More Sunflowers!

Yep, just couldn't leave it at one post when I have so many pictures of these bright, golden, sunny flowers.

I took these a little later in the day, hence the very dramatic backlighting, which is the real key to all these pictures, they wouldn't have been half so interesting if they were taken, say, at midday in the shade.

I started out with this:

    And went on to compose, edit and scrunch down to get these:

 

THIS . . . Is the most be-pollened bee I think I've ever seen! I bet his friends have trouble recognising him through it all!

You remeber that awesome, gigantic sunflower I told you about yesterday? Well, sadly, I'm afraid it got a little too tall for it's own good, became the Leaning Stalk of Sunflower and is now the shortest of the sunflowers . . . though still the longest. =)

  The shadows on the leaves are neat . . .

  The view along the stalk is pretty neat too.

                    From the Sunflower state,
           
                                                                ~Jenny

Sunflowers

I caught these in early morning light, when the sun was just waking up . . .

 We have a whole mess of these lovely flowers, that planted themselves, it's like walking through a mini forest.
You see that really tall one? It's actually taller than that juniper tree to the left, which has been there for 15 years! It is definitely the tallest sunflower that we've ever had.

                     It was really cool.

Colorado - Pikes Peak

Not the tallest mountain in Colorado, but the tallest one with a cog wheel train that goes to the tippity top!
It was a pretty neat experience. Luckily, there wasn't any fires raging so we had a pretty clear view, and could really see for miles!
From the train we could see:

   Then with our feet on solid ground, 14,115 feet up :

  

 Yep, Katherine Lee Bates wrote "America the Beautiful" (at least part of it anyway) while travling up Pikes Peak.

   See that farthest mountain range, that's the California mountains. Wow!
   Don't you just love the sunlight filtering through the clouds? Just a vast expanse . . .

 
   This one I editied, what do you think?