One of my favorite things at the moment is wandering about my parent’s backyard where my mother has cultivated this oasis of color and life in the heart of the suburbs. It is a riot of colors, textures, and smells with life small and large, aloft on wing or scurrying underfoot under every leaf or alighting on each petal. Yesterday, after doing some small chores for them about the yard we walked and she pointed out some of her favorite things while I took pictures.

There are car sized bushes covered in these blossoms which seem to generate a light of their own.

My mother’s sharp eye spied this mushroom thriving below some of her taller plants.

One of my favorites, this ant crawled about hungrily dipping itself into the blossoms.