Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Tag Archives: fun stuff


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Spring finally fights off the winter blues

Singing with joy in the sun.

We’re done with snow in southeastern Michigan. I think.

It’s been cold and rainy for what seems like weeks, not feeling like winter, certainly not feeling like spring. But with all the rain things are starting to bud, to spring up from the squishy earth, to green almost before our eyes.

Color is popping up everywhere.

I was walking out at a local park earlier in the week, trying to get my miles done, training for a summer race. I know that if I start noticing things, stop to take pictures with my phone, that I’ll never get the miles in.

Subtle color glows.

So I made note of where some of the prettiest stuff was and went back with my camera the next day. I was expecting a quiet walk in the woods, but it turned out to be the most beautiful, sunny, warm day that we’ve had yet this spring and that caused lots of people to go out to enjoy the park.

Light turns skunk cabbage into emeralds.

That didn’t bother me at all. I was immersed in the beauty of light on leaves, light making grass and skunk cabbage glow.

Cow slips, or marsh marigolds, either way they’ll make you smile.

Light bringing color to what has been, for months, a grey and drab woods.

Green life glows in the woods.

I only walked 5 miles on Sunday, but it took me almost three hours. Seems I was stopping every little bit to capture something else.

Tiny bits of color are everywhere if you look.

While others were riding by on bikes, or jogging past with the slap of feet, I was crouched down, my face near the earth trying to capture that illusive image.

Bits of gold hidden near the forest floor.

I couldn’t have been happier. Indeed, I couldn’t stop smiling.


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Smiling this week

The week is literally flying by as I smile while watching the spring arrivals at my bird feeders.

Male cardinal, female and male grosbeaks, shot through the living room window complete with reflections.

May 1st was a very very big day, as the first two male Baltimore orioles showed up, brilliant in their orange feathers.

Welcome back Mr. Oriole! We’ve missed you!

Their feeder had only been up one day when they arrived, so perhaps they’ve been around a few days. I hope they didn’t get too hungry waiting for me.

All day today, May 2nd, the oriole feeder has been active, with the beautiful orange birds, plus others who stopped by for a taste.

Energized for takeoff!

Today I saw my first Grosbeaks, two males at my seed feeder fighting each other for space at the table. One finally chased the other off, but then seemed kind of confused.

Waiting his turn at a feeder.

I had his favorite food on the feeder, but he seemed interested in all the activity right next door at the oriole feeder. So he gave that a try.

Hey everyone, there’s desert over here!

Turns out he liked it and sat there tasting for quite some time. And when he noticed me he flew up into the tree to watch…

It’s safe up here to sort out what kind of options I have.

…then sat at the finch feeder eating thistle seed for a long time. He thinks he’s arrived at a smorgasbord. I guess he has.

Hmmmm, this is pretty good too!

And when a bluejay showed up he retreated to another feeder pole to watch the action.

Just resting between courses.

Yesterday I saw the first hummingbird too, checking out the oriole feeder because I hadn’t put up his feeder. I hurried up and got that out and he’s been back today. In fact I just saw him a few minutes ago. No pictures yet, he’s pretty shy.

And of course between the orioles and grosbeaks (a female showed up today too!!) and hummingbirds…

Sharing is hard sometimes.

…I have the usual gold finches and titmice and chickadees and bluejays and blackbirds and cardinals.

And this guy, image caught through the window and a screen.

Good water lady!

What made you smile this week? Tell us your story and link to Trent’s blog so we can all smile with you!

I make everybody smile!


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A photo a week challenge: Rule of Thirds

Nancy Merrill is good enough to post a photo challenge each week. On Thursdays I read her post and file it away in the back of mind in case I run across the perfect fit. Sometimes I find something interesting, lots of times I don’t, but I’m always looking.

This week’s challenge is ‘rule of thirds,’ which means the main point of the image should be resting at the intersection of lines drawn a third of the way across and down the image space.

Tonight I’ve been watching my goldfinches arrive to eat their supper in the pouring rain. I set the camera on a tripod, focused it on the feeder, and then sat across the room with my remote shutter release.

It was a bit of a wait, but finally this big guy showed up. He was hungry, so he hung around long enough for me to get a few nice shots.

And with a bit of cropping he turned into a perfect fit for the rule of thirds. I love the colors of spring, the brilliant green of the grass and the bold yellow of his feathers.

Even with the continuous cold rain this image reminds me of warm summer days to come. I hope you feel warmer too.


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Narrowing it down to ten

I’m almost at the end of my 365 day challenge of posting one image from each of my daily walks for an entire year.

It was a daunting challenge and one I didn’t exactly meet. I was supposed to walk every day, and that didn’t always happen. And apparently I’ve lost about 2 weeks along the way. My Facebook memories said I was posting day 1 a year ago, and here I have 11 more days to go until I get to day 365.

Still it was fun, and I definitely did more walking than I might have without the challenge. Even if some of it was after dinner in a last ditch effort to get a walk in and find something interesting to shoot before the light slipped away.

I copied each photo from my Facebook post to an image file, and periodically I’ve set that up as a slideshow and looked at all of them again. It takes more than half an hour to move through them all now.

The collection provides a wonderful reference to my year, reminding me of all the wonderful places I’ve been, all the great sights I’ve seen.

OK, some of the images aren’t that good, but there are many I’m proud of. And I wonder if I could choose the ten best images of this past 365 days.

I clicked through the file tonight, writing down the numbers of any shot that made me smile, that made me go back for a second look, the shots that are becoming my favorites.

So far I have thirty-one of them. And I have eleven days to go.

I don’t know if I can narrow it down to just ten. And would they be my favorites because the image was good, or because it reminded me of a favorite place or time?

