How did you do this week?

Posted by danielle at 06:03 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

The other night, HB called me upstairs to our dining room level because "There are DUCKS in the yard!"

I hurriedly grabbed my camera and sure enough, they were checking out the neighbor's hot tub.

You can barely see them between the two trees in that photo. Here is a close-up of the same shot.

It was dusk and hence the lighting was dim, but what you'll see there is the male mallard in the center and the female just behind him.

They hung around for a little while. And then another bird swooped down and scared them, and they flew off toward the lake. I figured that was the last I'd see of the ducks until I went on my next walk around the lake where I tend to see lots of ducks and geese.

But I was mistaken! The next morning, the female was checking out the neighbor's front yard and then our front yard!

She was hopping up onto the stones surrounding the landscaping and was touring through the landscaping. Then she'd hop down and check out the next section of landscaping.

I started to realize that this wasn't just some blind search for bugs or food, this was a search for a nesting site!

She was clearly leading the search and was wasting no time going from spot to spot.

I call that photo, "female duck - trekking on".

Eventually, I realized the male was following her. But our yard must not have been conducive to nesting, because they left.

Note in that photo, although the male shows up the best, the female is in it too.

At first I was disappointed that they didn't choose our yard for nesting, but then I started thinking about how before too long, we are going to have to mow and weed eat. And that wouldn't exactly be the type of activities that Mama Duck would want to have going on near her nest. So, it is probably just as well that they went somewhere else.

But it was still fun while it lasted. :-)

Note in these photos there was a glare on the window, hence the foggy appearance of some of them.

Posted by danielle at 10:58 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Can you believe we've been at this for 11 weeks already? Almost 3 months!

This is a record for me! I actually LIKE exercising now. I know everyone said that if I stuck with it long enough that I'd start to want to exercise, and it really has happened.

It actually happened weeks ago, but this is the first that I'm bringing it up.

I feel so much happier about myself. I almost skipped one day this week, because I'd gotten rained on 2 days in a row and I didn't feel like getting rained on again, but I figured if I could just get my exercise clothes on, I'd feel better. And sure enough, as I was tying my shoelaces, I could feel the excitement about going out.

It makes me happy.

Posted by danielle at 06:43 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

I really like this photo against the white background. Some flowers, like yellow or light colored ones, seem to look best against a dark background, but these red tulips look sharper against white, I think.

And you know I could resist some close-ups.

I was fascinated by all of the pollen falling down.

That one reminds me of a crown of points, for some reason. I guess it just looks royal to me.

These were all part of the Watch 'em Grow basket that I mentioned to you earlier and showed a picture of on Easter. It really had a lot of beautiful flowers in it.

I took all photos with Dee-Dee, the last one used my Vivitar 70-210mm lens and some Kenko extension tubes.

Posted by danielle at 10:31 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

I haven't blogged since Sunday and that is mainly because there really isn't much going on with me.

My days have fallen into a routine that doesn't vary much. I work until I eat lunch. Then I work until I go exercise. Next I work until I shower. And finally I work until HB gets home or it gets to be 6:00 or so, whichever comes first. We eat supper and after supper I read a book for a while. wooo-hooo! I know, I know, hold you back from the excitement. ;-)

There aren't any flowers blooming here yet. The trees are budding leaves and the tulip (?) leaves are sticking out of the ground in our front flowerbed, but no tulips yet. The tulips were a delightful surprise! I didn't plant them, so they are coming up because of being planted in the past. Hopefully they will have flowers.

The birds that come to the feeder are mostly black birds right now. I'm kind of tired of them, because they hog the feeder and keep all of the finches and smaller birds from getting to eat. The girlie-girl likes them though. She spends part of her morning and evening meh-ing excitedly at the birds. If you've ever been around a cat excited by birds and heard the shortened eh! meh! sounds they make, you'll know what I mean.

She's been a bit of an attention-hound lately. I'm not sure why she suddenly wants me to pet her so much, but she'll meow at me and if I put my hand down to pet her, she'll run over. There have been a few instances where she has jumped up next to me so that I'd pet her. Unusual. But endearing.

Such are the small happenings of my daily life.

Posted by danielle at 11:02 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

How did you do this week? Go GO!

Posted by danielle at 01:47 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Happy Easter, everyone.

May Jesus's commandment at the last supper be in our hearts this year - to love one another.

Love!

"I feel it in my fingers.
I feel it in my toes.
The love is all around us, and so the feeling grows."

May love for everyone, even those who we may not want to love, blossom within us.

Posted by danielle at 01:43 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

I was taking photos from the other direction when I had to walk around and grab something from the other side of the room. I realized how pretty the flowers look with the sun coming through them.

Even when viewed from the 'back' side of the flowers, I thought they were pretty and reminded me of stained glass.

I was in the mood for some extra light today. I went to church last night for Maundy Thursday and the service was emotional and dark (as it should be). But that meant that I need a little extra lightness today.

This picture makes me smile because the Girlie-girl just Had to have a drink of water right then. So, she is in the photo too. You know SHE who, as I type this, is laying in the sun and is snoring really loudly. She knows her SHE name very well. She knows that when HB and I talk about SHE too much, it must mean her.

Hope you enjoyed the flowers. Have a Good Friday and if I don't see you around on Sunday, a Happy Easter.

