A quick tour of Kay's garden with my camera and I capture maybe some of the best flowers of the year.  The Azaleas are spectacular and some Orchids are showing off their spectacular best.  The Camellia make up for the lack of quantity with great quality blooms this year.  The conditions were windy and this made for a challenge on some of these photographs.  Also you can see the later photos are in darker conditions, the sun was going down fast.  I had to start using the flash and that always make for a very different looking photograph.  Take look and see what you think.

A grocery store bought, very common flower.  Not known to last very long at home or in the ground around this area, it's nice to look at nevertheless.

This particular orchid photographs really well.  And it seems that year after year it performs like a champ.  It seems to always produce a profusion of long lasting, full sprays of blooms.

This azalea is all blooms and gorgeous.  My photograph does not do it justice but you can get the idea.

Here is another azalea that is just starting to bloom.  You can see many buds.  It seems the recent wet weather has not had any effect on this one.

Ok, here's a good one.  I got lucky and the camera focused correctly, the wind calmed for a second and I didn't shake the camera.  I wish I could do this every time.

This azalea has some intense color.  The digital camera is not very good at reproducing this intense red.

The camellias were a little stingy this year, but they made up for that shortcoming with quality.  Again the intense colors don't quite make it through the digital process.

This single bloom is magnificent, and the photo is decent too.

This very small, intensely fragrant mini orchid was blowing wildly in the breeze.  This was the best of probably 10 exposures.

Another blurry shot, mornings can have calmer wind conditions.  I should have taken these photos in the morning instead of the evening.  The light is of a similar less harsh quality as the evening.

This beautifully colored orchid is elaborate in it's form as well.

Last flower photo shows another miniature orchid.

Mount Diablo can be seen in this sunset photo.   Later I try to get a photograph of an owl and a bat.  They were both too fast and it was too dark for my camera anyway.