Wishing this were mine

I love this yard, no matter the season. The house fits the scene perfectly too. Give me a couple of years and maybe my yard will look like this. Of course, before/after Andrea color. I'd love to do a session here.

Before:


After:

Playing with color

Thanks to a wonderful photographer Andrea Joki and her talent with photoshop tutorials I went a bit color crazy tonight. Yes, I left The Investigator in a halo but by the time I realized it, it was too late to go back.

Before (SOOC, no tweaks in RAW or anything seriously I don't think it could get any more SOOC unless I took off my watermark)



After (yeah, I'm aware of the halo and I'll watch it next time but for now I have got to get to bed)

Craaaaaaaaaaaaack

almost.

I will get it, honest I will. I'm glad I didn't this time, I was clear across the park and even with my long lens I had to use cropping as a zoom (yes, I know that's a bad idea)

I am going to have a chat with the coaches about them not wearing helmets while batting. Especially when there are several of them batting around at different places.

SS 1/800, f5.6, ISO 200, 200mm I metered off of his white shirt and didn't compensate and had to bring it up in Camera Raw.

It's getting closer

I now have veggies on my veggie plants :)

"Tomato Balls" according to The Scientist
SS 1/250, f5.3, 165mm, ISO 200




The first of our baby pear tomatoes
ss 1/800, f5.6, 200 mm, ISO 200

Found some treasures

I found some nice light where I cut down the 9' monster of a honeysuckle. Excuse the working in the yard look and the messy hair. I ran my color action and USM'ed, no spot processing at all.



100% crop of her eye, no USM



My iris decided to bloom too :)

Prairie Dogs

I know most people around here have had it with these cute little guys, but we're the ones who are entrenching on their homes. They're endangered, they're cute, they're social. They are another reason I want a 400 mm lens.

SS 1/800, f5.6, ISO 200, 200 mm



SS 1/500, f5.6, ISO 200, 200 mm



SS 1/500, f5.6, 200 mm, ISO 200

SFG progress pictures

I promise, next year my garden will have it's own blog. For this year you'll just have to deal with my photoblog and garden pictures co-exsisting. Besides I do take some garden pictures that are more than just snaps. Occasionally.

We had a few friends stop by the garden today too.

Mr. Robin Red Breast and his lunch



Mr Butterfly (he's SOOC)



My iris is getting ready to bloom



Onto the SFG progress

Cauliflower, broccoli, rosemary, sage, dill (it's coming back after a rough transplant), and thyme



Pepper box, yes it's a lot of pepper plants, no the only peppers we eat around here are bell. No I don't understand it, and yes I'm hoping our neighbors like peppers.



Strawberry fountain, the bareroot plants are starting to green up and have new leaves. Not all of them but enough that I'm encouraged.



Peas. Yes, I had to replant and then the first planting decided they may as well come up too. The rest of this box was planted today, so I just took the peas picture.

Hands

ISO 800, SS 1/125, f5.6, 200 mm (kit lens)

Welcome to the family

We have 3 new kittens, only one who likes the camera as the other 2 like to climb the camera straps.

Meet Dexter (he is The Ivestigator's)

Home Sweet Home

I was scouting out which branches to cut to open up the backyard the most when I had a very angry bird chasing after me. After taking a closer look I found out why.

Life less Ordinary

I've had that part of the song stuck in my head this evening (I don't even know the rest of it, I hope it's not too far out in left field) I've decided I'd like a life more ordinary, a yard more ordinary, a house more ordinary.

So, here are more my ordinary things.

Primary leaves on my spinach.



Lettuce (buttercrunch) The Princess decided to go digging after I planted so it's not coming up very even.



Onions



Broccoli



Cauliflower

Welcome to my childhood...part 2

Someday I'll learn to post these backwards so they read in the right order. If you want an explanation, scroll down a post ;)

Some of last seasons weeds, dried and backlit. The building to the right is the garage and game room. I need to pack 'fairy clothes' next time we go up, the kids are usually wearing clothes for playing in the dirt, climbing trees, and generally getting dirty and possibly tearing out a few knees.



Standing at the bottom of The Big Tree looking up. It looks so, well not big here.



A pool along an empty stream that joins the river just a short ways down.

Welcome to my childhood

Went to the cabin today for Mother's Day. I realized I was introducing my kids to my favorite things from my childhood. I loved going up the mountain Sunday after church with my Grandparents. It's nestled away from the main road around the hill and so nice and quiet. You can hear the stream and wind playing a soothing song (when the kids aren't running around anyways)

Most of these picts are snaps, but important for the healing I've done today.

Meet "The Big Tree" For those of you in the NorthWest I'm sure you are saying what big tree? but for our area this is a big tree. It is burned into my memory as I saw it as a child, as big as life itself and reaching forever heavenward. (in reality it's over 17' in diameter)



Reaching around The Big Tree holding hands is a long time tradition. It took 10 people this time, 9 children and 1 adult.



