26 THINGS CHALLENGE

# 22: Splish-splash
Lots of noise too, from this happy dog untiringly going after a stick.

CHALLENGE: 26 THINGS

Here again is a return of the challenge group, "26 Things". I was unable to start on the new list on time, the first of June, so I will jump in now and hope to finish on time by the end of July. Here are 2 from the list:
# 4 - "Color my World" . I was lucky to have my camera in my car while I helped H to shop for a party. As she was stuffing these into her van, I looked up. "Stop!" Wait while I get my camera!"

# 7 - "Flat". Okay, I knew all along that I wanted to get roadkill for this subject. On my backroads return drive from visiting Ks, I could stop because it was a lonely road. For the squeamish I have edited-out the color!

BACKROADS DRIVE, SOLO

The first half of this week I drove south to visit our dear, long-time friends who live in a little tiny town called Rainier. You can guess why it has that name, I think, by seeing the 1st photo, below. In our neck of the woods, the locals refer to "The Mountain", rather than "Mt. Rainier", and classify its appearance by, "The Mountain is out", or its non-appearance by "The Mountain isn't out." While I was visiting, it was a combination of the 2, as shown here:
Imagine, had its entire base been visible, what the scope of that mountain really is!
I decided to drive just little backroads on my return home, rather than freeway. I went until I bumped into The Mountain, and then turned north. Yes, I had to turn around a couple of times, the scene below being one place, but the farmer gave me directions.
Wildflower season! I thoroughly enjoyed my leisurely drive.

One last look back, but The Mountain is still suspended:

REWARDS!

The last of my involvements is over with the end of the school choir concert tonight! And to my total surprise, each of the 3 choirs honored me with huge (table-top-sized) "thank you" cards and flowers. I had an overwhelming amount of music to learn in order to accompany all 3 choirs. They said some nice things about me. Here is one of the bouquets, safely back home:
The kids did better than their best rehearsals and we did have a lot of fun performing. One glitch for me (no one ever knows these things about what an accompanist deals with - not even the conductors!) is when the house lights were turned off I could no longer read my music! After the 1st number I HAD to do something, so I got up to scoot the piano forward into some light. It was a grand piano on wheels, so it moved easily. Well, for the rest of the concert I had one half of my music in total darkness and the other side in blaring light!

BETWEEN STORMS

I posted these for Macro Monday today. We had an eye-blink moment of no rain, so I hurried to the neighbor's yard where I have been watching these poor poppies get beaten-down by the storms. I love their color and hoped to get better photos, but they were way past their prime. I think this one looks like a soggy sea creature:

And the fringe on this one is almost comical:
This blossom flew the coop! Usually this part of the flower is gone by the time there is a bloom:
The backside of a wild carrot which is one of the things I pruned in the woods for the large arrangement. These "spokes" are needle-thin:

UP CLOSE ON A HIKE

Photos from my hike to Twin Falls on Saturday are on my POTD blog. I did NOT pack my heavy macro lens that day, but I couldn't resist trying to get as close as possible with my 18-200mm lens. It worked pretty well for me, even though these are not true macro.
This first one is native shelf fungus, in its tender, soft baby stage. Maturity makes it hard as rock and sometimes large enough to sit on.
A salmon-berry in the making! Oh, for my macro lens! But this lens was acceptable: