Saturday, February 28, 2015

2/28/15

So we are leaving February by receiving some snow.  Depending on what weather you check could be 2 and 1/2 inches up to 10.  That's quite a stretch.  I need to be a weather person.  So I'm thinking Spring thoughts today and sharing an image of tulips.  These are the same ones I have been playing with the last couple of times.  I put them in the sun and shot them against a dark background.


Friday, February 27, 2015

2/27/15

So cold today and dreary.  I needed some sunshine so I decided to post this image.  This is a Sunflower from my garden photographed against a blue sky.


Thursday, February 26, 2015

2/26/15

Cold temps today, yuck.  I captured this Blue-jay on a warmer day.  It was sitting in the tree waiting on peanuts.  It's rare that thy pose so nicely for me.



Wednesday, February 25, 2015

2/25/15

What weird weather today.  Kind of nice and in the 50s and then bam around 3:30 it gets cold and starts raining and then by 4 it's snowing and now we won't have temps more than 30 till at least next Wednesday.  UGH  Well, this is a photo to take my mind off it.  This is from my trip to Rocky Mountain National Park.  This is the from the first evening we were there.  We went on a hike to this falls which is known as Alberta Falls.  I took this long exposure of it in the evening light.


Tuesday, February 24, 2015

2/24/15

This is just something from warmer days that I wanted to share today.  This little Skipper was partaking of some Wild Garlic blooms.  I just read recently that Skippers make up 1/3 of the Butterfly population.  We certainly have a lot of them in Kansas. Sometimes they are around a lot more than butterflies.  


Monday, February 23, 2015

2/23/15

I took this shot on the day i got the image that I converted to B&W.  The sky in this one was boring as well, clear blue sky as usual.  I left this one in color though.  I was happy to get it too, my best Bald Eagle in flight image I have ever captured.  I got this image out by Milford Lake where the eagles come to winter over every year.


Sunday, February 22, 2015

2/22/15

So we missed the bulk of the snow again, only a half inch at most, but it turned very cold again.  This image gives me warmth when I look at it.  It was a nice warm day from this past June when we went on our Geology trip on the Cumbres & Toltec Railway.  We were able to get off and photograph the train as it emerged from Rock Tunnel.  This image makes it easy to see how it got that name.  There is quite the drop off in this area too, several hundred feet to the bottom.



Saturday, February 21, 2015

2/21/15

So, yay, we dodged an ice storm and snow.  We need the moisture but I don't want that, especially not the ice.  Playing with light on this tulip and liked the moody feel it gave.  Hopefully not long now till these come up in the garden.



Friday, February 20, 2015

2/20/15

Another blah winter day, dreary out and chance of rain/snow though we will most likely only get enough for it to be annoying.  Have to remind myself that some things about this time can be lovely.  This is an image of more frost patterns on a door that I took one morning a couple weeks back.  Love the fern patterns it makes.


Thursday, February 19, 2015

2/19/15

Winter is really upon us these days with temps not even getting into the 30s and a bit of snow on the ground.  While it's not as far away as before I am still dreaming of summer days and sights such as this.  I took this photo in Minnesota of a Bumble Bee that was just about to take off from a Hollyhock flower and was all covered in pollen.  You can see the motion of it's wings as it was working to take off.  As always, you can click the image for a larger version.


Wednesday, February 18, 2015

2/18/15

It's been cold and boring out so I have been going through old photos looking for ones I had not shared before.  I was looking at our Yellowstone trip and found this image of the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone that I shot from Artist's Point with a zoom.  This picture has gone nuts over on Google + so I guess I found a good one.  :-)


Tuesday, February 17, 2015

2/17/15

What crazy weather today.  Woke up to a dusting of snow on the ground.  The day was fairly sunny till mid afternoon and then it looked like a blizzard for a while.  Now it's sunny again and you can't really even tell it snowed.  I just want it to be summer.  This is a lovely Dragonfly on a Hibiscus leaf from this past summer.


Monday, February 16, 2015

2/16/15

This is an older image but I like it because it's one of the only times I have gotten a decent Heron image.  This was taken on our Yellowstone trip one morning as we were heading out to sight-see.  There were all these people with cameras lined up alongside the road and when I looked to see what they found so interesting I saw this Heron in a pond.  It was just calmly wading back and forth near the one edge and must have been doing so for a while before I got there.  It seemed very content to let a bunch of people take it's picture.  This one I liked a lot because of the reflection.  I wish other Herons I have seen would be so cooperative.  


Sunday, February 15, 2015

2/15/15

It's winter again today with a chance for snow as well.  Ick.  This is an image from my travels to southern Colorado.  This is an old style Santa Fe locomotive that is on display in La Junta, Colorado.  They have it cleaned up and displayed very nicely.  I actually took this image from the car as we were driving through town and no, I was not driving.  :-)


Saturday, February 14, 2015

2/14/15

Happy Valentine's Day to those who celebrate!  Last year I received this lovely bunch of roses.  At that time we had snow so I took them outside to photograph.  On this image I processed in a high key manner so it wiped out the details of the snow.  I received some roses this year as well and have some ideas on how to process them.  Fun to play.  :-)


Friday, February 13, 2015

2/13/15

It's Friday the 13th, hope it is going well for you!  At least it was a nice day outside.  Today on Google + in honor of tomorrow was an all things red theme so I chose this moody flower to share.  I had shared a different but similar image a while back in a rare square format.  I like how the stem leads in on this version.


Thursday, February 12, 2015

2/12/15

So it's very cold out today again.  bet you know what i am thinking of!  ;-)  This is an older image of a Monarch on a Cone Flower or Echinacea.  I have planted several more of these plants to draw them in since this photo.  Hope it works before the moles destroy them.  


Wednesday, February 11, 2015

2/11/15

It was cold and dreary most of the day and very hectic at work.  Finished it off by having a flat tire I had to take care of when I got home.  Sigh  Anyway, thinking of summer and calmer days with this wildflower I saw in West Virginia.  This is Red Burgamot which we know by a purple variety and is also known as Bee Balm.  There weren't any bees around while I was taking this photo which may have been a good thing.


Tuesday, February 10, 2015

2/10/15

I was going through some older photos looking at ones I had never posted before for something different.  I have always liked and photographed these old Mail pouch barns whenever I find one.  Mail Pouch Tobacco originated in Wheeling West Virginia and they had a painter that went around and painted barns to advertise the product.  A lot of these are decaying pretty badly now.  some have been restored but quite a number are gone or in this type of shape.  I like to record them before they disappear.  Found this one on a highway in West Virginia on the way back from Cass Mountain.



Monday, February 9, 2015

2/9/15

Wow, what a difference a day makes.  Winter is back.  On Saturday when it was really nice, I drove out to Milford Lake to look for Bald Eagles.  I found a couple of groups to photograph.  I got this image of a single one and the sky was very boring and there wasn't much background so I decided to play with it and turned it into a B&W and got this.  I thought it looked pretty cool so decided to share.



Sunday, February 8, 2015

2/8/15

Feels like spring and I wish it was but I know this won't last.  I'm enjoying it while it lasts though.  Today i am sharing an image from a trip to West Virginia that I hadn't posted before.  This is an image from Cass Scenic Railway which uses a lot of Shay type locomotives.  These had special drive gear and were great for heavy loads and steep grades.  They were used a lot in logging operations back in the day.  This image shows the driving gear off.



Saturday, February 7, 2015

2/7/15

I was playing with some Tulips I bought yesterday in different light.  I took this macro of one of them in the sunlight and liked the detail it brought out.  Hope these flowers don't start emerging for real with the very warm temps we are supposed to get today, 70s.  Nice but winter will be back in the next few days and I'd like to see these blooming for real.



Friday, February 6, 2015

2/6/15

It's unseasonably warm today and supposed to be tomorrow as well.  It may be even too warm as spring flowers are starting to emerge.  I'm worried flowering trees may start to bud out.  Anyway, since it's warm I can look at cold photos.  :-)  These are more frost patterns on the storm door from a few weeks ago.


Thursday, February 5, 2015

2/5/15

Warmer weather is on the way again tomorrow so we continue with the yo yo.  Today it was only in the 30s so I was thinking summer thoughts with this image of a Bee Fly getting nourishment from a marigold flower.  I love how they are furry and somewhat cute for a fly.  :-)


Wednesday, February 4, 2015

2/4/15

It's turned winter again with bitter cold, wind and a bit of snow.  I am dreaming of summer due to this.  An image of some Daisy Fleabanes that I took a while back is helping.  These flowers were named as they were because early settlers believed they helped keep fleas out of their home.  Even if they didn't, they helped to brighten it up.


Tuesday, February 3, 2015

2/3/15

So we are having yoyo type weather.  One day it feels like spring and the next it's arctic chill.  Today was a nice one but tomorrow we might even see snow again.  I am dreaming of summer and nice warm days today with this image.  I caught a Hummingbird Clearwing Moth busily feeding around a milkweed plant this past summer. 


Monday, February 2, 2015

2/2/15

Happy Groundhog Day to the US.  6 more weeks of winter since he saw his shadow.  What a surprise, there is always 6 more weeks until spring from this date.  What a silly day. Winter was back today in force with snow on the ground and very cold temps all day.  I took this image earlier this winter on another cold day and you can see the feathers blowing due to the wind.  This Blue Jay was giving me a look as if to say, "Hey, where are the peanuts".  :-)



Sunday, February 1, 2015

2/1/15

Well, starting off February with a winter bang as it is snowing.  Not supposed to amount to much so that is good but the wind is blowing like crazy too so very cold.  Starting February off right though with a steam train image.  This is Cumbres and Toltec locomotive 484 as it sat in the Chama, New Mexico yard the evening before we went on our Geology excursion in June.