Farm Life

BIPBC #6: Epic Puddle Splashing + Random Pics

| Allison

Howdy, and welcome to Allison’s BIBPC entry #6! XD The theme this time was “Action”! Behold, action! (I’m entering the first picture.)

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Ha ha, isn’t that great!

Story behind the picture: I took this a couple of years ago after there was a flash flood which resulted in ginormous puddles near our creek! (Another time, I don’t know if it was that time, we floated down the flash-flood-swollen creek in an inner tube. Which proceeded to pop. XD XD XD ) My siblings thought it would be neat if I could take pictures of them splooshing through the water, and they were right! In the picture I’m entering, Megan and Jefferson are glorying in mud-puddle bliss. Look at the expression on Jeff’s face! (If you can see it.) Pure joy. 😀 Oh, and I think it was this same flash-flood when the boys drove our three-wheeler through the water. XD Ahh, good times.

Since this is a pretty short post, I thought I’d add a few more random photos I took recently.

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Maggie rolling her cares away. XD She looks like a headless dog. O.o
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A random picture of gone-to-seed asparagus. XD
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Willow my adorable fluffy rabbit! ♥
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Dandelion in the golden sun
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Gorgeous spring-green leaves!

Which picture was your favorite?

Have a good great amazing STUPENDOUS day! 😀 ♥

***Allison***

BIBPC Entry #1: Baby Killdeer

| Allison

I’m participating in my sister Megan’s fun photo contest, Boring into Beautiful Photography Contest, or BIBPC. (Read about it here.) The first prompt was “Little Things.” So here’s my little thing: an adorable baby killdeer!

Story behind the photo: We were going up to gather eggs when my brother told us that there were baby killdeer over by the creek. I rushed down to the house to get my camera, and when I came back, Megan was holding one of the babies in her hand! He was so warm and fluffy and tiny! Baby killdeer look hilariously cute because they have such long, gangly legs. We played with him a little bit, took pictures, then put him back. I’m sure the poor distracted mother was wondering what strange machines we were pointing at her little baby. XD But not to worry, we returned him safe and sound. And I captured some cuteness for you with my “strange machine.” XD (But let me tell you, this little guy was really hard to take pictures of – he was FAST!)

This is the photo I’m entering for BIBPC:

 

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 ♥ Look how tiny! ♥

And here are several more pictures for your enjoyment. 🙂

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He’s hiding behind a grass blade – if he can’t see us, we can’t see him… right? XD

This next picture makes him look even tinier and long-legged-er. (I think this was the first lil’ guy’s sibling.)

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This next row of pictures are stills from a video I took. GAAHHH he’s so cute! Look at his huge feet in the third picture. XD (He reminds me of S. Q. Pedalion from The Mysterious Benedict Society. XD )

Have you ever seen killdeer? They are rather strange birds. They make their nests on the ground – sometimes right in the middle of the road! Their eggs blend in with the gravels, which is good because predators can’t see them, and bad because people in cars can’t see them. 😦 (See another post I did about baby killdeer here.)

***Allison***

Gone Fishing

| Allison

On Friday we went fishing at our uncle’s pond with some friends and family. Here are a few pictures of his pond:

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It’s a lot bigger than this, but my camera only fit this much from where I stood.
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A zoomed in picture of sheep on the hillside. Aren’t the little lambs so cute? ♥
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My sister kayaking (with a dog in the background). 🙂

I love fishing! I caught two fish (a bass and a perch), but the bass was too small so we had to put him back and let him grow. 😦 But my brother got a nice big bass, and my grandaddy got a humongous catfish! It was so exciting! It took a long time to reel him in, but we finally did (with the help of a metal rake since we didn’t have a net XD ). And guess what? He was almost two feet long!! Seriously, he was about 22 or 23 inches! Catfish may get a lot bigger than that, I don’t know, but it was sure huge to us. We normally just catch little 6-8 inch perch.

