The flowers have been open for over a week now but you’d never know it unless you looked down between the pairs of fuzzy leafstalks.

Wild Ginger – Asarum canadense

My typical photos of the flowers are a lot like them – usually fuzzy. This time I got a decent focus and surprised myself. My old eyes never saw the ‘fangs’ in the mouth of the flower before.

The flower images are linked to a larger size (1024 x 768) for a closer look. Use them as desktop backgrounds if you like. But if you prefer something slimy wait till you get to the end of the post.

I figured you’d scroll to the bottom to find the icky stuff. Here’s a frog trio that seems to have oozed and fused together.

Yep – click for wallpaper version so you can see the frog in the middle.

Turkeys in the north country have been feeling pretty romantic lately. The males are all pimped out and busy strutting their stuff. There’s an awful lot of flirting going on out in the open lately. The hay fields seem to be the favorite turkey hang out these days.

Normally the turkeys are wary enough to run off to the woods if you pull over to stop. Even now when they have urgent business on their minds it’s still hard not to disturb them. This is the typical scene from the road. This is ‘close’ – only a couple hundred yards but still too far for the 18x zoom to get a good focused shot of the turkeys.

Closer to home I caught sight of a male displaying only a few feet off the side of the road. On the other side were the ladies. I still find it hard to believe this guy was so involved with trying to impress the ladies that he didn’t bolt when I pulled over. I actually had enough time to get one shot of him displaying before he casually (for a turkey) crossed the road.

This was one brave turkey. Instead of bolting for cover he was determined to follow after the now long gone ladies even if it meant crossing my path. I couldn’t have been more than 20 feet from him and he didn’t take flight. To see more detail on the feathers click the images for a larger version (1024 x 768) or to use as desktop wallpaper.

Like a teenage boy this turkey would throw all caution to the wind and risk death for a slim chance to roll in the hay with some grown up chick.

Men probably never change but some of us do stop that kind of behavior. Let’s face it, when we start to resemble a turkey from the neck up our chances are a whole hell of a lot less than slim.

A decent sunset to end the day.

The rest of today’s photos will have to wait. I need to go hit the couch after a long day.

Click photo for a larger version (1024 x 758) to use as desktop wallpaper