Today's Picture

Having the opposite problem here - the wheat harvest started briefly 10 days ago and it's been raining off and on since - so a lot of farmers trying to forecast the weather over the next week (which isn't encouraging)

This was taken today (in the rain)

This post displays both arrogance (by me ) and a bit of morbidity. 

Today, I finished prepping dinner for company this evening and had a couple of hours to kill. I went across the road to the Alberta Birds of Prey Centre as I had not been there all summer and have "VIP" pass. (And it was not Death Valley hot this afternoon, at only 29°C.) The BOP is a large facility and "owned" and managed by a man (Colin) who has dedicated the past 33 years to the centre where they rehab birds for release and also keep a lot on display for visitors. I have donated photos to the BOP before for interpretive signs. A few weeks ago, Colin asked if I had some non-raptor bird photos for some new signs being put up by Fortis Alberta, a huge sponsor. So I was pleased to see the new signs up and 4 of the 6 or 7 signs had my photos. The top composite photo shows the signs with my photos. (That's the arrogant part.)

The lower photo is part of a somewhat morbid story and the general public does not know the details. You can imagine that a place with dozens of raptors goes through a LOT of meat feed. They raise mice, buy day-old chicks and accept meat donations. They also have this sweet domestic-duck scheme that is quite funny (unless you are a white duck) and quite ingenious. They buy ducklings in spring that hang around a duck pond and they sell bags of duck-food pellets to visitors so they can feed the fatted ducks and it's all very popular with young and old. So they raise a lot of duck meat and actually make money doing it. The morbid part is something like the Sweeney Todd story...check it on Wiki. Come fall, the large ducks are euthanized and put in large freezers for raptor food in winter. If only the visitors knew. 

Opened the back door today and had to grab a phone and take a pic - a quite harmless Eastern Gartersnake sunning itself.  For close-up depth of field you can't beat a phone camera with its very short focal length!



Tony

Got over to the ponds for half an hour after dinner. 
Top photo is backlighted foxtail "barley," a native weed that grows in poor soil. The lower photo is a wigeon with her ducklings...quite late.  

Mine for today......clipping masks are my new "go-to feature". Being this picture was taken at a distance I used one to hide the row of houses at the bottom edge.

Went for a spin before dinner. Thick smoke here from fires in BC, most being 500 kilometers away. There is a fire ban in the county. One wayward cigarette butt (yes, people are still that stupid) or the hot exhaust from a vehicle could start a grass and grain crop fire. Fortunate that there have been no winds.

The top photo is a set of bee hives adjacent to a canola field (behind). The second photo is just a simple shot of a tree near the Oldman River valley...it's smoky!