Of Mother’s Day, Green Truck Rides, and Stampeding Cows

May 14, 2017May 14, 2017 | Allison

Hello, dearest readers, and HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY! I hope you let your mom know how much you appreciate her hard work. I certainly do appreciate my mom’s hard work! She’s does so much for us – cooking food for seven people three times a day, cleaning the house, homeschooling five kids… so much work, with so much love and patience. ♥ Happy Mother’s Day, Mom! 😀

After supper today we went on a Green Truck Ride with the whole family for fun and kind of also to celebrate Mother’s Day. (In case you’re wondering, a “Green Truck Ride” is when the kids hop on the back of Dad’s old, restored, mint-green truck and Mom and Dad drive us around the farm. 🙂 It’s always quite fun.)

Of COURSE I brought my camera, and even got some neat pictures to show you guys. What a surprise, huh? XD (Note: I did edit most but not all of these pictures a bit, in case you were wondering.)

Oooooh isn’t this pretty with the mountain in the background? This isn’t the main part of our farm – it’s the back section which has its own barns and silos and such.

This picture is of a neighboring farm:

And now we’re back to ours. I thought the fields looked lovely in the golden sun!

Maggie loves to ride on the truck bed with us. 🙂

Isn’t this picture neat? You can see my Dad through the window and in both of the mirrors.

We stopped to visit the cows and they all came running up to us. XD Hmm, this looks like a good opportunity for another “Rather Puzzled Cows” story… (See the first one here.)

“Lookout to chief, over. It seems we have some strangers on the premises, do you copy?”

“Chief to lookout, over. Visitors you said? Hmm, we haven’t had any in a while. I’ll sound the alert. ALERT, ALERT, EVERYONE. VISITORS ARE APPROACHING. STAMPEDE AT WILL.”

*Pant, pant*

*Snort, snort*

“Eww, they’re only the strange looking two-legged things again.”

“*Gasp* Well! I’m shocked at your language, Bertha. How could you be so cruel? I think they’re kind of cute.”

“Hmph. They look suspicious to me. I shall give them my hard stare and see if that drives them off.”

“Well that didn’t work – look.”

“WHOA STAND BACK! THEY’RE COMING FOR US!”

“What d’ya think, girls? Don’t they look suspicious to you? Especially that one holding out the stick.”

“Hmm, I see what you mean.”

“Yeah… let’s take it slow here, ladies. You never know what could happen with these creatures. Just stand back and watch carefully. Close scrutiny is always the best choice in cases like these.”

“OOH, OOH! Hey Bertha, should I run them through with my great and mighty horns? Huh, huh? Just let me at ’em, and I’ll-”

“Oh puh-leez. You’re horns aren’t big enough to butcher a groundhog.”

“B-but… *Sniff* Okay then.”

“Wait. Guys. They’re moving again. HEEELP!”

“Sheesh. What a bunch of scaredy-cows. Why did I get stuck with this herd? I mean, really!”

XD Hee hee! That was fun.

So anyway, after the cows we went to the grain bins with Mom and Dad. It was so much fun! We took the speaker in to see if it would sound all echo-y like our voices did, but it didn’t echo as much as I thought it would. It just got dusty. 😛 The kids played catch with a sock filled with corn, everyone jumped from the ladder a few times, and we listened to music and sat amidst the corn kernels. 🙂

Here’s a couple of pretty cloud pictures to end on…

So yep, there’s our Mother’s Day adventure of sorts. 🙂 I hope you enjoyed the pictures and my rather rambling commentary. Thanks for reading, my friends!

