Farms Stink

I accompanied Little One and her preschool friends on a field trip to a little local dairy farm. Until the day before the trip, Little One insisted she was not going on the field trip to the little local dairy farm because, and I quote, "Farms stink and I might step in poop." I tried in all my motherly wisdom to convince her it would be fun, but no matter what I said, she kept coming back to her original two objections, to which I could say nothing but, "You are right. Farms stink and you might step in poop." Then the night before the field trip, as we were getting ready for bed, we were once again talking about all things smelly and farmish (I don't think that is a word, but I like it and it sounds like Amish, so I am going to use it). My arguments exhausted, I happened to mention something about us wearing our muck boots and being able to hose them off if they got dirty. And just like that Little One gave up the fight and decided it wouldn't be so bad to go to the farm.

While at the farm she refused to pet any animals, except the cute white rabbit that was sleeping on the farmer's lap. She kept eyeing the door of the barn, plotting her escape, as the farmer's wife told us all about the animals living on her farm. She also spent the entire day (except when she was petting the rabbit and drinking her free milk in the little store) like this-

Little One tolerating her trip to the farm- Wednesday, April 25.

Bunnies must not be that stinky- Wednesday, April 25.

 This cute Starling had a nest up in the ceiling of the baby cow barn. She would fly out to the fields, come back in with a mouth full of worms, and perch on a bit of railing. Then, when she thought no one was looking, she darted into a little round hole in the ceiling. Within a few seconds the glad chirping of a nest full of baby birdies could be heard below. Then just like that, momma bird would pop out of another hole closer to the back of the barn and start the process over again. And I thought round the clock feedings every two hours was tough- Wednesday, April 25.

 I liked the light coming through the floor boards. This was the ceiling of the lower level of one of the barns- Wednesday, April 25.

 Silos and clouds. I thought this was cool because at first glance this could be the smokestacks of a factory- Wednesday, April 25.

This image was a great shot just waiting to be taken. And believe me, I took lots of pictures of it. The problem was, there was a silver SUV parked right behind the front wheel of the tractor and a yellow bucket on the wagon. Try as I might, I couldn't get a shot I liked without annoying pieces of both of the above mentioned items. So I spent a little time in PSE today and am pretty happy with the results- Taken, Wednesday, April 25. Edited, Monday, April 30.

The original. Nice bucket- Wednesday, April 25.

I Found Something to Say By the End

I still haven't worked my way back to daily posts. Not sure when or if that will occur. But I am glad to be sitting here today, in a space carved out of a day full of to-dos, working with pictures that have found their way from my camera to the computer. I have no clever way of tying this quite random collection of photos together, so I'll just let the pictures do the talking today.

 Driving down some back roads the other day we came upon a gathering of vultures. They were kind enough to scamper into the grass at the side of the road, but only after I had to come to a complete stop just inches from the site of their mid-morning feast. Since I was just sitting there totally stopped, with my camera riding shotgun, I snapped a few pictures. Vultures really are dreary birds. They blend in terribly with their surroundings. So I worked at adjusting their hue and the saturation of the background to make them stand out a little- Tuesday, April 10.

 This is The Forum in Harrisburg. It is an ugly, round, cement building, but it hides the most beautiful interior. The ceiling is done in gold and black and depicts the night sky full of constellations. The lights are star shaped and tucked in amid artistic images of Pegasus and Orion and their other nocturnal companions. Quite beautiful, especially when listening to the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra- Friday, April 13.

 I liked the light and shadow- Friday, April 13.

 I did not take this picture. My poor, very pregnant (and still adorably cute) sister-in-law, got roped into trying to take a picture of our family. She did a much better job of framing us up than we did of actually looking at the camera. In the original of this image, both Little One and My Husband were looking off to our right at something that was apparently more interesting than our poor, very pregnant photographer being forced to stand up on her very pregnant feet. Little One looked cute, but My Husband just looked like he was eyeing up the closest exit. So I messed around trying to move his eyeballs. I'm still not satisfied with what I've got,  but I'm done messing around with My Husband's eyes for now. He'll be left staring off into space until I make it back to PSE. At least he is sort of looking at the camera now- Taken Saturday, April 14. Edited Monday, April 16.

