Hello, dears!
I hear tell it’s getting CLOSE TO CHRISTMAS. Do you think the rumors are true? XD Since it is still November, I thought I’d show you guys some last fall photos I haven’t posted yet before the advent countdown officially begins. I absolutely LOVE how some of these turned out, and I hope you will too!
Hello, dears!
How is everyone today? Are you guys getting as much sopping wet, cloudy weather as we are? MAN. Sunshine is a rare occurrence these days. *shakes head* Well, if you’re in need of some cheering up, I have a fun, sunny post for you today! Last month (yep, I’m behind in posting XD) two families from our old church came up to visit us and we had a ton of fun with them. ❤ Continue reading
Hello, dears!
This is a sad subject to talk about, but the truth is… we are in our last month of summer. *SNIIIIFF* As everyone knows, summer is for swimming, but as not everyone knows, we have sadly only gone swimming three times this year. The only pools we have are ponds and streams at our new farm, and one of those ponds is a mudhole while the other is usually covered in duckweed. Yay. However, we still managed to get wet and have fun!
So, in case you ever thought about going swimming in a pond or lake but simply didn’t know how to go about it, NEVER FEAR. I have gleaned much wisdom from the past three swimmings that I’m sure will come in handy. *nods gravely* XD XD XD Ahem. Continue reading
Hello, dears!
Today I’m excited to post these sisters photoshoots Megan and I did a couple of weeks ago! The woods and flowers were so gorgeous! I think they really made the photoshoots.
As always, Megan took the pictures of me, I took the pictures of her, and I edited all of the above. I am running out of interesting introductory sentences, so shall we begin? XD Ahem.
Megan wanted to do a photoshoot with the wild poppies blooming near the Cedar House, and I wanted to do it with the buttercups too. So we did both!
Poppies are Megan’s favorite wildflower, and while they aren’t quite my favorite I quite like them too. 🙂
Hee hee, I really like this one. 😀
Eventually the chain broke so I was like, “Aha, I’ll just wear it this way!” XD
I also found an adorable purple flower in the woods. I remember learning the name but I have now forgotten. :[] Anyone know?
I quite like this one too. 🙂 ❤
Oh, ha ha! So Megan was just sitting on this log…
When she saw this feather and picked it up. She was like, “Ew, this smells bad.” AND THEN WE FOUND AN ANIMAL SKELETON IN THE CREEK IT WAS SO GROSS.
I love this little stone waterfall at the spot where you come down to the creek! ❤ (And also this picture.)
We found a lovely patch of ferns that served quite well as a backdrop/setting.
I don’t know what’s on my pants…?
A couple of days after the first photoshoot we decided to redo some of the photos. This time we made a daisy (well, chamomile daisy) crown that worked a bit better. 🙂
I like this one a lot for some reason…?
HA HA this is one of my favorites. XD I don’t THINK I usually laugh like this, but I guess I don’t know…
❤
And THIS one too! Although I’m not too happy with the editing. Oh well.
Annnd that’s all for today! I hope you enjoyed looking at those pictures. 🙂 I would love to hear your favorites! Have you ever made a flower crown?
Thanks so much for reading, dears, and have a lovely day!
***Allison***
Hello, dears!
We’ve been going on exploratory walks around our farm almost every Sunday lately and it is SO much fun! Also I’ve taken SO many pictures! XD I seriously have way too many post ideas to keep up, so I’m going to combine a few walks into one post. Enjoy the virtual sunshine! 😀
On the first walk, we explored the woods beside Dad’s shop. Fern fiddleheads were unrolling everywhere and bright little violets popped up by tree roots covered in moss… ahh, I loved it. ❤ There were also carpets of mayapple plants, which I’d never seen before. Interesting.
This was about a month ago, when leaves and buds were just starting to come out.
Aren’t fiddleheads adorable? 😀
HA HA for some reason this just looks really funny to me. XD It’s like the tree has a tiny nose. Maybe I should draw a face around it. 😛
I LOVE MOSS. ❤
Ooh, I really like this picture, particularly the lighting! The violet is a little blurry, but I love the golden light. I don’t exactly know how I got this one, but I do know I didn’t edit it.
