Another Quick Walk

What is this?

Some kind of autumn crocus maybe?

I decided to try another route through the neighborhood. I didn't look at the map beforehand so the route ended up being a bit shorter than I meant for it to be. That was ok though because it was getting too dark to take nice pictures.

Another Dahlia

A Walk to the Park & Glorious Dahlias

Holly - Ilex sp.

Since I haven't been working in the library anymore, I haven't been doing my usual "walk to work".

Now I've started walking around "our neighborhood".

I decided to head to the small forested park about a mile south of our house. You can see my route on Google Pedometer.

Cosmos - Cosmos bipinnatus

It was a nice day for a walk, but at first I didn't see too many things that inspired me to take pictures.

... Then when I got near the park, I found a beautiful garden (right by the road) It was full of Dahlias.

Same flower from another angle

An old man came out of the house to check his mail and I said hi and told him I'd bring some photos by when I get them developed.

He told me his wife would love that, but that I should make sure that I have a whole hour or more because his wife would talk my ear off about Dahlias :)

There were so many different styles and colors that I couldn't decide which ones to post. So I put them all up.

I've discovered that taking pictures of flowers from the back side or under side can be very interesting.

... of course the view from the front is very nice too.

This kind reminds me of fireworks.

Another picture of the same flower from a different angle

Nice natural bench in the forest.

I looped around the trail in the park. (the route on my map is approximate because the trails are not mapped) and sat for a minute on the bench to enjoy the freshness.

A cute squirrel was watching me as much as I was watching him.

On my walk back home I saw another dahlia (in a different garden).

This one is nice too, but I preferred the first garden that had tons of flowers in different styles and colors.

I've definitely decided that I should plant some dahlias in our garden next spring.

Souvenir from Hong Kong

Seen on the newsstand in Hong Kong.

My friend Agnes went to HK for a long weekend and saw this magazine.

She laughed and said if this was really my magazine I would give McDonalds coupons for free pancakes instead of apple pies (because I ate so many McD's pancakes when I had morning sickness).

Finches in the Weedy Garden

Lesser Goldfinch - Carduelis psaltria

I felt bad about not weeding our backyard lately... until I saw that the birds were loving it. It's sooo much easier and more fun to sit in front of the french doors in the kitchen and watch birds than it is to go out there and weed the yard. I've decided to just let it go for this winter.

Actually we have a finch feeder that's very popular. It seems like the birds take turns hanging out and sitting on the weeds and eating weed seeds while they wait for their turn at the feeder.

Another Goldfinch

Goldfinch 3

Goldfinch 4

Goldfinch 5

Quick Strawberry Pastries

We're still getting a few strawberries from our garden so I decided to try a new and easy recipe with them.

I was browsing strawberry recipes when I saw one using canned croissant dough. I remembered that Sami had bought some a long while back and we hadn't used it yet. The recipe called for jam, but I figured fresh berries would work ok too. I just mixed them up with a little bit of brown sugar and sprinkled some pearl sugar on top for decoration.

The pastries were pretty tasty and super easy. Although I think the Strawberry Crisp is still our favorite strawberry recipe.