My Garden

I just realized I hadn't taken any pictures of my yard since early June when the peonies where blooming. Since the gardens have definitely changed since that time I figured I'd better get out there with my camera.

Here's a slideshow of the entire shoot.

As always, if you want to see better detail just click on the picture and choose All Sizes.

This is a long shot of the backyard.


And some shots going around the backyard, starting with the fence garden.








This is the back garden of the back yard.






This is the garage side garden.








And here are the front gardens.




There's still some more planting to do. And some of the flowers, especially the fuschia and the impatiens will do more filling out. But I feel better now that I've documented the gardens to this point.

Some of the best shows are free

This morning was just gorgeous. I get on the road before the sun is up. That's why I see sunrises at this time of the year. The one this morning had reds, pinks, and golds. To my right, west, I could also see lightning from the storm that was heading in over the lake.

I kept watching the sunrise as I was driving. Before I got to the spot where I could get a picture it started fading. Oh well, I got to see it even though I didn't get to shoot and share it.

Then, a bit further down the road, I looked back to the west and saw a rainbow that went to the ground on both sides. I should have stopped then to take a picture. It was out by farms and I could have gotten a really good shot, but I decided to wait until I got to work. There was even a hint of a double rainbow while I was driving. By the time I got to work the rainbow was starting to fade, too. I guess things of that great beauty are ephemeral. We're lucky when we get that fleeting glance.

Fading or not, though, I took the picture anyway. Have a great Friday and a wonderful weekend.

Post-Storm

Short work-day today as we have a team get-together at 11:30. One of the guys has a house with a pool and hot tub and he has graciously opened his home to us for the party. Tomorrow is a holiday that my company celebrates by shutting down for the day - Yay day off.

Yesterday we had a major storm system go through. Winds, in my city, were clocked at 87mph. I only lost power a couple of times, one was before I got home. The other was less than one hour. It didn't go out at Bucky's during the time that General Hospital was being taped. However, the local tv station decided that we needed the full hour to go over the weather, so no GH. Good thing there's SoapNet where GH is rerun at 10:00.

The upside to the big storms yesterday was a gorgeous sunrise this morning. Kinda cracked me up when I downloaded the pictures. You know how people's eyes turn red from the flash? Well, the sun was that pretty red/hot-pink color and it came out white. Whatever... I'm posting it anyway.

Everyone have a great weekend!

Short post with picture

I see that the last time I posted was Friday the 13th. Can't really call it a jinx that I haven't posted since then. There's just been nice weather, yard work, and not as much time in front of the computer.

Nothing major to report, except of course, that my sister, Bucky, got a job! We have to readjust our General Hospital watching, but hey, not important. I'm so happy for her that she's working in a field that appeals to her.

So, since I have nothing exciting to talk about, I'll leave you this evening with a sunset picture.

Peonies '08

Well, surprise, surprise, I have more pictures of flowers from my garden. I think there are more blossoms this year than there were last year. But I was lucky enough last Saturday morning to get pictures with good rain droplets on them.









Here's a crop. This one is on my desktop right now. If you click on these and choose All Sizes, they really are much cooler in the large size.

Tiptoe through the...

All of the tulips in my yard are done now. I've been procrastinating posting the pictures because I thought I hadn't uploaded them to Flickr yet. Pretty lame excuse, I know. Even more lame because, duh, I did have them uploaded. So here are some of them that I'd like to share.

This was at the beginning of the tulips in my yard.


The sun was a bit bright here.




I love the colors in this one.




These were hard to photograph because they were almost a black color.




You're getting three pictures of the inside of this color tulip. I couldn't believe how delicate it was.


Also because I caught this little guy at work. He looks cool in the large size.


Too much paparazzi for him. He's leaving.

A nice day for a walk

Ichabod and I decided to go for a walk today. Usually when I post pictures of the river it's from an area where I need to drive in order to get there. This spot is easy walking distance.

We started off walking down the railroad tracks. Then we had to go down a sharp slope with lots of loose rocks. We both made it down without hurting ourselves. This is when I started taking pictures. Here's the entire set. I promise I won't post that many pictures here.

There's a willow that looks like it tipped over and one of the branches turned into the main trunk.


After I took that one Ichabod volunteered to stand on it too show the actual size. He's really good about letting me take his picture.
This one looks really cool in the Large version if you want to click on it and choose All Sizes.








Honeysuckle with the train bridge behind it.


Wintercress


I like this one of the boat in the large size.


There were a lot of people out walking dogs today, too.


This little guy was pretty patient.


He was waiting for his friend to stand still long enough so I could get her picture.




I really like the trunk on this willow.


More cool, twisted wood. This one also looks better in the large size.


Quite a few folks out on bikes today.


The highlight of the trip for me, though, was getting shots of a Scarlet Tanager. I'm not sure I've ever even seen one before.


Most of them were blurred, but a couple were sharp enough to get these crops.




And, of course, it wouldn't be the river without boats and water.

Met a new goal that I didn't know I'd set

I did something today that I've never done before. My department had a 5K run/walk and I participated. I didn't run, but still, walking three miles quickly is not something I've tried before.

This time last year I was still trying to heal from that stupid fall in March. Since I'm not athletic in the least, I have to say that I'm pretty proud of my 48 minute finish for 3.1 miles. I didn't win any prizes, but I did prove to myself that I could do it.

We'll see how I feel tomorrow. But tonight, after a couple of shots of Glenfiddich, I'm feeling pretty good.

Some kind of apple

I don't know what kind of apple tree this is but I love to see the flowers every spring. I'm glad I took the pictures yesterday because today it rained really hard and the flowers are mostly on the ground. Yesterday's weather was so perfect that I didn't do anything to fix the color on these shots. They really look best in large size, so if you click on the picture and choose All Sizes you can see better detail.









This one is my computer background. It's perfect because the blue sky on the left gives plenty of room for my desktop icons.

Contemplative Garden

When I took these pictures in my friend's garden I thought of Here Today Gone Tomorrow. Instead of mixing these in with the flower pictures I thought I'd post them alone.









Flower pictures coming up in the next post...