Spring Romp

Okay guys, this post is going to give you a delightful dose of SPRING! I LOVE SPRING! Ahem. Take a deep breath and smell the fresh spring air…

First off we have a humble dandelion. But have you ever noticed how beautiful they really are? The dandelion has such a sunny, fluffy bloom, and look at those exquisite little curlicues peppering the surface of the flower!

Next up we have some more pretty weeds – with BOKEH in the background! I love bokeh. ♥ I think this is corn speedwell.

I really like these pictures! They’re so… springy! 😀

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Now I’ll take a break from flowers. How about a landscape instead?

I love this next picture! (I love lots of things in this post, don’t I? XD Spring, bokeh, pictures…)

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The foreground is gorgeous lush triticale, and the background includes chicken houses, the litter shed, solar panels,  and my cousins’ house. 🙂

Some fresh new spring oat starts…

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There was some perfectly oozy mud that we just had to squish in, and after our walk, my friend and I went back. I made a little mud-bird from sticks, bark, and of course, mud. 🙂 Isn’t she cute? She is a bit dirty though. *Sigh* I’m afraid that’s her fate. XD Sometime I should go back and see if she’s still there.

This raccoon must have liked the mud too. Doesn’t his little handprint look like human handprint? It especially does in this picture because you can’t see how small it is.

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And to finish it off, here are some Lily the rabbit pictures. SQUEEE! She’s so fat and plush! … Perhaps a bit too fat and plush. XD But I love you anyway, dearest Lily.

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She looks half grumpy, half startled, and all CUTE in this picture!

Okay, guys. You are going to die from a cuteness attack when you see this next picture. Lily and a calf are making friends! (Well, at least the calf is. Lily… maybe not so much. XD Look at the expression on her face!)

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I hope these pictures put an extra spring in your step. 🙂 Have a lovely day! ♥

***Allison***

Reflections at the Pond

I took these pictures on a gorgeous clear spring morning. I was getting milk from the dairy, and the pond was too beautiful to resist! The water was glassy and calm, and the reflections in the water were almost perfect! The reflection of a Canada goose swimming about looked especially neat. (We have a pair of geese nesting at our pond. Yay!)

First, a couple of flowers from around the pond: (Click to enlarge.)

Next, the stunningly beautiful barbed wire fence. XD Just kidding!

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Bokeh!

 

Now some pond scenery:

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This panorama really bent the pond. Now it looks like a boomerang!

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And now for the geese! The mother goose was sitting still as a statue on her nest by the pond. She looks rather wary.

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And here’s the father, keeping guard. 😀 Isn’t his reflection neat?

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Cow in the background. 😉

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And more reflections…

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An underwater tree? 😀 I really like this picture.

 

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WAIT! Did any of you notice something wrong with those pictures? You should have! All of that last chunk of photos except for the first three were upside down reflections! Some of the reflections were so smooth that you could hardly notice, but some of them just didn’t look right (like the last one). Heh heh. Did you notice that or not?

See ya’ later! ♥

***Allison***

Happy Easter! + Spring Photos

Happy Easter, everyone! Christ has risen!

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I thought I’d show you a few Easter-y springy pictures too. 🙂 Spring is like the year’s resurrection – the old bare trees and brown grass come to life again. Christ’s resurrection is infinitely more amazing and wondrous than spring is or ever will be, but in the new birth of spring perhaps we have a miniscule, faint taste of the joy which we will experience at Christ’s return!

So with that, enjoy this humongous spring collage. 🙂 (Click on any photo to bring up an enlarged slideshow thingy of all of the photos.)

Once again, HAPPY EASTER!

***Allison***

Q & A: Part 3

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Welcome back! It’s time for another round of Q&A with Allison. (See the other parts here.) In case you’d forgotten, I did this Q&A post in celebration of the 100 followers milestone! Woop woop! 😀 Oh wait – now I have 112 followers. WOOP WOOP!! XD Thank you guys so much! You all asked so many lovely questions that I had to divide the answers into several parts. 😀 So now, without further ado, I present Part 3!

