Our Yard

Young bluejay - photo taken on Memorial Day

I really love our backyard and I'll miss it when we leave. It isn't fancy or nicely landscaped, but it is a gift of space in a busy area. We have birds, squirrels (of course), rabbits and we've even had a fox around. To me, it is amazing that we live about a mile from the Pentagon, yet I get to look out my back window and see so much wildlife.

Sleepy fox in our yard in January - he was outside our fenced area, but still on the property.

After checking out the situation for a while, he curled up and took a long nap in the sun. I saw him a few other times, but haven't seen him since the tear-down on the lots next to us.

When the weather is nice, I spend as much time there as I can. And when it isn't so nice, I spend a lot of time looking out the back window into the yard.

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Yesterday evening, after a stifflingly hot and sticky day, a breeze came through and cooled things off just in time for us to grill some steaks and decide to eat them outside. Ahhhh...what a treat, perfect weather for eating out and enough of a breeze to keep the mosquitos away. As it grew darker outside, Marshall was excited to point out the newest critter he has discovered -- lightening bugs! There were lots of themIt is a rare thing. So rare and enjoyable that I never even thought to pick up the camera.

Last week, while David was away in Japan, Daisy kept waking me early so she could go out. While I was not excited to be awakened so early, I figured getting up and taking care of her might save me a big clean up job when I did finally get up. On Memorial Day morning, I actually thanked her for the wake up call (as if she could understand). It turned out the be a hot and humid day, but before 7 in the morning, it was still pleasant and quiet out. While I stood outside with the girls, I started watching a couple of blue jays in the trees. After I while, I realized there were two who were finding food then taking it to a baby. While I am absolutely NO great photographer, I got a few shots that weren't too bad.

Above and below - the baby. He looks grown in this picture, but beside a parent there was a significant size difference.

Breakfast time -- I didn't get great shots, but you can see the mama (or daddy?) just to the left of the baby in the first one, then you can see the parent bent over and feeding the little one in the next.