I’ve been away, but I don’t want to miss this weeks’ smile. So I’ll share one photo from my quick get-away.
I hope it made you smile too.
I’m still working on the processing of images like these, but the fact that I even found the milky way and got some of it in the image made me grin.
I’ll be back with more on this impromptu adventure, as well as the images from the new park I explored a week ago. Coming to a blog near you soon.
Promise.
To me, the woods are always filled with wonder and mystery.
I don’t know what this is, was low to the ground, blossom was about the size of a nickle. One blossom on each side of the stem. Do you know what it is?
No, Katie didn’t get to go, it would have been too hard for her anyway, and she’d have been a distraction to all the rest of our group. Plus she wasn’t invited, but don’t tell her that!
Our guide told us the name of this, now I can’t remember. Should have taken notes.
I went back to the park on Monday with my camera to capture a few of the things we saw that I thought were spectacular.
Our guide showed us orange lillies. We didn’t see this particular group on Saturday, it was out in full force on Monday morning, just a few feet from where he showed us lilies, but on the other side of the trail.
Specifically I went back to visit a beautiful field of prairie plants. This year the predominant flowers are black-eyed susan but our guide said next year it will probably be something else as plants get established.
A sea of yellow against that blue sky.
It sure was stunning!
Do you see the little inch worm?
Monday I had blue skies with clouds moving in. I’m always happy with sky like that.
I confess I also walked down to a part of the park that isn’t open to the public. They are working there to make it ready for public use, but it’s not quite there yet and there aren’t paths worked out.
This is a small glacier lake, surrounded by beautiful uplands and wetlands.
I followed where we had walked on Saturday because I really wanted some shots of the little lake back there. Don’t tell them, I scurried down and back quickly so as not to break the rules for very long. And because the flies and mosquitoes were horrible!
Water lilies rest quietly near the shore.
I hope you enjoyed your visit to one of Katie’s parks, she says next time I go I better take her with me! I also made it to the park recommended by one of my fellow nature walkers. I’ll be working on those photos next. Stay tuned.
A walk in the woods is always a good thing.
And meanwhile, get outside and take a walk. It’s absolutely gorgeous out there and we can all use some gorgeous in our lives.
Speaking of gorgeous…
Both of them worked so hard to keep the kids fed.
Sneaking around the side to check on the kids.
But here it is, Sunday afternoon and I can’t let the second week go by without posting a smile for Trent’s Weekly Smile campaign. I don’t understand how time moves so fast when I’m not really doing anything. They say (and they are right, whoever they are) that time speeds up as you get older. Maybe that’s what I’m experiencing.
Listening to what the kids are up to in there.
Anyway, a couple weeks ago I took a series of photos of my wren family while mom and dad were frantically feeding the youngsters. The light wasn’t always good and certainly cropping these made them even more grainy, but they were such a delight to watch that I’ve been meaning to share them with you.
When either adult arrived at the box they’d do a little wing flap dance. This time they both arrived at the same time.
And even though they’ve been gone for a week or more now, looking at these images still makes me smile.
“I’ll wait here, you take yours in first.”
Of course the wrens aren’t the only thing worth smiling about around here. Yesterday I went on a guided walk through one of Katie’s park, she calls it Katie’s Park II, with a knowledgeable young man who manages the township’s nature preserves.
Doing their happy dances.
I didn’t take my camera and there were at least a couple moments that I wished I had it. In the next day or so I’ll be going back to see if I can capture a couple things I hadn’t noticed when I was walking there with Katie-girl.
“Eat your bugs and then dad will bring you desert.”
And during our walk someone told me about another park that she really likes, so I'll be going out there too. I'm pretty sure you'll get to see photos from both soon. Might even be next week's smile!
“Where’s my shift replacement?”
Meanwhile, enjoy the wren couple. I miss hearing them sing all day while they’re sitting on top of their home. I hope all their babies are growing big and strong and maybe next spring one of them will raise another brood here. Maybe I’ll get to photograph them with a more powerful lens, or at least in better light.
Taking a breather.
Oh, and Katie says to tell you all HI! She’d tell you herself but she’s busy planning her next nap. She says that’s about as exciting as it gets around here these days.
She’s not wrong.
Heading out to find more dinner for the hungry brood.
From earlier in the week. I drove by this, went home, got the camera and came back for this shot.
Fortunately I got a new laptop with even more memory for all those pictures I take.
Unfortunately I had a very old version of Lightroom that I can’t move to the new laptop.
Fortunately I purchased a new version of Lightroom.
Unfortunately I didn’t have a clue how to download it.
