Joycie's walk at Grampa & Gramma's

Sometime this morning, Joyce drove Sammy over to their Grampa & Gramma's so he could spend the day with them. She took my Sony with her and took a nice, long walk. When she came home, she woke me up to show me her photos. It was worth the waking.

She got a beautiful photo of a scarlet tanager.


My Dad has made many bluebird houses and put them up all over their property. He's put the houses up in pairs, because when he used to put just one house up, the swallows were taking them over. Dad said swallows are very territorial, so putting 2 close enough together would leave the other house for bluebirds. Though it doesn't solve the "dang sparrow problem," as Dad put it. I've seen many of his bluebird houses with a bluebird at it, so it's working. Joycie captured this shot of 2 birdhouses that her Grampa made. She told me that while she was taking photos of these birdhouses, there were 4 birds flying at her, dive-bombing, trying to scare her away, and she could hear their wings when they flew so close to her. Probably swallows.


Favorite picnic spot of squirrels. Like the bars where you leave the peanut shells on the floor. Party squirrels, clearly.


This photo Joyce took of a dragonfly really caught my attention. I've tried to get photos of these brilliant blue, small dragonflies that are in abundance at my folks' property down near the river in the area we call "the West 20". The dragonflies are so quick, though, that I've never been able to capture a nice close-up shot... and not only did Joycie get one, but it's eating. How cool is that.


The best for last. During her walk, she came across a mama racoon with several babies. As soon as the mama coon saw Joycie, she got her cubs to start moving, and they all scooted up a tree & into a hole. In this shot Joyce took, there are 3 cubs with the mama.


If Joycie keeps this up, she'll have to start her own blog.