“Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.” – Henry David Thoreau
Mother Nature used the rain to paint this canvas of wet and dry gravel pattrns. My apartment is at the top of the stairs you see in the background. — Photo by Pat Bean
Morning Walk with Pepper
It was lightly drizzling this morning when Pepper and I took a walk while dawn made her presence known. This is my favorite time of day, and as usual, Pepper and I had the apartment complex courtyards to ourselves.
This is a close-up of the lavender blossoms on the bush next to the tree, which a gardener neatly trimmed. I can’t help but wonder how many blossoms were lost to the trimming tool. — Photo by Pat Bean
Some mornings we leave the manicured grounds and take the short trail beyond the parking lot ,so as to glimpse a view of the unfettered desert in its many moods. But not this morning.
Today, we simply walked the path we walk several times a day, keeping our eyes open to the world around us. Well, I keep my eyes open and Pepper keeps her nose open. Like most dogs, she sees more through smell than I see through my eyes.
Her nose lets her know there is a lizard hiding beneath that rock over yonder, and that Ellie, a favorite German shepherd playmate, peed beside this tree. Of course she pees on top of the spot to let Ellie know she’s been here, too.
My eyes, meanwhile, take in a canvas painted by the rain. It’s the pattern of wet and dry gravel beneath a tree just outside my apartment. I don’t have my camera with me, but after our walk I retrieve it and go back down from my third-floor apartment to capture Mother Nature’s whimsical drawing – well that’s how I see it.
And then I realize that it can serve as my point of view for the week’s photo challenge.
Bean’s Pat: Hoof Beats and Foot Prints http://tinyurl.com/nz6fu4o This is a blogger who also takes time to capture the simple things that can be found in a day, when you take the time to look.
Pat Bean's blog 
Lovely abstract art, Pat, courtesy of Mother Nature. The blossoms you show look like they’re from the shrub called cenizo and it only blossoms on new growth so maybe by trimming the shrub new growth is forced and you’ll get even more blossoms. I have one of these behind my house and it rarely gets trimmed but it often “forecasts” rain (so they say; sometimes it lies and it rains even when the shrub doesn’t promise any) by pushing new growth and blossoms. I love it. It’s one of my favorite plants.
Thanks for the information Sam. I love knowing the names of plants, and the information about it blooming better when trimmed is fascination.
You are so very sweet Pat. I am certainly trying with this Project 365, but have been slacking the last day or so. So happy you enjoy my simplicity of life. 🙂