Feeling more like Florida than New Jersey

The temperatures here nudged close to 70 F today, definitely not normal for northern NJ in mid-November!  But a day that brought all sorts of insects out of their various hiding spots.  I was doing some paperwork at the kitchen table when I saw something fly past the window that had me grabbing my macro lens and sprinting out the door.  It turned out to be this very large drone fly (in the syrphid/hoverfly family) in search of nectar.  Poor thing had scant choices, but did manage to find the mums and African daisies, both still blooming.  

As I was chasing the drone fly around the garden, I spotted one of the much smaller hoverflies (lousy pics, unfortunately), a magnificent queen Bumble Bee, a green blow fly, several house flies, hoards of aphids and two kinds of lady beetles (eating the hoards of aphids).  I got some fun shots of the lady beetles and have posted three on Flickr, starting HERE.  
I also spent an enjoyable 30 minutes or so just sitting quietly in the garden, listening to the soft peeps and chirps of birds and the rustling of squirrels in the leaves, feeling the sun on my face.  I sat with my eyes closed for awhile just so that I could focus totally on listening.  Having lost all hearing in one ear nearly 9 years ago, I really enjoy the many sounds of nature - it always makes me smile and feel very grateful. 

Hubs was on a quick overnight business trip last night - will be glad to have him back home later this afternoon.  Now, especially, I don't like being away from him.

Good meeting with the attorney yesterday ... much work to be done, but we will get through it.

Thank you so very much for stopping by.  And thanks to my lovely friend Anni (aka BikerBear) for hosting Flower Friday!

xo
Debbi