......almost more than we will ever know.

Gotta' help nature as much as possible.

I have busy bees, too. My back yard has a southern exposure so much of it is still blooming.

I even have some wayword blue white iris which are blooming. Crazy weather.

...but it's 84* here today, the flowers are still blooming nicely, and fire danger is still extreme.

Our temps are more moderate at 64 but we've been in the 70's.

Bad picture but here are my crazy iris:

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I tried with my phone and it was hard. I thought well, I said I had bees, I should show you. Our pink flowers are similar. You might just have to believe me.

My try.

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My wife would be insanely jealous if she saw your irises; ours stopped blooming awhile ago (I don't think I gave them enough water this year).

We have five tubs of iris rhizomes rooted and waiting for planting next spring. My wife loves 'em. In early Summer we usually take a drive out to Pleasants Valley Iris Farm, which is about 15 minutes from here. Here's a link:

http://www.irisfarmer.com/

They have fields and fields with an enormous variety.

That's a lovely plant the bee is working on. What is it?

They always bloom in the spring. Mine got confused when they were transplanted after I moved. Every.one is light blue white. No color.

I hope I have more colors in the spring.

But I sure like the camera controls on the 7000. Everything is really handy. No more digging through layers of menus for relatively simple operations. There was a recent software update on the 7000. You might want to check for an update on the 7100.

I just bought it yesterday. I have no idea how long ago it was manufactured. Do they include firmware updates on recent production models?

The control layout seems fine to me but they are distributed differently than they were on the 5100, and there are more of them.

The one petty gripe I have (so far) concerns the lock on the shutter mode and mode dials. It's nice to have your shutter release choices handy without going into a menu, so the lock makes sense there because I don't change it very often. The lock on the mode dial seems like a negligible hassle. The dial on the 5100 didn't have one, and I don't recall having any problems accidentally slipping between different modes.

I do have an issue with the accuracy of the autofocus at times, but I'm going to chalk that up to operator error unless I find out differently.

Those were really nice shots of the pond.

Sorry for posting so much over the last week or so. Feels like I'm spamming the board.

What do you see as being uninteresting about my "The Pitch" post? I really like that shot, though it garnered no comments or silent recs. I trust you for your honesty in these things. Maybe I'm fond of it because I know the subjects.

I love bees! Bees are bugs and I adore bugs!

...but the little guy in that first one really has his back bent to his labor.

I'll boo-hiss myself.