After the storm

Be thou the rainbow in the storms of life.  The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray.

Lord Byron

Quiet spot

It is the month of June
The month of leaves and roses,
When pleasant sights salute the eyes
And pleasant scents the noses.

Nathaniel Parker Willis

Weeds

A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows.

Doug Larson

More ducks

All along the black water,
through the rushes tall,
Ducks are a-dabbling,
Up tails all!
Ducks' tails, drakes' tails,
Yellow feet a quiver,
Yellow bills all out of sight,
Busy in the river!
          Kenneth Grahame

Ducks

I enjoy many kinds of music, including old fashioned, traditional country music.  This week when I came across ducks and ducklings, it reminded me of the old song I Love by Tom T. Hall. 

 

I love little baby ducks,
old pickup trucks
slow moving trains, and rain
I love little country streams,
sleep without dreams
Sunday school in May
and hay
And I love you too.

At the golf course

Photography Challenge Week 24:  5 o'clock

Where you'll find me and my friends every Tuesday evening at 5:00.

Mark Twain famously said, "Golf is a good walk spoiled".  I think that's a fabulous quote.  Still, golf for me isn't about the golf - it's about being out in the sunshine, getting a little exercise, and enjoying the company of my friends on a Tuesday evening.

Rain

Rain is wonderful when it's needed.  I'm not one to complain just because it rains on the weekend (although I do prefer rain during the week and sunshine on the weekend).  I discovered a way of enjoying the rain on the weekend - grab the camera.

"The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Green

I seem to be posting many green photos lately.  - Why not?  It is the colour that is most welcome.  Here's another one.

"Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises."

Pedro Calderon de la Barca

Baby Bird

When I saw this little bird sitting on a log, I thought it was the strangest creature I had ever seen.  Then I realized it was a young dove. He didn't seem frightened of me at all.   As I worked in the yard, I saw other young doves hopping around amongst the bushes, so I assumed it was time to leave the nest. When I returned later, he was gone, so I hope he found his way back to his nest.

The reason birds can fly and we can't is simply because they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings.

from The Little White Bird 

by J. M. Barrie

The park in springtime

On a springtime morning the park is a deserted place, but a feeling of anticipation is in the air.

At the tennis court...

...and in the campground

Few enterprises of great labor or hazzard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.

Samuel Johnson

A walk in the woods

     Virginal shy lights,
Wrought of the leaves to allure to the whisper of vows,
When lovers pace timidly down through the green colonnades
Of the dim sweet woods, of the dear dark woods,
     Of the heavenly woods and glades,
That run to the radiant marginal sand-beach within
     The wide sea-marshes of Glynn.
From The Marshes of Glynn by Sidney Lanier

Evening at the track

Behind the blue Rockies the sun is declinin'

The stars, they come stealin' at the close of the day

Across the wide prairie our loved ones lie sleeping

beyond the dark oceans in a place far away

from Canadian Railroad Trilogy by Gordon Lightfoot

Evening

Photography challenge week 22:  Inspire

So many things inspire me to grab my camera and start shooting.  But it is in the evening, when the skies are most beautiful that I lose myself in this new hobby.  When I looked to the southern skies one evening this week, the sight of the clouds almost took my breath away.

Fairest of all that earth beholds, the hues
That live among the clouds, and flush the air,
Lingering and deepening at the hour of dews.

William Cullen Bryant

Memories

Good neighbours once lived in this abandoned yard.  Each spring this crabapple tree reminds us that they were here, and how much the community misses them.

"Every individual has a place to fill in the world and is important in some respect whether he chooses to be so or not."

Nathanial Hawthorne

Storm Clouds

Photography Challenge Week 21: Flash

I don't generally use a flash, so this was a challenge.  I decided to try a photographic technique using a flash outdoors to make the sky look more dramatic.

Storm is on the way

Blossoms braving the storm.

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass... it's learning to dance in the rain.

Anonymous