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Michaila‘s Questions

1. Do you ever watch the news? If so, who do you want for future president? We hardly ever watch the news, but we do like to watch presidential debates! I’d definitely choose Ted Cruz out of the five remaining candidates. I think his policies are better than the other candidates (because he’s more conservative), and he seems to have a better character than… um, some other candidates. 😉
2. Ever worn bunny slippers?
Hmmm… I think I might have had bunny slippers when I was little, although I’m not sure. XD
3. What are your 5 favorite words?
I recently discovered that I like the word “allele” because it’s really fun to write in cursive. 😀 Look at all those loops! (I learned “allele” in Biology. 😉 It means “A different version of the same gene,” in case your biology was a little rusty. 😀 )

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I also like the word “humuhumunukunukuapua’a” which is the Hawaiian name for a reef triggerfish. XD XD Can you imagine saying, “Okay, Mom, I’m off to go humuhumunukunukuapua’a fishing.”? XD In school we also learned about an Egyptian pharaoh named “Apeppi.” I just love saying that – Apeppi Apeppi, Apeppi! XD XD “Onomatopoeia” is also really fun to say… Let’s see, what else? I like the word “luxurious” as in “luxurious green moss” or “luxuriously plush pillows.” Even the word “luxurious” sounds luxurious.

4. What are your 5 favorite Disney characters? I like Anna, Olaf, and Kristoff from Frozen, the Incredible family from The Incredibles, and… well that was already more than five characters, so I’ll stop. 🙂

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Clara‘s Questions

1. What was the name of the last unicorn you met? Hee hee! I’ve already answered this in the first part, so you probably already read it, but the name of the last unicorn I met was “Alice.” 😀 (You can see pictures of Alice here.)
2. Worst thing you ever tasted? Hmm… I’m not sure. It likely had something to do with either spicy things or mushroom soup. I do not like spicy things or mushrooms (although they’re okay raw), and I really don’t like mushroom soup! (You know, the sauce in some casseroles.) But for the most part, I’m not a picky eater. 🙂
3. What do you spend most of your time doing in the summer?
Umm… I can hardly remember! Well, here are some of the things I do: read, work in the garden, help can and harvest vegetables, swim at our neighbor’s pool, take walks around our farm with my family, go fishing at my uncle’s pond, watch fireworks, go on vacation, go to the fair (and enter things in it), weed the flowerbeds, and feel hot. 🙂
4. Favorite school subject?
I started to list my favorite ones, but the list was turning out to be pretty much everything. XD The ones I like a lot are Spanish, Math, the reading part of Literature, History (especially because we’re learning about one of my favorite time periods – Ancient Egyptian history!), and Geography. My worst school subject might be writing essays. 😦 I have a hard time starting them up.
5. Dream job?
I’m already doing one of my dream jobs – selling things I create! (On my Etsy shop.) I’m having lots of fun with that. 🙂
6. Favorite cartoon? 
Right now the only one I can think of is Tom and Jerry… They are funny, but maybe a little too predictable. 🙂
7. What exotic animal would you like to have as a pet? (Yes, unicorns count. 😉 ) If I wouldn’t have any trouble with where to put it and how to feed it, it would be fun to have a giraffe as a pet. And yes, a unicorn would be fun too. 😉

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Abigail and Clara’s Questions (They’re my cousins, by the way. ♥♥)

1. When are you coming to Canada next?  What about… tomorrow! *Sigh* I wish! I don’t know when we’re coming to visit, but I hope soon! Last time we came was really fun. 🙂
2. What are your blog stats? Ooh! That’s a good question! Thus far I have…

  • 203 posts
  • 112 followers
  • 2,345 comments
  • 9,319 views
  • 1,923 visitors
  • 1,574 likes
  • And here are two  picture of my stats page. The first one is by year, and the second is by day. stats 1.jpg (2)stats 2.jpgThe first year I blogged for about 7 months, the next year for a whole year, and this year for only 3 months so far, but this year is way ahead on everything! THANK YOU, DEAREST READERS! 😀 ♥

3.How many rabbits DO you have? I personally have 2 rabbits, Willow and Lily, and my siblings have 3 more bunnies: Clementine, Olaf, and Diamond. ♥
4. Can you do another close up picture and guess blog?
Oh yes, I certainly will! I love making them, but I haven’t collected enough pictures quite yet for another mystery pictures post. But don’t worry, there will be more!
5. Do you like photography more than bunnies?
Wow. That’s a hard question. The thing about bunnies is that they’re ALIVE and they’re ADORABLE, but the thing about photography is that you can take pictures that will last for a long, long time, plus it’s super fun. I guess I can’t choose because the two are so different. 🙂 But maybe… just maybe I like photography better, because the happiness and beauty you capture in a picture can be experienced (in a way) over and over again, throughout the years. *Sniff* I’m sorry bunnies – don’t worry, I l♥ve you too! ♥ ♥ ♥
6. How many times have you played I-spy? (Countless?)
I have no idea… XD
7. Would you rather live in a tree or on a roof?
Ooh! In a tree! Well, if it was a treehouse, anyway. That would be so neat! …Except for those times when it stormed, and except for the part about that I probably wouldn’t have air-conditioning or electricity… Um, I’ll take my house. 🙂
8. Would you rather have a ketchup, mayonnaise, hot sauce casserole or a deep fried cricket? XD XD XD Hee hee! Umm, since I don’t really don’t like mayonnaise or hot sauce, I think I’d choose the deep-fried cricket. If it was breaded, you probably could hardly taste it anyway. XD Ewww!