***Allison***

P. S. The next post will hopefully be the birthday haul post. 😀 Except I thought of a much better title. XD Hee hee!

Sisters Photoshoot #2

May 11, 2017May 11, 2017 | Allison

A little while ago Megan and I decided to do another sister’s photoshoot! (See the first one here. Oh yeah, she’s gotten contacts since then!) I don’t take pictures of people very often, so I thought it would give me good practice, and not to mention Sisters Photoshoots are really fun. 😀 They are certainly not the best portraits ever, but I had fun experimenting and I thought I’d show you guys the results. 🙂

Megan wanted me to get some pictures of her in a tree with the golden sun shining through the leaves, so I did… but they didn’t turn out quite as golden as it seemed like it should. XD

This is a random photo I took of Megan for a co-op thing. :

I really like this picture! I took it when we were on a nature walk when I also got a lot more pictures, so I’ll hopefully post those soon. Dandelions are so fun!

Ha ha, I *think* I caught Megan when she wasn’t looking. 😉

She was certainly looking here! ~~No, I just scared her and she jumped. XD~~ I love taking jumping pictures! Apparently Megan does too. XD

After that, Megan took some pictures of me. I was inspired by Loren’s gorgeous post to make a crimson clover flower crown. 😀 Heh heh, it was a bit too sunny so I’m squinting a bit and my smile looks kind of pained, but otherwise I like these pictures. XD XD XD I’ll keep trying… 😛

After that I took some pictures of myself with the timer on my camera, since I don’t have a remote. I kept running back and forth until I wore a path in the triticale field (and got my capris rather green). XD

I did get one that I liked enough to be my profile picture, as you might have noticed.

There we are! I hope you enjoyed these photos. 🙂 Do you like taking pictures of people?

***Allison***

P. S. Well, I am officially 17. I feel old. XD And I had a wonderful birthday, thanks so much for asking! 😀 Would you guys like to see a “haul” post? (Ugh, I really don’t like that name for some reason, so I shall change the title if I do it. 😛 ) This feels like an awkward ending now so… um, thanks for reading. XD

I Got a New Camera Lens! {+Photo Dump}

May 6, 2017May 6, 2017 | Allison

Hmm, I’ve made better titles. *Wince* You know you’re a photographer when you’re that excited over a new camera lens. XD BUT SERIOUSLY! I AM EXCITED!

I just ordered a new lens for my camera, and I am loving it! It’s a Nikkor 50 mm f/1.8 lens (see it here on Amazon), in case you were wondering. 🙂 *Update: Whoops, I accidentally said “zoom lens” at first, but I don’t think it’s actually a zoom lens. O.o* I love all the beautiful blur and bokeh it makes in the background with the subject in sharp focus. The one thing I don’t like is that I can’t get super close-up pictures unless I crop them smaller. But anyway, I’ll keep experimenting, and in the meantime, how would you like to see about a million or so pictures? Okay, maybe closer to a thousand, but still. 😉 😛

First I want to show you the difference between my old lens and my new lens. The next (awful) picture was taken with my old lens at ISO 800.

TERRIBLE! But the next picture was taken with my new lens at ISO 800. It’s so much brighter because it goes down to an aperture of 1.8 instead of 4 something, which means it lets in a ton more light and thus makes the entire picture brighter. Ta-daa! (Okay, I know it still isn’t a beautiful picture, but my youngest brother kindly brought the iris in for me to take pictures of with my new lens and I decided to experiment. 🙂 ) So in conclusion, this new lens is way better for indoor photography and other low-light situations.

Now for the actually pretty pictures. 🙂 Get ready for lots of raindrops, snails, and flowers!

I had to up the ISO quite a bit here so it’s kind of grainy, but I still like it. 🙂

Ohhhh this next one is one of my favorites!

As you can see, it was getting pretty dark when I took this picture. I think it looks kind of neat that way though!

I got quite a few pictures of this cute little snail meandering over a bush. 🙂

AWWWWW he’s so cute! 😀

↓This poor guy’s shell looks a bit shattered.

The next two photos are a little different. For the first one I shined (or is it shone?) a flashlight close to the drops, and for the second one I used flash. *GASP*, she used flash?! I know it does look a bit flash-y, but I thought it was worth it to capture the neat glittery effect.

Moss pink are such adorable, bright flowers!

