Did you have a good Thanksgiving? I did! So far we’ve had one out of four celebrations, and for the rest we’re going to our old farm for the weekend for fun times and delicious food with friends and family. 🙂
Anyway, back to the post. About a month ago I got the chance to visit my dear friend, Aria, and see her family’s lovely farm. We had a wonderful time together, and this time we made sure to take PLENTY of pictures. XD Aria suggested doing a BFF Q&A to go along with them, and I agreed it sounded fun. And here we are! Get ready for some pretty fall photography and answers to a selection of you guys’ questions. 😉 After you’re done here, make sure and hop over to Aria’s blog to check out fifteen more questions and answers!
Eeeeek, I’m so excited to show you guys these pictures! 😀 It snowed 6 or 7 inches while we were up at the new farm, and it was GORGEOUS. ♥ Good thing I brought my camera, heh heh. I also brought the macro extension tube set I got for Christmas and it worked splendidly for taking pictures of individual snowflakes! Sooo pretty.
Anyway, I guess I’ll let you see for yourselves now, huh?
I love this little snowdrift sculpture on the roof. 😛
Isn’t this neat? It’s kind of hard to tell, but it’s snow on a wooden staircase.
Dripping icicles are great fun to take pictures of. 🙂
I think this one’s neat too. ♥ It kind of looks vintage to me – does it to you?
There were some cute birds by the hay rebaling barn and I got some… okay pictures. They wouldn’t let me get too close, and I was only wearing tennis shoes in the snow so I didn’t WANT to get too close or my feet would get completely soaked. XD
Ohhhh for some reason I love this picture. ♥ REMEMBER THOSE DOUGHNUTS?
Snow + Cows = Photogenicness. Sadly I took this out the car window so it isn’t as photogenic as it could be.
I quite like how you can see the snow falling so clearly in these pictures!
The falling snow… the wooden fences… the covered trees… ahh, I think I can safely say snow looks even prettier down there than up here, and that’s saying something. XD
Alright, now for my favorite part – the close-ups!
Look, you can see the invidual snowflake(s)!
Snowflakes are incredibly beautiful. ♥
And now for my pride and joy… ta-daa!
Isn’t it so beautifully delicate? I just LOVE zooming in and being able to see the intricacy of each snowflake. ♥ So far this is definitely my favorite part about that lens set. I’ll hopefully do a review of them once I take more photos with them and figure them out a bit more, but they’re quite neat so far!
One thing I will say – you have to use manual focus which is difficult when taking such close-up pictures. Even a tiny movement can make the subject blurry. But other than that, I love them!
I hope you enjoyed these pictures, dears. 😀 Which ones were your favorites? Did you get snow where you live too?
***Allison***
P. S. Guys, if you love photography too, you should definitely check out Roxanne’s photography challenge! I probably won’t be doing it since, as I keep saying, we’re pretty busy with the move, but it looks super neat and I’ll bet it will be great fun!
Hello, dears? How goes life? I’ll bet you’re all having so much fun starting school again after Thanksgiving break, am I right? Ha. *sigh*
Anyway, a friend recently brought some of her cows to one of our pastures and they are SO CUTE. So much cuter than the boring ol’ Holstein cows in our barns. XD So the other day Megan and I decided to go do a little photoshoot of them, because how could we not? (Note: I did edit all these pictures (some more than others), which is unusual for me. But the lighting was kind of gray and gross, so they needed touching up. XD)
I shall start with the most adorable of the cows. ♥ We call her Rainbow because that’s the name in her ear tag, but I don’t know what her real name is (or if she has one).
SO ADORABLE! I love her eyes! ♥
Doesn’t she look so sweet?
I was trying to get a picture of her tongue out, and I… sort of did?
This enormous guy is the one bull in the pasture. Don’t worry, we didn’t get trampled on or anything like that; he actually seems pretty calm. But we stayed outside the fence anyway. XD
He is HUGE compared to the cows.
I love all the different variations in color and patterns. 🙂 (AND THE BOKEH in the background.)
Look at the marking on her forehead! ♥
This might be the one my cousin called “Einstein” because of her fuzzy white hair. XD
The spotted sisters. XD (Actually I don’t know that they’re sisters, but it’s, um… prosaic license, heh heh?)
Rainbow again. ♥ Her coloring and big, dark eyes remind me of my rabbit, Lily. XD
And this other random cow who was similar to Rainbow but not as pretty…
“HEY, careful with your words, there, person-with-the-black-clicking-thing. I happen to know my face is beautiful, and that you should really be focusing on ME, not those boring dried weeds.”
“There. Better. Although that fence…”
Sorry, cow, you’ll have to make do with barbed wire in your face. Or you could have just BACKED UP A BIT, ahem?
“*glares* Hmph. All the other cows were crowding around to see what you were doing, so how could I not? Peer pressure is a hard thing, you know. Especially if you’re a cow.”
Mmm, I suppose so. What with stampeding and all that…
“There, finally you’re sounding more reasona- HEY. YOU DID IT AGAIN.”