Fortunately my husband did.
Unfortunately it is quite a bit different than the old version.
Fortunately it supplies tutorials that pop up when the program is opened.
Unfortunately there seem to be a dozen tutorials, each four to six minutes long.
Fortunately I am retired and have the time.
Unfortunately I do not have the patience.
Fortunately, if you bang enough keys you can work your way through it.
Unfortunately I haven’t figured out where the newly edited photos were exported.
Fortunately I accidentally found them in an obscure file.
Unfortunately this hours long exercise has resulted in only two photographs being edited.
Fortunately I like how they came out.
Unfortunately I’m tired now and need a nap.
Fortunately (Did I mention this before?) I’m retired and have the time.
Change is hard.
The barn next to the hayfield. All the bales in the trailers are rectangles, all the bales in the field are round. Hmmmm??
I started making little paintings when the Covid craziness started, back in the middle of March. Originally I thought I was going to send a card to someone each day, in the hopes that it would make them smile amidst what felt like panic and fear. Then I realized I’d have to go to a store to buy cards. And they were expensive.
Nature in all it’s colorful forms
I don’t exactly remember the first time I googled ‘easy water color pictures,’ but there were a bunch of ideas. I started saving ideas into a folder, not anything specific for people, just little things I thought I could replicate. And I had some old, dried up watercolors on a pallet from years ago…and some paper somewhere in a bin in the basement.
So what the heck, I hand cut some rectangles the size that would fit into a small envelope and started out. I’d paint something and if it wasn’t too awful I think about who in my address book might like it. And then I’d send it off.
One a day, a little bit of a smile, sent through the post office, to someone who might be surprised and happy to get mail that wasn’t advertising or a bill.
A rustic little scene of a friend’s favorite beach in Maine.
Eventually I started looking for specific things for people I knew. A crane for someone who always has a family of cranes she watches each year. Musical instruments for musicians I know. A black cat for a friend that has three of them at home. Another black kitty for someone who’s black furbaby just died.
This little goldfinch just popped off the page and definitely made me smile.
I started watching youtube tutorials and trying to recreate the fun things I saw there. A lot of that is abstract, filled with doodles and color. Those are so fun, but harder to place in good homes.
I’m still doing this, though now I don’t mail one every day. It’s taking me longer to get them done, some of them are getting more complicated and have required more than one attempt.
Different kinds of art, something for everyone.
I haven’t shown you the failures yet.
Still, I’m plugging along. I posted on Facebook a week or more ago that I had completed a few, and now I have a list of people hoping to find smiles in their mailboxes someday. I’m working through the list…but I’m also just doing stuff for fun.
Remind me to tell you the story of this little bird.
My biggest challenges are those for people where I have a specific idea and I’m having trouble executing what’s in my head. Some of you may fall in this category. At this stage if you haven’t seen a smile it’s because I’m stuck on something that isn’t working and I’m still trying to figure it out.
Sometimes I get in my own way, you know?
These went to family in Norway, representing things we saw on our visit last year.
And, of course, if I don’t have your address, well, it’s hard to mail you a smile. I just sent some to our family in Norway, and I have one ready to go to Canada, but I’m not showing you that one because it hasn’t left yet and I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise.
These were all so fun to do!
Anyway, this is a rambling post just to share with you all the fun stuff I’ve been doing. The pictures in this post are the latest pieces, done since my last post about all of this. I’ve sent 80 so far, but I’m definitely slowing down.
Guess this was my purple and blue period.
If you’ve received one of my smiles I hope it worked and you’re smiling still. If you haven’t, and you would like to, well, message me on FB or email me, and I’ll add you to the list.
Be patient though…you just never know when a smile will strike!
An osprey a day…no wait, that’s not how it goes…
I don’t know how it happens that a week can slip away before I realize it. But here it is Saturday morning, almost afternoon, and I still haven’t posted a smile for Trent’s Weekly Smile compilation. If you haven’t read his weekly smile post from Monday yet you should. He has the most beautiful foxglove flowering over there.
So anyway. Katie and I have been sleeping in the tent in our backyard almost every night for the past week. It’s been beautifully cool with clear skies and she loves it, even though some nights I am kind of cold.
Katie here, this is my “I’m going camping!” smile!
She starts prancing around the back door and whining as soon as the sun even begins to think about heading for the horizon. I’m never ready to go to bed that early and sometimes I just ignore her, in which case she’ll sigh in disappointment and go to sleep somewhere else.
Once I’m ready to head to bed I change into several layers of clothing, grab her leash and wake her up. When she sees me dressed in sweats and holding her leash she gets so excited and she happily pulls me across the back lawn to our tent.
