North East vs North West, I drove to the lake to catch the sunset for a change of pace. I was hoping there would be a few clouds, nothing but blue skies even as the sun dipped below the horizon. Clouds sometimes make for a better sunset photo so the sun isn’t so bright glaring into the cameras. So after the sun drops below the horizon we go back to blue hour.
This first photo is facing North East, leaving a cool view of blue and just a touch of pink in the corner.
Looking back to the North West, the sun is still leaving just a trace of color on the horizon as it leaves us for another day.
The Northern Green Frog, well the frog season is about over. The tadpoles have grown up and are marching across the ground as I write this. They are everywhere, this first picture was taken after the thousands of eggs hatched. Each green frog lays about 3000 to 5000 eggs each. It looks like a black cloud swimming in the pond every spring. You can see my video I made here; Amphibians at My Pond
The first frogs that come up out of hibernation are the Spring Peepers, which I do not have a photo of yet, and now all I see are these green frogs, that circle behind the eye is technically their ears. They feel vibrations, these frogs are the ones that sound like one string on a banjo playing.
This is mom or dad, who appears to be watching over all the kids in the pool. Believe me when the tadpoles are this small, the frogs seem to be staring at me when I get to close.
What Are Your Words when you look at this photo. It is hard not to say Awwww 😉
They finally came out of the woods with Mom, I was hoping I would see them while they still had their spots. That is my lilac bush they are both having a look at. Or my Lilac stick, it has not grown much this year.
Digital Oil Paintings – Consider the Lily How they Grow. This first photo is a digital oil painting of the Orange Lily. I like the look that I can create with oil painting my photos. It only works with certain images. It is done with photoshop, under Filters, Stylize and Oil paint. Amazing what technology can do with a little help from me.
Varietay Friday Just a little variety today to finish off the week. This beautiful Sand Hill crane was out in this field as I drove by, so I stopped and took a photo. I have not seen to many of them this year.
Don’t fence me in. 🙂
Green and Blue work so well together.
Fog and Sunsets – A mystical look from the porch. Have a great weekend.
New Flower to The Garden, my neighbor gave me some lily plants from her garden this spring. I put them over by the woods. Well, the deer ate them a couple times as they were starting to grow and they we had a week of late frost when they were just starting to pop up again. So they have not looked very good the last two months. But today I looked out that way and I could see one orange flower as bright as could be.
Amazing how nature finds a way to survive all on its own.
Pink and Green this Wednesday, I planted a couple of wild flower seed packets this year and a couple of the flowers are just starting to bloom. I wasn’t sure they were going to make it. I am having unusual luck with my garden this year. Things are growing much better than expected. I have been able to pick produce out of it every day. Such a wonderful feeling to be able to do that.
Natures Roving Reporter, the young red squirrels are out and about. It is hard to tell the difference right now between the young ones and the adults, they are all so small. I have not seen the bears in a few days and I don’t mind that at all, here in the yard.
So I set up a camera on the ground the other day because the squirrels were so active. This one kept sitting right in front of the camera. It probably liked the blinking lights, and then it turned to face the camera and the next photograph appeared.
Aka; Little Red – to the locals, she just looked like she was giving an exclusive report as she looked right at the camera. Story has it there is a food shortage going on because of some bears visiting there territory. She interviewed one of the locals first.
“The trays are empty”, he yelled at the reporter ” Those darn bears, human won’t put out any food now because of those two.”
“I found one little shell left and not a seed in it”, she said quietly.
So then, Little Red decided she must risk her life and went right to the source of the food shortage. She asked, ” Mr. Tuck, what have you to say about the uproar you are causing to all the critters who want some food?.”
“Hmmm”, he groaned,” I have just one thing to say about that”‘
That answers that question.
It is hot here so my imagination went over board today 🙂 Never stop having fun, Imagination is a terrible thing to waste.
The Colors of Summer, yellow and orange are the colors for today. The little Skipper butterfly’s are starting to disappear and larger more colorful butterfly’s are taking there place. Nature is such a colorful place.
The Yearling Black Bear, yes even the young bears stick their tongues out at me. Remember when the deer were doing it also last winter in a couple of photos I posted. Well, they are just cleaning up the area, licking all the bugs off of everything and chewing on grass. I just happen to catch them chewing with their mouths open, like we haven’t all had that happen now and then. Happy Friday 💕
How Fast Time Flies, Is it Autumn already? No, just kidding, this is the actual color of the leaves in the center of this particular plant all year long. This plant is called a Ash Leaf Spirea. I am trying to add a little color to the yard.