And now you’re waiting for the fish pictures, right? *Sniff* I didn’t take any pictures of the fish. WHAT?! I know, I know, I’m with you there. But it we were so excited when we got the catfish, and by the time we thought of taking a picture, he was already cut up and cleaned. Megan got a picture of the fish head just for proof, but it wasn’t too pretty… so… okay, let’s move on, shall we? XD XD

I DID get some pictures of the pond at sunset, however.

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My bobber photobombing. (Try saying that three times fast. XD )
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The poor little thing has drifted out into the sunset pool of no return. XD
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The water was so gorgeous!

 

And these are two edited versions – I especially love the first one:

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Ahhh… sunsets are delightful, aren’t they?

***Allison***

P. S. I have so many photos I want to post, but it seems that’s like all I’ve been posting about lately. That’s okay with me because I love photography… but I don’t want to post photos so much that you start yawning from boredom. 😉 I’m working on a survey so you can tell me which your favorite kind of post is. Until then! XD ♥

Spring Romp

| Allison

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***

A Day in the Life of Me + News

| Allison

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

| Allison

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.)

I love these photos – this one especially.
Can you spot the bird?
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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***

Path-Breakers (and Other Woodsy Stuff)

| Allison

We were recently at my grandparents’ house for three days while my parents when on an anniversary trip, and during that time we made ourselves a path through their woods. It was so fun! (But, heh heh, I had to pay for it – my face is half covered in poison ivy rash now. Yeah. But it’s not so bad, actually. It doesn’t itch that much right now, although when I woke up today my face was all puffy. XD )

Oh, and sorry, but I didn’t take any pictures of the path. 😦

*Bursts into laughter* I’m just kidding – of COURSE I took pictures. XD XD

We made the path by clearing away the leaves, rocks, nuts, and sticks; and pulling out and trimming the many roots, saplings, and maybe the occasional unbeknownst poison ivy vine. 😉 It was hard work, my friends. But it was FUN!

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The beginning of the path (and my brother with a wheelbarrow).

But the our pride and joy was a nice-sized clearing we made in the woods. We even cut down a smallish tree with a handsaw that was in the way. (Uh-huh, yep! XD ) For the clearing, we made sure the ground was especially clear and free of stumps and other poky things because we wanted to be able to walk there barefoot. After we got it all cleared we rimmed the whole thing with rocks which we brought to the clearing via wheelbarrow. Then we added a fire ring (made from rocks), chairs (from stumps), a bench (from stumps and a board), and little table (also from a stump), and hung up a hammock (which we didn’t make. 😀 ).

 

Ta-daa!

You can see the size of the clearing best in the third picture.

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Now for some more detailed views.

You can see in the picture above that we made a little fire, but we had to put it out because sparks were kind of flying about, and we weren’t hankering after a forest fire. :/ We might try again when it’s wetter outside. We specifically made the fire ring around the stump of the tree we cut down so that we could burn it off.

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Stump-chairs and the bench:

We dragged this stump to the clearing for a little table/chair. (The white thing is a quartz rock)

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The day we made the clearing, Megan found a snail and a salamander. We made them our “mascots” and put them on the stump in a little container. And the next day they had disappeared. 😦 XD

I only have pictures of the snail, but you can go to my sister’s post about this here to see a picture of (the back of) the salamander.

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Aren’t snail shells beautiful? I love the way God designed them.

And the hammock… ahh!

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Looking up at the sky from the hammock…

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I can’t wait to see the path in spring! All the new leaves and blooming forsythia bushes will make it beautiful.

So far the path is about 400 feet (we added some past the clearing too), and we’re going to keep making it longer!

I hope you enjoyed this little tour. 🙂

***Allison***

P. S. Before you leave I wanted to show you some neat pictures I took of my sister puffing a puffball. I LOVE puffballs, don’t you?! 😀 (Click on a pictures to enlarge.)

