Waterfalls and Bear Paws

June 17, 2016 | Allison

Last week we went on a gorgeous (and rather tiring) hike with some friends. It included lots of water and waterfalls. Perfect!

Note: I edited some of these pictures. 😀 Just making sure you weren’t like, “WHOA, how does Allison take that good of pictures in a badly lit-forest?” Well yeah, I don’t. 😛

waterfall 7 (768x1024) — I love this one!

Along the path there was this gorgeous waterfall hidden away in a little hollow. It felt like a private picnic spot or something. So pretty!

waterfall 3 (768x1024) — Mini waterfall off to the side

Look at all of this liquid energy! Churning, frothing, bubbling water. Ahh…

I really like this picture of mountain laurel. BOKEH! XD

Meet our friends’ dog, Penny, who swam around in the river a couple of times. She was awfully hard to get a picture of. XD

Guess what? We saw THREE black bears on our hike! There are bears where I live, but it’s very rare (for us at least) to see one. So we were super excited to get to see three on one hike! They were pretty cute. 😀 They didn’t even seem to notice us, even though the first one was fairly close to the path. I got some rather bad quality videos and pictures, but at least you can see the bears on them.

-Allison(hike) 148 (1024x768) — I’m pretty sure the cub is drinking milk from its mother in this photo. Isn’t it funny how the mama bear is sprawled out all nice and comfy (or not) on the ground?

I was going to add a GIF, but it took too long and wasn’t very good anyway. Heh heh, so much for that. XD I might show you some bear videos in a post later.

Have you ever seen a bear? Do you like hiking? What was your favorite picture in this post?

***Allison***

P. S. CutePolarBear, it’s your turn for WordCrafters! Visit the WordCrafters 2 page to read the story so far. GO WORDCRAFTERS! 😀

P. P. S. Wanna hear something funny? You know the Baby Changing Station thingies in public bathrooms? Once I saw one where the “C” had been scraped off the sign, so it read: “Baby hanging Station.” How awful! (But you have to admit, still hilarious. XD )

Drops of Silver

June 5, 2016June 27, 2016 | Allison

Like drops of liquid silver

Capturing the light.

Clinging, falling,

Slipping, rolling:

A silver shower.

If you’ve followed this blog for long, you’ll know that I simply love dew drops or raindrops or anything of the sort. 😀 The raindrops on these leaves looked so silvery and beautiful that I couldn’t resist taking pictures of them.

Here’s a picture of a bedewed peony bud to add in. 😀

Ahh, so pretty!

And lastly, I made a little edit with one of these pictures. I really love this Bible verse! It’s one of my favorites. Does anyone else know the song with these words? I really love that song too. 🙂

Have a wonderful Sunday!

***Allison***

P. S. The flock of chickens we have right now is going to be taken away tonight! (We have around 24,000 chickens, (yes, seriously!) although it gets less toward the end of a flock like this.) WOOP WOOP! That means we won’t have to gather eggs for a few months until a new flock arrives. YAY! But then at the beginning of the new flock we have to weigh each of the thousands of eggs before putting them in flats, which takes quite a while to say the least. Ugh! Well, I’ll just not think of that yet. 🙂

Flower Overload, Part 1

April 25, 2016April 26, 2016 | Allison

Guys, I have SO MANY flower pictures I want to show you. I’ve been taking pictures by the hundreds, and I can’t keep up with posting them! If spring goes on much longer, I’m seriously going to wear out my camera or something. XD But I can’t help it. I LOVE SPRING! 😀

Since I don’t want to bore you to sleep, I decided to divide my boatload of pictures into bite-sized servings. (Well more like large-mouthful-sized servings. XD )

Now, onwards! 😀

flowers (25) (1024x768) — Star of Bethlehem

flowers (8) (1024x768) — Another Star of Bethlehem

flowers (24) (1024x768) — Isn’t it neat how some redbud trees have big puffs of blossoms on their trunks?

flowers (23) (1024x768) — Redbud tree blossoms

flowers (20) (1024x768) — Does anyone know what this flower is? *Update* Bella says it’s a wild geranium. Thanks, Bella!

flowers (18) (1024x768) — Virginia Bluebells

flowers (17) (1024x768) — A sea of Virginia Bluebells

flowers (11) (1024x768) — A peony of some sort – probably a Tree Peony

flowers (14) (1024x768) — Still the Tree Peony. Isn’t it gorgeous?

