It was a beautiful, misty morning and I drank in every sound I could as I tromped up and down our road today. Here and there were clusters of twittering birds that made me smile. I chuckled at the far-off sounds of our resident group of turkeys carrying on down in the lower forest. My opinion counted too so I tossed it in their direction, "Oh you silly birds!" I even heard the croak of a frog who was working on his early Romeo impression for the coming breeding seaon.

Overhead I heard the caw-caw of a crow and looked up to see it flying by in its brilliant black attire. As it passed I heard the beautiful guttural purring conversational notes they make and soon I heard another crow's contact call. Stopping on the road, I stared up to the sky and watched not a "murder of crows" as a group would be called, but more like a "flow of crows." A spread-out stream of perhaps twenty crows flew over our property in ones and twos, all commenting occasionally in caws and purring croaks. I was happy they didn't roost here because the racket of a large group of crows was too obnoxious for even me to stand. However, their overhead calls were a welcome treat and I only began walking again after they'd all passed by.

Settling into my walk I decided to listen to my favorite podcast, a wonderful science-based show called Radio Lab. This award-winning podcast presents fascinating and thoroughly entertaining topics directed at the general public. If you have any interest in nature or science, this show is for you! The shows are much more than just spoken words. They add music and sound effects that help us to understand and SILENCE so we can contemplate what we've just heard. It's a unique and outstanding production and worth your time, I guarantee it!! (I've listened to at least 100 different podcast shows so I'm fairly knowledgeable on them!)

Today I listened to Dark Side of the Earth. It featured an astronaut who shared some experiences he had during the 168 days he's been in space, such as what it feels like to do a spacewalk and look blissfully out into the vastness of space with only a tether between you and the universe. Or what it's like to watch day turn to night and back to day within the course of an hour and a half...in fact they experience 16 days per Earth day!

I encourage you to give Radiolab a try! Their topics cover a very wide range. Two other totally awesome shows that I recently listened to include Rippin' the Rainbow an Even Newer One, which is a glorious show that showcases which animal can detect the most colors...do you know which is the winner? This show even has a choir as background singing to illustrate the musical interpretation of ROY-G-BIV (color spectrum: Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet)! The other show was Smarty Plants which discusses the intelligence of plants by using several fascinating studies and entertaining experiments.

Podcasts can be listed to in the background while you're processing your photos or you can take them on the go! Popular apps for downloading podcasts include Pocket Casts (for Android, it's what I use) and iTunes (for iOS), and this current article of the Best Podcast Listening Apps has links to all of them.

Today I'm finally sharing a favorite dahlia picture from our past trip to San Francisco's Conservatory of Flowers. It's a picture I processed soon after returning home and I just couldn't get over how lovely this dahlia was. I hope you like it too! Gosh, if I was as pretty as this flower is, my poor husband would be fighting off legions of would-be suiters all day and night!

Pam, I don't know if you are aware of podcasts but if you're not, it might be something to check out! It's another way of experiencing the wonder of our world, and the stories take you to another place of learning and understanding. I bet you would enjoy these as much as I do! *big hugs from Oregon* :)

Explored on 12/12/18, highest placement, #4.