Usually when people see me "picking the pretty flowers" they nod, smile, or just ignore me. Today a man jogged by, then turned to say angrily, "They see you, they give you shit, stealing the flowers!" He jogged on without waiting for a reply. (I may have made one anyway, under my breath.) A few minutes later a police officer walked by with his police dog; this happens regularly, as the police dog training compound is just a bit farther along the bike path. As usual, I was not arrested, questioned, or paid any attention to, really. Even the dog hardly looks my way. If we come eye-t0-eye we say good morning, and that's about it for the terrible trouble I'm going to get into for "stealing the flowers." Whew.

Ah well, I was comforted by finding several milkweed plants growing among all the Dame's Rocket and other invasive stuff. Now they'll have a little more room to grow.



There was a muskrat in the pond this morning, but it didn't hang around while I figured out the correct setting for my camera. I also got some poor shots of the black-crowned night heron...



... and an interesting flying thing:

I can't seem to find the setting on my camera that identifies the thing I've just taken a picture of. Wouldn't that be a great feature?

There's some cow parsnip getting established at one corner of the site. It's big already, but just wait!

There's a large flower cluster all folded up in this little package:

I saw the indigo bunting again at Todmorden Mills. He's a noisy chap, and too busy to have his picture taken. Instead, here's a robin enjoying some sumac fruit: