Ahem. I Have an Announcement.

December 12, 2017December 13, 2018 | Allison

Warning: this is going to be a loooong post. Our cat Jinx is prepared to dive in with you if you’re ready to go with him. All set? Okay.

2 (1280x853) — POOR THING. This was not my doing. It was my siblings’ (but of course).

Ahem. GUYS. I HAVE SOMETHING TO TELL YOU. Something I have been waiting to announce for almost a year. I am super excited but also super sad to say…

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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

Random Farm Photography

February 4, 2017 | Allison

Hola, mis amigos! 😀

I hope you are having a lovely weekend. Tonight is family movie night for us, yippee! And we didn’t have to gather eggs today… yippee again! XD Anyway, today I wanted to show you a collection of photos from around our farm. It’s so beautiful here, even in winter. ♥ 😀 Enjoy!

farm-1-1280x853 — We call this the Island because it’s an island of trees in the middle of the field. XD

dsc_1398-1280x853 — Mini nature study/farm lesson: all the green stuff in these fields is triticale (pronounced trit-ih-KAY-lee).

dsc_1406-1280x853 — There’s a cute little picturesque white church just over the hill from us. I wish it was our church – we could just walk right over on Sundays! 😀 But sadly, it isn’t.

dsc_1475-1280x853 — The rest of these pictures are from a hidden, rather muddy pond in one of the fields. 😀

farm-8-1280x853 — It is quite hard to get into because it’s surrounded by brush and thorns and cedar trees. But it’s so secluded and neat once you get in.

dsc_1474-1280x853 — I have no idea what these are, but they’re so cute!

farm-5-1280x853 — I also found this weird gall on a cedar tree. Mini nature study lesson again: galls are made by certain insects that secrete a sort of chemical or irritant that makes the branch or leaf puff up into a gall. This protects the larva or insect inside. Doesn’t this one look kind of like a brain? XD

farm-6-1280x853 — Ahhh, I love moss so much!

farm-10-1280x853 — The boys were throwing rocks in the pond, and I had fun getting pictures of the splashes. XD

And thus we come to the end. 🙂 Which picture was your favorite? I hope you enjoyed them! 😀

***Allison***

P. S. The girls and I over at The Art Lab decided to put on a little contest for you guys. 🙂 Your goal is to create an imaginary creature named the “Wuzzing,” and whoever’s Wuzzing gets the most votes becomes Art Lab’s official mascot! 😀 Click here for more details. I can’t wait to see all your wonderful Wuzzings, and show you mine too. XD

Random Photography + Some Sad News :(

November 20, 2016 | Allison

Hey, guys. I was going to post about that mysterious thing I’ve been hinting at, but unfortunately I can’t really anymore. You see, what I was going to post was that Willow had baby bunnies! But… *SNIIIIIFFF* they aren’t alive anymore. 😦 😦 😦 😦 😦 They were doing just fine even though it was quite chilly, but I think the really windy day we had today was just too much for them. *Cries* Here is one picture to remember them by:

004 — This is a picture of one the day it was born (I think). There were five all black babies.

*Sigh*

Okay, now that’s over with. 😦 Let’s move on to happier subjects, right? I’ve collected several random photographs from my extensive collection.

Let’s start with some cuteness to cheer us up, shall we?

allisonsunset-schoolroom-012-1280x960 — Aww! Look at these two wittle cuties!

allisonsunset-schoolroom-013-1280x960 — It’s always fun to find a litter of barn kittens. 🙂 (You can tell this was a while ago by Megan’s shortsleeves. XD )

allisonfall-034-1280x960 — Why hello there, Lily! XD She cracks me up.

casey-2-1280x960 — Casey looks kind of… I don’t know what… startled? XD

And some miscellaneous pictures…

allisonart-bunnies-002-1280x960 — Watercolor is so fun. ♥

allisonart-bunnies-091-1280x960 — Ahh, a lovely sunset.

And last but not least, a few pictures from our uncle’s pond.

pond-2-1280x960 — Reflections are so pretty!

pond-4-1280x960 — This is Buster. He loves to swim in the pond, as you can tell from his muddy fur. 😉

pond-5-1280x960 — Megan was fishing (she didn’t catch anything), and Buster was chasing her hook. XD

pond-6-1280x960 — Isn’t this gorgeous? The reflection is almost perfect!

pond-8-1280x960 — Ripples are a fun abstract photo opportunity. It kinda reminds me of a Van Gogh painting, ya know?

