Here Be (A) Dragon

But not a knitted one.

I finally made it back to the antique shop where I saw this bobbin lace dragon and a hedgehog in matching frames. They were labelled "embroidered pictures". The hedgehog was gone, so I snapped up the dragon.

I'm hoping one of my friends from Arachne can tell me where this pattern came from, and what is that in front of the dragon's nose? Is he breathing fire?

Crocheted doilies are pretty common in antique stores hereabouts, knitted ones not so much. I missed this one the first time around, but as I was searching for where my husband had gotten to, I spotted it. The tag said, "$1 each" but I only found the one. It has one hole and a broken thread in the left border towards the bottom, so maybe it was left behind when someone bought the others.

I got a couple more flower pictures yesterday morning.

I don't plant these hot pink things. They just come up from seed every year. They are not the kind that comes back from the root and tries to choke everything.

While I love morning glories, the hot pink is not my favorite. But since they volunteered, I just enjoy them. I always wonder if they have enough nectar for the hummingbirds to come to them.

This is probably the last lily that will bloom this year, the last blossom of "Roma". Usually my Romas have a few more flecks in the throat, and more blossoms, too.

The bud counts on most of my lilies was low this year, and I missed seeing some of them bloom while we were at Origins in Columbus. It was so hot, they opened and dried up just like that. By the time we came back they were just dried-up petals.

The other thing I did yesterday was try to get photos of the four Eastern kingbirds, Tyrannus tyrannus, that were rattling and flying after insects outside the window where I was busily knitting away on the ragg wool legwarmers.

I got two of them, and a robin. The American robin has an unforgettable scientific name, if you share my low sense of humor: Turdus migratorious. Okay, okay, I know the genus name means "thrush". That's not what comes into my head when I see "turdus".