It's Friday, TGIF! With the very cold and snowy weather we have experienced lately, I have been able to photograph birds as they have been visiting the feeders and bath. I was able to capture this Carolina Wren which I usually only see in warmer weather so that was a treat. I chose this image for today due to the lovely bubbly bokeh in it because Friday's Are Bokehlicious!
Friday, January 31, 2025
Thursday, January 30, 2025
01/30/25
I am looking forward to seeing these guys again. This is a Ladybug I was able to capture on my Black-eyed Susans I believe it was. They are very beneficial as they eat aphids which can attack many plants and cause issues. I wish I saw a lot more of them.
Wednesday, January 29, 2025
01/29/25
It's Wildflower Wednesday here on the Blog! Ending up the wildflower's this month with another of my favorites, Ox-eye Daisy. Daisies in general make me quite happy. These seem to spread fairly well, when they want to. In my yard they are spreading out but in a garden where I want them to, they are not being cooperative. 😏 Ox-eyes usually bloom in may and June. They are in the Sunflower family and can grow up to 40 inches tall.
Tuesday, January 28, 2025
01/28/25
While I was in Florida, I was able to add a few birds to my list of new ones. This is another of those, a Wood Stork. There was a body of water in the housing area where I was an there were several birds looking for food from it. I got lucky with this image too as it also includes an Egret which I usually only see from quite a distance. From the darker beak and dark legs, guessing a Snowy Egret. I was relatively close to these birds which was exciting as these types of birds around here I couldn't even be half as close.
Monday, January 27, 2025
01/27/25
Happy Monday and happy new week! My Poinsettia from last year is doing pretty well. It turned back red and re-flowered very well. I have it sitting in the front window and the sunlight was looking rather lovely on it.
Sunday, January 26, 2025
01/26/25
It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog! The Porter locomotive was up and running again this past Labor Day Weekend at the Western Minnesota Steam Thresher's Reunion. I get to work a shift of 2 hours on it firing and it is quite fun. It's a Tank style engine that carries it's water supply over the boiler and then has a small bunker on the back to carry coal so does not have a tender.
Saturday, January 25, 2025
01/25/25
It's a double digit day today! 😁 The sky has been rather drab and dull lately, it's either been totally cloudy or totally cloudless so the sunrises and sunsets have not been inspiring. This is a sunrise we had back in mid December that was pretty gorgeous.
Friday, January 24, 2025
01/24/25
It's Friday, TGIF! Today's image is actually a wildflower but the bokeh in it was fabulous so I am sharing it today because Friday's Are Bokehlicious! This is wild Columbine with other plant leaves and sunlight creating the fabulous bubbly bokeh in the image.
Thursday, January 23, 2025
01/23/25
I mentioned in Tuesday's post that there were these tiny crabs along the beach of the Atlantic where I was, just a bit southeast of Orlando. I was able to capture one which was quite difficult due to the light and the fact that they blended into the sand so much. I believe this is a Ghost Crab. They live in the sand along the shoreline and their burrows can be four feet deep! They feed at night which is another reason for their name.
Wednesday, January 22, 2025
01/22/25
It's Wildflower Wednesday here on the Blog! This is another of my favorites. I would see this flower blooming along the road a lot and really liked it so I planted some in my yard. This is Chicory and it blooms July through September normally though I had found it blooming into November this past year. A lot of the time it is difficult to photograph because the blooms will usually close by noon on bright days so they would not be open while I was home.
Tuesday, January 21, 2025
01/21/25
While in Florida, I was able to capture some birds that were new to me, I had some great opportunities in the very short time I was there. This is another that I saw while on the beach of the Atlantic Ocean. These are Sandpipers and they were feeding in the surf. It was adorable how they would run towards the waves and then as the wave came closer, run away from them. I saw that there were these little crabs along the beach and I believe this may be what they were trying to catch and eat as I was able to capture one with something in it's beak.
I have a very short video of them feeding on YouTube if you would like to watch.
Monday, January 20, 2025
01/20/25
Happy Monday and happy new week! My Gerbera Daisies that I brought in to over winter seem to be struggling a bit but are still flowering quite well so I must be doing something correctly. This is a close up of the orange variety. It's a nice bit of color to have in an otherwise blah winter.
Sunday, January 19, 2025
01/19/25
It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog! Today's image goes back to my roots in photography as I decided to do this one in Black & White. This is former Soo Line Switcher locomotive 353 heading out for a trip around the Western Minnesota Steam Thresher's Reunion show grounds with it's train.
