Variegated Fritillary and bees

Just a beautiful Variegated Fritillary Butterfly on a "beautiful flower" as Mason says as he snaps that bloom off and gives it to me.
Mason does love to pick his Granny's flowers,

but on this day the butterfly was allowed to enjoy the bloom by itself.

That is until the bee came along.

And then a second bee came along, and the butterfly was gone.

Notice the pollen sac on the 2nd bee.

Why I don't have Hummingbird feeders at my house

This is why I don't have Hummingbird feeders at my house. All of these photographs were taken last year at my neighbor's house after I took my feeders down.

I tried again this year, but the bees returned.

And you thought ants were a problem.

The last photograph was taken next to Bill's garden. I think he was trying to pull them away from the feeders, but it didn't work. This one was taken at the same time as the others.

Colors of Spring 2009

The colors of spring through my camera lens this spring.

Forsythia taken at the Spring City Elementary School.

Redbud taken at the Lutheran Church on Broadway in Knoxville.
Japanese Quince

Bleeding Heart

Azalea

Flowering Almond

Close up of the Flowering Almond

Grape Hyacinth

Tulips and old fashioned white daffodils

Both of these photographs were taken at Max and Mary Frye's house in Dandridge. We were there this past Saturday to get fruit trees Max started for us last year. While we were there they also gave us a large clump of the these white daffodils. His aunt planted these at the old home place over 75 years ago.

Dandelion (Rockwood)

Flowering Crab Apple (Rockwood)

Peach Fruit Tree

Apricot Fruit Tree

Apple Fruit Tree

Not sure about this one. We first planted a Japanese Maple in this location, right before the late freeze (21 degrees) in April 2007. The Japanese Maple still had not come back to life in the fall of 2008 so we replaced it with this tree. I can't find my tag for it, so I don't know the name of it.

A ladybug on the above tree/shrub.

Unless otherwise noted these photographs were taken in my yard in New Market. We are expecting another April hard freeze tonight so I hope we still have some spring colors when we get up Tuesday morning. If we get some snow it would help. We are suppose to, but since we all want it in hopes of helping to save all the blooms we probably won't. The dogwoods are just beginning to open up, and it sure would be nice to have dogwoods in bloom for Easter. I would like to be eating apricots and peaches from my own trees this summer too.

Rockwood outbuilding

This 'paper' nest is inside one of the out buildings at the house in Rockwood. Jimmy says it is a wasp nest, but it does not look like one to me. Each of the tubes is so long, looks like something else to me.

I showed some of this building in the original post about the house in Rockwood. This building is behind the house, has 3 bays for cars. The appearance of the whole building is not that great, because it has the newer metal doors and I think it takes away from the appearance of the old look.

This light fixture is a great example of what I don't like. Oh, and the house had a tarp on the roof when we bought the house. That tarp is garbage now (we have a roof!), and but now there is a tarp on this old building. Probably won't get a new roof on it until Spring, but Jimmy will do that work himself.

Last week Jimmy and his brother stepped through the garage opening below this loft and a yellow tabby tom cat leaped out of this opening and went for the woods. Guess we also got ourselves a barn cat.

Possibly a better photograph of the nest. You can click to enlarge.

Bees in the fall at the GSMNP

These bees are enjoying the flowers I posted earlier in the week.

They were in bloom all over the park this week.

The bees even enjoyed the dead blooms.

Bee on corn in neighbor's garden

These were obviously at least a couple of months ago. The garden is now gone. The honey bees were everywhere this summer. They sure did their job in Bill's garden. And gave me something to photograph.

Bee on yellow daylily

Some photos I took earlier in the summer. Since I got the laptop have been going through photographs I have been taking all year.

Notice the 2nd bee in the bottom photo.