ANOTHER POINT OF VIEW
I am not the only one in the family who takes great pictures. Linda is also a very good photographer as well. She's gotten better over time, as I don't think she was too much into photography until the past few years. She posts a picture a day on Instagram, along with a related haiku that she composes herself. I am very proud of her accomplishment in doing this, because I know it takes great discipline to commit to something like that every day. For that reason I decided to highlight a sampling of her recent pictures.
Below is a picture of our largest sunflower, the one I had to cut down because it had fallen over on top of my peppers. I believe I like her picture better than the one I took!
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| Love the brightness of this picture! |
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| The River Rose |
This beautiful variegated-petal rose above is named after a little girl who attended the Montessori school where Linda used to work. It's a miniature rose, but is a prolific bloomer and has the most gorgeous little flowers.
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| Butterfly Bush flower |
This close-up is of one of the flowers on our butterfly bush. This picture gives a true depiction of the color of these flowers, a deep fuschia.
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| Golden Currant bush |
Our yard is almost surrounded by a hedge of these native bushes, the Golden Currant. We bought one plant a couple of years after we moved here, and that plant kept having babies. Linda transplanted them to create a hedge along our back and side yard. They have beautiful yellow blossoms in the spring, edible berries in the summer, and they display an array of green, red, and orange in the fall.
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| The latest puzzle |
Linda took this picture of the latest puzzle, which she put together all by herself. I did not put down even one piece on this one. I believe she did a fantastic job on it, considering it took her 18 days to complete and was quite difficult.
These are just some of the pictures that she has taken recently. Quite often I include one of her pictures in the blog, but sometimes I may forget to give her credit for it. Mind you, she is taking all of her pictures with an iPad Mini, not some fancy camera. I think she does an excellent job!
THROUGH A WINDOW
It never ceases to amaze me how I can sit outside for hours, waiting to take a bird picture, and the opportunity will not present itself. But just let me come inside and sit down in the recliner, and then I see all kinds of birds out in the yard. I know it's because they stay away when they see me, and come out when I disappear. For this reason, it is sometimes necessary to take a picture through the window. I don't like to do this because it adds another layer of glass in between the subject and the image sensor, resulting in a somewhat degraded (fuzzy) picture. But we do what we must to get the picture. Yesterday, as we were watching TV, I spotted some big birds out in the back yard. I got my camera and snapped a few pictures through the sliding glass door.
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These two pictures above show what is either a juvenile or female Northern Flicker. We see and hear these guys all the time around here, but they rarely come into our yard. So I was quite excited to see them out there, poking around in the ground for insects.
This guy above is a Black-Billed Magpie. He's one of the largest birds around here (except for the hawks and eagles). They are quite noisy when they are fussing about something, which is most of the time. The black and white color is very striking when you see them fly by. When the light hits them just right, you can see their beautiful blue color come through.
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| Black-Billed Magpie |
PICTURES AROUND THE YARD
I've been a bit lazy this past week and have neglected to take as many pictures as I should have, and I actually took no video this week. It's a fact that the available subject matter for photographs is changing with the season. Since I didn't have very many pictures for the blog, I decided to take a walk around the yard this morning, with my camera, to see what I could see. Here's what I came across on my walk.
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| Golden Currant |
It would be hard to miss this Golden Currant bush that Linda had previously photographed, because the color on it is just stunning. I decided to zoom-in on a leaf cluster so you could see the leathery quality they have.
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| Agastache bush |
It's too bad this close-up of an Agastache bush flower does not have "scratch-and-sniff." This bush is one of the favorites of hummingbirds. When you brush up against the flowers they emit a sweet, minty aroma. This plant is also called "Hummingbird Mint" and "Bubblegum Mint."
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| Some kind of caterpillar |
I searched high and low for some kind of critter to include in my pictures. I wanted to snap a photo of a Praying Mantis, but luck was not with me and I couldn't find one. But I did happen upon a bunch of caterpillars munching on the spent lettuce plants. I tried to find out what kind of caterpillar they are by Googling a description, but there were just too many images to look through and I had to stop before I made myself sick looking at wormy-looking things. I can only take so much of that!
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| Impatiens |
There is still a bit of color here and there around the yard, although nothing like what we have during the height of summer. This plant has been doing extremely well since Linda transplanted it from a pot into the ground in the back yard.
PARTING SHOT
Of course, anytime anyone is out in the yard, you will come across this little rascal. Summer Girl just loves being outside, and here she is taking a much-needed rest at the entrance to the vegetable garden. She's even showing off her toe beans!
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| Lazy girl |
That's all for this week, so join me here again next week, when I share with you some of the cooking I've been doing lately!
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