Monday, September 14, 2009

09/14/09 What was the: Summer of 2009

A Monarch butterfly...seeing less and less of this species
in the past 10 years locally...
you can't help to wonder...climate change?

After nearly a month "blog hiatus" I figured I'd throw together a wide-selection of pictures taken over the summer months to close out this season with a summer 2009 post and update my followers on some information. Thanks to a prolonged dry spell we really haven't had a "second season" for severe weather here in the Midwest here in September, but this has allowed me to already look forward to next chase season. I'll be streaming LIVE for ChaserTV next year and even this winter which will allow you to be in the passenger seat during chases or extreme weather events. I've also newly created a YouTube channel for past and future chase footage (Check it out here). I've also added some equipment upgrades over the last few months and more info can be found at my website on my equipment page. Looking back this past spring/summer was rather rewarding as this was truly my first full-season of chasing. I saw 3 tornadoes this past season. 2 of which were locally in Illinois and Iowa the other was the Aurora, NE tornado in June. My chasing travels led me across 5 different states this year (IL, IA, KS, MO, NE). All in all, a successful season even with a late-start from Mother Nature with a disappointing May. But now summer has ended and we transition into fall...

A morning glory with some stunning colors
Summer would not be complete without a pool right?
Some incredible flowering plants around
this
area if you look hard enough
A member of the Mantis family (macro-lens)
Yet, another butterfly (Painted Lady) but this time on these daisies
Sunflower-type plant (macro-lens)
Talk about...RED (macro-lens)
No shortage of color around this area
More and more red...
A male garden spider (macro-lens)
 A neat flower!
 "Stars & stripes"
 "Our rock"
 "Pretty in pink"
 Butterfly!
A female garden spider (macro-lens)
Waterfall cascading water into our pond
A bumblebee finding some nectar
Talk about colorful (pansies)...(macro-lens)
Trying my best to play with fire...
After a wet summer day...you could
find something like this (macro-lens)
The Monarch butterfly extending its wing-span
As one season ends another begins...the beginning of fall foliage

This begins some more photography from this past summer...here's a collection of some of my favorite family pet pics over the last few months:

Nikki, one of our two female cats
 A great pose!
 Fox!
"Friends"
 Bowser digging!
Luigi again...
Luigi posing...
Luigi, our male cat and is no stranger to the camera
Angel, the other female cat (Calico)
On the prowl...
Indy, posing for the camera (Yellow Lab)
Umm...expecting a call?
One of our goats enjoying some cement blocks
Close-up of our trouble-maker
I'll take a line in Ghostbusters from Bill Murray here:
"Dogs & cats living together...mass hysteria!"

Another goat sunbathing in the pasture

Check back over the next month as I'll be planning to get a fall post on here as well once when the fall foliage really blossoms here in the upcoming weeks or if any active weather makes an appearance...