Poor Dog! (+ some other stuff)

Yesterday, while I was scratching Logan's incredibly soft ears, I noticed that one of them was swollen. He had a hematoma on his ear. I called Em to see what I needed to do, and she advised me to take him in to the vet today, and that he'd probably need minor surgery to fix it. He didn't need surgery, at least not yet. They drained the hematoma, bandaged the ear and fitted him with an Elizabethen collar. He is quite miserable with the collar on and needs to wear it for a week. Draining it was about $400 cheaper than the surgery, so hopefully it will work! Here's Logan in his collar:




We've had some cold weather and winter can't be far away, so very soon I won't have any insects to photograph. Is it wrong that I'm already looking forward to spring? I did get a good photo of a Painted Lady this week (and a fly):


One last photo is of the pumpkin that I carved for Boo at the Zoo:

Bee mine

I just wanted to make a quick post to show off this picture of a bee that I took yesterday while caching in Monument Valley Park.

It's a female long-horned bee (Svastra obliqua). I only got this one shot before it took off, so I was pleased to see how clear a shot I got, and I love the color of the flower and the bee.

Fall Colors

Last Monday, Sherrie and I and Pastor Doug went on a hike to the Crags to check out the aspens. The timing was pretty much perfect. There were still some green leaves in some areas, but the majority of the aspens were in full yellow and some were already losing leaves. There were even some red aspens. With a winter storm blowing through some parts of the high country tomorrow, most of the leaves will probably come down.
This was the first time I'd hiked the Crags. I'm not sure why, I've just never gotten there. It's certainly a trail I'll be back to. I'm sure the wild flowers there in the spring and summer must be awesome.
When we got to the top, these gray jays were posing nicely for us:


Here are a few pictures of the aspens:






Since I haven't posted in quite some time, here's a picture of a bee fly that I took in Waldo Canyon a few weeks ago. It's one of my favorites of the summer.