I’m sorry about the sad news… but I hope you enjoyed the rest of the post. 🙂 Thank you, my loyal readers! ♥

***Allison***

County Fair Photo Entries 2016

August 4, 2016June 8, 2017 | Allison

Greetings and salutations! XD

Our county fair opens in about two weeks, and I’m so excited! These are my entries for the photography section of the fair. (The fair categories are in bold). The links will take you to the post where the photo was first featured on my blog. Enjoy!

Abstract: {Flower Overload, Part 2}

Action: {The View from the Roof}

Artistic (which means creative photo editing): {CWWC}

Close Up: {More Snow Pictures!}

Humorous: {Bunny Therapy}

Landscape: {Vacation, Part 1: Niagara Falls}

Patriotic: {Boom, Crackle, Bang!}

People: {The View from the Roof}

Pets: {Meet Casey the Kitten}

Pictorial: {Mystery Revealed! #8}

Rural (Um, I’ll take out the county name): {Gone Fishing}

Wildlife: {BIBPC #2: Praying Mantis’ Feast (and Other Critters)}

There we go – a few photography highlights from 2016. 🙂

Which photo was your favorite? Do you have an annual fair where you live? Do you enter things in it?

**Allison**

P. S. Hayley and I are renovating Art Lab! We’re adding a few more artists to the group and starting it up again. We’re also going to collect and repost all of the Art Lab posts onto the official Art Lab blog, so you can scroll through the posts with ease. 🙂 You can follow it if you like! Hopefully there will be an Art Lab post up tomorrow. 😀

Gone Fishing

April 4, 2016April 4, 2016 | Allison

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

-Allison(arboretum) 052 (1280x960) — It’s a lot bigger than this, but my camera only fit this much from where I stood.

-Allison(arboretum) 057 (1280x960) — A zoomed in picture of sheep on the hillside. Aren’t the little lambs so cute? ♥

-Allison(arboretum) 054 (1280x960) — 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.

-Allison(arboretum) 059 (1280x960) — My bobber photobombing. (Try saying that three times fast. XD )

-Allison(arboretum) 065 (1280x960) — The poor little thing has drifted out into the sunset pool of no return. XD

-Allison(arboretum) 064 (1280x960) — The water was so gorgeous!

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

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 ♥

Reflections at the Pond

March 29, 2016March 30, 2016 | Allison

I took these pictures on a gorgeous clear spring morning. I was getting milk from the dairy, and the pond was too beautiful to resist! The water was glassy and calm, and the reflections in the water were almost perfect! The reflection of a Canada goose swimming about looked especially neat. (We have a pair of geese nesting at our pond. Yay!)

First, a couple of flowers from around the pond: (Click to enlarge.)

Henbit

Pepperweed?

Next, the stunningly beautiful barbed wire fence. XD Just kidding!

-Allison(pond, geese) 008 (1280x960) — Bokeh!

Now some pond scenery:

-Allison(pond, geese) 011 (1280x245) — This panorama really bent the pond. Now it looks like a boomerang!

And now for the geese! The mother goose was sitting still as a statue on her nest by the pond. She looks rather wary.

And here’s the father, keeping guard. 😀 Isn’t his reflection neat?

-Allison(pond, geese) 021 (1280x960) — Cow in the background. 😉

And more reflections…

-Allison(pond, geese) 022 (1280x960) — An underwater tree? 😀 I really like this picture.

WAIT! Did any of you notice something wrong with those pictures? You should have! All of that last chunk of photos except for the first three were upside down reflections! Some of the reflections were so smooth that you could hardly notice, but some of them just didn’t look right (like the last one). Heh heh. Did you notice that or not?

See ya’ later! ♥

***Allison***

Bird Jamboree

March 24, 2016March 24, 2016 | Allison

Ta-daa! The birdies post, as promised. 🙂

Spring is on the way here! You can hear birds twittering and singing around you which feels ever so much springier. (The first three pictures were taken at my grandparents house.)

DSCN1771 (1280x960) — Cute lil’ chickadee

-Allison(pond, geese) 014 — This is a sneak peek from a future post. 😉

Allison-(fog sunset, cloth) 043 — I saw this duck pair at a park.

Allison-(fog sunset, cloth) 045 — Lift off!

Okay. None of these last pictures are beautiful pictures, but I took them so that you can see how good my camera’s zoom is. The first picture was taken all the way zoomed out, and the last was zoomed in really far (but not quite as far as it can go) and then cropped. Both images were taken from the same exact place. You can’t even see the morning dove at all in the top picture! The second picture shows where the mourning dove is. (At least I’m pretty sure that’s what that miniscule, bird-shaped speck was when I zoomed it up on PicMonkey!) And the third (super blurry because I cropped it so much) picture shows you again.