Of Snow, Ice, Snowmen, Puddles… Etc.

March 19, 2017March 19, 2017 | Allison

Guys, buckle up for a TON of pictures! This may be one of my longest posts to date. XD

It snowed last Monday/Tuesday, and I just went photo-wild. XD I got a few neat pictures of the snow, but most of the pictures were actually of icicles or ice. So anyway, have a seat and take a peek, won’t you?

Phew, I don’t know where to start! Let’s see. I guess I’ll start with some pretty, icy pictures.

Ice:

tag (8) (1280x853) — The poor pussy willow buds got rather frozen. 😦

Next up…

Snow:

tag (25) (1280x853) — It didn’t snow very much, but it still looked pretty!

tag (24) (1280x853) — Heh heh, I drew this horribly deformed smiley face in the snow with water.

My three youngest siblings made this hilarious but cute snowman. XD After I took these pictures, they made him a “Snow Cool” sign.

tag (28) (1280x853) — They used icicles for the mohawk, a carrot for the nose (obviously), sunglasses for the… uh, sunglasses ( XD ) and a smear of dirt for the mouth.

After most of that snow had melted, what do you know? It snowed AGAIN! (And then melted super quickly but oh well.) The most amazing thing about this snow was the snowflakes. I mean, they weren’t even snowflakes, they were more like snowballs! They were the biggest flakes I have ever seen – a whole bunch of snowflakes bunched into a clump, some of which were quarter-sized or bigger. I tried frantically to get a good picture that showed how big they were, but I didn’t really get any. 😦 I did get some pretty pictures, though!

tag (3) — We have a nice view of this silo from our deck. 😀

tag (4) — There you can kind of see how hard it was snowing!

Ooh, yay! Now I get to show you the…

Icicles

After we finished gathering eggs, I ran back to the house to get my camera. I noticed the lovely icicles hanging from the chicken house roofs, and I just HAD to get some pictures. 😉 I’m so glad I did! It took quite a bit of patience and a high shutter speed setting to capture the drops falling, but I had SO much fun experimenting!

tag (13) (1280x853) — Woohoo, two at once!

These icicles are on our house, and I took this picture at sunset.

And that leads us to…

Water Drops

After I had taken quite a few icicle photos, I noticed that the drops sliding off of them were splashing into a puddle. I decided it would be fun to take pictures of that too! Instead of kneeling down in the wet snow, though, I got a (rather dirty) measuring pitcher from the chicken house, brought out something to sit on, and started taking pictures. This also took quite a bit of patience, like the icicles. I got a whole bunch of blurry or boring pictures for every good one. But again, it was so exciting when I DID get a good one! Hee hee!

(Note: I edited these pictures a good bit – they didn’t look like this straight from the camera. 😉 )

And now for my very favorite one. ♥ Ohhh my goodness I love it so much!

And last but not least, we have…

Everything Else

I took several not-so-snowy pictures that I wanted to include too.

Quite a few robins were hopping around this puddle, waiting for spring to come, I guess. 🙂

robin 1 — I love how you can see his reflection.

robin 2 — This was a fun one! I made everything black and white except for the robin’s pop of color.

I was pretty tickled to get this next picture. I saw two robins fighting in the puddle all of a sudden and quick pressed the button – and it actually worked! I love it when that happens. 🙂

tag (33) (1280x853) — This is neat, don’t you think?

tag (29) (1280x853) — I rather like this one too.

I shall end with this promise of spring. This poor little beauty was stuck face down in the snow when I rescued her, but she’s still so bright and cheery for all that! Daffodils are such incredibly hardy, resilient flowers that can spring back after even such cold trials as this snow. Sometimes it’s hard to be a daffodil, isn’t it? It is for me…

Aaaaannnd I’m finished! Maybe it wasn’t so wise to put all those pictures in one post, but I just wanted to try and see how it worked. XD What do you think? Was that way too much or did you heartily enjoy seeing all those photos at once? Or are you indifferent? XD

If you actually got through the whole thing, which category or picture was your favorite?

Thanks for reading (and persevering)!

***Allison***

More Snow Pictures!

February 9, 2016February 15, 2016 | Allison

It snowed again! It was only a tiny bit, and it’s pretty much all melted now, but I got some really pretty pictures that I wanted to show you. So it didn’t snow in vain. XD Get ready for a bunch more snow pictures! (And an extra-special one at the end!)

{Click on any individual photo in a collage or column to enlarge. I mean to enlarge the photo, not you. XD}

******************************************************

We have a Nandina bush in our yard that is sprinkled with clusters of bright red berries. The red berries looked gorgeous against the white snow!

(I edited this image. ↓)

Snow on our clothesline…

Pigeons on the silo…

Dogwood branches…

Just snow…

Excuse Maggie in the background. 🙂

And now we come to my pride and joy: a picture of an actual, single snowflake! I know it’s not the best quality, but I was very happy that I could get a picture like this! Isn’t it beautiful? God made sure to put beauty in even the smallest snowflakes – tiny pieces of ice that melt at the slightest breath of warm air. What delicate pieces of art!

