Bits & Pieces #1

Hello, my dears! Welcome to yet ANOTHER random photography post, where Allison dumps all the miscellaneous orphan photos that she couldn’t fit in any other post. XD I am waaay backed up with extra photos so I hope you’re ready for a lot of photography posts! 😀

Ahem. Let’s begin.

The Eclipse

I still haven’t shown you my pictures from the eclipse? Dear me, I AM behind. XD Anyway, I didn’t get any spectacular pictures, but I did get a few through welding glass to at least document what happened. The welding glass made everything look green, but I managed to edit out most of the color except that one green guy over there. XD As you can see, we weren’t in the path of totality.

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I thought the eclipse looked really neat through clouds!

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And here’s just a bonus picture I took that day. So pretty!

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The Enormous Bonfire

We occasionally burn a heap of brush or extra wood piles and such on our farm, and I got these pictures from one of those times. Dad pushed the pile around with the telehandler which made the bonfire practically explode in a column of glittering orange sparks. It was breathtaking!

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Bonus picture of the cows that watched the bonfire with us. XD There were a bit confused about what was happening, as cows usually seem to be.

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There were actually a few bulls in the pasture, and one started sort of stomping and bellowing. O.o Thankfully nothing bad happened. Isn’t it funny how he has a heart on his forehead? You can’t see it too well in this picture, but he really does!

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Megan’s Birthday Party

We had a lot of fun decorating the front porch and outside table for Megan’s party. Aren’t the colors pretty?

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We used zinnias from our garden for some of the decorations, and I got some lovely pictures of the bouquets. ♥

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Megan wanted to have doughnuts instead of cake, which was quite a good idea in my opinion. 😉 We made the doughnuts the previous day and I also made a little happy birthday banner for the top.

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Yum, fresh lemonade!

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Grandma brought Megan a beautiful rose from her house along with her gift.

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We had a water balloon fight for one of the party games. It was so fun, AND I didn’t get very wet, which was good since it wasn’t that hot. XD

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A bonus picture of the gorgeous spreading maple in our front yard…

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Bonus picture #2 of an adorable fuzzy caterpillar we found before the party.

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Isn’t it cute? 😛

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Moving a Piano + Another Bonfire

One night we went to our grandparents’ house to help move their piano from the basement to their room. 🙂 It was quite hard work… well actually I didn’t do much but stay out of the way and document it for posterity, but it looked like hard work. When they finally brought it to my grandparents’ room, it wouldn’t fit through the door. But then they tried turning it on end and thankfully it just fit. Phew! The poor piano.

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I also got some super neat pictures of the piano without its top on. I love them, especially after they were edited!

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After we got the piano all figured out we had a bonfire and picnic. Fire is so fun to watch, isn’t it?

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I got a really good picture of my grandpa smiling when he didn’t know I was taking a picture. I edited it a good bit, as you can tell, but isn’t it neat?

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Freshly Picked

I took these photos for my sister’s photo contest, BIBPC. I think they turned out rather pretty!

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Also isn’t this tomato HILARIOUS?! It looks like it’s sticking out its tongue at you.

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The Rest of Them

THESE COOKIES ARE DELICIOUS! I took pictures of them because I wanted to submit the recipe to Olivia Bell’s wonderful magazine. Be sure to check it out (and make it) when the next issue comes out here soon! You can subscribe to her magazine through the contact form in this post.

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Random picture of the details on one of my Sunday dresses…

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I edited this one a LOT to get rid of the power lines crisscrossing it, but this is the view from one of our upstairs windows. 🙂

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There we go! That was pretty much a whole bunch of mini posts smushed into one huge one. XD I hope you enjoyed! Which topic was your favorite?

***Allison***

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Mystery Revealed! #6

Dun-duh-duh-dun! I am now going to reveal the mysteries from this post. (Click on the link if you want to take a guess quick before I reveal them!) Ahem. *Clears throat.*

*Looks around.*

Wow, did anyone ever notice how neat computer keyboards are?

Hmm… the crayfish tank needs to be cleaned soon – it’s getting algae on it.

Alright, alright, I’ll have mercy on you! XD Here we go!

#1. Yeast! (I’m rather proud of this one. 🙂 I was doing a science experiment and noticed how pretty the yeast was up close. It was too pretty to show you only one picture, so here are two!)

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#2. Swallowtail caterpillar. (See my post here that includes a video I took of one of these caterpillars turning into a chrysalis!)

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#3. Empty corncob

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#4. Florescent lightbulb

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#5. Clementine peel (Not the rabbit but the orange. XD)

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Ta-daa! Okay, now for the winners. I will add links to their blogs, if they have any, so you can check them out!

#1. Nicole is the winner! Congratulations Nicole, you got the most correct!

#2. Clara, Emma, and K.A..

#3. Josie, Christian Homeschooler, and CutePolarBear

Three cheers for everyone who played! (In case you were wondering, Clara, Emma, and K. A. tied for 2nd place and Josie, Christian Homeschooler, and CutePolarBear tied for 3rd place, so that’s why those names are together. 🙂 )I really enjoyed reading your guesses once again, and thanks so much for playing, guys!

***Allison***

Metamorphosis

Recently, we have been picking caterpillar after caterpillar off the parsley and dill in our garden.  So far we have, hmmm, I think 11 caterpillars!  Some are small, some are big, and some are in chrysalises!  We had the privilege of watching a few caterpillars turn into chrysalises right before our eyes: the caterpillars hung from a branch or twig for, I don’t know, maybe 24 hours, and then in like five minutes they shed their skin, and there was the chrysalis!

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I took a video of this below.

The caterpillars are really easy pets to take care of, but boy do they eat!  That’s pretty much the only thing they’re interested in.  The six caterpillars in chrysalises right now don’t eat (of course!), but the four others are just stuffing themselves.  Every once in a while they shed their skin so they can have room for more food, so they can get bigger, so they can turn into chrysalises, so they can turn into butterflies, so they can lay eggs, so the eggs can hatch, so more caterpillars can stuff themselves!  It’s a never ending cycle.  These particular caterpillars are black swallowtails.  I can’t wait to watch them turn into butterflies, and hopefully I can get a video of that too!

Have you ever kept caterpillars as pets?  Did you get to see them turn into butterflies?

***Allison***