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Britt‘s Questions

1. What is your favorite animal? Hmm… I really like bunnies, woodland animals, giraffes, and lots of others. 🙂
2. What are your hobbies? I like to read, make things from polymer clay, blog, photograph, and do pretty much anything craft-related. 🙂
3. Do you like to read? YES!
4. What is your favorite things to write about on this blog? My favorite thing to write about is probably funny pet stories/photostories, but my favorite thing to post about is probably photography. 🙂

That’s it for today, folks! I hope you enjoyed learning a bit more about me. 🙂

***Allison***

Bird Jamboree

Ta-daa! The birdies post, as promised. 🙂

Spring is on the way here! You can hear birds twittering and singing around you which feels ever so much springier. (The first three pictures were taken at my grandparents house.)

 

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Tufted Titmouse
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Cute lil’ chickadee
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And the same… 🙂
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This is a sneak peek from a future post. 😉
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I saw this duck pair at a park.
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Lift off!

 

Okay. None of these last pictures are beautiful pictures, but I took them so that you can see how good my camera’s zoom is. The first picture was taken all the way zoomed out, and the last was zoomed in really far (but not quite as far as it can go) and then cropped. Both images were taken from the same exact place. You can’t even see the morning dove at all in the top picture! The second picture shows where the mourning dove is. (At least I’m pretty sure that’s what that miniscule, bird-shaped speck was when I zoomed it up on PicMonkey!) And the third (super blurry because I cropped it so much) picture shows you again.

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Isn’t that simply AMAZING? I can hardly believe it myself, even though I took the picture!

Which picture was your favorite? Have a springy day!

***Allison***

Photos from of Old: Entry 3

About time for another one of these, eh? These photos were taken in the summer of 2013.

First some snail pictures… (I remember I was pretty proud of these when I took them. XD And I still like them!)

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Now some flowers…

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Coreopsis
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Tiger Lily

I took this picture one night when after a family walk. Isn’t it adorable? (All of these next few pictures are edits of the original.)

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My dad, my littlest sister Carmen, and my mom. 😀
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It looks cute in B&W too. 🙂
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Carmen is a rainbow!

I requested my siblings to pose for this one; I think I meant it to look similar to the last photo. They look so cute and tiny (well, younger at least XD) in this photo!

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Megan, Carmen, and Jeff. Just look at Carmen’s little curly head!

An edited clouds-over-field photo…

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And lastly, two miscellaneous nature photos: a mushroom and bedewed leaf.

 

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Thanks for time-traveling with me!

***Allison***

P. S. Recently my littlest sister Carmen has been determined to learn how to fly. XD XD XD She asks Mom if it’s possible for people to fly, and Mom explains that God just didn’t make humans to able to fly. But she thinks that maybe she’ll be the first person ever to do it! XD XD XD It cracks me up! But it’s adorable too. 😀 Hey, we all wish we could fly, right? One can always dream…

P. P. S. I have 111 followers! Besides the fact that that’s amazing, and “Thank you so much guys,” (but seriously – THANK YOU!), isn’t 111 such a fun number?! XD

Sunset Skyline

Hello, hello! Today I’m back with some pretty pictures of a sunset and some birdies. I took these when we were at my grandparents’ house recently.

For once, the pictures I took of a sunset actually might have been prettier than the real thing! The ‘sunset’ setting on my camera made the colors more deep and fiery than they were in real life. First, this is a picture of the whole

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And now for the others…

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It looks like the sky’s on fire and the mountains are blue waves rushing to put it out… Which of those pictures was your favorite? I can’t decide!

This is a branch silhouetted against a glorious sunset background.

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I think I took these next pictures toward the beginning of the sunset. I especially like the second one.

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Ahh… I love sunsets. Thanks for taking a peep!

***Allison***

P. S. I have even MORE photos from my grandparents’ house of several different kinds of birds we saw there. (I already made this post with pictures of our farm as seen from my grandparents’ house.) Be looking for the bird post soon!

A Day in the Life of Me + News

Hello, dear readers! I thought you guys might enjoy a “Day in the Life of…” post, so here it is!

Wait! First, here’s a wordcloud I made for this post. 🙂 Click here to make one yourself!