Silly girl.
But it’s not just her, I’m pretty happy to be sleeping outside too. She gets me up every morning between 3 and 4:30 and we head back to the house where she settles in to snooze with her dad and I go back out to the tent to finish my own sleeping. Those three hours of early morning sleep are usually my best sleep each night.
Hey mama, are you awake yet? Cause I’d like to go pee please.
Who’d have thought that sleeping in a tent on a narrow sleeping pad would garner a great night of sleep!
Katie and I put the tent away yesterday afternoon in preparation for a few days of bad weather. They predicted 60 mph winds and potential hail. Of course, as usual, the weather people got overly excited and all we got was a little rain. But it is going to be much warmer this week, so we’ll probably stay inside with the air conditioning for a few days. But when we get the tent back out both Katie and I are going to smile!
Guaranteed.
Me and my tent!
Katie and I have been camping, though it’s just been in the backyard during these Covid-19 days. She starts crying and circling near the backdoor around 8 every evening, so excited to sleep in her tent. Of course that means she goes to bed early.
Mama was a little slow.
So she gets me up between 3:30 and 4:30 every morning. We wander back into the house after she does her jobs, and then, usually, I go back out to the tent to finish sleeping.
Sleeping under the stars.
But the past two nights I’ve spent about an hour taking pictures of the night, honing my night photography skills before I head back to sleep.
The neighbor’s house with a couple planets above.
Last night was really, really cool.
I was taking a picture of the house with a band of clouds and a couple stars overhead. The camera, sitting on it’s tripod was going through the 25 seconds shoot and then the lengthy noise reduction process, and I was staring at the sky directly above me while I waited. And the most spectacular shooting star blazed across the sky. No, it didn’t cross into my picture, darn it, but I saw it and that made me smile.
A layer of clouds was beginning to obscure the stars.
The next shot I pointed the camera straight up, knowing there wouldn’t be another shooting star right there, but wondering what I’d capture. And while the camera was going through it’s process I was watching the cloud bank climb higher in the sky just above the house.
And that’s when I saw the oddest thing.
The sky above.
A line of small dots, lights about the same size and brightness as a star, were moving from south to north, right above the cloud bank, quite fast, but slow enough for me to blink a couple times, adjust my glasses, and process that I was seeing something strange. I had time to consider whipping the camera back from it’s upward image capturing, and to swear at myself for moving it away from the house in the first place, but not long enough to actually do anything but watch, fascinated, until they all moved off into the clouds.
There were probably at least 20 lights, a long straight line of them, then a break and then 5 or 6 more. It was 4:20 in the morning. I’d been shooting the sky since about 3:45. I wasn’t sleepy and I wasn’t hallucinating. I don’t know what they were, but I’m hoping someone else saw them too and has an explanation.
Meanwhile, I’ve figured some more stuff out about night photography and someday I hope I’ll be able to stare at the stars and whatever else is up there from a more exotic location than my backyard.
And then I’ll really be smiling. Guaranteed.
Edit: I found out what it was! Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starlink Satelite Train. You can put in your data and find out when it will be flying near you!
Gee, I always miss the good stuff.
When I left you at Kensington last week I promised to show you some of the craziness happening in their giant heron rookery. The heron babies are now teenagers and I think they’ll be flying free any day now.
How many youngsters do you see in the image below?
Here’s a shot of just one side of the rookery. You can click on any picture in the blog and make the image bigger, I’d do that if I were you to see all the detail. And do this on your desktop or laptop or something with a bigger screen than your phone.
I don’t know either, I think around fifteen. I sure would like to see a few of them leave the nest for the first time. Talk about suspense!
I’m so certain they’ll be leaving soon that I went back to the park, even though it’s 40 minutes away from where I live, the morning after my last post. And the morning after that.
I was hoping to see an adult feeding the teenagers. I’ve seen it once before and those young adults can get pretty aggressive with mom or dad. I remember thinking that somebody was going to fall out of the nest there was so much tugging and pushing going on.
Some testing of the wings, getting ready for takeoff?
But the second morning I got there a little late, more like brunch than breakfast, and I think I missed all the action. There was some sibling pushing and showing off, but mostly everyone was just waiting for the next meal to show up.
Yep, it’s pretty boring around here.
There was one flyover of an adult heron. That was exciting for those of us waiting on the boardwalk. After all there are only so many pictures you can take of a bunch of herons standing in a tree.
Accompanied by a harassing redwinged blackbird.
I was about to give up, figuring all the adults were napping after feeding their hungry broods earlier in the morning, when a mama or a daddy showed up to a very excited youngster.
