My friend Marion and I took a walk mid-day today. It is still lovely cool weather and I am grateful for every second of it. We came upon a painted turtle, fairly large, maybe 10 inches from nose to tail, who had dug a hole in the ground next to the sidewalk, just up the hill from the creek, and she was laying her eggs. I did not take her picture since I did not want to intrude but I will go and look at the site soon to mark the spot in my mind in case I should one day see the young hatchlings running for the water. We saw a bumblebee on a flower whose name I cannot remember and it made me think of the  bumblebees in our yard that we un-knowingly displaced.

Young blue heron sitting in the cottonwood over the stream