(It's 8:30, the kids are in bed, and My Husband is at a meeting. I still have the dishwasher to unload and reload and laundry to fold, but the eyes were bugging me. So, I tried again. Call me crazy, but I think they look better here. Maybe they don't look any different and it's like one of those optical illusions that you stare at for so long, you begin to see things moving and popping out at you. I'm going to call it quits before I start seeing rotating spirals- More editing Monday, April 16.)

I wasn't going to, but I'll go ahead and post the original and a funny mid-process save just because it will be funny. Hopefully My Husband thinks so. You'll have to click on these to see the eyeballs. 

This was the original. Eyes are saying, 'Yup. I'm done. See that door? I'm ready to walk out of it'- Saturday, April 14.

This is the humorous (at least I think so) mid-process save. The eyes are either saying, 'There is a fly on my nose' or 'Who's the other really pregnant lady trying to take our picture?'- Saturday, April 14.

Play dough alligator on a Florida beach, by First Grader- Monday, April 16.

Play dough bear by The Oldest- Monday, April 16.

I am always sad when the flowering trees begin to loose their blooms. I secretly wish every year that the flowers would not so easily yield to the budding leaves, that they would hold fast to their position of honor and  refuse to make way for the green that insists on swallowing their delicate beauty. But then as they continue to fall against my hopes and plans, I stop to realize once again that beauty that must be enjoyed for only a short season is truly the most beautiful of all. Because I do not know which day may be the last of the full Spring splendor, I am purposed in my enjoyment. I stop for long looks and deep smells because I know very soon the Spring breeze will no longer carry with it the delicate scent of a tree in bloom, but instead will be carrying with it the very last of the flower petal confetti. Deep down I know that if the trees held tight to their blooms, my awe would fade to acceptance and my delight to daily dismissal. I would come to walk past this beauty the same way I walk past the beauty that stands surrounding me, unchanging, just waiting to be noticed. So it is with just a twinge of regret and an expanse of hopeful expectation that I say farewell to the blooms of this year's Spring. I am thankful for their place, for the splash of color, on the canvas that is my life- Monday, April 16.

Trees and Sky

I've mentioned before my love of trees and my affinity for taking pictures of their bare branches in the winter. There are certain trees, in my opinion, that make the best branch against sky sort of pictures. There are also certain skies that help to contribute to such an image. Today I found a really great mix of sky and tree, and much to the chagrin of my children, pulled over to the side of the road just long enough to snap a few pictures.

This is a picture of the top of some billowy clouds right before we started our decent on the plane ride home from Hawaii. Okay, not really. It is a shot from my bedroom window this morning. When I saw the sky, I knew it would be a great day to find some bare trees. A bright blue sky with patchy, white clouds, to add lots of contrast, is my backdrop of choice for a tree-sky photo- Thursday, February 23.

This picture contains a nice sky background, but not my favorite type of bare tree. There are far too many little, tiny branches for my liking. I did, however, like the one little bird sitting in those little tiny branches. Also taken from my bedroom window this morning- Thursday, February 23.

This is the kind of tree, posed in front of just the right kind of sky, that entices me to throw on the four ways and hang out the driver's side window to get a picture (after pulling over, of course). I love the thick, distinct branches and how they twist and bend- Thursday, February 23.

This is the same picture, solarized. It is an option on the color curve menu in P.S.E. Most pictures just look really scary with this setting, but I thought this one looked pretty cool- Thursday, February 23.

In case any keen eyes noticed the tree with the annoying little branches in the lower left corner of the solarized picture and wondered where it came from, it was part of the original photo. I couldn't get a shot without it from the car window, so I painted it out in P.S.E. I am actually pretty surprised at how easy it is to get rid of things you don't like in a picture. Which has made me start to wonder about all those high quality reading materials filled with amazing photos of the stars in the check out lines. I mean, what if Brad and Angelina's new twins don't really have alien heads at all!? This changes everything- Thursday, February 23.

A Rose By Any Other Name

I'm deep into the Jane Austen audio book I started yesterday in the car. The woman reading it has a wonderfully soothing manner of speaking. She very subtly voices all the characters in different ways and pauses at all the right places. It is great! I very much enjoy listening to, reading, and watching pieces that are set in England a couple hundred years back. When I do, I often find that my internal thoughts begin to sound like my favorite characters. I can hear myself thinking with an English accent. Every now and then, it will slip out when I am talking to myself about getting more shampoo or wondering aloud what to make for dinner. "Alas, what shall we partake of at this evening's supper?" 

