My Walk With Nature

I was busy snapping pictures of some embroidery this morning, getting ready to write about the cast-on stitch and a new flower. Then I looked out the window at the gray day we are having here in western Oregon. Mild weather, gray day (between rains). And lo! and behold!  I saw BLUE SKY -- just a bit peeking through.

So I flew through the house, camera in hand, to check the bit o' blue from the back yard to see if it was still there!  It was. This is a view to the west where our weather (mild temps, moisture in the rain shadow of Oregon's Cascade Mountains) comes in off the Pacific Ocean.

That's a photo to the east, a typical gray December day, and the tree is our neighbor's beautiful 35-year-old deodora cedar.

While I was hiking through our back yard, I noticed the beautiful moss and decided to take some pictures. This moss is on the NORTH side of our catalpa tree.

And on the SOUTH side of the very same branch, I photographed this, which I call lichen. I actually don't know the difference between moss and lichen (green might have something to do with it....); I get more excited about flowers. But this was pretty.

    So I started looking for MORE moss -- didn't have far to look:

And I thought this was interesting. These mosses take the wintertime place of my old-fashioned lilacs, my very favorite flower! 

Here is how it looks in the spring:

(I think I miss springtime.)

Well, I think I'll have to Google "lichens" and "mosses" to learn more. While I'm thinking about it, I'll share a photo of my "Great Thinker", Cuthbert:

 ...thinking, as usual, about not much.

           And here he is again in a photo I took a little while ago that I call "Television for Cats" -- we have just about every kind of "tasty little morsel" at our bird feeders, finches, nuthatches, towhees, twits (or whatever they are called, the itty bitty ones) and either wrens or sparrows. (I'm better with flowers.)

And before I go to finish "developing" the new-flower (I'll include a toot) and cast-on hint/tip, I thought you would like to see one of my pretty rocks from back in my rockhounding days - a moss agate, slightly different than the mosses pictured above:

It's such fun snapping pictures. I hope you are enjoying them!

Rosalie