Along the trail...



What's a trip to The Big Tree without taking a detour to the river to throw rocks in?



What good is throwing rocks in the river if some girls don't get soaked in the process?



I have more pictures, I'm splitting them up into 2 posts.

RIP dear friends

The troublesome twosome bolted out the front door today (typically they are in the front room but just run circles around whoever comes in) and kept running. I think the excitement of the free run had them feeding off of each other and they would not stop much less turn around and come home.

I had The Scientist jump on his bike with the leash while I got The Princess in her carseat to go get them. The Investigator had saw them on her way home and diverted to go get them. I catch up to The Scientist and we all start driving to find them.

We find them on 300 West, where they'd just been hit by a car that didn't stop, didn't brake, didn't even slow down.

Rusty didn't even make it to the vet's office, and Mom made the decision tonight to have Charlie euthanized (in short his pelvis is shattered and he has no stability)

Rusty would sleep with The Princess when she was sick and come and wake me up if she started to sound yucky and needed to be steamed and/or a breathing treatment. This hard week I've had he's been right at my side the entire time.

Charlie has been my Mom's companion the past couple of years with Dad coming and going on jobs and was very much their youngest child.

Rusty (yes, you've seen this one before)


This is the only picture I can find of Charlie

Life (part 2) no pictures though, just rambling

I've got a few blogs that I follow aside from the 365 blogs (I know, you are all shocked) Most of them have some aspect in their life that I either really admire and wish I possessed or a lifestyle that I wish was mine. The tales of a homesteader filling her freezer with meat they raised, cheeses made from the goats they've milked, a Mom's strength going to fight for sick child, families who travel frequently.

None of them are me, but a part of me wishes that they were.

This is where life fits in. Yesterday the images I captured could have represented life and rebirth and the whole spring time the world is growing again feeling. They didn't 'feel' right to me though. They weren't my life. As much as I love spring, my life is not in the quiet strength of a tulip reaching up through the cold ground (ok, yesterday wasn't cold and I'm not sure why the tulips next door came up late but I'll shoot without complaining) or the tiny seeds finding the strength to reach towards the sun and grow.

It's a beautiful life, just like the blogs I follow are beautiful wonderful lives that I wouldn't mind at least being able to try for a while.

I'm on my laptop tonight and that's part of why I'm not adding my images. The other part is they aren't just right yet. These images fit with the 100 images I started posting about me. I should go and count because I don't remember how many I posted before my schedule got crazy hectic, but my next several shots are going to be 'about me' images.

Life (part 1)

After a sad weekend, I went out to shoot life. Big kids were still at school so I just had The Princess with me. I started out with pictures that people expect to see of life. Spring flowers in bloom among debris collected all winterlong,



grapevine finally coming out of it's winter sleep (she had a hard winter and took a while to wake up)


The Princess tending very carefully to the cabbage and broccoli (with her princess pink watering can)


and not life in the same way typical thought of but I found peace here (for those who don't know, this is where The Investigator has softball practice, there is an awesome park on one side and a school on the other)



I'm sorry to leave you hanging, but this is where my adventure to capture life ends for today. I'll finish the story tomorrow (trust me, it's worth it so please check back)

Princess training

She really is a little princess most of the time. This wasn't one of those times.

More Square Foot Gardening

Things are finally starting to look green (including the grass and weeds growing around the garden beds that I don't want there) and somehow my nice straight beds got all kind of shifty around so they aren't as pretty, but that's how they are going to be for this year.

The peas that sprouted. These were the only ones to come up, so I've got some from another package soaking to be planted tomorrow. Nothing else in this bed is planted yet so I don't have a picture of it.



This bed has carrots and onions (it's the 12" deep bed) as well as lettuce, spinach, and strawberries. Tomatoes will be planted in here too. DH bought some onion plants instead of sets and they didn't transplant real well so if they don't perk up by next week I'll pull them and plant sets. Nothing has sprouted yet, but this bed will be full as soon as the tomatoes get planted.



Cabbage, broccoli, and rosemary (smells heavenly) are planted, thyme, sage, and cilantro will be planted in the empty diagnal spots.




Peppers, we have bells and jalapeno planted, the empty spots are for habenero. I don't understand the pepper box, DH can't eat them anymore and I don't like any other than bells but he enjoys growing them so we do. It is early in the year for peppers, so these have since been covered with milk jugs. I hope to plant the tomatoes next week and keep them covered as well.




This will be the strawberry fountain. It has 3 tiers and gets watered via the fountain (see in the middle, it's poking up a little) Right now it's nothing spectacular but I have high hopes for it.



I have some flowers that I found on clearance (yeah!) that I have pictures of but I'll post them tomorrow. Friday is the last day of school, so I'll be able to take more pictures (yeah) and work in other areas of the yard (yeah)