I finally found somebody who likes to be photographed

...and it wouldn't be this guy.

And it wouldn't be these two either...

This one kept an eye on me until he noticed I had my eye on him and then he quickly scrambled to the other side of the leaf. When I tried to look for him again, he always seemed to be on the other side. :-/ I wondered if all the leafhoppers had left the sage growing in the side yard to spend some concentrated time together on these calla lilies.

Almost. There were still a few leafhoppers resting on the sage leaves but just a few. I was right, most of them had moved to the backyard to hang out on the calla lily leaves. However, the ones that remained on the sage leaves were pretty calm compared to the ones on the calla's... although they were still not too happy to be photographed. Just more comfortable with the leaf they were resting on and a little unwilling to give it up.

...but then, that's kind of a smile, isn't it?

The real reason I was in the side yard with my camera was so I could photograph the seedheads of the northern sea oats, a grass that is native to this area. A couple years ago my friend Carol had given me a small plant from her garden before she moved to Des Moines. One year later that small plant got big. This year.....huge!!! It is such a pretty grass and the flat seedheads are so pretty when they flutter in a breeze.

When Meg and I were out on the land in May (I really should come up with a good name for those 21 acres.....The Galloping Tick Ranch? Ha ha ha) I thought I had seen bamboo starting to grow but when I looked closely, I noticed that it was instead a big area of northern sea oats. It didn't look like much back then in May...

...but a couple months later, they definitely filled in that space.

I told Meg she needed some for her garden so she set to work trying to dig out a small plant to take home with her. While Meg dug, I continued to take pictures of things and when I returned to where she was digging, she started to laugh because she had been waiting for me to discover something near us which I was completely missing every time I walked by with my camera. She had to drag me over and make me look.

Well look, the property south of mine has lots and lots of horses. Miniature ones.

And they must be used to having their pictures taken and told how darn cute they are because look.

And you just have to wait a second, and Gawd, they manage to get even cuter.

Apparently an audience is a compelling thing to a horse.

They lined up like iron filings to a magnet (well, except for those two on the right).

Just another wonderful nice thing about that land. If I can't get anyone to face my camera when I'm out there, I can always trek on back and enjoy a good staredown with some horses that seem to enjoy a good staredown themselves.