JUST ONE OF THOSE BLOGS ~~ REMINISCING ~~ PARTING SHOT

JUST ONE OF THOSE BLOGS

Sometimes when I sit down at the computer to work on my blog I have no idea what to write about. This is one of those times. The weather here has been dreary and cold, with not much snow since Thanksgiving. I remember when we first moved here in 2007, I was so amazed by the wintertime. It was way colder than I had ever seen in North Carolina (below zero? You're kidding!). Usually there was lots of snow, but the days would be extremely sunny. Now, for the past two or three winters, we have had very dreary days, and very little snow. To me, snow is the reward we get for the awful cold that we have to endure. But our reward has been lacking for at least two winters now. The reason I'm telling you all this is to try and justify the fact that I haven't taken any pictures this past week to put in the blog! But have no fear, my sweetie has come through to save the day! Without further ado, I am going to share with you some pictures that Linda took with her new camera, on our last nature walk a couple of weeks ago at the Arboretum.

Some kind of alien pod?

I just love this picture because of the way the background is blurred out so that the seed pods are the main focus. I often try to achieve this effect with my camera by manipulating the depth of field, but it doesn't always work. So, I am jealous of Linda for taking this picture.

Close-up

In the photo above we have a dried seed head. Upon looking at this picture, the first thing that popped into my head was "joy." The little stems around the outside resemble arms thrown up in the air, signifying pure delight. I doubt that is what the plant had in mind, but it's where my mind went. I tried to find out what kind of seed head this is, and the only thing I could come up with was some type of thistle. I think it is beautiful.

From the ground

Beauty can also be found right under your feet, if you look for it. This picture is a nice study in different shades of brown. The contrast in texture from the underside of the leaf on the right to the top side of the large leaf in the middle adds an extra layer of interest to the photo.

Look for it

How many of us would just walk past a piece of wood on the ground and not even notice it? But here we have a picture that focuses on the knot in this wood. It makes you wonder how it was formed...was it where a branch was attached to the tree? Or was it the result of some kind of injury to the tree? There is no way for us to know, but it is good to wonder. If you can see this picture on a large screen, there are tiny little lines in the wood, possibly caused by the bark that was once on this branch. To me, those lines make the branch look like it has skin on it, and in some places the lines look almost like the swirls on fingerprints. It's funny how you can make up all sorts of things about a simple picture of a dead branch on the ground.

Bridge over what?

Near the bird blind at the Arboretum is this small bridge. It spans a small "creek" that sometimes has water in it. That brings to mind something that I noticed about the West when I first came out here. Westerners are prone to name anything that ever in the history of the world had running water in it a "creek" or "river." It doesn't matter if this running water existed YEARS ago and is no more...it still gets to be called a "creek" or "river." I remember remarking to Linda about the numerous bridges we would cross over supposed "rivers," and the ground under the bridge was dry as a bone. She said that there was once water there, maybe only when it was the rainy season. To me, coming from the South, this was incredible! I don't know of any creeks or rivers in the South that do not have running water all the time. This was a good example to me of the difference between the very wet Eastern part of the country and the very dry Western part.

REMINISCING

The lackluster days of winter are a good time to reminisce. I've been doing a lot of that lately as I have been trying to transfer old pictures and video from our PC computer to the new Apple computer. Since I have about 8 years worth, that is a lot of data to be transferred. This gives me the opportunity to look at the old stuff and decide if I want to bother with moving it over to the new computer. Once I had sorted through a small part of it and exported it to my flash drive, I imported it onto the new computer. Then I discovered that my old video is not compatible with the video program on my new computer...at least, not yet. I am hoping that Apple is developing an upgrade that will remedy this situation. At least I am able to get my video from the new computer onto YouTube. After having said all that, I would like to share with you some video I made in August of 2016.

PARTING SHOT

Summer Girl's place of choice during the dreariness of winter is on the big bed. She wasn't very happy with me this morning when I went in there to take a picture of her for the Parting Shot. If looks could kill...

That's all for this week, see you next week!