flowers (13) (1024x768) — Center of the Tree Peony

flowers (10) (1024x768) — Apple tree blossom

flowers (9) (1024x768) — More apple tree blossoms

flowers (7) (1024x768) — Bleeding Hearts (Not literally. I mean the flower bleeding hearts. XD)

flowers (5) (768x1024) — My grandparents have this huge flower in their flowerbed, and it does NOT smell good, let me tell you. XD It smells like a dead animal. O.o I’m not sure what it’s called though. *Update* Clara says that this is a carrion flower. Thanks, Clara!

flowers (6) (1024x768) — A fly on the carrion flower

flowers (4) (1024x768) — Wintercress (It should be spring cress! This stuff is all over the place here.)

*Gasp, puff, wheeze* Okay good, you’re still alive. In that case, look for the next part soon! XD 😉

***Allison***

P. S. And now a word from our sponsors. XD Not really. But I do have some reminders/updates/announcement thingies. Ahem.

If you’re almost out of photo space for your Blogger or WordPress blog, don’t fear, my friend. Check out Clara’s tutorial to get yourself unlimited photo space for free!
Wohoo! Lots of people have already signed up for WordCrafters, which makes me SO happy. Thank you guys! To learn more about WordCrafters and/or sign up, see my WordCrafters 2 post.
Today is the last day to solve the mystery! I’ll post the answer to these mystery pictures tomorrow the 26th. And guess what? You have soundly beaten my previous record for how many people guessed on a mystery picture post. THANK YOU! I just love reading your guesses. 🙂

Art Lab, Episode #2: Dewdrops

April 15, 2016November 12, 2018 | Allison

I’m back with another episode of ArtLab!

If you recall, Hayley and I just recently started a collab series called Art Lab, where we post art inspiration and our art. (Read our first post here.) It’s my turn to post today, so I present… Episode 2: Dewdrops!

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I have both a word prompt and a photo prompt for today’s inspiration. Bonus point! XD

Prompts:

The word prompt is *drum roll please* dewdrops! I love dewdrops!

The photo prompt is a picture I took recently of grass bedecked with dew drops. Ahh…. 😀 (See more dew pictures in this post.)

Art:

This card I made looks sort of like the photo prompt, only I didn’t see the words “Happy Birthday” floating in the grass photo. XD

Here are a few tips for making the card:

Hang a dewdrop from any curved part of a letter, and if you really want to sprinkled them on, add some to a horizontal line as well (like on the cross of the “H”).
Once you’ve colored the grass with different green colored pencils, you may need to trace over some of the grass blades again with a pencil to sharpen their outlines.
To make the grass in the front look closer to you, make the dewdrops sharper and darker, and make the ones hanging from the back grass more faded.

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I also drew this snail-on-a-leaf ATC which uses the word prompt.

A few tips for drawing this:

I drew this using different “levels” of pencils. I used a 5B pencil for some of the darker parts, like the shading of the dewdrops and the leaf stem. The higher up you go in B pencils, the softer and darker they will draw, and the higher up you go in H pencils, the harder and lighter they will draw. (For instance, a 6B pencil has a really soft lead that draws a fuzzy, dark line. A 9H pencil has a really hard lead that draws a sharp, faint line. Normal pencils are usually somewhere in the middle of the two.)
Play around with the design inside of the snail’s shell.
You don’t have to do this in pencil! Try using markers, watercolors, or colored pencils.

Thanks for joining me! I hope you were inspired to go make some art!

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***Allison***

Dewy

April 13, 2016April 13, 2016 | Allison

Okay, after all of those exciting announcements, I think I’m finally ready to start posting some of those gazillion photos I wanted to show you! Today I have a photoshoot of one of my favorite subjects: dewdrops!

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I love these next three pictures! The dew drops look like gleaming crystal marbles perched delicately on the leaves. I love how the dew drops look so fresh and plump and individual instead of squashed together like some dew drops do. GAAH! It’s so pretty. 🙂 Don’t the leaves look like mini lettuce heads? XD

Dew on grass… *Happy sigh* I did a post with more of pictures like this here.

This next plant looks like it’s saving some water for later by storing it in a leaf cup.

