L. M. Moe is going to kill me for not remembering this plant. I remember it, but not the name.

I want to say it is a Euphorbia. Is it "milky" when you cut it?

Some kind of thistle?

http://kaweahoaks.com/html/...

My littlest pup caught some ladybugs at school and put them in a bug container.  I told her they would be best in our garden.  And I had the perfect place for them on a large weed filled with aphids.  It looks like the ladybug is saying "lunch".  If you want the extreme close-up, visit my "greenerylover blog" and click on the photo for an extreme close-up.

This one I took while we were waiting in line at the Snow Shack on Sunday -- whew it was a hot day that day.  And this little guy needed to cool off too!

And here's a peacock from Hart Park I took during the week when it was cooler.

American River taken from the cabin where I stayed last week.

I asked my dad about the plant and he said it looked like a thisle, so I guess you're on the right track, Random. 

Well, Witbee, I looked up "Euphorbia" on Wikipedia, but it doesn't look like it. At the bottom of that page, though, and there are some pictures of little cactus-like plants, so maybe you're right. I didn't break it open, so I don't know if it's milky on this inside, but I can go  check after I finish this comment -- as long as it's not too hot outside. Ick. It's kind of a long walk from the house to the plant.

Woof, do you do any cropping to your macro shots, or is your lens a lot better at macro than mine? Point-and-shoot will only let you get so close for a macro shot, and that's the case with my camera. I wish I could get closer sometimes. I love macro photography. Nice pictures, by the way. What is the megapixel for your camera? We have aphids all over our roses and other plants. They're driving me insane, but we also have a lot of ladybugs now, too. What a cute little puppy! It's not yours, is it? And what a neat peacock picture! I wish I had a peacock...except not really, because they're so noisy. But I love the colors on peacocks! My dad wants to get a peacock.

Nancy, awesome picture. Where is the American River? I've never heard of it before. Looks peaceful, though.

Robin,   That picture was taken up north in Coloma where gold was first discovered in CA.  Lots of history..lots of things to see and do.  I panned for gold and it only cost me 7 bucks for the 50 cents worth of gold that I brought home.  :-)

It's East of Sac. off of Highway 50.  I'm afraid it got grainy when I re sized it..gotta work on that.

Robin, did you try the link I posted.  I think that's it...

When RF said thistle, it reminded me of the Pineapple Thistle. Similar to what RF linked, but a little bushier in appearance. Used to see a lot on Round Mountain Road.

 Yellow star thistle?........http://www.nps.gov/archive/...

Jeez. I spelled thistle wrong yesterday. How embarrassing is that? I didn't do it purposely. No spell-check on this thing, unfortunately.

Anyway, Random, I did check out the link you attached yesterday, and at first I didn't think it was it because the pictures didn't look like it when I went further down the page. But I've done more research and I can't decide for sure if it is a yellow starthistle or not. I know for sure it's a thistle now. I did  research on it, though, and if it is, my dad and I may want to get rid of it soon, because it's hard to get rid of and it could hurt (may kill...I forgot) the horse if he got hold of it. That's not good. I don't want it to spread because it's right along the fence line of the pasture where all the other weeds were. When I first saw it, I thought it was a unique weed, but then I thought about it and wondered if it wasn't actually a weed, and now I've gone back to realizing it's a bad weed even though it looks cool.

This is what the plant looked like. Hopefully you can figure out how to see the picture at full-size. And stop laughing at my Photobucket account. I've had it since I was 14 I didn't like my blonde hair. So there.

Robin, yes I crop my pics, but I have a 7 mega pixel camera.  No, that's not my puppy, we saw it while standing in line at Snow Shack and I had my camera and snapped the little guy. 

Here's what I did today.  I'm a novice at photoshop, I just followed direction I found on the internet for this one.  I'm going to add the earth in the middle, when our computer is not on the blitz like it is right now.