Sun Rays & Spring Days

April 7, 2018 | Allison

Hello, dears!

I hope you had a great Easter! I sure did. 🙂 We had a great time going to our old church again and seeing friends, as well as having family celebrations.

Once Easter is past, it seems like it really ought to be spring, heh heh. So today I’ve compiled some recent farm photography from various rambles – mostly springy ones, but a few from the last bits of winter too. I hope you enjoy “walking” around the farm with me!

I love how the soft light polishes the smooth gnarls of this twisted tree.❤

If you peer into the woods here, you’re bound to see drifts of pale leaves on small trees all over the place. We didn’t have beeches at home, so it’s fun to see leaves here even in winter!

There’s a little island of trees in the pasture behind the Cedar House, some of which are pines laden with cones. I think pine cones are just so satisfying and pretty to take pictures of and hold. 😛

I love finding bright spots of color among the gray!

Another common tree here that isn’t common at home is the sweet gum tree. The seed pods always have bad hair days, heh heh. XD

Plush cushions of velvety green moss make me happy. 🙂

Now we get to the wintry part, but it’s just a few pictures. 😉 Quite a while ago, the smaller pond was frozen enough to walk on, so of course we did so, hee hee. Don’t you love finding things frozen into the ice, like this oak leaf? Such a cold bed for the bright little thing to be sleeping in.

The ice crystals were GORGEOUS. I love the delicate, fleeting strength of ice.

Jellyfish bubbles floating, frozen…

Isn’t the crystallized texture so fine and pretty? At the bottom left I think it looks like an ice feather.

The very top of the ice melted, but it was still solid underneath, don’t worry. 😉 The reflections… ❤

Alright, enough of the cold. How’s this for a warmer picture? That little ridge is a cow path. It always amazes me how straight and narrow the paths are, especially for such big, clumsy animals. XD

AHHH THE LIGHT. How could anyone not love golden hour? Hmm… maybe everyone does.

It looks like the foxtail head is floating. 😛

Okay, we’re switching topics again. XD Now we’re walking down to the big pond, which is NOT frozen, as you may notice.

The deep sapphire blue water contrasts so nicely with the pale cattails, don’t you think?

Here’s a different kind of blue. For some reason there are SO many vultures floating around, and even though I don’t particularly like the birds themselves, I like to watch them glide (or wobble, on windy days XD).

The fields are neon green on sunny days and it looks like SPRING, YAY. Except there are still no leaves on the trees…

This really reminds me of the default header on… the Hemingway theme, is it?

SO. PRETTY.

And here’s the big house… which is still being worked on. *sigh* The moving date is getting pushed further and further away, and right now it would be great if we could even move in before my birthday in the beginning of May.

Goodness, this post is all over the place… here’s a random photo of those strange cedar apples again! O.o

Next I have a few pictures of our smaller creek, which we have nicknamed “Little Runny.” 😛 I absolutely love it! The twisted roots of overhanging trees, tiny sandbar beaches, mossy stones, and clear bubbling rivulets weave together an enchanted atmosphere. ❤

I really want to make this into a fairy house. Isn’t it perfect?

Look, it’s a little rainbow lens flare!

Water fascinates me. Always moving, always changing, always twisting and rippling under the light. I think water and light together are especially beautiful and interesting to watch.

We found several pools along the creek that are pretty heavily populated with minnows and crayfish. (What do YOU call them? Crayfish? Crawfish? Crawdads?) We didn’t have a net, so we made do with a colander and metal strainer bought from Dollar General. XD

HA HA, it looks like he’s raising his claws in surrender. XD

My cousin kindly allowed me to take a picture of her, splendidly modelling the colander as a hat. 😛

And last but not least I have a handful of black and white edits that I quite like for different. 🙂 This one is pond ripples, but I think they look like tiny sand dunes too.

❤

I really like this one too! I always find pictures of hands, by themselves or holding something, appealing; I don’t quite know why.

I love how the round clusters of sycamore seeds hang from the branches like ornaments.

Apparently I think trees look really good in black and white. 🙂

And I saved one of my favorites for last. ❤ The vultures and cows together look so rural and free.

I hope you enjoyed this longish, scattered post, dears! Which picture was your favorite? Which was your LEAST favorite? Are you ready for spring?

Thanks for reading, and have a wonderful warm day!

***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

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***

Twilight Photoshoot

March 22, 2017March 22, 2017 | Allison

Hello, my friends and readers! How are you all today? Good, I hope!

