I was so excited when I saw Tina’s topic for the Lens-Artist Challenge last Saturday that I immediately found the photos I wanted to use – and then they sat, I would look at them, rearrange them, and they sat. Well today I finally added the words, just as the next challenge is coming out. I guess I can say I had a whole week’s full of fun from thinking about those photographs that have been the odds & ends in my files before sharing them with you.

I have hung on to this first photo because it seems so characteristic of the hot and humid tropical garden I visit several times a week. I have taken so many photos but use only a small portion of them for my blog so it was fun pulling this one up. This one I like because it is of a mood, not a specific object.

That mind thing is happening again where I am so happy where I am in southern Florida but all of a sudden I get a longing to work in my Michigan garden or sit on my purple porch swing in Michigan. Logically I know that isn’t possible because it is still late winter there so instead I meandered through some Michigan files and landed on this one of a gate along a dirt road going down a lane. I lingered on this one enjoying the feeling of cool shade, inviting path, and dappled sunlight. The slight sag of the gate makes me smile – at my age I know all about sags, and hanging a bit crooked.

As I meander through the garden, from lily pond to lily pond or orchid garden, I frequently stop to admire the foliage of all the tropical plants that are strategically place and of course am compelled to try the capture whatever it was that caught my attention. The photo below, and others somewhat like it, are scattered throughout my files but I don’t think I have used them in a post. That seems to meet the criteria of an “odds & ends.” I think what I like about this composition is the overlapping patterns of outward fanning spikes.

We have been too busy to go into the Everglades this year but I hear it calling my name. Southern Florida has had a dry winter so I predict there will be wading birds fishing in the areas where culverts move the southern flowing water under the east/west roads. I’ve been going through past files of photos from the Everglades as a very weak substitution for taking new photos and find that I linger over the photos of the grass-lands that make up a good portion of the Everglades. These have been odd and ends in my files because they don’t quite fit into any category of post. I would discount them as uninteresting except I enjoy them because they reflect what I see as an important part of the personality of this region. It seems to capture the vastness of the area.

The next photo is technically very poor but I haven’t deleted it because I smile every time I see it. It is at the beginning of the western end of the Loop Road, a one and a half lane dirt road that was originally built as a part of U.S. 41 from Tampa to Miami – the Tamiami Trail. It seems like the “Last Chance Turn Around” should be a part of everyone’s repertoire for when we are about to do something that is incredibly stupid.

When I walked into the Idea Garden, maintained by the Garden Club of Naples, and saw this end view of one of their raised beds I was awed by the colors and textures. Ahh, but I never found a good topic under which to post it – so it is relegated to “odds & ends.”

My final “odds & ends” takes us back to Michigan last spring, when Covid was on the rise. We decided to pack a picnic lunch and take a drive to Hidden Lake Gardens. There was a sign saying that picnic tables were off limits because of Covid but my logic couldn’t figure out how Covid would be spread by us using it. Our Covid picnics brought great joy and created fond memories of a difficult period.