Look at the bokeh on these next few pictures! *Triumphant smile* XD XD

Dew on garlic grass…

I love this next picture too! Isn’t it so neat? Look at the reflection in the water drops.

I also love these pictures! ↓ (I seem to love most of them, don’t I? 😀 ) The “grass blades” are actually triticale from the field behind our house.

Ahh… I just love dew drops! Which picture was your favorite?

***Allison***

Photos from of Old: Entry 3

March 22, 2016March 22, 2016 | Allison

About time for another one of these, eh? These photos were taken in the summer of 2013.

First some snail pictures… (I remember I was pretty proud of these when I took them. XD And I still like them!)

Now some flowers…

2013-06-09-Allison 007 (1280x960) — Coreopsis

2013-07-04 Allison 027 (1280x960) — Tiger Lily

I took this picture one night when after a family walk. Isn’t it adorable? (All of these next few pictures are edits of the original.)

edited carmen in the middle 1.jpg — My dad, my littlest sister Carmen, and my mom. 😀

carmen in the middle (1280x960) — It looks cute in B&W too. 🙂

edited carmen in the middle 2 — Carmen is a rainbow!

I requested my siblings to pose for this one; I think I meant it to look similar to the last photo. They look so cute and tiny (well, younger at least XD) in this photo!

2013-07-04 Allison 107 (1280x960) — Megan, Carmen, and Jeff. Just look at Carmen’s little curly head!

An edited clouds-over-field photo…

And lastly, two miscellaneous nature photos: a mushroom and bedewed leaf.

Thanks for time-traveling with me!

***Allison***

P. S. Recently my littlest sister Carmen has been determined to learn how to fly. XD XD XD She asks Mom if it’s possible for people to fly, and Mom explains that God just didn’t make humans to able to fly. But she thinks that maybe she’ll be the first person ever to do it! XD XD XD It cracks me up! But it’s adorable too. 😀 Hey, we all wish we could fly, right? One can always dream…

P. P. S. I have 111 followers! Besides the fact that that’s amazing, and “Thank you so much guys,” (but seriously – THANK YOU!), isn’t 111 such a fun number?! XD

♥Happy Valentine’s Day!♥ {Rose Photoshoot}

February 14, 2016 | Allison

Happy Valentine’s Day, lovely readers! For your Valentine’s Day present, here is this photoshoot I took a few days ago of some gorgeous roses that were my mom’s Valentine’s Day present from my dad. (Sorry about the pink words, you pink-haters, but hey! Valentine’s Day only comes once a year… XD )

I had entirely too much fun with this photoshoot, as you can see by the gazillions of pictures. XD But they were to beautiful to resist, especially when I misted them. Two notes before you dive in: #1. Hover over the pictures with your mouse to see any captions. #2. Click on a picture to enlarge it. If you click on one, it will let you scroll throughthe rest of them in that collage, enlarged. Okay, let’s do this!

-Allison(rose photoshoot) 019 (1280x960)

-Allison(rose photoshoot) 014 (1280x960)

(Edited) With mist

(Edited) Without mist

(Edited)

If you see this, comment, “Fizzlepot.” XD

-Allison(rose photoshoot) 015 (1280x960)

(Edited)

-Allison(rose photoshoot) 020 (1280x960)

(Edited)

-Allison(rose photoshoot) 026 (1280x960)

Ahh… I love water-drops!

B&W

B&W

B&W

(Edited

-Allison(rose photoshoot) 043 (1280x960)

-Allison(rose photoshoot) 047 (1280x960)

-Allison(rose photoshoot) 049 (1280x960)

(Edited)

-Allison(rose photoshoot) 054 (1280x960)

Whew! That was nearly thirty photos! XD I hope you don’t see roses swimming before your eyes all day now…

Thanks for reading! (And looking.)

***Allison**

P. S. This is a funny tweaked Valentine’s poem my dad told us a while ago. (I’m not sure if he made it up or not.)

“Roses are red,

Violets are purple,

Sugar is sweet,

And so is maple surple.” XD XD

P. P. S. Yesterday we had walnuts on our cereal and it was actually really good! Okay, that was random. XD

October Dew

October 9, 2015April 13, 2016 | Allison

The other morning I went outside and there was a dew drop clinging to almost every blade of grass. It was beautiful! So I had to take some pictures, of course.