Since I just posted some wintry photos, I wanted to post some springy photos today. 🙂 March is so flighty…

I actually got a several photos in the afternoon, not just at twilight… but hey, I had to name this post something! XD

I love how emerald green the triticale fields look in the sun! ♥ It makes me happy. 😀

DSC_0502 (1280x853) — This is an alfalfa field… just in case you were wondering. 😉

Maggie explored happily beside me while I took pictures. 😀

edit 7 (1280x853) — Hee hee, Maggie looks so noble. XD

And NOW we get to the twilight pictures. 😉

DSC_0601 (853x1280) — Ahh…♥ Probably my favorite picture in this post!

Megan and I did a little mini Sister’s Photoshoot, but I didn’t get very many good pictures because it was a bit too dark. 😦

Megan and I also had fun taking forced perspective photos of the moon. 😀

See you later, my friends! I hope you enjoyed this post!

***Allison***

P. S. Eeee! Guess what my next post (hopefully) will be about? The last chapter of WordCrafters 2! YAAAAAY! I’m so excited to show it to you guys!

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!

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***

A Walk at “The Sycamores”

March 11, 2017March 12, 2017 | Allison

(Update: Woops! Apparently I accidentally published this post before it was finished, but I’ve fixed it now. Heh heh. XD )

Oh my goodness, I took TONS of pictures the other day! Like, more than 100. XD Since I don’t think it would be the best idea to post all the pictures at once, I guess I’ll break them up into a few posts to save your poor scrolling fingers. XD

Oh, and hi, by the way. 😀

Annyway, we have this spot on our farm we call “The Sycamores,” because… well, it’s a row of sycamores. The trees are so big and old and beautiful! I love the white bark.

DSC_0463 (1280x853) — This seed pod or seed ball or whatever you call it is kind of deformed…

DSC_0469 (1280x853) — But this one’s better. 🙂

DSC_0473 (1280x853) — I love how the seed balls look like ornaments hanging from the branches!

One tree is especially big and white at the top. ♥

DSC_0476 (1280x853) — Not all the bark is white, though, especially at the bottom. It’s only white where the bark like this flakes off.

Several cedar trees grow among the sycamores, and while they aren’t as pretty, they’re still neat up close.

Yikes, we found a scary looking thorn bush. O.o

Isn’t it amazing that this feather was stuck in the crack like that? Ha ha, okay, I’m kidding – I put it there so I could take the picture better. XD

Here’s one last tree, but I don’t know what kind this is. And it’s dead. But it still looked really neat against the blue sky, don’t you think?! Ahh, I want to go back and take some more pictures soon!

Alrighty, I guess that’s probably enough pictures for one post. 🙂 Tell me, which picture(s) was(were) your favorite(s)? (Wow, that was complicated. XD ) Stay tuned for the rest of the 100 pictures! 😀

***Allison***

Random Photography

March 3, 2017 | Allison

I absolutely love Clara’s random photography posts, so I thought I would try to do a similar kind since I have plenty of random photos anyway. 🙂 I hope you enjoy!

Random Topic #1: Spring

I was about to say that spring is on the way, but then again, it’s 29 degrees outside, so… XD But the daffodils are blooming and the grass is getting green, so you at least THINK spring is here until you go outside.

dsc_0424-1280x853 — Ohhhh pictures like this make me happy with the golden sunshine on the green, green grass. So pretty!

Random Topic #2: Bonfire Days

I already wrote a post about a huge bonfire we had recently, but there were a few extra bonfire-related photos I didn’t show.

The fire was so hot that we couldn’t get close enough to roast hot dogs, so my grandaddy though of an ingenious solution! He hauled out some long, hollow metal poles and stuck the roasting sticks in the end. That way you could move them around from a safe distance. XD My uncle and brother, not to be outdone, just got up close to the fire and shielded themselves by putting their jackets over their heads. It was quite the hilarious scene, but it worked!

Oh, and we also cooked potatoes, but the photo of that was terrible, so I decided to leave it out. 😉 But that’s a really fun thing to do at a bonfire: wrap a few potatoes in aluminum foil, poke some holes in them with a fork, and bury them in hot coals from the fire. Apparently we left ours in a bit too long, because they had a nice thick shell of blackened potato around the edges ( XD XD ), but they were quite tasty in the middle! Hee hee!

random-6-1280x853 — Isn’t this picture so funny? XD

Megan and I took pictures of each other taking pictures of each other. That was confusing. XD

Aww, Maggie dear!