Well maybe sisters and red plaid shirts are more… shall we say, photogenic than angry cows?
“I AM NOT ANGRY. I mean… On the contrary, I am quite calm. See? NOW GET THAT GREEN STUFF OUT OF MY FACE.”
It’s vetch, my dear bovine. V-E-T-C-H. You know what, I think I’ll just end this conversation right here since you obviously won’t listen to anything I say anyway. Sheesh, cows can be so stubborn…
“WAIT-”
Goodbye.
****************
Heh heh, cow conversations are fun to write. XD I hope you enjoyed reading it and the rest of the post! Which cow or picture was your favorite?
Oh, and before you go, check out the two interviews I did recently! Rebecca did one with me and Buttercup did the other. Both girls’ questions were great and fun to answer, and I think you guys would have fun reading them too. 😉
***Allison***
P. S. I updated my sidebar a bit. What think thee?
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.
I thought the eclipse looked really neat through clouds!
And here’s just a bonus picture I took that day. So pretty!
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!
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.
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!
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?
We used zinnias from our garden for some of the decorations, and I got some lovely pictures of the bouquets. ♥
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.
Yum, fresh lemonade!
Grandma brought Megan a beautiful rose from her house along with her gift.
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
A bonus picture of the gorgeous spreading maple in our front yard…
Bonus picture #2 of an adorable fuzzy caterpillar we found before the party.
Isn’t it cute? 😛
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.
I also got some super neat pictures of the piano without its top on. I love them, especially after they were edited!
After we got the piano all figured out we had a bonfire and picnic. Fire is so fun to watch, isn’t it?
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?
Freshly Picked
I took these photos for my sister’s photo contest, BIBPC. I think they turned out rather pretty!
Also isn’t this tomato HILARIOUS?! It looks like it’s sticking out its tongue at you.
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.
Random picture of the details on one of my Sunday dresses…
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. 🙂
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?
This Labor Day we did something a different than an ordinary picnic or cook-out. Since Dad and the boys were out harvesting corn, Mom suggested that we girls pack a lunch and just go out and walk around the farm. So we did! It was quite fun.
We packed some sandwiches, mint tea, chips, and a couple other things which I can’t remember (XD), and took along backpacks filled with books and cameras.
This is my cucumber sandwich. Say hello. I didn’t want to waste the bread crusts after I cut out the sandwich, so I flattened them with a rolling pin, spread some cream cheese on, and rolled them up into roses. 😛
First we headed past a place we call “The Sycamores” because… there are a lot of huge sycamore trees by the creek.
I found some lovely periwinkle morning glories along the path. Aren’t they charming?
We finally settled on a pretty, peaceful corner of the pasture filled with smartweed – a dainty little pink flower. We spread out a blanket, hung the hammock, and relaxed.
This looks kind of weird…
I love this one. ♥
I did a really fun, cute photoshoot with my little sister here, but this post would be insanely long if I included all those photos oh wait it already is, so I’ll save it for later. Anyway, this was a great spot for taking pictures of little things. My favorite! 😀
In interesting twisty stick.
I love the bokeh in these pictures!
Have you ever tasted sourgrass, or wood sorrel? That’s what this is. It tastes, well, sour.
So pretty! ♥
I found a beautifully shiny, polished nut.
The scenery was more scrubby here than the rest of our farm, but still pretty.
Trees are nice.
After we ate lunch and read for a while, we decided to move to a different spot. We crossed the barbwire fence (no easy feat in this pasture), walked over the field, up the hill, down a lane, and up another hill to a beautiful hidden spot behind a pasture. We’d never been there before, which is something rare since we’ve walked pretty much everywhere on our farm, and it was delightful to explore it.
Unfortunately I didn’t get many pictures with my camera because it ran out of battery, but Megan lent me hers.
HA HA cows are such funny creatures. XD
I think this picture is so neat but I don’t know why – it’s rather cluttered.
I had the idea to play mancala while we were there. (Have you ever played that? It’s really fun!) I dug out some holes in the dirt with a stick and used corn kernels for the marbles. It actually worked!
It’s really hard to see on camera, but Carmen and I built a great fort around this perfect square of trees. There were huge logs scattered everywhere (one pile was in a huge sinkhole O.o ). They made great walls but were exhausting to carry. We didn’t finish the fort, but we did make a good start.
Mom and Carmen and I also built this little campfire area in a pretty shaded nook. We stacked stones for a firepit, hauled in some rocks and stumps for chairs, and made benches from logs and rocks. 🙂 It was fun.
Mom also found this really odd-looking spider. O.o (She’s for you, Clara. 😉 )
In the evening our whole family came up and had a picnic with us, and a bonfire too.
So that’s what we did for Labor Day! It was great fun, even though the mosquitoes practically devoured me. I got over 40 mosquito bites (yes, I counted XD). O.o Anyway, the memories will last for much longer than the bites will, so it’s all good.
