Good morning from the Pacific Northwest (USA). Forest fires continue in the Western USA and British Columbia, CA. I complain about the smoke and because of the allergies it triggers in me, but this morning I started thinking of the thousands of firefighters out working on these fires. I am grateful for the hard work and dangerous situations they are in. The Fall rains will come...we are in the time-frame where the weather patterns will soon change and bring us the necessary rain to help these courageous people, and clear out the smoke. So let us send some positive thoughts and prayers to those on the front lines.

Each week I struggle with which photo to start with, seeing it is the photo that shows in the post's listing, I believe it is an important one. So many love roses, as I do myself, thus I will begin there (this was taken at Manito Gardens during our June visit):

Next if you recall I posted a mystery flower last week to see if any would recognize it. If I recall two people offered their opinion of what it was. One said it was a blossom from an eggplant. This was very close in that it is in the same family. Another provided their input as to what it was and I have been unable to locate that comment after scrolling through over 400 comments. I do not recall the name, but when I googled it (the day the comment was posted) the pictures that I found resembled a yam or sweet potato. Unfortunately I have never grown those tubers so I can not say how close it was to the photo I posted. I am thinking it being a tuber it may be similar. The photo, which I will upload here was a blossom from one of my potato plants.

Like last week I want to share a couple of wildlife photographs I was able to get last week. The mother is about 6 years old and she has twins every year. She is one of the smartest does I have run across. I can be hiding in full camouflage and in a blind, with the wind blowing toward me and she can spot me at hundred paces way. These photos were taken behind my house and as I was stalking them this fawn set off the alarm and the three scattered. On this day I was able to get these photos as they returned to where I have water for them. The doe was coming toward me snorting and stopping her front hooves. I was using a 300 mm lens so there was a good distance between us. I will also say she always has her young late in the season. All the other young ones are half the size of their mothers and no more spots. I hope you enjoy these two photographs, as I did, because it is the first time I could get a young one with my camera:

I am using a Canon EOS Rebel T5 for all of these photographs, except where noted. Most of my floral photographs I am using a Marco-lens that came with my camera. For the photograph of the doe and fawn I used my 300 mm lens.