This morning I got some pictures which I was very happy with, so when I took the dogs on a walk around the property, I didn't bring my camera. I was merely looking for tomorrow's subjects, which I found, by the way! Tomorrow will be such fun! However, on the way back to the house, I decided to double back and take a stroll around the Oak tree in our large meadow. This past summer, Steve and I spent many hours planting about 125 bulbs around the tree. Though we hoped they would bloom over the summer, we saw only one flower. Very sad pandas. Today I went to see if there were any flowers popping up and I just about fell over when I saw something bright and blue-purple near the tree. I yelled in delight, "AN ANEMONE!!! WE HAVE AN ANEMONE!!!!! HOORAYYYYY!!!!! Back to the house I bounded, returning with my faithful camera in hand. I restrained myself to a measily zillion pictures, knowing that any more than that would really be too many! :D :D :D

I was so surprised to see these pictures on my computer, because the overcast day turned my images into high-key, dramatic pictures which were a wonderful, unplanned surprise! :)

Montague Francis Ashley-Montagu (June 28, 1905 – November 26, 1999) was a British-American anthropologist and humanist, of Jewish ancestry, who popularized topics such as race and gender and their relation to politics and development. He was the rapporteur (appointed investigator), in 1950, for the UNESCO statement The Race Question. As a young man he changed his name to "Montague Francis Ashley-Montagu". After relocating to the United States he used the name "Ashley Montagu". Wikipedia: Ashley Montagu