Nature day

The trees haven't peaked here in my neck of the woods, but they're getting mighty darn close. Last night I risked taking my camera to work because there is one tree on the property that was looking so gorgeous already and I wanted to try to capture that.

Lovely, isn't it? (you can click on the photos to enlarge)



But look what happens when the sun hits it:

As I started back for the truck, I decided to get under the tree and see if I could get a good shot, and these are what I came up with:


Then, inspired by Ami Sims', er, excuse me, Madison's blog post of mushrooms yesterday, Tandi and I went out to snap some pictures of the micro things in our yard. (Actually, Tandi cracked acorns for the squirrels and I managed the camera).
Here is one we found:

And then I found a couple of odd little shoots, maybe 3 inches tall:


This is the underside:

I don't know if they are mushrooms or not. Maybe they're fairy umbrellas.
More things we saw in the yard:

I just love that shade of green.




Something hard and fuzzy on an oak leaf:



In the empty lot across the road, I loved the contrast of these red leaves with the pale spotted bark:


And the pale green spikiness of another small tree there:

The temperature is supposed to get into the 80s this week. A few last roses...

...and we're done.