*Sigh.* Snow is so beautiful. But then again, it is also cold, wet, and slushy when it melts. So I’m glad we don’t have snow year round. 🙂 Which picture was your favorite?

Thanks for reading!

***Allison***

2015, Award, News + Lots of Photos!

December 31, 2015December 31, 2015 | Allison

Happy New Year! Okay, get ready for a long post, because today I will be reviewing my 2015 bloggy year, doing an award, and telling you one of my New Year’s resolutions. Ready? First up, my blog year – it was a great year, and a HUGE year, at least compared to last year. Taking into account the fact that I only blogged 7 months last year instead of 12 this year, still, the stats increased A LOT. And thanks to all of you, I now have almost 60 followers! SQUEEEE! 😀 😀 Here are the yearly stats for this year and last year:

Last year (in orange)

This year (in orange)

And here is the little WordPress year in review thingy they sent me:

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 3,500 times in 2015. If it were a cable car, it would take about 58 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Now for the award. I don’t usually do awards, but I decided to do this one because it wasn’t just random questions, and I thought it was interesting to see when other people did this. So… I was nominated by Genna and Mercer Creative. Thank you so much!

1. Thank the person that nominated you
2. Start a blog post and answer the questions below
3. Add 1-3 of your Favorite\Best blog photos
4. Nominate up to ten people

1. How long have you had a blog?
I started this blog in May of 2014, so I’ve had it for about a year and a half.

2. Why did you start blogging?
I kind of forget, but I think it was probably because my sister started with her school program, and it made me want to start a blog too.

3. Do you like photography?
I love photography! 😀

4. Did you start your blog on your own?
Yep. Well, my sister and mom helped me.

5. Why do you like these photos so much?
It was kind of hard to choose just 3 of my favorites, so since it’s a review of 2015 anyway, I’m just going to do some of my favorite photo pictures and posts from 2015. XD

I think one of my all time favorite posts was this dandelion post. Here’s a picture from it:

I just love how crystal clear and beautiful the pictures turned out. I also love this Lily (The Flower) post – I love dewdrops!

A few of my favorite bunny posts are this funny bunny post, these two Lily (the rabbit) posts here and here,

and this Christmas post from the bunnies. Because they are just so CUTE!

My favorite other pet post might be this Joy the kitten post. I like the angle of this photo, and Joy was just adorable!

Here are some other pictures I really like that I took in 2015, and a few from 2014, which are captioned “2014.”

Whew! That was a lot of pictures! I nominate Hayley from Flourishing By Restful Falls for the award.

OK. Now for one of my New Years’ Resolution (the news part of the title). I want to start an Etsy shop! I’m going to be selling things I make online there, including polymer clay animals and other polymer clay things, and maybe stuffed animals like this one. But I need more ideas! I would greatly appreciate any suggestions with what you would like me to make that you would buy. If you need some ideas from what I’ve already made, click on the category “My Creations” on my category cloud on my blog sidebar. Thank you!

So, that’s it! Thanks so much for a great bloggy year, readers!

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

***Allison***

P. S. See you next year!

Almost Snow – December Frost

December 4, 2015December 5, 2015 | Allison

We woke up today to a beautiful blanket of… nope, sadly not snow… frost. Even though it wasn’t snow, the frost was still amazingly beautiful – it coated everything in sparkly ice! Of course, I took lots of pictures. Here are some up-close pictures of the ice crystals – aren’t they gorgeous?!

I found some blades of grass that had frozen dew drops hanging to the ends!

Allison(frost, bunnies, ATCs) 028 (1280x960)

Allison(frost, bunnies, ATCs) 037 (1280x960)

And here are some pretty red Nandina berries with ice crystals on them. The sun was shining on a few berries in the bottom picture so that it looked like they were on fire!

This brown old leaf was beautified by a rim of silver frost.

Which picture was your favorite? Have you had frost or snow yet?

***Allison***

Crystal Pond, and Treasures Found There

November 13, 2015February 14, 2016 | Allison

Somewhere on a farm, hidden away in its own little secret world of trees and brush, there is a pond whose shores are littered with millions of sparkling quartz crystals… Well, OK, Crystal Pond isn’t quite as romantic and fairy-tale-like as all that, but it is still one of my favorite places on our farm.

Don’t get confused by the name – the water in the pond isn’t crystal clear, but rather the land around the pond has pretty quartz crystals scattered on it. Sometimes there are a bunch of crystals, sometimes… not so much, especially when the pond is high. The bad thing is, the pond is kind of surrounded by a defense wall of thorns, prickly evergreens, and brush. Yeah, it’s just a tad hard to get to. But once you get inside, it’s nice and quiet and peaceful. There is always some treasure waiting to be found along the shores or in the scrubby woods beside the pond. Crystal Pond has several of my favorite things around it: water, moss, rocks, and mushrooms!

Here are, um… a LOT of photos.

Moss: