We had a very nice, quiet Fourth of July. After sleeping in –a rare pleasure for this sleep-deprived fellow– we headed out for a four-mile hike on the Cuyahoga Valley National Park's Boston Run Trail. It's a woodland trail with paths ranging from packed earth to river gravel surface and terrain from rolling to hilly. Though it was a cool morning, the climbs quickly warmed us and we covered, probably, four miles. The photographic highlight came as we crossed a wooden footbridge over a quiet stream. There, flitting amongst the plants, were several damselflies. The lace-winged beauties alighted on green leaves, sat for a while near each other, then zipped off in singles or pairs possibly in a mating dance. This gave us many opportunities to photograph them. The "one that got away" was a beauty bearing a green iridescent abdomen. My photos just were not clear enough to show. I think the floater in my right eye is interfering with my manual focus and I can't trust the camera's auto-focus in situations like these: razor-thin depth of focus with sharp-edged objects surrounding the actual subject. The hike began under mostly clear, intensely-blue skies but when we emerged from the forest the sky was mostly cloudy.

Damselfly Fourth

After lunch at Burger King (a pretty fair BK Veggie) and a stop at PetSmart to stock up on canned food for Tasha, we headed home. Camera at hand, I shot a few photos in Her garden: flowers, a ladybug, and this tiny, really, really tiny, bee on the petal of an Asiatic Iris. For this kind of "wildlife" photography one needn't always go far.

Tiny Bee

She is making a dinner of veggie barbecued ribs (yes, it can be done), corn, and red, white, blue dessert (tapioca with strawberries and blueberries). I'll enjoy a glass or two of wine. Hoping for a fine, relaxing evening.

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