hazel napping
cool eyeball shot
a special thanks to the wonderful people who read and leave comments on my blog, i have several responses to write and will get to them as soon as i get back from my cold trip up north next week. i really appreciate all the feedback and insight!!
they got even more beautiful as they started to fade, the colors softened and you can really see those great striations in the petals. 
foxglove, one of my favorite plants that i can now grow, living further north of new orleans where it was really too hot
my absolutely favorite tree, the japanese magnolia
blueberry blossoms
strawberry begonia blooms--tiny but beautiful
a painterly-looking bluejay.
looking for somthing?
the female cardinals have the most beautiful color to me, so soft with the tiniest hint of blush on their breast. 
look at that eyeball!
look at the space between the beak and the nut he is about to grab, i love that.
i really love this photo--the subtle difference between the softness of the background and the actual softness of the bird's little body.
a woodpecker that flew into our bedroom window, under our front porch--that was unexpected. my sweet husband picked it up in the towel and spoon-fed it some water. it made a fell recovery and flew off.
the longhorns are my favorites, of course, beind a UT alumni. go longhorns!
there are five giraffes, this is the baby. they will come right up to the "train" and stick their heads in to eat from the cups of food you can buy.
the zebra is the only animal you are not allowed to feed. they will bite you for affection or aggression, so there is really no safe time to feed or pet them, unless you want to be bitten. that doesn't stop them from trying though.
there are lots of geese, which have to be fed away from the train or they will run right under the wheels to get food and can meet an untimely doom.
once a month there is a huge food round-up where a big tractor dumps corn in a huge circle around the train and almost every animal in the place comes to eat. it's a sight to see. this is a small sampling of the huge herd. some of my favorite animals i don't have pictures of that you can see there are llamas, burros, american bison, and i'm sure there are more i am forgetting. 
another visitor to my house, nestling among the leaves of my giant grape ivy, i can't remember the true name for this great plant but i usually just call it stegosaurus because it is so huge and prehistoric looking.
speaking of prehistoric... one of the oldest reptiles around and one with poisonous saliva--how cool is that?? the kimodo dragon. he was posing nicely for me at the new orleans zoo. there were also some baby kimodo dragons--very exciting--but i did not get any great shots of them.
well, i think this guy has been around longer than the kimodo dragon, also at the zoo--thank god i did not find him at my house. you never know, being here in alligator land. actually, we are not in a swampy area but they aren't too far away.
it's hard to believe she was once so tiny!! now she's my sleek and shiny leaper, she has a long body and long legs and is sometimes very chatty. when we adpoted her i found out that black cats are the least popular kind to be adopted so if you're in the market for a kitten make sure you consider the black ones!! it's fun having a "halloween" cat, fall is my favorite season and this year i am definitely going to photograph her surrounded by pumpkins that have come out of my own garden--that's a promise.