One very happy camper waiting in the nest for a snack.
Everybody else, in the neighboring nests, had their hopes dashed again.
Disappointment down below.
Yep, now things were getting interesting up there!
Hey Jerry! Look at that!
But that was it for the excitement; I figured I was too late to see the show, so the next morning, when Katie got me up at 4:30 I stayed up and got out to the park before the moon had even set.
It was a lovely morning. Doesn’t look like anyone’s awake up in that tree yet.
The light was wonderful.
The usual suspects were standing around waiting for a meal to arrive.
In fact I was so early, and so sleep deprived that I forgot to check the camera settings.
I like this shot anyway, even if it was an accident.
Which is how I got the above image. My ISO was still set at 100 which is nowhere near high enough for the low morning light and a sandhill crane flying right by me.
Meanwhile a heron landed at the very top of the tallest tree in the rookery.
Make way, I have arrived!
He (or she) appeared to be giving a lecture to the captive audience below.
Pay attention kids, I have things to tell you about the world out there.
He or she sat up there for a long time.
“Talk, talk, talk, these older folks don’t have a clue.”
After awhile the kids all started looking elsewhere for a snack.
“Hey! Is that mom coming this way?”
And finally he or she gave up and flew away.
“You can’t tell this younger generation anything.”
After all that excitement it was quiet again. I decided to take myself for a walk to see what else I could find. Want to come with me? I’ll try to keep it short as you might be bird-fatigued already.
Oh, there was this other artsy-fartsy image I kind of liked, though it wasn’t what I intended.
Sort of Edgar Allen Poe, though this isn’t a raven.
I fed a jay from a bit of seed I had in my pocket.
“Thanks lady, most people ignore us jays cause we won’t come sit on your hand like those annoying little birds.”
He seemed to appreciate it.
And there was a plump female bluebird way up in a tree watching everything.
“What’s going on over there?”
I had a red-winged blackbird follow me down the path and perch noisily in a tree about 3 feet from my face while I was changing from my long lens to something shorter. I asked him what he wanted and he looked at me like I was crazy. Of course. He wanted something to eat. So I offered him a bit of seed and he came down and took both peanuts and flew off. Little pig. No picture of it, but you can imagine.
Rounding the next corner I saw a sandhill crane couple looking beautiful in a meadow.
Posing like she’s getting her senior year photo taken.
She and her mate and I got up close…
“If I show you the top of my head can I have another treat?”
…and personal.
Such pretty birds!
They were both interested in having a little after breakfast snack…
This feels somewhat scary, their beaks are so big, but they are very gentle.
“Bye lady! Thanks for sharing!”
There were other things in the forest that were calling my name.
“Hey! You got anything left after those big birds held you up?”
I began to move along faster, I’d already been out there longer than I expected. But it was such a lovely morning and I knew how lucky I was to be able to walk in the woods instead of hunker down at a desk on a Monday morning.
Sure beats going in to the office!
Retirement is a wonderful thing.
Yep, nice to get out of the house and spend the morning in the woods.
Around the other side of the lake I saw a complete sandhill crane family. Dad was standing guard and mom and baby were off in the tall grass. I didn’t get a good shot, but this is the baby, all legs and long beak.
Pretty baby, as soon as it got too far away from it’s mom it scurried to catch up. Dad never took his eyes off them except to shoot me a look.
Almost back to the rookery I stopped to contemplate this plaque on a bench.
Born 6 days after me, died one week after my wedding day.
It made me realize all over again just how lucky I am.
Then, back at the rookery where there was more horsing around and wing flapping.
“My wings are bigger than your wings!”
But there didn’t seem to be much else going on so I decided to head home. I didn’t get the shots I had come for, no parents feeding their youngsters. None of the teenagers took a leap into adulthood and flew away.
“Come back any time, lady!”
But I saw a lot of really interesting and pretty things. And, as always when I walk in the woods, I came away grateful.
Isn’t this swallow beautiful?
And that made me smile.
Contemplating the good life.
Katie gets me up early every day and today I should thank her because I used her motivation to head down to Kensington, my favorite park, which is about 40 minutes south of where Katie and I live.
The woods was full of light and dark images. Should this be the “one” for the weekly photo challenge? No…I don’t think it’s quite right.
You’ve been on walks with me there before – would you like to come along on this one? Are you sure? It’s going to get a bit long, but there are benches strategically placed along the way in case you’d like to stop for a bit.
This is a pretty bench, should I convert it to black & white for Cee’s challenge? No, I don’t think this is the perfect bench shot yet.
