Been a weird summer

This summer has been pretty odd. It is normally hot as hell here during the summer, but for some reason, this has been a cool and wet summer. The strangest part is having this weather while the rest of the world seems to be super hot.

Hurricane Hillary hit California a few days ago and it brought some pretty cool storms up this way. The past week or so, the sky here has been full of clouds and we have been getting moisture pretty much everyday. It's actually been pretty nice because we need it. I am nervous about the weather the next few years though because I am expecting it to get really dry and hot.

Our wildflower garden sure has loved all of this moisture though and it is full of life.

My wife and I have been talking about tearing up a large portion of our front yard and planting more wildflowers. We are so sick of having a yard of grass and we would prefer to have a yard that welcomes nature.

One of the coolest things about growing wildflowers is that you don't have to do anything to them. Once they pop up and start growing, you don't really have to do much of anything for them to thrive.

I hung a hummingbird feeder in my front yard and made some nectar with just water and sugar and within a day, I had about 5 hummingbirds find it and they stop by all day long getting something to drink.

I am working on getting them used to me and my camera so that I can get some better shots. I took these shots while lying on my back directly underneath the feeder. I laid there for about 30 minutes trying to get some shots of them, but every time I moved my camera into position, they would hurry and fly away.

We have new flowers opening up pretty much everyday. These ones remind me of hibiscus flowers that we had in Japan.

I usually take these kinds of shots with my 100mm macro lens, but I decided to try shooting with my 70-200mm and I really like the way that they turned out.

I can't get as close with this one because the focus distance is pretty far, but I really like how it compresses the background. It makes a really cool bokeh effect.