Looking for anything

Once again the day was full of clouds. Great big clouds. Clouds so big, they were stacked on top of each other, in front of each other, below each other...there just wasn't enough sky for all of those clouds.

When I was driving out to that land in Kansas last Sunday, every time I reached the top of a hill I scanned the side of the road to see if there was an area to stop the car so I could take a picture of the dramatically beautiful sky. Just never happened. There really aren't any good places to stop at the top of a hill. So down I went hoping there would be some place where I could stop, maybe the next hill might have some place to park.....uh, no. I kept driving, hoping, driving, hoping...and just going absolutely nuts when I crossed the Kansas River and saw what was going on above that.

When I finally got to Kansas and could find a place to safely park, this was the best I could do. A chain of clouds.

Chains of clouds all low to the horizon. Like they knew I could finally use my camera so they compressed themselves and sank low to the ground thinking I would not find them.

Those clouds were being as elusive as anything else I try to photograph. Witness the shyness of this one...

Oh, I knew it was behind that tree. I could still see it. Good grief.

So I continued on to my land and......oh my, it sure has changed since the last time I saw it just two weeks ago.

Fall really moved in fast. Aussie showed up even faster.

The giant ragweed was starting to dry out and fall over. It was still thick enough that poor Aussie could not cut through when she found me on the other side of it. If you look closely, you might be able to see a red blur of Aussie trying to push through (didn't happen, she had to walk around).

I was looking forward to seeing the sumacs turn bright red but if they did, I missed it because this was all I saw. Disappointing.

Then I realized there were absolutely no bugs around. No bugs. And........no spiders. None. And except for the blue lobelia, there wasn't anything in bloom either. What was I going to find to photograph? There was absolutely nothing out there but Aussie and me and the sound of infrequent cracks in the woods. I couldn't figure out what those sounds were until an acorn dropped in front of us. Good thing Aussie and I didn't get hit because they were really dropping.

I found a couple large downy feathers. I'm going to assume they came from the hawk that I've seen out there a couple times. Pretty, but not enough and I was starting to feel a little let down.

Smiley face.

Smiley face.

I saw this little skink scampering across the concrete. Since he was such a teeny thing, he wasn't hard to scoop up. Such sweetness.

And now I have a smiley face too. :-)