Wildlife

Wildlife in the Park

6/3 Photography Wildlife Wonder

The Fauna / The Flora / Outside

Such a beautiful day to be out and about today! The prompt for today's assigned photo was to practice centering a subject balancing other objects in the frame . I was able to do that, but there is still plenty of clutter in the picture due to all the reeds. This was the only way to take this picture due to the reeds, did you notice the reflection? I had to do some extra processing to highlight the turtle and brighten his neck. 

Today I started out with another wimpy walk, this time the dog didn't even come with us. She got distracted and we came back to find her laying on the side of the road waiting for us to return. At least we moved faster without her. I got the laundry hung out and checked out the garden for any new flowers. 

The purple flower in the bottom right is my lone rhododendron flower. The irises are getting ready and the top right is the Astilbe. After hanging out the laundry, I packed a lunch and joined my friend A and her two children at the park. These are my summer beach buddies and they just never stop, especially T, the little girl. The park was more active than my last visit there. When I drove up, there were two school buses, and a sea of green tee shirted kids crawling around the playground. Turns out it was a school group there before a play having lunch and we soon had it back to normal. 

I, of course, brought my camera and had a blast taking all kinds of pictures. It was a great practice day for me and I got some fun photos of the kids. This year was easier since T isn't as squirmy as she was last year. I am going to put a couple of these on my portrait gallery on zenfolio for samples of my work. 

The two kids were all over the playground while A and I caught up. She had exciting news and it looks like we will have three with us in 2015 at the beach. It's just going to be hard when S is in school full-time because then we won't have him with us to keep track of his sister! 

Can you believe the size of this orange fish? There's no way it's a gold fish, must be a carp of some type or another.  It was a fun to be outside and it was free! All these pictures gave me the opportunity to  work in Lightroom 5 with processing.  

My Muse

The Town Pond

3/6 Photograph a Muse

Inspiration / Source / Reflect

My muse is my friend Terry who as a photographer has taught me how to use my camera in all the settings, along with composition and lighting. At this point we are exploring the idea of going into business and doing photo walks. I was going to just put up a picture of Terry taking a picture, due to the lack of time I have to work on the computer and my photography today. But, I decided to take a picture that reminds me of what Terry does best, and that is taking pictures of where you live. She  does live in a quaint college town that has a covered bridge and I live in a rural, bedroom community. The photo opportunities in her town are endless and are usually where we start when we go off on our photo drives. This is a picture of the "life" of my town, the pond where my kids learned how to ice skate and fish in cub scout fishing derbies. It's where I walked across this past winter when out snow shoeing. I thought it was a fitting last picture of winter for me in the spirit of what Terry photographs best, the place where you live.  Check out her photos on her website, she has really stunning shots. 

No flower for today, no time, but check out what I finally saw at the feeder today! I guess I had to be up earlier to see him!

Got some interesting Blogging friends .....

It was a daunting task, but most of us were able to come up with 10 interesting facts about ourselves. I liked this tag, because it was similar to a TT13, but we were all on the same page. Turned out to be a nice way to learn about some newer blogging friends ( Go over and wish Mo a Happy Birthday, sssh, she's calling it the 17th anniversary of her 23 birthday!) We have had all kinds of injuries, hidden talents and some interesting dislikes. Poor Margaret Johannsen and Diane Sawyer...

My husband and I went to a Kentucky Derby party this past weekend, at an old/new friend's house. Old- I worked with T over 18 years ago, we lost touch and caught up with each other at cross country track meets these past two years. Her oldest is the same age as my youngest. We didn't know anyone at the party except for T and her husband, and ended up having a blast. The house (cottage) is set on a hill in Henniker, NH with an incredible view of the hills to the west. Our first thought seeing it, was, "Must be a great place to watch a thunderstorm".

I wish I could describe the inside, but let's just leave it that T is an artist, there is a picket fence in the house, along with a stone wall and it all fits. I leave houses like that wishing that I had but a smidgen of artistic talent. T is a photographer and we are going to have her do a family portrait this summer, I will keep you all posted.

Weight watchers tonight, gained .2 lb and like I have been saying for the past few weeks, I have got to get serious. ( but after the cheese burger and corona light that I had tonight) Before blogging, we went for a mile walk, maybe that would be a good way to lose weight, exercising before blogging. You know, blogging as a reward, could work. I'll keep you posted.

Tomorrow is the Reason....

A Tee shot in Nova Scotia, 2004
Tomorrow is the reason that I took a cut in pay, reduced my stress along with my health insurance benefits. Call me crazy, selfish or stupid, but the four years I spent teaching led to a gain of 30 pounds. I missed my friends, the ability to have fun during the day and the time to get work done around the house. But I really missed the quiet of the golf course, the dew on the grass, the glorious sound of a ball hit well, the arc of the ball flying over my friends' golf balls and the hilarious banter of friends ribbing each other before teeing off. Yep, tomorrow the girls go golfing.

Party Time

There used to be quilting parties where women got together and worked on quilts as a community effort. Then there were bridge or whist parties during the 1950's and 1960's when there were a few women home during the day. Bingo was kind of big around the Boston area for awhile, my grandmother and her sisters loved to meet up and play their gizillion cards. Every once and awhile, I would drive my grandmother to Bingo, however the cigarette smoke was gross. I'm not too sure what was going on in the 80's and 90's, I was too busy raising my babies and working evenings. But last year I started hearing about Bunco and went to a party with couples. You mention Bunco and somebody knows somebody who goes to monthly parties. It's time for me to join the party band wagon and have some social face to face time versus playing with my blog template on my lap top, while my husband watches some old movie.

It's been a very long winter and I thought it would be fun to have a group of women over to play. Eleven of them have not played, so it's going to be interesting. But you do know what that means?????? Now I have to clean my house, my kids are off from school today for conferences and this is my food shopping day. Basically, I am going to be exhausted by the time my friends get here. Nevertheless, it will be a good time with good food and drink.

Is Bunco big where you live? Have you played it? Any good theme ideas? What other party games are out there?

Wine Tasting for a Cause

Tonight we went out with friends to a Wine Tasting Event with the proceeds going to the Cancer Center at our local hospital. I have never been to a wine tasting before and it was fun! Loved the servers who gave us more than a tablespoon of wine.
They even had a couple of tables of "spirits" which were tasty. But after awhile, it's kind of hard not to have a slight buzz. It was fun to taste wines that I wouldn't ordinarily try. That would have to be the benefit of going. Going out on a "school" night is not something that I do, but hey Grey's Anatomy was a repeat, so dressing up a little bit and hanging out with friends was a great alternative.