Full Moon and Black Bears, what excitement I had last week starting on Tuesday. This is my first encounter of being this close to Black Bears and they payed me a visit in our yard 3 nights in a row. At first I only saw the young bear when I looked out my cabin window. I thought how cool, it looks like a nice little black bear. But than all of a sudden, Mama bear came out of the woods and I believe my heart skipped a beat, she is just beautiful. The hair rises on my arm just writing about it. (video below)
When we were kids, my siblings and I, our grandfather would ask, ” Who wants to go to the dump?”, one of my most favorite childhood memories. Why you might ask?, we went there to watch the bears come out in the evenings. We did not have movie theaters back then. That was our weekend entertainment and that is where I begin my journey of the love for wild life, from my Grandfather.
I have only seen a couple bears over the last few years. I was beginning to lose hope that I may never see another one. From loss of habitat and food for the animals. So you can guess my delight when I was sitting at the table by the window and saw these two beautiful creatures walk out of the woods.
They were checking out my bird feeders which were pretty much empty, but it kept them entertained for a short while. I slipped out the side door of my cabin to take some photos that would be a little clearer than through the window and then I just stood there and watched them until they wandered back into the woods.
I set up my trail camera for the next night and they came back, actually they visited for 3 nights. I have made a two part video that I will be putting on my You Tube Channel as well.
Some of this video was taken with a trail camera. You can see the full screen version on my You Tube channel by clicking here; The American Black Bear by Sandra J
After the Sun Comes Up , Oh how the garden sparkled this morning. There was a heavy fog early this morning and as the sun was rising and the fog started to disappear, I went out to look at my garden. The water droplets left behind were shimmering and sparkling to my eyes delight. How I love sparkles, the light of the world shinning for our eyes to see, creating a sea of dancing lights that is sure to lighten ones heart first thing in the morning. At least for me.
The sunlight is casting shadows behind the droplets of water, these almost look like tiny little light bulbs lit up in green.
These are water droplets on my cabbage plant leaves.
Unique Yet Beautiful Little Critters, does anyone else have these little butterflies. There are hundreds and hundreds of them here. I have found out they are called Skipper Butterfly’s. A body of a moth and wings of a butterfly. My cat enjoys trying to catch them though.
I finally got a photo of this dragon fly here, he has a blueish tint to him. Now, I could not find the exact name for this one, considering there are over 5000 different species of dragon flies. I will just call him the blue one.
Dragonflies get categorized as beneficial insects because they eat so many harmful insects such as mosquitoes, gnats, ants termites, along with other insects and arachnids.
Sight is the dragonfly’s most important sense. Each eye can contain up to 30,000 tiny lenses. That I find to be extremely unique.
The wings of dragonflies are mainly composed of veins and membranes, a typical nanocomposite material. The veins and membranes have a complex design within the wing that makes them able to fly like helicopters. In any direction they want to go. Amazing and unique are the little critters of the world.
Selective Color with Daisies, The yellow centers stand out on their own with daisies in regular photos. But I thought I would try selective color as well. Thinking outside of the box.
Daisy’s symbolize innocence and purity. They make up almost 10% of all flowering plants on the planet. Soft white petals are the most iconic daisy look, but they come in lots of other colors. As tough as they are beautiful, daisies are in bloom most of the year and can adapt to almost any environment – they can even live high in the mountains.
Not Your Every Day Beach, now this beach has some pretty rocks to look at. So different from the white sand beaches off the Gulf of Mexico, this beach is Agate Beach on Lake Superior. I love visiting here and look for agates as I walk along the shore line. I am not sure if I have ever found one, because I don’t know for sure what an agate rock looks like. Even though I have looked at samples on the internet to help me find one.
Hidden under all these pretty rocks are smaller rocks that look like diamonds and other gem stones to me. Because of all the colors, amazing how the water polishes these stones so they just glisten in the sunshine.
The Rain Has Arrived, we finally got some rain to give all the trees and flowers a bit of a drink of water that was very much needed. I love photographing clouds, everyday is different, everyday I find it relaxing to just sit on the porch and watch the clouds roll on by, changing with the wind. If we could ride on a cloud, it would be like a dream, how far could we go. How much could we see.
Watching the clouds reminds me of the song by Cat Stevens, Father and Son,
Take your time, think a lot, think of everything you’ve got. For you will still be here tomorrow but your dreams may not.
First to Arrive First to Leave, the silky fluff of the dandelion seed. They take over the lawns in the spring and I do enjoy photographing them up close. But they are long gone now until next spring and new flowers have taken their place.
