I had great intentions of photographing the Perseid Meteor Shower early this morning. I went out in the early, early morning hours, set up my tripod, and was ready to take photos. 
I had two problems . . . the biggest was that I have not done a night sky shoot (other than the moon), so everything was by trial and error; and the second was that the meteors were everywhere that my camera wasn’t. I downloaded a whole bunch of photos hoping to get something worth publishing but it was a complete bust. Another part of the problem, I think, was that there was a smoky haze in the sky so it wasn’t as dark and the stars weren’t as brilliant as they usually are. So I will have to do the night sky another time.
As I was going back to the house, I heard a commotion on our front porch. I turned on the flashlight only to see Mr. Skunk sitting there on my doorsteps, just looking at me, daring me to come closer. I made some noise and Mr. Skunk moved off the steps, but still stood there looking at me. He wandered off a little more until I felt it was safe to approach my front door. The last thing I needed in the middle of the night was to be sprayed by a skunk.
So this afternoon I went down to the park with the old wagon trains. They recently planted fields of wildflowers around the wagons and I’ve been waiting for them to bloom. Some of them were in bloom today.
Maralee
Through My Lens 
The field of wildflowers is awesome, and the wagon makes a lovely composition. Great photo.
Thank you, Christine.
Awesome flower display and capture.
Thanks, Emilio.
The photos are beautiful. I’ll have to find out the number of the single flower for future cards.
Thank you, Judy. I forgot to put the numbers under the photos. I’ll try go back and put them on. If not, I’ll be uploading them to the website.
Beautiful! The field and the wagons are fantastic and you did a great job capturing them.
Thank you, Carissa. Most of the flowers haven’t opened yet. I can’t wait until they do.
Lovely photos all of them .. to have a post of closeups and scenes… marvelous… I love the old wagons and you have made such good captures of them… and amid all that such clarity of the flowers in close up… beautiful…
Thank you, Rob. I love the old stuff. I want to go out and search for some old broken down buildings to photograph.
Late summer field …. The wagon is the perfect object in those photos. Stunning …. Second from the end one my pick of the day. Never meet a Skunk in person, we don’t have them over here … but I have heard that they smell a bit *smile d the old wagon is a perfect object in your photos … skunk
Meteors would have been great, but these shots are just incredibly beautiful. 🙂
Thank you Inga. I guess I’ll have to wait for next year to try the meteors again. 🙂
I’ve tried several times but night photography is the most challenging thing with a camera I’ve ever tried. You’ve got great images here of flowers. Really love that red one and the shots with the Wagon.
Thanks, AJ. I will try night photography again but I think I’ll go somewhere where there is absolutely no ambient light and it is crystal clear outside.
I find that a country park or lake works really well for that, but here’s a tip: bring a light with you, the most powerful one you can find. All of my attempts at night photography failed because I wasn’t able to properly focus on anything for lack of light.Shine the light on a tree or something, focus the camera, then turn the light off. I still have to find time to do that.
Gorgeous! I love the Cosmos flowers – they grow next to the roads here too. 🙂
Thanks, Zelmare. We have wildflowers just about everywhere here and they are so pretty.
Beautiful. All of them. Would have loved a shot of the skunk. The night of the meteor showers was overcast here so we couldn’t even attempt it. I love the roughness of the wood wagons with the delicacy of the flowers. Great contrast. Great shots.
Thanks so much. If I’d had some presence of mind, I would have tried to photograph the skunk. But all I could think of was how was I going to get back in my house without scaring the skunk and getting sprayed.
WOW! Like a postcard… I loved them all. Thank you dear Maralee, love, nia
Nia, thank you so much.
These are what we call garden-flowers. 😉 Beautiful photos.
Thank you Bente.