P. P. S. I took gobs more pictures of things like sunsets and farm landscapes while I was at my grandparents’ house, so look for those soon. (By the way, my grandparents live just up the road – we are so blessed!)

Q & A: Part 2

| Allison

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Welcome back for “Q & A with Allison: Part 2!” 😀 As most of you know, I am doing this little question and answer thingy in celebration of the fact that I now have 100 followers!! (Oh, oops – 106 now. YIPPEE! 😀 ) See the first part of Q & A here.

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Mercer Creative‘s Questions

1. What’s your favorite thing about living on a farm? Ooh, that’s a good one! Let me do three of my favorite things about living on a farm: I love the nature, the space, and watching the crops grow.

2. Where’s your favorite place? Well, I don’t know if it’s my absolute favorite, but one place I really like is on our farm. We call it Crystal Pond, not because the water is crystal clear (it’s actually kinda muddy), but because there are lots of beautiful crystal quartz rocks scattered on the shore. I like it because there are some of my favorite kinds of nature there – moss, mushrooms, pretty rocks, and water. 🙂 It’s also neat how the pond is kind of sealed off from the rest of the world by a ring of trees and brush. You can see a post I made about it here.

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Josie‘s Questions

  1. What’s the name of the last unicorn you met? Okay. This might disappoint you but… the last unicorn I met wasn’t a live unicorn. I know. It’s a shocker, right? Okay, maybe it wasn’t so much of a shocker… XD The last unicorn I met is named Alice. You can see some pictures of Alice right here on my Etsy shop.
  2. What’s your favorite book? Umm… how about a few of my favorites. 😀 A lot of my favorite books are actually series. I love the Narnia series, the Anne of Green Gables series, the Penderwick series, the Little House series, and of course a lot of other books. 🙂
  3. What’s your favorite post you’ve written? Help! This is hard! Umm… in this post, I showed you a few of my favorite photography posts. But some other posts I really like are this weird and wacky eggs post because it showed a part of farm life that not everyone knows about, this WordCrafters post because it was SO fun to do WordCrafters with you all (Thanks, Josie, for helping! We’ll probably do it again in May), this gnome story post because it’s funny and it was fun to make, this snow pictures post because I’m still rather proud of that last picture (XD), and this rose photoshoot post because I’m also still proud of those pictures. Heh heh. That was a few more than my one favorite post, but I just couldn’t choose! XD
  4. Why did you start your blog? Misty asked this question in the last part, and the short answer is, “Because my sister had one and it looked like fun.” 😛

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Addy‘s Questions

  1. If you are allowed to, do you watch anime? We don’t really watch TV except for the Olympics (which I LOVE by the way) and political debates, although we do watch movies pretty often. So the short answer is no, not really. 😀
  2. Do you know of any Griffins without a name? 🙂 Uhh… I can’t say that I do because I’m not exactly sure what this question means… 😀 XD
  3. Have you been to Disney world? Nope. And I’m okay with that. 🙂
  4. Would you rather go to England or Paris? Hmm… this is a hard one! It would be fun to see some pretty England countryside, so maybe England.
  5. How many fairy friends do you have? Uhh…? The only fairies in my acquaintance are Belle, Lily, and Scarlett. So three, I suppose. 🙂
  6. Regular potatoes or sweet potatoes? Ooh! I love both. Maybe regular potatoes though, because they can be prepared in so many delicious ways.
  7. Mango or Pineapple? YUMMM! I LOVE FRUIT! Ahem. I love both, but I choose mangoes because we have those less often, and they are simply delicious. 😀
  8. How many followers did you have when you started your blog? Well when I just started I had zero of course, but in the first month or so I only had 1 or 2 followers I think – my sister Megan and my grandparents. Thank you guys! ♥ And thank you all my lovely followers. 🙂
  9. Favorite book genre? I mainly like fantasy fiction (not dark fantasy fiction, though), historical fiction, and everyday adventures fiction – stories like the Penderwicks and Anne of Green Gables which don’t necessarily have a plot, but are more like well-done, interesting fictional accounts of the lives of the characters. I also like biographies, which is probably why I like reading about the lives of fictional characters too.
  10. Did you know that you’re awesome? 😀 Aww, thanks SO much, Addy! That was wonderfully sweet of you to say that. ♥ ♥ ♥