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Since today is Saturday, I slept in for a nice long time and woke up somewhere between 8 and 9. 😀 I lazily stayed in bed and read a chapter or so of Rainbow Valley (I’m re-reading the Anne of Green Gables series and I love it! Have you ever read Anne of Green Gables?). Then I got up, and dressed in jeans and a short sleeve t-shirt, which may not have been a good idea because right now it’s 34 degrees outside. XD (And IT SNOWED today! It’s nearly Easter and it snowed! But it didn’t really amount to anything.) Then I did my morning chores, ate a bowl of Honeycomb cereal, and got the daily pitcher of milk from the dairy.

Since I’m guessing many of you have not gotten milk from a dairy before, I will kindly explain how I did it. 😛 First I drove down to the dairy (which is just across the road) on our four-wheeler. Then I whipped out my pitcher, screwed off the cap of the 7,000 gallon milk tank (yes it is 7,000 gallons!), pressed the lever, filled the pitcher, sprayed all the extra milk down the drain, and drove up to the house, satisfied that my dangerous mission was completed. XD XD Nah. Sorry to disappoint you, but it actually wasn’t a dangerous mission. XD

Next I did a chapter of Logic with my mom because I hadn’t finished it from Friday’s schoolwork. (Oops! 😉 )

I practiced piano for about half an hour.

I vacuumed my room. Wow, isn’t this exciting so far? XD XD

Then I ate lunch and did the lunch dishes with my siblings.

After lunch I worked with polymer clay a bit and read Rainbow Valley some more until it was time to gather eggs.

I will also kindly describe gathering eggs. 😀 It was my brother’s and my turn to help gather eggs today.

Today I gathered at the first chicken house. I pulled the cart out from the egg room. (The cart is like a metal shelf on wheels where we put the flats full of eggs. Flats are yellow or white plastic crates which we put the good eggs in.) The eggs come on a conveyor belt which runs under the nests where the chickens lay their eggs, and you pick them up and put them into flats. You have to put all of the eggs pointy side down in the flat, and sort them: good eggs go in the yellow plastic flats, cracked or super-dirty eggs in the gray cardboard cull flat, and weird-shaped eggs in the green flats. (Click here to see a post I made about some of the weird eggs.)

We also have to clean the dirty eggs. :/ We scrape off the dirt, then wipe the eggs with Clorox wipes. I got 25 flats in a little over a half an hour. Eh. But it sounds more impressive if you count by eggs instead of flats: a flat holds 54 eggs, and I gathered 25 flats, so I gathered 1,350 eggs! That sounds more impressive, doesn’t it? XD Once I gathered 5,400 eggs in one day! (You get a bonus point if you figure out how many flats that was. 😀 ) Usually we get between 4,000 and 7,000 eggs per house, and we have three chicken houses. That’s a lot of eggs!

After I came back from doing eggs I worked on editing the WordCrafters story. I’m editing a copy of the story to correct any errors and make it flow more smoothly. I might even make it into a book sometime! That would be so fun. 🙂

I worked on this post until supper. Saturdays are family movie nights with homemade pizza on the menu! (Regular and cheeseburger pizza. Have you ever tasted cheeseburger pizza?) After much speculation, we decided to watch Yours, Mine, Ours. It’s about a widow and widower who marry and learn to live as parents to 18 kids – the dad had 10 kids before he married again and the mom had 8! The movie was pretty good. I didn’t like the first part very much, but after they were married it was really funny. 🙂 Have you ever watched it?

So now I’m writing this post. 🙂 I hope you enjoyed a peek into “a day in my life!”

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Now for the news: WordCrafters will start again in June. I’ll do a post with all the juicy details and sign-ups before it starts. 😀 Are you excited about doing WordCrafters again? I am! It was so much fun last time, and you all did a great job!

Also, I added a ‘Guestbook’ page to my blog. It’s located just under the header where the rest of the pages are. You can comment on the page with your name (or online name), and just say “___ was here.” That way, years later, I will still be able to see who visited my blog!

Lastly, this is my 200th post! Yippee!

G’bye for now, dear readers!

***Allison***

 

Farm Landscapes + PFA #3

When I was up at my grandparents’ not too long ago, I took some neat landscape pictures of our farm. (My grandparents live just up the lane – we are super blessed that way!) It was a beautiful spring evening and the farm just looked so pretty…

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Isn’t this neat? I took it on the “panorama” setting of my camera.

(Click on any photo in a collage to enlarge.)

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Geese at the pond – my camera zooms really well!

 

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Sun through a tree at my grandparents’ woods

 

I hope you enjoyed looking at these photos as much as I enjoyed taking them! Which picture was your favorite?

Oh, and I think a PFA (Post from the Forgotten Abyss) might be due. Check out this post I made in September 2014 (!!) with pictures of lots of different animals found around our farm.

 

***Allison***