Another fun thing we did was play with glow sticks. We started by tossing them around out in the field, and discovered that if the person carrying the glow stick ran far enough into the darkness, the glow stick really looked like it was floating when they waved it around. It was so weird. After that, we cracked some of them open and drew on our hands. XD Probably NOT the wisest idea, because there is actually a tube of glass inside glow sticks that cracks too when you break it. So yeah, maybe not a good thing to “try at home”… but it was fun while it lasted! XD And it looked really weird – like you were glowing from the inside out.

Random Topic #3: Eyes

If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you might have noticed that I really like photographing and drawing eyes. I think they’re fascinating, and extra beautiful up close! I had fun editing these photos.

random-2-1280x1023 — Ohhh my goodness I love this photo so much! This is my friend’s eye, which I edited to look bluer than it really is. (But it is still so beautiful in real life!)

Eh, the pictures of my eye aren’t nearly as pretty, but I like all the different rings of color. 🙂 My eyes are definitely brown from a distance, but colorful up close.

random-4-1280x955 — This is a fun angle! It makes my eyelashes look super long, hehe. O.o XD

Random Topic #4: A Beauteous Sunset

Even if you haven’t been following my blog for very long, you might know that I also have a weakness for sunsets. XD I love how they’re all different, but all glorious (well, most of them)! I took these pictures at my grandparent’s house. The sunset was quite unique that night – the clouds looked like a washboard or something!

random-5-1280x853 — I edited this one (as you can tell).

Random Topic #5: Yummy Lemon Pies

Mom found this delicious recipe in the latest edition of “The Magnolia Journal” magazine. I tried it out, and it was pretty yummy and VERY rich. 🙂 One thing that we noticed is it could use a little bit more lemon juice next time. I didn’t fill the 2/3 cups super full since I was squeezing real lemons and I wanted to have an extra lemon for garnish.

I am quite happy with how the editing turned out on these photos. They still aren’t anything extraordinary, but they sure are better than this: *shudder* I did lots of different things, but some of the main ones were cooling the temperature of the photo, boosting highlights, and using the fancy focus and miniature effects.

Random Topic #6: Party Food

While we’re on the topic of food… XD

This has been a while – my little sister’s birthday was the middle of January, heh heh. XD But anyway, better late than never, right? My mom always makes us a custom cake, and my sister chose a fox. Mom saw this great idea for a coconut fox cake on Pinterest, and it turned out adorable! She also made fox cupcakes, but I didn’t get pictures of those.

For my sister’s birthday supper she chose bananas as one of her sides. 😀 I had fun playing around with banana “tattoos” to make them more special 😛 It’s actually really simple: just poke holes in the peel with a toothpick, and soon the holes will darken by themselves. So fun!

random-4-1280x853 — Ugh, sorry about the bad lighting.

Random Topic #7: Uh… I’m Not Sure What to Call This…

Heh heh. I just had two lonely pictures leftover, which I took on the day of the rabbit photoshoot. So here they are!

random-3-1280x853 — Well that was rather anti-climatic. XD

Well, that’s about it, folks! So what do you think? Do you like this kind of post? What was your favorite random topic?

Thanks for reading!

***Allison***

Signs of Spring

February 25, 2017 | Allison

Ahh, it is SO nice outside. 🙂 I can’t believe how warm February has been! Today I went outside and snapped a few pictures of some spring things, including some gorgeous daffodils that have popped up lately.

I looove daffodils, don’t you?!

dsc_0377-1280x853 — This looks like it might be a double daffodil.

dsc_0381-1280x853 — AHH I absolutely love how my new camera makes the background blurry like this!

The sunshine feels (and looks) wonderful.

Pussywillows are such adorable plants. (If plants can be adorable… XD ) They’re so fuzzy! My grandma gave us a bouquet with pussy willow twigs awhile ago, and we left the twigs in the vase until it grew roots. Then we planted them, and, well, you can see that the experiment was successful. 🙂

Okay so maybe Maggie isn’t really a sign of spring, but she’s still a cute model. 😀

dsc_0400-1280x853 — BWAHAHAHAHA! This picture cracks me up. XD XD XD Maggie always makes this weird grimace when she scratches her ear. 😀

And on that hilarious note, I shall end this post. 🙂 I hope you enjoyed it! Which was your favorite picture?

Does it feel like spring where you live?

***Allison***

P. S. Bleh, my whole family (except Megan) either was sick, is sick, or is getting sick. 😦 I was sick already, but I think I’m getting over it now. Phew! It seems like practically everyone is getting sick all of a sudden, despite the spring-like weather.

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. 😀