What was once dandelions has now turned into Daisy’s and Butterflies – Summer time colors all around.
The Sun and Moon Eclipse, this is the clearest photo I could get of the moon passing by the sun. I did not have the correct filter for my camera lens, so I held up a smaller filter that I did have, in front of the lens which caused a little motion blur. But it was still fun to try and capture this photo despite the mosquitos trying to bite us. I created a video as well, with a birds eye view of the sunrise via my husbands drone. You can click the link here; Sunrise and the Eclipse, to see the video.
Sunrise at the Lake, we went out early on the morning there was the moon/sun eclipse and this is what we saw. I tried to get a photo of the moon passing in front of the sun. But the mosquitos were really bad here by the water. I did have a mosquito netting on, but I did not have the correct filter for the camera lens so they came out pretty blurry. Maybe next time, but it was still a beautiful sunrise.
Creativity Knows No Bounds – With the billions of minds that grace the earth, sometimes it’s hard to believe that people are still finding new ways to be creative. After all these years, there’s still so many things waiting to be discovered, created or realized by us humans.
My mind is always thinking outside of the box and sometimes, depending on the weather outside, I may let my imagination flow with my photography and the fun little gadget called photoshop when I am inside escaping the heat.
Plain Photo in Black and White
Added Light Flare
Added two borders
A touch of sparkles
Have a Wonderful Weekend Exploring Your Creativity
Flowers Evoke All Our Senses, sight, smell and touch to name a few. My driveway becomes a wild flower garden every year and by July the fragrance is enough to make one stand still in awe of what comes forth from this earth. Butterflies and small critters everywhere, as if one is walking through a dream.
Watch Your Garden Grow, My two favorite things to grow and eat are blueberries and cabbage. Well, I like all vegetables and fruit. But this year I bought a couple blueberry plants, and the photos below shows some blueberries in their early development. Amazing how this green little flower will turn into a sweet blue berry.
This year my attempt at growing cabbage just might make it. I am not the best gardener, but I love trying every year. To grow your own food and be able to enjoy a meal from your hard work is so enjoyable to me. This is the start of a purple cabbage, as the inside leaves keep growing around each other to form a wonderful cabbage head, hopefully.
I often think when I see these plants growing, who was the first person that said, ” I will try it.”, 🤔
To Go in Search Of is a synonym for looking up. Which I am doing all the time. Sometimes we get so focused on just looking a few feet in front of us or what is in our hands, we forget to look up. To go in search of the Light. It is every where, it is stunning at times to see the Light shine through objects, nature.
It gives a new perspective on what I am looking at, with the light shinning through the leaves, I see every vein, the heart beat of the leaves in front of me. With a sparkle of light at the tip of one leaf below, as if it is saying, ” Now you see me”.
White Pelicans on the Mississippi, well I am not any where near the Mississippi River this year and I do miss seeing these beautiful birds. Luckily I have plenty of photos to look back on when I want to take a look at these magnificent birds. So I thought I would share some of my favorites today.
Originally Called Decoration Day, from the early tradition of decorating graves with flowers, wreaths and flags. Memorial Day is a day in remembrance of those who died in service. It was first widely observed on May 30th, 1868.
Light of the Morning Sun, the start of a new day, which can show us things we thought we would never see. Pure beauty of creation, a reflection of you and me.
How Small We Really Are, the night skies have been amazing these last couple of weeks. Yesterday morning I decided to try something different. I drove out to a lake to view the Milky Way, a place where light noise almost doesn’t exist. I went out there at 3:00 am. When I turned the light off on my jeep, I was stunned at what I could not see.
I could not even see my hands in front of my face it was so dark, I had my hand on the side of my jeep and then I looked up. These photos only show a small glimpse of the millions of stars before my eyes. I did have a flash light with so I could walk to the edge of the lake and set up my camera. You could see the Milky way with your eyes, I felt so small. I can’t even wrap my brain around the thought of how big the universe might be. But I did not feel alone, His presence was bigger than what my eyes and heart could see.
I did take video also and put it on my You Tube channel so if you would like to see it, this is the link; The Milky Way and Shooting Stars. It is a little longer than most of my videos because I talk about the settings I use on my camera as well.
I only have about a 3 hour window to view the Milky Way which allows me to take about 70 photos and the videos are only a few seconds long because of the long shutter speed needed to capture the lights of the stars. I use a 10 second shutter speed for video with a DSLR camera and 30 sec shutter speed if I am using the go pro camera.
This photo below is blue hour when the sun was starting to shine its light over the lake.
