The Weekend Roundup: I

The prompts for this weekend from Tom the Backroads Traveller are: Starts with I, Inside, and Favourite.

Starts with I

Ivy starts with I.  One of our two pet rats is named Ivy, and the other one is Violet.  Unfortunately, Ivy has had some respiratory distress this week so she went to the vet this morning and she has pneumonia.  She is on antibiotics, which she gets drizzled on cheerios cereal, which is a favourite treat.  

We do hope Ivy will recover quickly.  

Inside

I keep all the chicken food - both their pellets and their scratch grains - inside galvanized metal garbage cans.

This means that I don't have bags of feed laying around to be temptation to raccoons or other creatures that I don't want stealing the food!  Keeping the food inside the bins also keeps the food dry and clean during inclement weather.  The lids have a simple locking system integrated into the handle and the raccoons can't open them.  I keep the cans right next to the coop so it is convenient for me to access.

Favourite

I was thinking about using "ice" for my letter I word.  Ice is not a favourite thing of mine, but this picture of ice in my backyard is a favourite for this week because the ice in the yard is starting to melt, and I can see the little green shoots of the sphagnum moss growing underneath.  There is even a green blade of grass in there. Perhaps spring will arrive in March this year instead of the end of April!

Friday's Hunt v. 4.01

It's time for a new round of the alphabet on Friday's Hunt.  This time, there is also a little shift in the prompts - we are not doing week's favourite this time - although we can include it if we wish. Instead, we have two random prompts.  I like the change because I tended to struggle with week's favourite.

The prompts this week are:  Starts with A, Inside, and Sunset.

Starts with A
I'm sharing a moth that I photographed on June 23.  It is the White-spotted Sable moth, which has the scientific name Anania funebris.  Its host plant is goldenrod, and there is plenty of goldenrod in this area.  It's a pretty little moth - I like its orange shoulders!  This moth is also widespread in Europe, which is interesting because we don't share that many moth species between North America and Europe.

Inside
My foxgloves have been delightful this year.  Last year I didn't have any.  I think that the former owner cleared out all the foxgloves from the garden beds just before we moved in.  I was surprised to see so many foxgloves this year, but they are glorious.  I seem to have three main colours - a dark magenta pink, a light peachy colour, and a very pale pink.  I also have a single white one.  I am captivated by the inside of the flowers.  They have such detailed patterns and I like to watch the bees go inside them to gather nectar.  Here are some pictures of the inside view of foxglove flowers.

White

Peach - you can really see the tiny hairs at the flower openings in this shot.

Pale pink

Magenta

Bee bum!

Sunset
It's tricky for me to get good sunset pictures at home.  Our home is surrounded by trees, and most of them are quite tall.  This means that even when I'm on the balcony on the second floor outside our bedroom, I still can't really see the sunset except a bit of colour through the trees.  I took this shot as the sun was setting earlier this week.  I like the way the sun is still shining through the trees.

This shot is from the balcony also, about 20 minutes later than the one above - you can just see the pink-tinged clouds through the trees.  That's about all I ever see for sunset!

I decided to try to get a sunset picture on my way home from my knit night this week, so I took a dirt road to try to find a clear patch of sky (also very difficult given the density of trees in the general area).  I didn't have much luck with that approach, because the gaps in the trees didn't point in the right direction for a good sunset picture.

I suppose I have to go elsewhere to take good sunset shots!