The roots are so neat, don’t you think?
As you can see, the leaves were DEFINITELY not out yet.
While walking back we saw a deep puddle that was literally TEEMING with tadpoles! There were hundreds if not a thousand. O.o I have never seen so many tadpoles in one place in my life!
The puddle nearly dried up a while ago and left a lot of dead tadpoles in the sun, but it rained just in time to save the rest. 😛 I should go check them again… last time I saw them they looked pretty much like this:
Next we have the walk in which we went down to our bigger stream and Carmen, Jeff, and Megan all swam even though they had regular clothes on and it wasn’t exactly hot. XD
HA HA I love this. XD
They seemed to be having a pretty good time, but I decided against joining them. 😛
Wow, that was a short walk. Anyway, the next one is at our smaller pond. We got a canoe at the auction after we bought the new farm, but it kinda leaked. So Dad and the boys patched it up, we got oars, and ta-daa!
This woods had some lovely beeches, and everything was SO GREEN!
This tree was huge and gorgeous. ❤ We came back to this spot for my birthday and had a dessert picnic with chocolate pecan pie. 😀 Yep, it was DELICIOUS. And then Carmen and I worked on a fairy house in these roots because I’d told her I would. 🙂 It was fun, but got dark really quickly. (Also I don’t have any pictures of that night, sorry. 
)
We also want to make a fairy house here sometime. 🙂
Now, onto the next walk! This is the most recent. Last Sunday, in fact. I think these flowers are called phlox, but whatever they are, they certainly made the side of the trail pretty! ❤
I brought my sketchbook and some drawing utensils along but didn’t end up using them that much. I did get a little sketch done, though. (Also this picture was super hard to get, but I like how it turned out.)
I’m fascinated with reflections and light and water, together or separate. 😀
Mom and Carmen and I (and later Dad) wandered along the smaller creek that we call Little Runny. The air was hot and muggy, so the shade and water felt amazing.
Mom found a few tulip-tree blooms and wanted me to take a picture of it for our house. I was quite happy to oblige, of course! 😀 Tulip-tree flowers are strange: green and orange and lily-shaped, with maple-like leaves. Certainly unique.
Carmen wanted to show me a “swimming hole” she’d found, which wasn’t actually quite deep enough to swim in. XD
While we were there, I saw a little water strider and the ripples it made looked neat, so obviously I had to take a picture. 😛
Ooh, I love this one!
This stretch of Little Runny has sand instead of rocks! The riverbed is a mixture of sand and mud, which feels so good to bare feet. There are also random sandbars scattered like tiny beaches by the creek. The first time I saw them I was really surprised that they weren’t manmade.
Anyway, Carmen and I decided to try and build a sandcastle on one of the “beaches.” I think it turned out pretty cute for only having our hands to work with. (Thanks to my mom for taking this picture!)
(Heh heh, once I started using this filter it was hard to stop. Oops.) I love this picture too! Isn’t it so cute and aesthetic? It looks like a summer beach photo instead of a spring creek photo. 😛
Maggie also came along with us. She loves to wade in the streams and puddles, even though she never swims in deep ponds and stuff. Isn’t she so cute?
And now let me end with this cool, refreshing picture. 😀 I love the colors in this one!
And there you have a small sampling of my many spring pictures. Going outside at this time of the year is quite dangerous for me if I intend the pictures for my blog because I JUST CAN’T. KEEP. UP. But you know, I think that’s rather a good problem to have. 😉
Do you always take an excessive amount of pictures in spring too? Which is your most photographed season? And do you have a favorite or favorites of these pictures? I’d love to hear!
Thanks so much for reading, dears, and have a lovely day! ❤
***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***
Hello, dears!
*sigh* I’m getting rather tired of the freezing weather we’ve had here lately. Winter is kind of boring and cold and hard to photograph, am I right? But I DID get a few good non-snow winter photos here recently that I thought I’d show you! Winter is hard for photography, but not impossible.