I hope you enjoyed this loooong post, my dears! Which was your favorite picture? Which was your least favorite? What did you do for Labor Day?
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!
Oh my goodness, spring is such a beautiful, wonderful thing. ♥ I have taken SO many pictures lately, like I always do in spring and fall; too many to fit in one post, even though you guys said you didn’t mind long posts. It would be a VERY long post. XD Heh heh.
Anyway, today I’m going to post some landscape photos of our farm. I hope you enjoy!
Sometimes we take a little walk/run up this hill before school to get some exercise. 🙂 It’s a beautiful spot!
Our house and surroundings. 🙂 Several of the trees are green(ish) by now.
I love how fluffy and soft alfalfa looks.
Triticale doesn’t look the same, but it’s still really pretty!
AHH I LOVE THESE PICTURES SO MUCH! I DIDN’T EDIT THEM! *Ahem* It’s just the lighting was absolutely perfect, and the scenery, and… ahh. It’s easy to take these views for granted when I see them every day, but sometimes it’s impossible to ignore their beauty. I’m so glad God gave me all this to enjoy! ♥
I kind of like the effect of the sun through dust. 🙂
Can you see why I love spring so much? AHH IT’S SO GORGEOUS! Do you love spring too? Do you have a favorite of these photos?
HA HA HA! How’s that for a title, hmm? Oh dear, it makes me smile. XD
Anyway, as you can tell, I’m going to post some animal pictures today. I shall start with the happy pup, namely our lab, Maggie. 🙂 She’s always so happy and energetic – and cute!
And a B&W version, just for fun. 😉
Now for some fuzzier subjects. Or in Willow’s case FLUFFIER subjects. AHH SHE’S MY FAVORITE FLUFFBALL I JUST WANT TO SQUISH HER! 😀
AWW SHE’S SO ADORABLE! 😀
Okay guys, now this next photo makes me laugh so hard. XD XD XD Is it not HILARIOUS?! She was stretching and yawning (did you know bunnies do that like cats?), and I quick snapped a picture. HA HA HA! She looks like a mixture between ferocious and super happy. XD Which do you think?
OH DOSE WITTLE TEETH!
Olaf and Diamond are best friends, I think. 🙂
Oh my goodness, Snickers is also SO adorable and photogenic! Don’t you think?
HIS CHUBBY CHEEKS!
Clemmie, of course, had to run away and hide to make me use flash. 😡 XD Hee hee!
Oh my, this picture of Lily makes her look HUGE! That’s because she is.
And lastly but not leastly, we have a bunch of rather puzzled cows. XD I remembered I hadn’t really taken many pictures of cows even though we live on a dairy farm (but Dad rents the dairy to someone else so we don’t actually have much to do with the cows). So I took some pictures. 😉
The ear tags tell you who the cow’s father and grandfather (or sire and grandsire) was. Sometimes the names are pretty funny! “Twist” isn’t too bad, though. 😉
It’s so funny how they have topknots. XD
The cows are actually pretty shy, but very curious.
“Hey, look at this! There’s a girl human over here with a strange black clicking thing. What do you s’pose it is?”
“I dunno. Give it a sniff test, will you? It could be dangerous.”
“D-dangerous? Weeell, alright. *Sniff, sniff*”
“And?”
“Blech, it smells like human to me. AHH! IT CLICKED AT ME! IT’S GOING TO HURT ME ANY TIME NOW! RUN AWAAAAAYYY!”
*Shuffle, shuffle* *Nudge, nudge* “Hey, is it safe now?”
“I dunno. You go check.”
“No you go!”
“Uh… she looks pretty friendly to me. A few straws short of a haybale, maybe, but pretty friendly. As for that clicking thing, though…”
“What clicking thing? I want to see the clicking thing! MAKE WAY, MAKE WAY.”
“COMING THROUGH.” *Push*
“EXCUSE ME.” *Shove*
“Okay, let me in, guys. I’ll figure out what it is…”
“Hmm. Hmmmmmm. It looks like a… you know, that thing that clicks, it’s called…”
OH MY WORD ISN’T THIS PICTURE HILARIOUS?! XD XD XD
“*Sniff, sniff* AHA! It says NI-KON. What’s a NI-KON? Do you know, girls? AHH IT CLICKED AGAIN!”
“Wait. Wait, look!”
“Guys, she’s holding something. IT’S GREEN! Green is yummy. Mmm, I want some.”
“But what if it’s dangerous? Maybe it clicks too?”
“Well I, for one, am going to try some. You just watch me.”
“OH MY GOODNESS GUYS IT’S DELICIOUS! MORE, MORE! GIRL HUMAN, CAN I PLEASE HAVE SOME MORE?”
“Oh great. I knew it. It probably has some terrible powder in it to make you hungry for more or something. Sheesh. Humans.”
Hee hee! That was a fun post to write. 🙂 I hope it was fun to read too! Did you like the cow story thing? XD Which was your favorite photo from this post?
Allison Marie 