Male Rose Breasted Grossbeak

It has been such fun this past summer to entertain Rose-Breasted Grossbeaks at our Feeders. We get quite a variety of Birds, but these are so Beautiful! The female is entirely different-looking. Maybe I will post her at a different time. Birds do not sit still, so I saw this in one of my bird Magazines and did my best to get the outline correct.

The Side of the Road

Yesterday we took a ride Downtown to "dine" at one of our favorites along the Detroit River (Sindbad's). I saw all these Plants/Wildflowers along the entrance Ramps to the Expressway and in the fields along the way. The Sumac is ripening and will turn beautiful shades of Red and Yellow in the Fall. The Thistle is still Green, and there are many stands of it on the roadsides. People like to "dry" these for Vases and different arrangements. In the wet areas, the Cattails are showing up and there is LooseStrife (purple) growing in front of it.....this plant is VERY invasive and is not desirable to let it go.....it takes over wet areas big-time! But it's pretty.

Roadside Wildflowers--Weeds?

There are so many Wildflowers combining along the roadsides and fields right now--it's hard to keep up! I love the Orange Butterfly Milkweed so much, I bought some for the side of our house (from a "wildflower" seller at our Farmer's Market) and it seems to come up every year. Since it is on the side of the house, I don't see too many butterflies around it :-(
We did have a huge Yellow Swallowtail hovering around our Verbena this morning while we were having our Coffee on the back Deck.
We have been having a real heat-wave, but I'll take this (with Air-Cond.) anytime--compared to Wind, cold, and Slush! Long live Summer!!!

Wild Blue Chicory

On our way home from the "Y" (gotta keep "fit" :-) I noticed the Blue Chicory has arrived along the roadsides. It actually is quite attractive colorwise--and it stands out among all the other weeds (?). I love watching for the different wildflowers that come and go along the roadsides. The "Roadside Lillies" (those orange ones that everyone calls tiger lillies) are just about finishing now.

Thalo Yellow Green!

Saw this chair and just had to paint it.......did some nature-faking around it, but it was such a wonderful color, I couldn't resist!

Peachy Peachy Peachy

Some of my favorite fruits are Peaches. But I will have to wait until August to have our wonderful Freestone Michigan ones :-) I was in Barnes & Noble this morning and saw a picture of a pie and peaches on the cover of the Southern Living Magazine--so I went into the Cafe' and got out my W/C Journal and my (Altoids) tin of watercolors and brush--also had a small container of water in my purse so I "set-up" and got busy. I'll be baking a real one in August :-)