who links up their post and for all the wonderful comments! I hope you enjoy my post and photos too!

Here is a list of my linky parties;

Also visit:  I'd-Rather-B-Birdin. Thanks to the gracious host: Anni.

Happy Saturday, enjoy your weekend!

Fireroad walk

Hello,

I have a mish-mash collection of photos from my yard and some from around the lake all taken around the middle of September.

I am not sure of this bird's id, maybe an Eastern PeWee or unknown flycatcher.

During our walk to our lake, it was a beautiful day and an awesome looking sky.

A neat shaped cloud.

My morning glory fence with some pokeberry for the birds mixed in. You have to look hard for our the chained link under all the greenery. We let some of our yard go wild just for the birds and critters.

More Pokeberries.

My moon shot from Sept 14th. I missed the harvest full moon our skies on that day were cloudy!

I hope you enjoyed your visit and my post. I appreciate your nice comments. Enjoy your day and the weekend ahead!

Here is a list of linky parties for part of the week, I hope to see you there.

Thanks to Theresa @ The Run*A*Round Ranch for hosting Good Fences.
Thank you to Sylvia, Yogi and Sandy for hosting Skywatch Friday.
Thanks to Tom the host of The Barn Collective 

Backyard birds & More

I am linking up with   Mosaic Monday and Our World Tuesday    and NF Trees

They are all fun memes to participate in...I hope you can join in with the fun  and check out some of the participating posts.

I hope everyone had a happy 4th of July. The weather here was a bit dreary, chilly rainy. Somehow I think we switched weather with the Pacific Northwest coast. What's up with that, LOL! For my post I am sharing some of my backyard birds and some of the magnolia trees seen along the fireroad trail near my house.

Above top row are the male Downy Woodpecker, male Cardinal, Blue Jay. Bottom row is the Carolina Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse and a female Bluebird.

Poppa Bluebird is helping out with the second nesting. He has a mouthful of our pine needles from the back yard.

There are so many different species of Magnolia trees. I am not sure if the trees we see in our neighborhood here are the Fraser Magnolia or the Ashe Magnolia.  They could also could be known as the bigleaf magnolia.

A bigger image of one of the bigleaf magnolia blooms.

Tulip Poplar Tree also known as the Tulip Magnolia Tree. The blooms are yellow with an orange band. These trees are found all around the woods near my house.  Both of these blooms took place back in May, I am sharing them for my NF Trees entry. 

A bigger look at the tulip poplar bloom.

The male Eastern Bluebird is a gorgeous bird, here he is posing nicely on our weeping cherry tree.

I hope you enjoyed seeing my backyard birds and the neighborhood trees. Also, thank you for stopping by and for the nice comments. Have a great day and new week ahead. 

I use Pic Monkey to create my mosaics, you can use Pic Monkey free or pay for an upgraded version.

I hope you can join in on our fun with Mosaic Monday  and Our World Tuesday and NF Trees and Bushes.

 Thanks to Judith our host of Mosaic Monday and to the hosting group of Our World Tuesday: Arija, Gattina, Lady Fi, Sylvia, Sandy and Jennifer and to Monica for hosting NF Trees.