Yep, it’s a fly. 🙂

Lily of the Valley flowers are such charming little things, but goodness gracious, their perfume is so strong it nearly knocks you over! (Ha ha, I guess it can be that way with humans too. XD )

I really like the next picture for some reason. It’s so crisp in the foreground and beautifully blurred in the background.

Ahh, so pretty!

I love this next picture! The blur makes it look so much more professional! 😀

Taking pictures of clouds and landscapes isn’t really what this lens is made for (you can’t zoom out far enough), but I did get a decent picture of part of a cloud.

PHEW! Are you still here? If you are, congratulations on making it through all those pictures. XD I hope you liked them!

Do you think snails are cute? Do you love raindrops on things as much as I do?

Have a lovely day, dear readers!

***Allison***

Feathered Creatures and Speckled Eggs

April 30, 2017 | Allison

Spring is a great time to photograph birds, so I’ve gotten several neat pictures of both birds themselves and nests which I wanted to show you today. 🙂

The first subject is this ADORABLE little golden-crowned kinglet we found! It knocked into a window and we brought it inside while it recuperated. It was so sweet and tiny!

Ahh I love these pictures of Megan holding it in her hand! Don’t worry, she wasn’t squeezing it, even though it might look like that. 🙂

Well hello, cutie! I was so excited to be able to get pictures up close like this. The bird just kinda sat there calmly and posed. (It did finally fly away. 😉 )

Next up we have some geese which I saw one time when Megan and Carmen and I were down at the pond looking for the muskrat that lives there. Last year a pair of Canadian geese made a nest at our pond, but I don’t think they’re going to this year. 😦

And last but not least, we found two killdeer nests! In case you’re not familiar with killdeer, here’s a little information about them. 🙂 Killdeer are long-legged brown, black and white birds, and no, they do not kill deer. XD They’re named that because of their loud, screeching call which doesn’t actually sound much like “Kill deer” to me, but oh well… XD

I think the most amazing thing about killdeer is that they often lay their eggs right in the middle of the road! I’m serious! They just scrape a shallow hole in the gravel or grass, maybe toss in a few twigs, and lay 4-6 eggs right there on the ground. It’s amazing they ever survive… that is, until you try to find the eggs. They are so well camouflaged! Ugh, I know it is NOT a great picture, but I just wanted to get an overhead view to show you how well disguised the eggs are. They’re even more so in real life. 🙂

I think the speckled design is pretty neat looking, don’t you?

These next few pictures are of a nest we found in the grass in a pasture near the road.

Well there we are! Which was your favorite, the kinglet, the geese, or the eggs?

Before you leave, can I ask your honest opinion? Are you getting tired of photography posts all in a row like this, or do you like them? Photography is one of my favorites, if not my favorite thing to post, but I do like a bit of variety in the blogs I read. I have a lot more photography to post, but a lot more of other things too, so please tell me what you think. It certainly won’t hurt my feelings if you’d rather see something else now, and if you’re loving these, that’s great too!

Thanks for reading, my friends!

***Allison***

P. S. OH. MY. GOODNESS. LOOOOKEEEE! I cannot BELIEVE I have over 2,000 followers!! WOAH THANK YOUUUUU! I’m sure I’ll mention it again in my blogiversary post at the end of May, but for now, just thank you guys so incredibly much. ♥♥♥ I am much more excited than that sounded, but I don’t want to go on about it forever. XD

{Field and Flower}

April 26, 2017 | Allison

Last Sunday we had a lovely afternoon.

After church we had a belated but absolutely delicious Easter lunch at my grandparent’s house with our cousins.

Afterwards the kids went down to play with Marigold, a sweet, tame cat who lives in the barn.

We got distracted from the cat by a game of “Who Can Find the Tallest Dandelion.” If you have never played that game, I highly recommend it. 🙂 Sometimes the simplest, happy things are the best things.

We have hundreds and thousands of dandelions around our farm, and some of them grow over two feet tall in the fields. Seriously.

I won the contest that day, but today my brother found what could be the record breaker: a whopping 27 inch tall dandelion.

