Hello, my friends!

Last week for my birthday, I chose to go on a Green Truck Ride around the farm and it was PERFECT, ahh! “Green truck rides” are kinda a lost tradition in our family. Dad has this vintage, mint-green Chevy truck he built that’s perfect for exploring our land in, but for the past four or five years it’s been out of repair. He finally fixed it up and we got to drive around at golden hour in perfect weather for my 21st birthday! It was an absolutely lovely evening.

Enjoy some happy photos of a delightfully flower-lined path, a soggy dog, and golden hour goodness.

I really like riding on the back of trucks. It’s just so much more exciting than riding in the cab, you know? It’s less comfortable, perhaps, but who cares about that? 😉

The first path Dad drove us to was this grassy one leading into the woods. All the girls were thrilled to find it lined with pretty purple phlox! It’s a little hard to see in the photos, but there were a LOT of flowers.

We stopped at an old hunting stand so the girls could pick bouquets, because of course. Dad helped a bit too. 😉

Carmen and I went a little further down to find ferns in the woods.

AHHH look at this lovely springy bouquet!

I couldn’t resist playing around with reflections here. Next time I should use higher aperture so the whole mirror is in focus.

This spontaneous bouquet-gathering with my family made me so happy. 🙂

Blackberry blooms + bokeh. I wish my computer had the heart eyes emoji thing…

Why do I only notice the chromatic aberration when I’m done editing the photos? *sigh* Anyway, look at the golden trees! Yay!

I love this picture so much. My dad and brothers all talking together; probably about farming or mechanics… Hehe.

Carmen showing Dad how nice the flowers smelled. 🙂

It’s hard to convey the magic of this little purple and green-gold meadow we found. 🙂

This picture also makes me happy. Mom gathered the biggest bouquet.

The three sisters’ bouquets. 🙂

Megan, Carmen, and I held our bouquets up to the sky and swung our legs back and forth on the tailgate – and took pictures, because the evening was too beautiful not to record.

❤ ❤

We drove down one more path as the sun started to go down.

Whenever we pass this creek, Maggie has to stop to cool off. Hehe. We parked for a break, where Logan unclogged the pipe to make a rushing waterfall on the other side, Maggie had to shake water everywhere, and the girls picked some interesting-looking ferns from the muddy bank.

The next stop was this newly-sprouting cornfield at the top of a hill.

Hehe, this one makes me smile too.

Watching crops grow from tiny sprouts to tasseled stalks to heaps of golden grain never gets old…

Whether you’re planting acres of crops or just a few seeds in a pot, there’s something breathtaking about the simple miracle of a seed growing into a plant. Or a caterpillar growing into a butterfly. Or a baby growing into an adult.  We’re surrounded by a bunch of such miracles every day, aren’t we?

By this time, the sun was going down and the evening was getting on, so we all piled into the truck once again and set off for home. Here’s one last picture from a wonderful, wonderful birthday evening.

I hope you guys enjoyed seeing those pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them! I wanted to give you guys a little taste of the joy I felt that day. Hopefully it brought a smile to your face too. 🙂

Do you have a favorite picture from this post? Do you prefer explorations in a car/truck, or by foot?

Thanks so much for reading, my friends, and have a lovely day!

***Allison***

P. S. Photos taken with my Nikon D3400 and a 35mm lens. Edited in Lightroom.