Close up Beard

   I love to study objects and the closer you look the more you can discover. AS individual as its are in nature, it always amazes me how structural parts can be so similar especially among completely different species. I took a really close look at the beard of a bearded iris and on closer inspection, it looks so much like tentacles seen in sea life. The structure is the same as anemones and the cellular structure of the leaves looks like the scales on the skin of a ray. It seems that nature uses the same techniques in multiple applications.

The delicate tentacles of an Iris Beard. 

Water droplets on the beard of an Iris.

Springing

As I look around me there are new colors and bright vistas everywhere. It is obvious that spring is springing since the buds on all the fruit trees are exploding. The mountain bike trail smells like an old woman's closet after the perfume bottle did the hand grenade move. The concentration of scent just goes way overboard. A little rain and the whole place will be back to its green self and put that old man winter back in hibernation for another year.

Summer Memories

As the weather is starting to cool off (yeah cool, it just isn't breaking a 100 degrees) it makes me think back on the summer that is so quickly beginning to fade. Just a few pictures of pretty simple scenes that you see along the way. I am gonna miss it as soon as it is gone. Then you have all the leaves changing colors the breezes picking up and all that the changes bring up. Right after that I am praying for snow so I can go ski and then you are right back to sun, warm weather and the heat of a Texas summer. Damn the time flies when you get older and the seasons pass so much faster than you really want them to.