Josephine County Fair 2011

This image was taken at the Josephine County Fair on August 20, 2011.

This flower was a little bit soft but it was so pretty that I decided to have some fun with a watercolor filter and some others. I like how it turned out and was a fun experiment to see if an image with a little blurring can be used in an artistic presentation. (I added this comment after reading Joe's unsure reception!) This image was taken at the Josephine County Fair on August 20, 2011.

This image was taken at the Josephine County Fair on August 20, 2011.

Winner of FlickrDuel contest: Wild About Life: Farm Animals This image was taken at the Josephine County Fair on August 20, 2011.

This image was taken at the Josephine County Fair on August 20, 2011.

The butterfly exhibit at the Jackson County Fair was one of my favorite highlights and I got lots of great pictures of the Painted Lady and Monarch butterflies there. Here is a side view of a Painted Lady butterfly sitting on the edge of a cardboard box. In case you didn't get a chance to read about these butterflies before, here's a repeat of the information about them: The Painted Lady butterfly is one of the most wide-spread species in the world, and can be found worldwide except on Antarctica and South America! Amazing! They are often raised in kindergarten and elementary classrooms to teach children about the life cycle of butterflies. In fact, if you are interested, there are many stores online that sell "butterfly kits" (and other types of insects and critters too!), and more searching will reveal that you can find many types of butterflies and moth caterpillars and adults for sale ! If you would like to know more about Painted Lady Butterflies, Wiki has a page here: Wiki: Painted Lady Butterflies (Vanessa cardui)

Note: my latest garden article is up! :D Part 9—Dreams of a Big Flower Garden: We Have A Pumpkin Patch!! A few years ago, Steve and I went to a nearby county fair and we had a lot of fun taking pictures of the farm animals. One of the sows had an enormous litter of piglets and we spent a long time cooing at their cuteness! I learned something today about the word "Ungulate". I always thought it meant "hooved mammal", but that's not entirely correct. Wikipedia gives this definition: "Ungulates are a diverse group of large mammals, most of which use the tips of their toes, usually hoofed, to sustain their whole body weight while moving. The term means, roughly, "being hoofed" or "hoofed animal". As a descriptive term, "ungulate" normally excludes cetaceans, as they do not possess most of the typical morphological characteristics of ungulates; recent discoveries indicate that they are descended from early artiodactyls, and thus are directly related to other even-toed ungulates such as cattle, with hippopotamuses being their closest living relatives. As a result of these discoveries, the new order Cetartiodactyla has been proposed to include the members of Artiodactyla and Cetacea, to reflect their common ancestry; however, strictly speaking, this is merely a matter of nomenclature, since it is possible simply to recognize Cetacea as a subgroup of Artiodactyla." I had no idea that whales were considered to be ungulates!! My apologies for not being around much lately. The garden is keeping me very busy, along with everything else going on right now! Explored on June 11, 2014, highest placement, #2.