Posted by danielle at 10:26 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

I had this really great thing happen on Friday. It had seemed like the woodpecker, a Downy, that I'd originally spotted at my suet feeder was not coming back to eat, because I never saw it there. When I spoke about it with my parents who know quite a bit about bird feeding, they suggested I move the feeder to a tree for a while to get the woodpecker used to eating at it. Of course, that meant I was no longer going to have a birds-eye view (ha!) of the action, because the tree where I'd seen the woodpecker eating and where I planned to hang the feeder is quite far from the dining room. Oh well.

So, I went out there on Friday to move the feeder and she (the woodpecker) must've been nearby, because after I'd hung the feeder and walked back up to the deck, she was fluttering around the regular bird seed feeder!

Once I was up on the deck, she quickly flew to the tree where I'd just hung the feeder. After trying to figure out where to stand to get to it, she started pecking away at the suet! Success!

I grabbed my camera and swapped out the lens and took a whole bunch of photos before remembering that I needed to check the exposure! doh! They were all white. So, I hurriedly started changing the exposure and film speed in order to get a shot.

I just barely got this one before she finished eating at the feeder.

Then she shimmied up the tree, so I got a few of her in her natural environment. Here is the best one.

and in large

Then, I couldn't believe it, she came and perched on the regular bird feeder up at the deck for a second.

And then she went over by where the feeder had hung until just a few minutes ago! Which meant, of course, that she was REALLY CLOSE!

and in large

I love this shot! I can't believe I got it.

You can see that she is a female by not having any red stripes on her head. And it is really hard to tell the difference between a Downy and a Hairy by the coloring, but I'm pretty sure she is a Downy because of her size (6" as opposed to 9").

Heee!

I took all photos with Dee-Dee and my macro-zoom lens from Dad, the Vivitar 70-210 mm.

Posted by danielle at 08:34 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

How did you do this week? Did you fall off of the wagon? or are you sticking to it?

Posted by danielle at 05:42 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

I'd never seen a daffodil like this before. One that had a creamy yellow center with a lot of white around it and with a center part where the ruffles were more splayed out. I also really liked how each petal had a little point in the center of it. That is part of what I like about that photo, the little points.

I was also really drawn to the ruffles.

This one reminds me of coral.

This next one reminds me of old sheets or bedding for some reason.

It can be hard to see if you are at a monitor near the sun, but hopefully you can appreciate the squishyness of it. It almost looks spongey to me, like I want to curl up and lay my head on that spongey softeness. I guess that is why I think of blankets and bedding material when I see it. It just looks cozy to me.

I took a bunch of other photos too, but they just didn't satisfy me. Honestly, when I was taking these, I lost my patience. I couldn't seem to capture what I wanted to capture and I couldn't figure out why. I guess the one that looks like coral is the sort of thing I was envisioning, so at least I got that shot. I was also wary of leaving the flowers in the sun for too long, because it shortens their blooming period, so I was kind of racing against the clock. Not exactly an easy way to be taking photos that is conducive to keeping one's patience, eh? Such is the trade-off between having the flowers for enjoyment and taking photos. I'm just grateful that I've had the flowers at all. They've brought me such joy!

They arrived in a basket with only a couple shoots sticking up.

But within 4 days they'd grown a surprising amount! I could literally watch them grow. Some of them were growing an inch per day!

Isn't that neat? It was so fun to see the daily progress. I love stuff like that. I once had an amaryllis around Christmastime that was fun to watch like that. Just amazing the way it started out as a bulb and then a green shoot popped up and that shoot grew and grew and grew and then finally bloomed this gorgeous red flower. Flowers are such fun. Hopefully, you think so too. :-)

Posted by danielle at 10:34 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

It was a really dreary, rainy day last week when I happened to look out the front window and see a goldfinch on our birch tree.

Unfortunately, my camera batteries had run out and I had to recharge them before I could take any photos. But I was fortunate in that the finch decided to stay on the tree for a while. This gave me enough time to get my batteries recharged.

and in large.

It isn't perfectly in focus, unfortunately, but close. It is an improvement over the last photo I took with my zoom lens of a moving object (the squirrel) so I figure I'm making progress.

I've been seeing lots of birds when I go for my walks too. Last week was particularly exciting because I saw a woodpecker about 5 feet from where I was standing! I got to watch her for a few moments as she ate bugs and pecked at a birch tree.

I also saw a gorgeous hawk. Scared all of the other birds away, of course, but was infinitely graceful and elegant. Big white belly on that hawk. Really quite pretty.

And then just yesterday I saw 2 white herons. It is amazing how much they stand out from the land and water. Every other bird is kind of camouflaged, but not them. I guess maybe they are at the top of the food chain and thus don't need the disguise.

Lots of ducks and geese and lots and lots of robins on the ground. You can tell it is really spring here with all of the robins.

Oh, and the lake has officially thawed. It no longer has this huge patch of ice on it like it did on Friday.

I have enjoyed seeing these changes in the lake and watching the birds. It might be a bit mundane, but there just isn't a whole heck of a lot of exciting stuff going on in my life right now. And each one of these things really did perk up my day when it happened. So, I decided it was blog worthy.

Posted by danielle at 10:54 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

"Rain rain go away, come again some other day."

How did you do with your activity this week?

Posted by danielle at 01:43 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack