Beautiful Indigo Buntings

Such an incredible blast of blue!  I absolutely adore these guys.  I do find them a bit hard to photograph as they are more skittish than most of the other birds in the yard.

This shot is from last year.  I don't even want to mention how many pics I have to take to get a halfway recognizable photo of one of these birds, Haha!  They are truly a challenge for me - same with the flitty little gnatcatchers.

The afore mentioned flitty little gnatcatcher.

The Painted Buntings are still in town.  I don't blame them for not going north or west or wherever they go, as it seems to be cold again elsewhere in the states. 

That's okay, they can stay here as long as they'd like!  I just bought a new bag of white millet and they love the birdbath, so we're set for a while now.

I haven't decided if I like this photo or not, but I found it kind of intriguing. I like to play around with capturing the light.  It was early evening and I liked how it highlighted this male redbellied woodpeckers profile.

Here he is in a brighter light.  

Well, I've always been basically a picture blog.  I don't offer any great gardening tips, because I'm not a great gardener (big cheesy grin)!  And now I'm discovering that I won't be able to garden like I used to due to my autoimmune diseases.  This last month has pretty much made it clear to me that I can't get out there and take care of things like I used to.  And in all honesty, I've been dwindling down since last fall.  I've recently had a rheumatoid arthritis flare like I've never experienced and I'm working on learning what I can do and what I can't.

The big gardenia and the dwarf gardenia bushes are all getting set to bloom.

So, I'll probably be doing mostly container gardening.  Which offers lots and lots of opportunities to try new plants and have beautiful flowers around.

There's nothing like having a big pot of fragrant jasmine to sit next to while I'm reading a book on the lanai.

And I can always give vegetables another go.  These little tomatoes were so cute, but unfortunately didn't taste very good.  I'll have to try another variety.

And I definitely can see myself turning into an herbal green witch of sorts.  

I think I'm quite a ways down that path already :)

Plus with all the cool visitors we have to the yard, like this orb weaver - there's always something to blog about.  

I get pretty excited over leaf patterns, Haha, but I'll consider it a creative endeavor to come up with blog posts about things I hope others will find somewhat interesting.  And still keep with a gardening theme.

Oh, how could I forget!  The orange blossoms have been perfuming the backyard all month long.  It's so wonderful!  

Thanks friends for having a read through my blog!  Blessings to all!  Be well.