We graciously fed our dear rabbits some of the losing dandelions. Lily sat there contentedly, not moving except for her mouth and nose, slurping up dandelion stems like spaghetti. We tried not to let the dandelions run out, but eventually they did. Until they stopped she just nibbled away one after another, looking mildly disinterested and rather sleepy.

Then we gathered eggs – a not very lovely part of the afternoon, because they were extremely dirty and it took forever. The good thing is, it didn’t actually take forever, because we finished eventually.

When we were doing the dandelion contest earlier, I had noticed the beautiful crimson clover and vetch blooms in the fields. After eggs, I ran down to the house and grabbed my camera straight away.

And so here are the photos. I love the peaceful, beautiful, serene atmosphere of them. ♥

And I love that little things like dew drops and triticale and even weeds like dandelions can be so pretty and graceful.

*Happy sigh* I really enjoyed this photoshoot and I hope you did too! Thank you for persevering through allllll of those pictures. 🙂 Do you have a favorite or favorites?

Have a wonderful day! ♥

***Allison***

Beautiful Things {Part 3}

April 24, 2017April 24, 2017 | Allison

Are you ready for a ton of spring-y pictures? Good gracious, the trees all look very different now, even though I didn’t take these pictures that long ago. Our one maple tree has pretty much full-blown leaves now. Spring moves rather quickly, doesn’t it?

The curly willow tree beside our rabbit hutch is pretty in spring… actually it’s usually pretty. 😀

This old tree isn’t exactly the springiest, but it’s still neat. 🙂 I love the bumps and fine texture of the wood.

This is the view from one of my bedroom windows. 🙂 The triticale field is so much taller now.

Oh my goodness, how beauteous are these apple blossoms? ♥ AND LOOK AT THAT BOKEH! XD

You don’t usually think of maple trees as flowering trees, but I guess they kind of are – only the flowers are green instead of pink or yellow or something.

There! I’m catching up with my photos, except I just took about 100 pictures yesterday… Oops. XD I’ll probably post those next! (Don’t worry, not all 100 of them. XD )

Are your trees getting leafy too? Or have the leaves never left to begin with?

Have a lovely day!

***Allison***

The Art Lab, Episode 24: Watercolor Mountains

April 22, 2017November 12, 2018 | Allison

Oh my, I think it’s past time for an Art Lab post, don’t you? Today I want to show you a beautiful piece of art and some art I made inspired by it. Here’s the prompt:

Art Prompt:

{via}

Ohhhh isn’t it gorgeous? I love it! And in case you don’t have mountains near you to look off of (you poor things XD ), I’ll give you a picture that I took of the real thing. (If you’re curious, it’s from this post.)

Photo Prompt:

Now are you ready to break out the watercolors? Here’s how I made my mountainscape…

Step 1:

(The proper way would probably be to start with the background, but I started with the mountains because I didn’t know quite how far back they would go. 🙂 )

Use a really deep blue for the foreground mountains. Paint an irregular, medium-wet line of dark watercolor and draw it downwards, lightening it with more water as you go. (Okay that sounded really complicated, but basically just play around with it until you get dark at the top and light at the bottom. XD )

Step 2:

Use a different, lighter blue for the mountain ridge behind it, and do the same thing. Keep going until the mountains fade away to barely visible. I also decided to add a few more ridges in the foreground, like so:

Step 3:

Next you can work on the hills. Use a few different greens, and gradient your color from dark at the top to light at the bottom like you did with the mountains. Looking great!

Step 4:

Now for the sky. Again, start with a dark blue at the top and fade it downwards (are you starting to see a theme here? XD ). I dabbed off some of the paint with a paper towel to make puffy clouds.

And you’re done! So pretty! 🙂

I also made an ATC kind of like my painting but without the hills.

So, do you like this idea? Which was your favorite, the main painting or the ATC? Do you have mountains where you live?

To see more art inspiration like this, check out the official Art Lab blog right here. If you made a piece of art inspired by this post, we’d love to see it! Click here to see how to enter your artwork into our Art Lab gallery.

Thanks for reading, my friends!