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Genna‘s Question

  1. How many times have you hugged a tree? XD Hee hee! I can’t say as I know the exact answer to your question, Genna. XD I’ve certainly leaned on trees a lot of times, but I don’t know how many times I’ve hugged them. I remember one particular time that I did hug a tree – when we went on a trip and saw sequoias and redwoods. Our whole family made a circle and hugged a tree, but we couldn’t reach around it!

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K.A.‘s Questions

  1. What was the name of the last unicorn you met? See my answer to Josie’s first question. 🙂
  2. When did you get Willow and when did you get Lily? (She IS yours…isn’t she?) I got Willow in August 2015 (click on the links to see pictures of Willow then and now-ish (she’s the one with fluffy fur)), and Lily in May 2015 (Look how tiny she was: then and now! The “now” link will take you to a post by my sister with a picture of a very large Lily. XD). Yep, they are both my bunnies. ♥
  3. Have you ever kissed a frog? (I seriously did this once when I was like 5!!) Hee hee! That’s hilarious! No, I don’t remember kissing a frog, although it’s possible that I did.
  4. What’s your favorite land animal (s)? How about sea animal? Some of my favorite land animals are bunnies, hedgehogs, and giraffes. Some of my favorite sea animals are whales, dolphins, and starfish.
  5. Do you have a favorite sport? Eh… I don’t really play sports or watch them, so not really. Although I do love swimming, and I love watching gymnastics and swimming in the Olympics.
  6. Are you going to comment the answers or post them? Heh heh. XD
  7. Are you sick of questions yet? Well, yes and no. They are great fun to answer, but if I work on them for too long I get kind of tired of them. (Mostly because of how long it takes to add all of my links. XD) But I love your questions, guys, and I’m so glad I did this!
  8. Do you like to eat Ice cream? It depends on the flavor. I don’t dislike any kind of ice cream necessarily, it’s just that some flavors, are just – eh… okay. But certain kinds of ice/sherbet/frozen yogurt I do love to eat, yes!

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There! You asked some great questions, guys. 🙂 Come back soon for more! ♥

***Allison***

A Walk in the Woods

| Allison

Yesterday we had Nature Study with our friends, and we went for a walk in the woods after our lesson. There were so many interesting and pretty things to take pictures of!

We drove to the woods in our truck, and I snapped this funny picture of Maggie while on the ride. It makes her look quite wide, doesn’t it? XD XD XD (You can see that she’s shedding for spring. 😀 )

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There was several lovely mosses that I just had to take pictures of – heh heh. 🙂 (Click on any picture to enlarge it.)

I like these pictures below of moss on a rock.

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A downy feather, stranded in moss…

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I also found a feather by the roadside. Isn’t it amazing how delicate and beautiful  feathers are? Actually, this feather is not exactly as delicate or beautiful as some. 😀 (Click to enlarge, again.)

Megan found a little salamander and put him on a leaf to take a picture of him. I slipped in to get a few pictures too. ;D (Cli… – eh, you already know. XD )

Fungus on a branch…

Henbit… I love looking at the little purple flowerets up close.

And last but not least, here are three galls my sister spotted for me. Another gall necklace, anyone? XD XD XD

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***Allison***

P. S. It feels super warm today – it’s 72 degrees (Fahrenheit)! When it’s warm in summer and spring sometimes our family will eat a meal on the little flat roof just beside our room. We listen to music, or watch the cars go by, and it’s really fun. 🙂 Have you ever done that?