Bourdon sur artichaut

I wanted to take some shots of our artichoke flowers while they were at their peak. The vibrant purple flowers are amazing. I remember being surprised to see one the first time, but it all made sense once I learned that artichokes are a variety of thistle.

A bumblebee collects nectar in an artichoke flower.

While taking the photos, I noticed quite a few bourdons (bumblebees) collecting nectar in the flowers. My first thought was that they were spoiling the shots. Then I realized that the photos might be better with the bees as the subject. Here's the result.

So... the storms predicted for Sunday never reached us. We had one little rain shower in the morning, but otherwise the storms went around us. However, this morning, at around 03h30, Tasha woke me up to go outside. There was a little lightning in the distance. At about 04h30, we had a pretty good storm with 18mm (almost 0.75 inches) of rain in the space of about forty-five minutes. Tasha was not upset in the least. And the roof didn't leak!