So, when I started working on some pictures of roses that I had taken, my thoughts, already speaking with an English accent, began calling up a familiar speech from Romeo and Juliet. Except right when I was getting to the good part, the idyllic scene was shattered by the loud, south-of-the-border sounding voice of Featherstone, the pink flamingo lawn ornament in Gnomeo & Juliet. "A weed by any other name is still a weed!"  Now, that is a clever movie!   "Oh, Gnomeo, Gnomeo, are we really doomed to never see each other again? Why must you wear a blue hat? Why couldn't it be red like my father, or green like... like a leprechaun..." 

At any rate, whether you are now imagining in Old English, chuckling at the thought of lawn ornaments misquoting Shakespeare, or simply speed reading to get through this unsolicited look into the workings of my brain, please pause long enough to stop and enjoy the roses, they really are very sweet.

Rose. Decreasing Saturation- Tuesday, February 21.

Breakfast

This is a picture of my breakfast smoothie. I could have poured it into a fancy glass and added a sprig of something for a better picture, but the real beauty of this is that I can mix and drink the smoothie in the very same cup. Just insert straw.

The item lying on the counter in the background is a blender stick. I don't actually know its real name; in our house it has come to be known as the blender stick. I got it for Christmas and I LOVE it! I didn't, however, love any of the pictures I took of the smoothie-blender stick scene this morning. There was something wrong with every one- too much space between the cup and the blender stick, shadows too dark, light too blue, background not blurred. I could go on, but I won't. I actually liked the composition in this image, except for one major thing. I didn't close the curtain in the background and so I had an annoying slice of light along the back left edge and a shiny corner of counter under the blender stick. I couldn't just crop it out because then I lost part of the blender stick and the whole thing looked off. So, I went to work in P.S.E. creating more curtain and dulling the shine on the counter- Saturday, February 11.

This is the picture right out of the camera. To get to the image above, I cropped this one, adjusted the color, and messed around with the clone stamping tool to close the curtain and get rid of the shine that would not have been on the counter if I had thought to shut the curtain in the first place. And I did all of this while enjoying my wonderful breakfast smoothie- Saturday, February 11.

Car Washes and Snow

I should have figured the prediction for snow would be right today. I spent all morning and early afternoon driving around town in a van that had just gone through the car wash on Monday (It was almost 50 degrees and sunny then). Oh well. The van was clean. I tried.

Here are some shots of the snow.

 Snow falling in front of the fence- Wednesday, February 8.

White branches against more white branches against a white sky. Too much white in this picture, not enough contrast. So I tried to create some in P.S.E., contrast that is- Wednesday, February 8.

 Detail of a branch covered in snow- Wednesday, February 8.

Rays of Sunshine and My Husband

I love my husband. I like him, too, most of the time. Like today when he was driving all of us to our desired destination and he willingly pulled into the fire station parking lot so I could take a picture, I really liked him then. When he started driving away because I was taking too long, not so much. Another time I really liked him today was when he let me eat over half of his chili-cheese fries at lunch. And then when he humored me by letting me pose him in just the right light for a picture he needs for something or other and humored me again by looking at all the different little editing things I did to it in P.S.E., I liked him a lot, too. I love my husband and I really do like him, too, most of the time.

The picture from the fire station parking lot- Sunday, February 5.

 My husband- Sunday, February 5.

Cameras

I ran into Kohl's to return something today and on the way out (via the long way through the aisles of home goods) I spotted these camera knick knacks. I couldn't quite see bringing one home, but I did see a fun picture in the making. I quickly arranged them on the shelf so they were all facing the same way and took a few pictures with the little camera I keep in my purse.

This is the picture straight from the camera. I only cropped it- Monday, January 30.

This is the picture with the color removed from the background- Monday, January 30.

This image is the result of my messing around in Photo Shop Elements. I still have lots to learn, like how to make the edges of the selected areas look a whole lot better. Picture taking is fun, but sometimes the picture making afterward is even more fun- Monday, January 30.