Week 14: A Stormy Pasture

This is also one of my favorites, edited with the Pioneer Woman's Photoshop Actions.  I had edited it several times before trying to lighten up the trees without making the sky too bright.  My last edit was pretty close to the way I wanted it.  Yesterday when I downloaded the actions I was trying them out on a few pictures and thought I would try it on this one.  It finished the picture up nicely!  This goes to show that the right editing can really benefit the over all feel of a picture, making the difference between a good picture and an ok picture.

To see the before edit click here and visit my Flickr page.

Week 13: A Pine Cone

This is probably one of my favorite photos.  I have edited it so many different ways.  I think this is probably my favorite edit though.  I used one of the Pioneer Woman's Photoshop Actions on it.  I had never used any actions other than the default ones that came with the program.  I'm glad I finally decided to give the Pioneer Woman's Actions a try!  If you have Photoshop or Photoshop Elements you can download the actions for free by clicking here for Elements users and here for Photoshop users.

I took this photo at a cousin's house.  They have big pine trees bordering the north side of their yard, and there just happened to be some pine cones on!  I tried several different angles and this one was always my favorite!  To see some more edits of this picture visit my Flickr here, they can be found in the set titled "Nature".

Week 6: Roosters



 Last Spring and Summer we had quite a few chickens decide to set and hatch eggs.  After the first batch, we would take the newly hatched babies to the hen that was already raising a brood.  She eventually ended up with about twenty chicks!  We kept them in a chicken tractor (a wire cage that can be moved all over the yard to provide new grass) untill they got their actual feathers.  We then move them to the Chicken House in a dog crate overnight, just to let them see where their new house was going to be.  We then let them out in the morning with the rest of the chickens.  Usually they knew where to go to at night, but not always.  We had a few of the older chicks that stayed out at night and we had to sneak up on them once they roosted and grab them.  We then deposited them in the Chicken House for the night.  This lasted about a month, then finally we were able to get them to go to the house at night by themselves.

 

 

Quite a few of those chicks turned out to be roosters.  Here are a couple pictures of two of our roosters. 

 

 

This rooster is a golden color with darker gold turning to black in the tail area. 

 

 All of the chicks that hatched were mixed breeds, so we got some interesting looking ones!

 

 

This rooster is a Barred Rock crossed with a Buff Orpington, I think.

He has the normal Barred Rock coloring with bright orange on the midsection of his wings.

You can visit my Flickr page to see both of these pictures in color.  They are in the set called "Around the Farm"

 

We have about six other roosters.  In all we have Forty-Three chickens.

We really enjoy having the fresh eggs!  Store eggs cannot compare in taste or color!

You can immediately tell the farm eggs from the store eggs just by the color of the yolk.

In farm eggs the yolk is a dark orange, in the store eggs the yolk is a pale yellow.

 

We also have a variety in the color of the egg shells.  We have white, brown, dark brown, pale brown with darker brown spots, blue, gray-blue, green, blue-green, and an occasional dark gray-brown.  Maybe sometime I can get some pictures of the different shell colors and share them with you all.

 

Do you raise chickens/eggs?

 



Week 4: A Look Back in Time

This weeks post is a look back in time.  A look back in time at one of my old pictures.  I was hoping to post a new picture that I had taken the same week as the post, but since week four is already over that's not going to happen.  Once in a while I thought it might be nice to post an old picture that I have never posted before.  Well, it looks like this week is once in a while!

                                    Hey, it worked!  The picture uploaded!! Yay!!

So this weeks picture is of a little blue bird.  I'm not sure what kind of bird it is, it looks like a hummingbird to me.  I'm not sure if there are blue hummingbirds or not.

   Last Summer my family and I went to the zoo in Omaha, Nebraska.  We hadn't been to the zoo for several years and my four year old brother had been wanting to go for a year or so.  He would ask mom if we could go to the zoo because he wanted to see real tigers and bears.  So last year we went to the zoo.  Needless to say, he was a little excited about it!

The Berniece Grewcock Butterfly and Insect Pavilion is where I got a picture of this little guy.  I had never seen a bird this color before.  He was so blue!  He didn't like to hold still very long, but I was able to capture this picture of him.  I didn't have much time to take pictures because there were lots of people behind us and we had to keep moving.  I was able to snap a few pictures of the flowers and some of the butterflies, also.

Here is a picture of one of the butterflies.  You can click on the images to see them larger.
I will also be adding these to my Flickr if you want to view them there.
Here is my Flickr:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobbihphotos/

I hope you have enjoyed these photos!

Week 3 and a Recipe

Well, week 3 of the 52 Photos/52 Weeks is late.  But, there is a recipe that goes along with it, so I think you will forgive me.  Maybe not until you have tried the recipe, but after you have you are sure to forgive!  At least I hope.  Maybe?  Maybe not?  Even if you don't forgive me, do me a favor and try the recipe.  It is amazing!  Gooey peanut butter with chewy oatmeal and sweet chocolate chips.  What more could you ask for?  Unless of course you are allergic to peanuts.  That wouldn't be good.  You could always use Almond Butter.  Unless of course you are allergic to almonds.  Then that wouldn't be good either and you're on your own.

