and it brought along a friend!
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!
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.
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!
I’ve been doing a little autumn decorating. I’ve been playing with my camera, too. More later!
M and M Farms on the left has these Black-eyed Susies growing on their split rail fence.
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.
The Car Wash
Lavender- pink! The hydrangeas at my Charlotte home are lavendar, blue, pink and every shade in between!
I guess I should show the original photo for comparison:
