Dreaming of Spring

As I've been going through pictures from last summer I am continually looking forward to warmer weather and green grass.  We've had a fairly cold winter here this year, though we haven't had much snowfall compared to past years.  Now that we're into April I'm hoping the warmer temperatures and the rain will start coming soon!

I thought I would go through and share some of my favorite pictures from last summer/fall.

This last fall my sister and my brothers and I went out on a walk through the back pasture, taking pictures and checking on the cows.  The leaves in the timber were popping with color!

The sun was setting as the cows were enjoying the lush green pasture.

 Maggie, our calf to one of our milk cows, was pretty curious as to what we were doing out in the pasture.

 Storm clouds rolling through during a nice spring day last year.

 I always look forward to the Grape Hyacinth blooming in the spring, and if you can get close enough they even smell good!

I've been experimenting with verses and quotes over photos lately.

What are you most looking forward to this spring/summer?
Leave a comment and let me know!

A Radiant Sunrise

One morning I was up early and noticed that there was a heavy dew and that the clouds held potential for a colorful sunrise.  I grabbed my camera, slipped on some shoes and headed out the door to the east to see what I could capture.  I adjusted my settings, took a couple of test shots just to be sure, and started snapping away.  In the time it took for the sun to rise I had snapped somewhere around two hundred pictures.  I also did some experimenting with the HDR settings on my camera, you can click here to see those.  The dew on the wheat added an element of uniqueness to an otherwise normal sunrise photo.                

I love the way the sun is starting to peak over the tops of the trees and illuminate the heads of wheat.

I love that this shot includes more of the sunrise, along with the little streak of fog hiding behind the row of trees to the right of the image.  

The anticipation before the sunrise of what is to come.

Do you make a point of it to get up early enough every morning to see the sunrise?  I'm not always up early enough to enjoy it, but if I am I am usually doing the morning chores so I don't always get to photograph it.  I guess there are many ways to enjoy a sunrise though!

This evening as I was working on the computer my little brother came running down the stairs hollering "Bobbi!  You're missing an awesome sunset!  It really is awesome!".  So I followed him back up the stairs to get a glimpse of the awesome sunset, it really was awesome!  I'm thinking maybe the phrase should be 'Stop and enjoy the sunset'.

Flowers of Spring

After a long winter, the thing I look forward to the most in the spring is all of the new flowers popping up here and there.  It's as if everything was asleep during the long cold winter and is just waking up, vibrant and newly revived for the coming months of summer.  There's nothing quite like all of the new life surrounding you to get your creative juices flowing!  This usually ends up in an over abundance of flower pictures, but of course not all of them are worth posting.  Here are a few that I was pleased with the way the focus, composition, and subject matter all came together to make a complete story.  Although each one of these definitely has room for improvement.

Wild Cherry Blooms

I think these are wild cherries, but I'm not positive.  So don't go eating a bunch of them! ;)

 Periwinkle Ground Cover 

These were growing around an old house I took pictures of this spring.

Rose Vines by the Pond

It was starting to get dark while we were fishing at the pond and I loved the way the colors were starting to change as the sun was going down.  I had to snap a few photos of the green rose leaves on the red vines.

What's your favorite part about spring?

A Busy Junco

During the winter months we like to fill the bird feeder and watch as all of the "overwintering" birds help themselves to dinner.  We always have a lot of Dark Eyed Juncos, all different kinds of Sparrows, a few Blue Jays and Cardinals, and every once in awhile a Tufted Titmouse or a Nuthatch will show up.  

On the warmer not-freeze-your-face-off days I like to bundle up and take my camera out to see if I can get some shots of the birds at the feeder.  This day was sorta in between the warmer and the freeze-your-face-off weather!

A Junco enjoying a Sunflower seed.

To capture these two pictures I was laying on my stomach in the driveway for thirty minutes waiting for some of the birds to get close enough.  I was finally able to get a few shots!  The rocks didn't make a very comfortable spot to wait, though!

Back in August of last year I purchased a new Nikon D7100.  At first I was having trouble with the focus, but after experimenting and reading through the instruction manual I figured out I could select where I wanted the camera to focus!  Most of you photographers out there probably already knew that, but oh well! ;)  These two pictures are from when I finally got that figured out!  I was so excited and was finally able to enjoy my camera more!

Here is a picture I snapped of my sister in her freeze-your-face-off-weather getup. :)  Luckily the sun was shining and the wind wasn't blowing too bad!

And here is the picture she took of me in my getup!  You always gotta carry an extra pair of insulated gloves! :)

How do you like to dress for cold winter photography?

A Bountiful Harvest 2013

Last year our garden did fairly well.   We actually had watermelons!  That was the first time I've been able to get them to grow, so I was pretty excited!   The variety we grew was called Desert King.  They are a yellow heirloom watermelon.  They kind of have a mild fruity flavor and pale yellow flesh.  We picked several ripe off of the vine, but the rest we had to pick early because a frost was coming, they did seem to ripen okay in the basement.

A slice of Desert King Watermelon.

Seminole Pumpkin

Seminole Pumpkin from the garden.

We had a ton of these pumpkins!  They grew like crazy!  The vine tried to take over the whole garden!  They had deep orange flesh and very good flavor.  They are small 2-4 lb squash, perfect for when you only want to cook a small amount and not have a bunch left over.  Or as my sister says "Perfect for when you only want to cook one and have no more than one cooked!"   She's not ornery at all........ ;)  She likes to help me with my posts! 

A bunch of carrots, beets and radishes.

We also had carrots grow last year, too!  We usually don't have much luck with carrots, but last year we were able to freeze a few pints for the winter.  They're good for getting out of the freezer and plopping into soups for an easy-to-make meal.  We grew yellow carrots, red carrots, and orange carrots.  In the winter months I like to plan out the garden and take seed inventory.  If we are low on a variety of vegetable I always like to flip through seed catalogs and pick out a new kind to try.  The yellow carrots are Jaune Obtuse du Doubs (don't ask me how the pronounce it!)  and the red carrots are Atomic Red.  I think I preferred the yellow carrots over the red carrots, they had a better flavor, though both were good.  Unfortunately the carrots haven't sprouted yet this year, they probably need re-planted.

What kinds of vegetables do you like to grow?  Do you like to try new varieties each year, or stick to the tried-and-true ones?  Anyone have any tips for getting carrot seed to sprout?

Week 24: Pink Clematis

I planted this clematis about three years ago.  The first year I don't think it bloomed at all.  The second year (last year) it had several blooms.  This year it has exploded!  There are tons of blooms all over it!  I really like Clematis and hope to get a few different colors started.  I believe this one is called Nelly Moser.  Though I may be wrong on that one.  It doesn't look anything like the picture that was on the package that I bought!

 

But I still like it anyway!

 

 

 

This picture was one of those where you think, "Hey, I wonder how it will look from this angle."  One of those times where you normally wouldn't have tried it this way.  I really like how it turned out!

This one is probably my favorite!  Sometimes I have a hard time getting the camera to focus where I want it to.  I will think I have it right, take my camera inside and unload the pictures only to find out it's not focused where I thought it was!  With this picture I wanted it focused on the white stamens in the center of the flower to help draw your eye into the picture.  It's pretty close to where I wanted it.

Have you been enjoying the summer flowers? 

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".