Caterpillar

Head or tail?
Both ends looked exactly the same.
Butterfly or moth?
Does it matter?





"There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly."

Richard Buckminster Fuller

Looks can be deceiving

Photography Challenge Week 34:  Tricky

I decided for this week to try to use the camera alone to capture "tricky" rather than apply an effect in photoshop.  It's too lovely outside and I decided I'll wait until winter to try to better my editing skills.  After much thought I decided to photograph "a jungle" in my back yard by setting the camera on the dirt in my flower bed and shooting up.  I am again incredibly thankful for the flipscreen on the back of my camera.  These are my favourites.   I must admit my imagination was running wild. 

Let's follow the path to see where it leads.

What's that up ahead - a wall from an ancient civilization?

We have to find a path through the rocks to te base of the wall.

"A brave heart and a courteous tongue.  They shall carry thee far through the jungle, manling."

Rudyard Kipling

Toad

This was the biggest toad I'd ever seen.  He reminded me of an old poster that said, "Before you meet your handsome prince you have to kiss a lot of toads".  Fortunately I met my handsome prince a long time ago.

Spider's Web

My first attempt at photographing a spider's web!

The means to gain happiness is to throw out from oneself like a spider in all directions an adhesive web of love and to catch in it all that comes.

Leo Tolstoy

Fence

The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.

John Locke

Old treehouse ladder

Photography challenge week 32: High

I've always thought of the old ladder in this cottonwood tree as a "stairway to heaven".






The wrung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man's foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher.

Thomas Huxley

Colour

Nigella flower and some fun in photoshop.

Sit in reverie and watch the changing color of the waves that break upon the idle seashore of the mind.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Berries

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In August, the large masses of berries, which, when in flower, had attracted many wild bees, gradually assumed their bright velvety crimson hue, and by their weight again bent down and broke their tender limbs.

Henry David Thoreau

August flowers

Purple cornflower

"August creates as she slumbers, replete and satisfied."

James Wood Krutch

Hay field

The sight of hay bales always makes me nostalgic.  While the labour intensive task that I remember has changed greatly, the smell of fresh hay has not.






While I would never advocate a return to the old ways of doing things, I do really like this poem, and I think it speaks to the longing for a simpler time in all of us:

Haymaking


I sigh for the toil that was mingled with fun,
The contentment we felt when the end had been won,
And the sound, peaceful slumber when daylight was done.

The lush grass of Lehigh, it grows as of yore,
The hay smells as sweetly, the sun is as bright;
But all the old glory of hay-time is o'er,
And the toil of the season has lost its delight;
The scythe and the hay rake are hung up for show,
The fork gives the tedder its place in the row;
And gone are the joys of the loved long ago.

Thomas English (1819-1902)

Fountain

Photography challenge week 31:  Clear

The water in this fountain at the sculpture garden.

"To find joy in work is to discover the fountain of youth."

Pearl S. Buck

Antique wagon

A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs.  It's jolted by every pebble in the road.

Henry Ward Beecher

Clematis

We were relaxing on a patio in front of a coffee shop when I noticed that a creative gardener used an old bedspring as a trellis for this clematis.



Give me the joys of summer,
Oh Summer Queen so fair,
With wealth of lovely flowers,
And fruits and sun-kissed air!

from Midsummer Joys

by Winnifred Sackville Stoner

Bully Pulpit Golf Course

Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated.

                         Arnold Palmer

Wild horses

Blame it or praise it there is no denying the wild horse in us.

Virginia Woolf

Photography at 60 mph

Photography Challenge week 30: Drive

On Monday morning, when I saw the theme for this week, I thought "what great timing" as we were leaving on a 6 hour road trip across North Dakota.  I was sure I'd find something interesting on the way home.  That turned out to be a problem.  If I stopped to photograph everything I wanted to, we would still not be home.  So I decided to try something that I called "Photography at 60 mph".  I would photograph the countryside through the car windows.  My rules were simple - no turning around - no stopping - no second chances.  It was fun, and I managed to stay awake most of the way home.

The old schoolhouse standing proud against the new technology.

This was the first picture I snapped.

Grain elevators like this used to be in every town.

These "prairie giants" are disappearing from the landscape.  I was pleased to see these, though no longer in use, were still standing.

A farm service center that must have been a thriving business at one point.

I like this barn.  In my opinion, a barn should be red.

There is something wonderfully nostalgic about a small country church.

Vital to the community.

Though we had a wonderful drive, what I was saw also made me sad when I thought about it.  Most of the photographs were showing a way of life that is dying.  I want to go back, take my time, and photograph these places properly, before they are gone.

Petrified forest

Some time ago I read a quote by a photographer who, when asked "how do I get more interesting pictures?" replied, "stand in front of more interesting stuff".  The Badlands is a place teeming with interesting "stuff".  I have been to the Badlands before, but never with a camera.  For 3 days I experienced a whole new way of "seeing" an incredibly beautiful place. 

On our last day in the park, a visit to the petrified forest yielded some fantastic sights.  Wood - that has turned to stone!  It seems impossible.

Petrified wood & a prickly pear cactus

The shapes and swirls of the wood grain - now turned to stone - are incredibly beautiful.

The terrain speaks of strength, yet within the Badlands is a fragile, vulnerable ecosystem.  The yellow clover that is seen in many of these photos is not native - it is an introduced species.  The bison do not eat it if they can find something else to feed on.  It has completely taken over some parts of the park.

I hope that all I've taken from this place is memories and photographs; and left nothing behind but footprints along the paths meant for humans.

"This broken country extends back from the river for many miles and has been called always by Indian, French voyager and American trappers alike, the Bad Lands."

Theodore Roosevelt