Speaking of benches, that was one of my photo objectives because benches is the subject of Cee’s Black & White photo challenge this week. And Nancy’s Photo a Week Challenge is all about light and dark.
Plus I needed something for Trent’s weekly smile challenge.
Surely that drop of early morning mist will make you smile.
So I headed into the woods hoping I could find beautiful things that would satisfy those three challenges. Because when you go into the woods you just never know what you’ll find…but you know you’ll always find something.
This is light and dark, but so much like my Wordless Wednesday post, maybe it’s not ‘the one.’
Truth be told I headed to the most remote trails first thing this morning hoping that I’d see some deer and maybe even some fawns. I got to the park at 7:30 and almost wished I’d arrived earlier, though it was hard to keep an eye out for deer when the path was so full of roots and rocks just waiting to trip me up in the dark, damp woods. I sure didn’t want to fall, so I was being extra careful.
Lots of places for a person like me to trip.
But I did catch this doe. (6/6 edit: Let’s thank Linda for noticing that this ‘doe’ has the beginning of antlers! You can enlarge photos by clicking on them, and apparently she did! This is a he, so I’m changing all the shes and hers to hes and his) He seemed to be alone and I wondered if he had a baby or two somewhere nearby. I only got one opportunity to get his picture, then he dashed away. I liked how the light made his ears pink. I looked hard for a fawn hidden somewhere near but I didn’t see one.
Get your shot lady, I’m not sticking around!
Eventually the soft forest trail turned into a sort of mowed pasture path. The grass was long and wet. I stopped and tucked my pants into my socks and sprayed my ankles with deet. I’d never been on this part of the trail and I was curious what might be ahead.
Turns out the path went right by this small pond with it’s accompanying….bench.
A good place to rest if you have bug spray.
Yes, I thought to myself, now this is the perfect bench for Cee’s Black & White challenge. I stayed there for a bit, trying different angles, but eventually the mosquitoes made me move along. Mosquitoes are like that.
After a couple of miles the trail headed back and reconnected with the more popular paths. I figured I wouldn’t see any more deer. But I was wrong.
She was busy watching another woman who was coming toward me on the path.
A woman talking on her phone was coming toward me and she captured the doe’s attention.
I edged closer.
I cropped this so you could see her eyelashes. She looks surprised but she didn’t mind me at all.
She let me take as many photos as I wanted as long as I didn’t move fast. In fact it seemed like she was posing.
Did you get my good side?
She was definitely a nursing mom, but I didn’t see a fawn hidden anywhere nearby, and she didn’t seem nervous, so maybe it was napping further away.
Continuing on I heard a rustling in a pile of last year’s oak leaves. I expected another chipmunk or squirrel, there had been dozens of them rushing around the forest floor.
Mr. (or Mrs.) Snake went slithering off in search of breakfast.
Still looking for a perfect light and dark image, I noticed these ferns. Very pretty. Definitely light and dark there.
I liked the deep color and the repeated pattern, but it’s not ‘the’ image.
But maybe it’s not exactly right for the challenge.
Moving along, still on the lookout I noticed this perfect dandelion sitting in a puddle of sun.
The light made the seeds glow against the dark background. Still…it’s not quite what I wanted.
But I’ve done a post about dandelions. And I was hoping to find something new.
Definitely light and dark. Hmmmm…maybe it’s the one.
Meanwhile I was pretty much smiling the entire walk, but these guys, grooming themselves and oblivious to me made me grin.
You’d think we could get some privacy here.
And the light off this opening blossom made me smile too.
Pretty in yellow.
But what would be the perfect light and dark image for Nancy’s photo challenge? There were so many to chose from.
In the end I loved this one. One of the first images I took at the beginning of my walk when the sun was barely up…the dew lining the edges of the leaves.
This one met two objectives – light and dark and it made me smile.
After I got out of the woods I wandered over to the boardwalk that lines the lake where a giant heron rookery lives. The baby herons are now teenagers and huge! Mom and dad herons are very busy trying to feed their demanding children. There is a whole lot of activity, and even though I had already met my objectives I couldn’t help but stop for awhile and watch the goings on.
But this is already long enough. If you want to see the craziness that was visible from the boardwalk you’ll have to wait for the next post. In fact I’m thinking about going back tomorrow morning, getting there earlier and spending more time watching the rookery and the lake that surrounds it.
Wait. What? You say you want to see the herons now? Well here’s a taste.
Incoming parent, hungry teens wait for lunch!
But there will be more. I promise. You never know what I’ll come back with!
Very cool tree art.
Change Is Hard 