Textures? Not just yet.

I wandered in the woods alone for a while today, and contemplated the rapidly drying out and wilting of wildflowers and the likely disappearance of bugs to follow.  I daydreamed about topics for blogging as the hottest part of summer likely still lies ahead.  I thought about focusing on textures.  Perhaps take a closer look at leaves, bark, insect damage, seeds, things that can be quite interesting once one accepts the disappearance of colorful blooms.  I started with the Teasel growing along the sides of Chandler Road.  Got what I thought were some dramatic closeups of the spines along the midribs of the larger leaves as well as along the stems.  Then I came across a few patches of blooming Brewer's Angelica.  As I came in for closeups, I started seeing lots of interesting insects.  I also saw lots of bugs visiting the blooming Pennyroyal nearby.  I think my writing off the blooming wildflowers and visiting insects was premature.  Here's a small sampling of my findings for the day.
From the top, Checkerspot butterfly dining on Pennyroyal, Red-shouldered Ctenucha Moth dining on Brewer's Angelica, Snakefly dining on Angelica, a pair of Red Milkweed Bugs mating on Showy Milkweed, and the two aforementioned photos of Teasel.  Perhaps I spent too much time in the direct sun this week.  Today I found that in the shade, especially near surface water, there's still a lot of interesting activity to share on my guided nature walks and in this blog which has now reached 945 entries.