Gaillardia and Green Bee ....

This was a somewhat eventful weekend just past in our garden ... starting Thursday night (perfectly timed with getting off work) we had a few rather dramatic thunderstorms blow through, with strong wind gusts, torrential rains and even a bit of hail. Another bigger one came through at about the same time Friday, and though there was some significant tree and wind damage around town and in the county (there were even a couple of funnels in the counties just to the north and south of us) most of Casa y jardín IVG was spared any serious damage. Consequently, it's been cool and somewhat muggy the past two days ... too muddy to do much other than pull a few weeds and hope for a bit of sun to take some pictures of the current bloomers. Yesterday was totally gray and dispiriting, and today was little better, but we did go out late afternoon when there was a wee bit of sun and took the camera on a tour of the garden ... tonight's shot is just a really good one Fernymoss got of one of the green bees currently visiting the Blanket Flowers. I had been trying to catch one of these little guys myself at another plant and between the two of us we managed to get a few good shots of bee butts and this exceptionally good one where you can see the entire bee, rather than just the pollen laden posterior.

Later, while having some sandwiches on the porch, we were graced by a hummingbird who spent quite a bit of time feeding on the proliferous Bee Balm blooms still blazing away out in the front bed. Alas, my mere Fuji Finepix isn't fast enough to catch these fleeting visits ... so you'll have to content yourselves with a green bee for tonight!