One recent Sunday we took a family walk after church to explore our new farm a bit. Well, it was more like a walk/drive/ride combined because we took the truck and the fourwheeler too.
I love this picture because of the pink and purple shirts. XD Jeff’s shirt used to be more blue but it got kind of faded.
♥
Maggie adores going on rides with us. 😀 She’s so cute and happy and smiley!
For some reason what looked like a bunch of old tuna cans were nailed up to the wall in one of the sheds? We were puzzled. It’s kind of funny though.
I love this picture for its rustic character and texture. (Don’t worry, this isn’t the house we’re moving into or anything. XD XD It’s just an old shed.)
More rust, and more neat-ness in an abstract kind of way! This stuff went under the concrete they poured in Dad’s “new” shop.
Isn’t the bark on this tree super strange? It’s all flaky and weird – even on the twigs. It kind of looks like lichen, except completely covering the whole thing.
The kids wandered down to the pond while Mom and Dad drove around another part of the farm. Jeff was trying to convince Maggie to take a swim, but she only likes water she can wade in, not swim in, for some reason.
This is Carmen and her prize feather. XD
I absolutely LOVE the pattern the sky and clouds make on the water! It looks so neat, don’t you agree? It would make a neat painting too.
I love the cattails all around the pond!
The light was gorgeous. ♥
The boys went crazy with the fourwheeler – spinning around doing burn outs and driving through puddles and over tiny trees and stuff. -_- Boys, boys… *shakes head* XD Ah well, it is pretty fun to drive.
For some reason I really like this picture too. Probably because it’s winter and I’m eager for green and sunshine like this. Ahhh, so pretty! 
LOOK AT THE LIGHTING! *happy sigh* It was sooo gorgeous up there, but really hard to capture too. It didn’t look quite like this, but you can imagine how pretty the sun looked on the golden grass.
The fun thing about moving to a new farm is that we now have hundreds of acres to explore for the first time, and I LOVE it. The sun was out and it was such a lovely day for winter and we got to wander down paths we’d never been too… ahh, it was great. 🙂 *happy sigh* Walks like these are some of my favorite things!
The lighting here was SO pretty again, and again so hard to capture! I also didn’t want to tell them to stop walking because I wanted to get a candid picture, so most of them turned out blurry. XD At least this one is alright!
I have no idea what kind of tree produces these strange flower thingies. 
HEH HEH. Megan and I were doing photos like in movies when the characters are barely holding onto the edge of the cliff, and then she actually almost fell into the water. XD XD 
A sturdy fallen tree over a creek is basically irresistible to young boys (and girls). 
Heh heh, see here? Maggie doesn’t mind wading. Her expression… XD 
I love the smooth, curved edges on this ice!
OH I LOVE THIS PHOTO. For some reason I just find it really neat. 😉 I saw this little exposed knob on a tree and had to stop for a picture! Also it really reminds me of an avocado seed somehow? Don’t exactly know why… XD
Oh, funny story. I often randomly spot hawks when we drive somewhere or go on walks. I don’t know why I see them so much more than the rest of my family, but I do, and it’s gotten to be a sort of joke. I’m always like, “HAWK” when I see one, and Megan groans. XD She gets annoyed because I say, “It’s really strange how I always see hawks,” almost every time I see one. Well that’s what she says, but I don’t say it every time… *shakes head* XD
ANYWAY. I found a hawk that day too (it’s in the tree if you look close), so I took a picture for Megan as evidence. 😛
And I shall end on that note. I hope you enjoyed coming along with us on our winter stroll and seeing for yourself that there ARE things to photograph in winter after all, if you look close enough. 🙂
What was your favorite picture? What was your least favorite? (I want to know! Don’t worry about hurting my feelings – as long as you’re not intentionally mean or rude you won’t. Constructive criticism really helps!)
Do you enjoy winter (or spring or summer or fall) strolls? Do fourwheelers look fun, and have you driven one?
***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.
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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ARE YOU READY TO SEE WHO WON? Don’t worry, I won’t keep you in suspense for TOO long.
And the winner is…
Allison Marie 