Ah, the great outdoors! Remind me, would you, just why I love it so? Perhaps it’s the danger that’s so exciting - after all, Forest Park, our favorite park, America’s best urban park, The Place to Be (when you’ve just got to be someplace) is in America’s 2nd most dangerous city! But when the FBI gave St. Louis its ranking I don’t think they took into consideration the problems I faced today.

One is pictured above. That’s my hairy arm the blood-sucking beast is sitting on (and it was my blood it was after). I encountered it during one of my photo sits (I frequently have to get low to the ground to get the image I want).

On my first photo sit I was considering the beauty of nature when I noticed I was sitting in a patch of Poison Ivy. I removed myself quickly. On another photo sit I inadvertently placed myself  on an ant hill. I don’t recommend that either. The Mosquito showed up sometime in between the two, but it didn’t leave. Flowers are in bloom, though, and the birds were singing quite gloriously. Here.