Alisande, williamsburgjane...thank you for the compliments on my yard. Really it is looking a little wild right now. I tend to leave the spent flower heads on most of the flowering plants too long. When I see how much the birds enjoy the resulting seeds I hate to take them away from them. That large Nepeta in the foreground is very long blooming and it's seeds are much loved by the Goldfinches.

We have plenty of red wing black birds here in summer, but they are so wary that they do not bother people. Its the opposite; Its hard to get close enough to get a shot, and when you are close enough, they contrive to keep something between you and them. However, they do not nest in town. Our town has plenty of wet lands outside its perimeter and that is where the red wings are. They love our cat-tail swamps. At this time of the year, other types of black birds are forming huge flocks in preparation for migration. By mid-October, our black birds will be gone.

I don't know who this 1950s woman was, but she had attitude! Plus she seems to have a flying saucer hovering nearby.

I was thinking about this last night. The dust, smells, and noises of farming don't really effect me too much as I have grown up around it all. In fact, if we had smella-monitor I'd let you experience the waft of cow manure that has been being spread on the field right across the road from the front of my house for the last several days. ha