Neighborhood Stroll: An Early Evening in May

It has been a while since I've posted pictures from my neighborhood walk.  Last night we walked down around  the retention pond below my house.

The path is mowed periodically.  It needs to be mowed soon as a few brambly things are growing up in the path, but it is still navigable. 

It was breezy yesterday evening, and the flowers wouldn't hold still for their portraits. If I were a more determined photographer I would go back down this morning, but the light would be different.  Or I would have waited longer, but Tikka's patience with this particular spot was already waning.   I look up and my frustration slips away at the beauty of the sky.

Of course, when the path is mowed, these beauties will disappear for a brief period, only to return.

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  Leaving the retention pond, we wander across the hills and valleys of a field of future building sites, recently enough mowed that there is still a hint of the smell of fresh grass in the air.

The houses on this side of my neighborhood are older than mine, their gardens more established.  I have to remember that my garden is only beginning its second summer. 

But they are also more protected.  Their locations are slightly sunnier.  They are also protected from the winds that are always present at my house, the last house at the top of a hill,   The differences amaze me.  Even when we buy and plant the same things, in the same week, the plants at the end of the street are almost always a week ahead of mine.

Even though our houses are all alike, and our yards are actually quite similar, with similar, if not identical, varieties of plants, each garden is slightly different, reflecting the preferences and attentions, or lack thereof of each homeowner.  You can't see it in this photo, but a baby bunny hopped under those flowers above, just before I snapped the photo.  I experienced a mad urge to find her, only wanting to say hello, but wisdom prevailed.  Peace and safety are too sacred, should not be stolen for mere curiosity's sake.

And once again, we are home.  Have a lovely weekend.