The images in this post might or might not be on my favorites list. I’ll try to get it down to ten after the project is a wrap.

But I don’t know that I can.


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This week’s smile

Trent, over on Trent’s World, hosts a weekly blog post that collects smiles from bloggers all over the world. This week his featured smile is the bees that survived the Notre Dame fire.

And he wonders what all of us have found to smile about lately.

I did plenty of smiling this week, given the first part of the week I spent in Florida, walking beaches and exploring parks, and especially hanging with good people and wonderful dogs.

Hi mama!

And of course I flew home on Wednesday to my husband and my Katie-girl. Lots to smile about there too.

Then last night I attended a community orchestra concert in a small town about an hour from here.

A fun evening.

On the early evening drive over to the venue the sky was filled with big beautiful blue bottomed clouds. I wished I had my camera and time to find a place to stop.

I had neither.

The concert was fun, and it was good to see an almost full house to support a community orchestra. There were some really talented people playing, and you could tell they were having a great time.

Pretty amazing!

After it was over I emerged from the high school to see the clouds were thinning, but still in evidence. And they were turning purple and pink.

The barns were glowing.

With only my phone to capture the beauty and in a community I didn’t know I set out trying to find an open field with a place to pull over before all the light was gone.

Everything was beautiful.

I got a few good shots, and that, in combination with the evening’s music, made me smile.

What made you smile this week?

The last glow of a great evening.


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Dutton Island Preserve

On my last full day in Florida my friend took me to another sort of park. Not on the ocean, no waves pounding the shore, no shells to collect.

I loved the subtle color of the grass curving into the brilliant blue of the water.

No, Dutton Island Preserve is quieter, more reflective and sits among the salt marshes, an entirely different world.

The water was so still.

We walked among tall pines and over boardwalks. We listened to the birds calling, and watched for fish to jump.

So much texture and color!

It was a small park compared to the vastness of the ocean, but it was beautiful. Though we only saw one woodpecker, we heard plenty of things rustling in the grass or hopping about overhead.

Hungry bird.

It was a wonderful way to wind down a lovely week spent in the warm sun with good friends and good dogs.

Great day for a paddle.


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The greening

Taking a walk in the Jacksonville arboretum.

There’s nothing more special than watching your world transform from winter brown to brilliant spring green. But sometimes those of us in the north get impatient while Mother Nature takes one step toward sunlight and falls two steps back into sloppy slushy cold.

Peeking out to see the sun.

So you can’t blame a person for skipping all of those last moments of winter and retreating to warmer climes. Like Florida. And that’s what I’ve done.

Magnolias are in bloom here.

A friend in Florida wanted to take a short vacation, but her two dogs couldn’t go with her, and she wasn’t comfortable putting them in a kennel.

Whimsical tree.

And on a whim she asked me if I’d consider coming down to house sit with her lovely pooches. My calendar was open for the proposed dates. Hmmmm… let me think…would I like to stay in the cold north and continue to watch winter fighting it out with spring?

Cedar stumps create sculpture covered in moss.

Or would I like to walk barefoot on a sunny beach, watch palm trees sway against blue skies.

Pops of color everywhere if you look.

Let me think about that.

Spiderwort grows wild here.

So here I am, hanging out with two sweet boys, enjoying the sunshine and the warmer temperatures. Sure tomorrow is going to be stormy and we’ll be stuck inside all day.

Pretty shell-like fungus hides in the shade.

But that’s OK. It’s almost guaranteed not to snow.

It’s called Christmas licen, bright red on tree trunks.


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How did YOU celebrate National Pet Day?

Katie here.

Mama took me to one of my parks to celebrate National Pet Day yesterday. I didn’t expect her to remember, because, as you all know, she’s pretty ancient and remembering things never was easy for her even back when I was little and she was younger.

Beat you up the hill mama!

She must have written it on her calendar or something.

Anyway, she was going to take me to this one park with a long trail through the woods, but on the way she noticed another park that had been closed all winter was open! Even though there was snow on the ground she said this was a sign that it was really spring!

Perfect weather for a sheltie-girl!

But of course she wanted to capture the image of our (hopefully) last snow, so she made me sit in it.

You better have good treats mama, cause this is worth at least two of them.

Really mama. I didn’t want to sit in it. Cause I don’t like getting wet, and of course I did get wet. So I refused to walk at all until she got that snow off of my behind.

How embarrassing. Now she’s showing the world my behind.

Mama is not always the sharpest knife in the drawer, you know what I mean?

People had been through this park over the winter and cleaned out a lot of underbrush. I don’t know why, but it did make seeing our town easier.

Our little town.

Yep, that’s our town. It’s only one block long and most of the stores are empty. When mama tells people we don’t live near anything she’s telling the truth! Personally I like it that way, makes it easier to get to my parks! Plus traffic makes me bark.

Mama and I went up and down a lot of hills, mama was looking for fun stuff to photograph that wasn’t me.

These were weird, they looked like treats but mama wouldn’t let me eat any.

She found a bunch of stuff, but I figured that each time the shutter clicked I should get a treat whether or not I was the subject. I think that’s in my contract – one click one treat. Nothing in there says I have to be the center of every photo. I don’t think. Maybe I should check that…I might need an addendum attached.

By the time we turned back almost all the snow was gone. Mama could only find little bits of it in odd places.

A little snow caught in the hollows of a branch.

I was happy because she didn’t make me sit in it again, but I wasn’t happy about heading back to the car. We only went one mile mama!

I’m sitting right here until you reconsider ending our walk.

But in the end I guess the mama knows best. After all I’m twelve now, and sometimes I over do and then I end up at the vet. Plus she promised me we’d go to another park soon.

I just hope she wrote it on her calendar.

Signing off for now, your park explorer girl Katie.

Feeling hopeful.