***Allison***

Furry Faces

April 19, 2017April 19, 2017 | Allison

Ohhhh I have some simply adorable pictures for you! I tagged this post with “EXTREME CUTENESS ALERT,” so you have been warned. XD

*Ahem* Violet the barn cat had kittens again! They are the sweetest, cutest things, and very tame too. I only took pictures of two out of the five kittens, but here they are…

kitten 2 (1280x853) — I looove the color of kittens’ eyes.

kitten 3 (1280x854) kitten 4 (1280x853) DSC_1579 (1280x853)

kitten 8 (1280x853) — HA HA! He was getting tired here which makes him have such a hilarious condescending expression on his face. XD

kitten 11 (1280x853) — And there he goes…

kitten 9 (1280x853)

kitten 12 (1280x853) kitten 13 (1280x853)

kitten 14 (1280x853) — I looove this picture! It looks like she posed for this shot. XD

kitten 15 (1280x853)

kitten 17 (1280x854)

ARE THEY NOT THE CUTEST?

Here’s Violet, the mama cat. She doesn’t seem impressed with my photographing abilities… In fact, she looks rather mad at me. XD Maybe she doesn’t like having her picture taken…

Oh, and we found this sweet kitty in the barn the other day! She seems awfully tame for a barn cat, so we don’t quite know where she came from. Anyway, she is such a nice cat – when I was taking pictures of her she jumped up on my lap and settled right in. ♥ I love it when cats do that!

cat 5 (1280x853) — She looks kinda grumpy in this picture, but she was just about to fall asleep. XD

Are you overloaded with cuteness yet? Maybe I’d better stop before you… oh bother, it’s too late.

Oops. XD XD XD

***Allison***

Beautiful Things {Part 2}

April 12, 2017April 12, 2017 | Allison

I’m really excited to show you guys this edition of “Beautiful Things”!” 🙂 Today I have a bunch of pictures of little beauties, like spring flowers and grass. Little things are probably my favorite photography subjects.

DSC_1129 (1280x853) — Yes, I know henbit is a weed, but I still think it’s pretty when it’s all crowded together in a sea of purple!

DSC_1137 (1280x853) — Side note: we were studying weeds today for Nature Study, and we found and identified eighteen different kinds on our short walk! O.o

tag (1) (1280x853) — OOH I LOVE THIS ONE! I like how dark and dramatic it is. The manual settings on my camera were a bit off, but it turned out neat that way.

tag (4) (1280x853) — I found a lot of these next flowers at the arboretum.

tag (7) (1280x853) — I love these purple flowers! Purple is a wonderful color, don’t you agree? 😀

tag (6) (1280x853) — I always like seeing bees up close in photographs like this.

tag (10) (1280x853) — Such a lovely sunny picture!

DSC_1542 (1280x853) — One of our friends found this extremely odd-looking dandelion when we were on our Nature Walk today. Yes, all of those dandelion heads are on that one huge stem! (Although the stem got kind of split and smushed…)

tag (13) (1280x853) — Warning: I may hyperventilate about these next few photos just a bit…

tag (14) (1280x853) — AHH I LOVE DEW DROPS!

tag (15) (1280x853) — AHH THEY MAKE ME SO HAPPY!

tag (16) (1280x853) — I DON’T KNOW WHY BUT THEY REALLY DO!

tag (17) (1280x853) — Ohhh this one might be my favorite. I took these pictures just after a rain when we were walking down to our pond to try to find the muskrat that lives there. (Unfortunately, we only caught a glimpse of him. 😦 )

tag (18) (1280x853) — The phlox in our flowerbed and everyone else’s is simply breathtaking! They’re so brilliant and colorful!

That’s all for now, folks! At least I’ve made a dent in my pictures… but only a dent. It’s spring, so of course I can’t keep up! Whenever I post 10 pictures I take 20 more. XD

What do you think of my “Beautiful Things” series so far? Which was your favorite picture? DO YOU LOVE DEW DROPS TOO?! (*Ahem,* sorry.)

***Allison***