Summer's End

While I was walking around my apartment complex this morning with Gizzy, I took some photos reflecting summer's end. The crepe myrtles are blooming their last blossoms and the few bees surrounding them seem to be more agitated (in my opinion) than in the spring when thousands of bees were busily collecting nectar and pollen from the blossoms of the popcorn trees. The buzzing was immense, yet none of them cared about me standing in their midst taking photos. These bees today, however, seemed to be flying towards me as if I were an intruder and competing with them for a spot on the few remaining blossoms. I had to duck several times while photographing them. Look! It's a "Two-Fer" ... the honey bee at 10 o'clock and a green spider on 5 o'clock! As Gizzy and I moseyed towards the woods, I saw one of those yellow butterflies again that I've been trying to photograph all summer long. Well, with a little patience and perseverance, I finally managed to sneak up on one before he flew up high into the trees. These clusters of white blossoms were on a very tall bush so that I could not get a good angle for my photo, but I did not stick around for very long, because there were a couple of really big wasps on it and I'm REALLY afraid of wasps. A bunch of lovely, little pink impatiens in front of the apartment's office. This late blooming bush in front of the clubhouse has lovely, pale pink blossoms. I don't know what it's called. I love this delicate looking blossom on this little bush growing near the mailbox. It looks like a hibiscus flower. It's the season for the "love bugs" to come out again. Everyone hates them. They don't fly, they just kind of float piggy back (attached to one another) through the air. There's so many of them sometimes that you have to swisch your arms through the air in front of you as you're walking. They really mess up your car too. You have to wash off the front of your vehicle as soon as you get home, because leaving them on there can ruin your paint job. This little vine climbing over the bushes by my apartment is most likely a weed with delicate, little, blue blossoms. Some weeds have the prettiest flowers. I neglected my roses this year and it shows. I will make an effort to fertilizing them more, because the red ones, especially, have a lovely honey-like fragrance and make for excellent potpourri. The moss did really well this year. It stayed green all summer long, because we had so much rain. I don't know why, but I love seeing those velvety, green patches next to my back porch. All in all, I have been very pleased with this year's summer. We had lots of rain and I've heard people say that it looks greener than they can remember for quite some time. The mosquitoes were not as bad as initially feared. I'm attributing this partially to the plentiful dragonflies population because they eat mosquitoes and knats. I saw more dragonflies and bees all summer - more than I can ever remember, partly probably because I'm paying more attention to them, but still... other people are noticing this also. I am still looking forward to the cooler weather though, so that Gizzy and I can be outside more. I simply breathe much better in the cold air...and Gizzy, too, has more pep in his step. He runs and bounces like a pup when it's chilly. We're both ready for autumn to begin!