Now, on to the recipe.  How I came about this recipe was flipping through pins on pinterest.  Just minding my own business, and that of a bunch of other pinners, and there it was.  Just sitting there on my screen looking back at me.  It didn't help that the recipe began with the word "healthy".  That really made me look.  After a quick glance at the ingredients and seeing that they were "no-bake" I knew I had to make them!  So I pinned it to my "Healthy Eating" board and went on.  Fast forward a week or two and my closest-to-me-younger-sister was looking through my boards one night and saw it and said "You really should make these."  So the next day I did.  They didn't last long!  I won't mention that I ate quite a few, maybe more than a few, who knows.  Ahem, moving on, even the 1.5 year old brother loved them!  I loved the fact that they were fairly healthy for him, too.  I did manage to snap a few pictures of them before they disappeared.

Update: I was able to upload the picture at a later date.  If you want to see more pictures you can visit my Flickr account.

Again, I will have to direct you to my Flickr.
Click Here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobbihphotos/sets/72157632504164563/

You can see more pictures of this recipe in the Culinary set on Flickr.

The original recipe is here:  http://www.gimmesomeoven.com/no-bake-energy-bites/

If you want to browse through my pinterest, it is here: http://pinterest.com/bhh93/

Here is a slightly (very slightly) different version of the recipe, this is how I made the "Healthy No-Bake Energy Bites"

Healthy No-Bake Energy Bites

1 Cup dry Oatmeal  (I freshly rolled some, it adds a lot of flavor)

1/2 Cup ground Flax Seeds

1/2 Cup Chocolate Chips

1/2 Cup Natural Peanut Butter (regular will work)

1/3 Cup Honey (raw is best)

 

Combine all ingredients.  This takes some muscle to get it all mixed in good.

Roll into balls.

Enjoy!

I find they taste best after they have been refrigerated and are cold, that is if they last that long! 

 

  These are so easy to make!  I made these again today and substituted raisins and dried cranberries for the chocolate chips.  They still tasted just as good.  This makes them a bit healthier with a little less sugar.  You could try making these with peanut butter that has no added sugar to make them even healthier. 

 

 Another thought:

 

The sermon at church today was very thought provoking.  It was about praying for a spiritual awakening, or revival, in ourselves and our community.  Praying for God to transform us and open our eyes to how we can be living for Him everyday, not just on Sunday.  To live our Faith.  To take our troubles to Him in prayer (Phillipians 4:6).  I know I need to do just that.  Sure, I pray a couple times a day.  But do I really stop, and take a moment to really talk to God?  More importantly, to listen to what He has to say?  This is what I know I need to be doing, along with studying my Bible more, not just reading but studying.

 

The passage today was Luke 12:1-12

 

The four points were:  1. Beware of hypocrisy-vs 1-3

                                    2. Fear God-vs 4-7  and I'll add Proverbs 29:25

                                    3. Confess Christ-vs 8-10

                                    4. Do not worry-vs 11-12   and Phillipians 4:6

 

These are not things I am trying to tell you that you need to do, these are things that I know I need to do.  I am always wondering "How can I use photography to serve God?  How can I give Him the glory?"  hopefully this is one way that I can do that and encourage someone along the way.

 

 

One of my goals for this year is to study my Bible more and to memorize more verses.  I leave you with the last verse I've memorized.

 

"But He said, Yes, rather blessed are they

that hear the word of God,

and keep it."

Luke 11:28  

A New Year: 2013

It's a new year, and with it comes resolutions of all kinds. Most of these are not kept more than a week. Well, for this year, I have made a few resolutions and goals myself. One of which I have already broken. That goal was to post a new picture on this blog every week for 52 weeks. I missed the first week and then the second week due to internet difficulties. To make up for that I am posting two new pictures. I plan to keep up on this from here on out, we'll see. It's kind of hard to post new pictures when the internet won't co-operate!

One reason I have chosen to do this is I am hoping it will help me get out and take more pictures, more frequently! Maybe it will help me go through them and edit them a little faster too! I tend to take a bunch of pictures and then not do anything with them. They don't do me any good just sitting on the computer!

Another reason for my resolution is, I NEVER post anything on here! I thought I would point that out since you probably didn't notice. ;) Now, on to the pictures.

Um, well, another bump in the road, I can't seem to get the picture uploader to work on here, so instead, here is a link to my Flickr. The images for the 52 Weeks are in a set of the same name.
Click here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobbihphotos/ (A post with no pictures! It just doesn't seem right! Hopefully I can get that fixed.)


On a positive note, the weather today was awesome! 58 degrees in January! My youngest sister and I took advantage of the mild weather and went for a walk. It felt good to get out and stretch our legs. I think that is what makes winter bearable, a nice day once in a while.

Be sure to check out my Flickr page, it has a whole bunch of photos on it.

Be on the look out for a recipe post soon.

Leave a comment and let me know how the weather has been in your area.

Flickr

About a month ago I made a Flickr account.  I have put a ton of pictures on it, so if you want to check them out, click HERE!  Feel free to leave a comment or two and let me know if you like any of the pictures!

                        Cattail heads in the fall.                         

As time goes on I will continue to upload pictures to Flickr. 

 I will also continue posting here.......... hopefully.  Ahem.....

Anyway,  check out my Flickr photostream and let me know what you think!

Bobbi