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)