Crepe Myrtles

I have been looking at this tree across the street from me for the past two days. It is absolutely amazing, and the picture does not do it credit. It has to be the biggest crepe myrtle in the county! And I've never seen the blooms on it any prettier than they are now. Here it is.

By the way, it's in front of a house, and you really can't see the house for the huge shrub!

But it doesn't smell as pretty as the white crepe myrtles beside my house. I've lived here for 12 years now, and I've never noticed the smell of the crepe myrtles before. They smell like a very faint honeysuckle. It's lovely. I wish I could introduce the smell factor into the blog, but here's a picture of them.

When you walk beside them, the blooms fall down like snow. And there's a constant buzzing in them right now. Bees are everywhere! My shrubs are doing their job for the honey production. If you look real close, you can see a bee in the following picture. Have you ever tried to take a picture of a bee? You just have to point in the general direction and shoot because they don't stay still. I had never tried this before, and wasn't aware of how "busy as a bee" is until today!

The bee is the blur next to the leaves. Uh huh. Right. And you can nearly see the other bee in the picture below, close to the bottom right.

Anyway, even though it's hot out today, there are harbingers of the autumn to come. The light is changing. It's not a summer light anymore. I know, my husband thinks I'm crazy when I say that. Also, the days are getting shorter. It's nearly dark by 8 pm now. And the last sign of autumn are the oxblood lilies coming up. They usually wait until September.

Here's one that's growing in the yard between us and the Mahan's yard next door.

So yay for the flowers, and yay for the fall.

I can't wait until my four o'clock starts flowering, and I have a bunch of little baby limes on my Mexican thornless lime tree...