Category Archives: photography

Azaleas, Rhododendrons, and Baby Blueberries!

Azaleas, Rhododendrons, and Baby Blueberries!

IMG_2331How I love this time of year! I have a trip I dream of for this time of year. Relatives in Florida say the oranges come in, and the azaleas bloom there in February. The trip begins in Florida in February, I follow the flowers up the coast, and wind up here at home in April.

I was in Boone, NC, earlier this week. On the mountainsides, dogwoods and redbuds were blooming. When my flowers are finishing their spring show, I can go 20 miles up the mountain and extend the season! I’ve just expanded my dream trip!

Speaking of which, why not be in Florida when those February fruits are flowering? We stayed in Kissimmee one time in a hotel next to an orange grove. Whatever variety was growing in that grove was in full bloom. I remember thinking, Heaven will smell like this! (and a baby’s head, but that’s another post!) I’ll have to research when the oranges bloom and start my trip then, someday, when the grandkids are bigger and I can bear to stay away from them more than a week. (As long as it’s a dream trip, I believe I’ll just take them with me!)

For now, I’ll just enjoy the here and now:

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IMG_2344I’ll end with this photo of baby blueberries since they are a promise of things to come!

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!!!

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!!!

I’ve said it before, but I think I like spring better than Christmas because the trees decorate themselves!redbud 2015This is what the redbud and dogwoods are up to in my yard this year!

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The bushes, and even the ground, get decorated !

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My creeping phlox is up, pink flowering strawberry is in the hole, and…

pink flowering strawberry 2015

Azaleas are on deck! Really! They should be blooming later this week, and I will be photographing them, then!

 

Well, Looky Here!

Well, Looky Here!

crocus 1

and it brought along a friend!

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I think crocus are the perfect Easter flower! I love how they pop right out of the dead and the brown and the gray! That top photo should make a good image for my glass gems. Not bad for an IPhone 5 camera (I’m so ashamed, I don’t have the 6.)

I’m also curious. Saffron, a very expensive spice, is simply the dried stamens of crocus. Every year, I say I’ll save some and don’t. Maybe this year!

Camera Crazy

Camera Crazy
Camera Crazy

I’ve been pretty sick for the past two weeks now, but that hasn’t stopped me from grabbing my camera and seeing what I could capture. I’m still working on the macro and supermacro features. I’ve practiced with flowers and leaves.

I had to zoom in on this red beauty. I thought it was Virginia Creeper (harmless) but I couldn’t for the life of me find more than three leaflets. After zooming in, I found one compound leaf with four leaflets. Can you see it? I have learned that “baby creeper” will only have three leaflets, like poison oak. I guess it’s developed a protective mimicry.

Playing with Images

Playing with Images
Playing with Images

My husband and I arrived at the Statesville, NC Regional Airport today, just as the last launch of Carolina Balloonfest began! I got some great photos (and several not so great!) I’ve been editing them; rotating, copying and croping, being careful to keep the original for comparison. I already have a couple of crafty ideas for them!

This one was my favorite:

Up the Mountain and Down

Up the Mountain and Down
Up the Mountain and Down
Today, my husband and I attended a family reunion  at Old Fields Baptist Church in the Idlewild Community of Ashe County, NC.

As you turn from Hwy 221 onto the Idlewild Road, the field on your right is filled with ironweed, Queen Anne’s lace and goldenrod.

M and M Farms on the left has these Black-eyed Susies growing on their split rail fence.

On the way home, we dropped by to visit the lot we own in Deep Gap, NC.

 The trees have grown up quite a bit since we bought it, so this is a portion of our view:

 I found the lot 5 years before I retired and worked and paid and looked forward to the day we could build on it. I hoped that would be about 5 years after I retired. I’m 6 years out now and family obligations have put the house on the mountainside on hold.

 In the meantime, we had a shared driveway put in with our neighbor who owned the lot just above us. He sold his lot to the nicest couple you could ever meet who also wanted to build their dream home for retirement. And They Did! The house is huge and glorious. We paved our shared drive and they put in stone columns, lamps and gorgeous landscaping. Now, maybe it’s just the green-eyed devil at work, but I really am happy for them. I think my problem is that anything we could afford to build will look like servant quarters next to that house. Actually, it would sit to the right and slightly underneath that house, which is even worse. Now, instead of coming home from the lot all full of joy and hope, I come home depressed.

I give myself a ‘Be grateful for what you have” lecture, but I still have a knot in my stomach.