Saturday, January 18, 2025
01/18/25
Today's image is another of what the area looked like and has looked like since our 16 inches of snow! It makes for some lovely views but I am ready for it to be gone. I like the patterns the wind made in the snow. The icy trees also stayed that way for several days which was the only good thing about the bitter cold. I thought the sun flare turned out rather interesting.
Friday, January 17, 2025
01/17/25
It's Friday, TGIF! We are heading back into a very cold time so here is a very summer warm feeling image. I captured this Monarch visiting the Zinnias this past summer. I was lucky to see several Monarchs this past year in a year where larger butterflies were not very plentiful. This photo also works well for today because of the bokeh because Friday's Are Bokehlicious!
Thursday, January 16, 2025
Wednesday, January 15, 2025
01/15/25
It's Wildflower Wednesday here on the Blog! I am going to continue on with another of my favorites. This is Wild Columbine or Red Columbine. It's actually in the Buttercup family which was a surprise to me. They bloom in April and May and are often visited by Ruby Throat Hummingbirds and Bumblebees. The name is said to come from the Latin word Aquila, which means eagle, due to the spurs on the petals which look like talons.
Tuesday, January 14, 2025
01/14/25
Today's image is the very first one that I took at the beach of the Atlantic Ocean. I was amazed it came out as well as it did, it was pretty far away but I fortunately had my Zoom lens on. I believe this is the same type of bird as I shared last week, an Osprey, diving for a fish in the water.
Turns out, I was mistaken in my ID, Ospreys hunt with their talons not by diving. Most likely this is a Pelican. There were Pelicans around I know, as I have a future image to share of one.
Thanks for the information to correctly ID this bird Jim!
Monday, January 13, 2025
01/13/25
Happy Monday and happy new week! What a weird one last week with all the snow. Hope we are done with that! I wish I could have brought the Florida weather back with me, it was 75 there! Things were in bloom everywhere including this Mango though I was told they probably would not fruit because you need a male and female and the one had died. The flowers are lovely though I thought.
Sunday, January 12, 2025
01/12/25
It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog! Today's image is from this past show in August at the Western Minnesota Steam Thresher's Reunion. This is the 14 inch Wagner locomotive blowing down so some work could be done to it on one of the steam lines.
Saturday, January 11, 2025
01/11/25
We had quite the snow event this past week. Last Saturday into Sunday it snowed about 15 to 16 inches, the most we have ever had at one time that anyone can remember. We were snowed in for almost 3 days at our house and people in town even longer. They were having to cart snow away from parking lots as there was so much of it, there was no where to push it. It did make for some lovely views though. We had some ice before the snow fell and it was still coating the trees even 4 days later due to the additional extreme cold we were experiencing. This is a view of the trees near my Gazebo pond which I have not been able to get close to due to the drifts.
Friday, January 10, 2025
01/10/25
It's Friday, TGIF! It's been a weird week due to the snow storm we had last Saturday into Sunday. I've had enough to last me quite a while except there were none to photograph. 😒 Anyway, Friday's Are Bokehlicious and today's image is a different type of bokeh. I like bubbly quite a lot but this type is also effect where it smooths out everything quite a bit. This is a Dragonfly I captured on a decorative stake I have in one of my gardens. The grass and leaves behind look very creamy.
Thursday, January 9, 2025
01/09/25
We had quite the snowstorm and cold this past weekend into the week so I need a summery photo as I really miss that. This is a Painted Lady butterfly that I captured on a Zinnia flower back in September.
Wednesday, January 8, 2025
01/08/25
It's Wildflower Wednesday here on the Blog and the first one in a full week of the new year! Continuing on the start of the new year with another favorite of mine, Queen Anne's Lace. It's a very photogenic flower I think and is in the Parsley family. It usually blooms June through September and is a biannual that can be an aggressive invader, it reproduces by seed. It's originally from Eurasia and was imported by early settlers.
Tuesday, January 7, 2025
01/07/25
While I was in Florida, even for the very short time, I had some wonderful opportunities to capture some birds. I saw some up close that usually are very distant for me and also some brand new ones. This is one of the new birds to me, an Osprey. It was flying up the beach right by me and was very cool to see and, even better, be able to capture.
Monday, January 6, 2025
01/06/25
Happy Monday and happy first full week of 2025! Where I was in Florida, the weather was wonderful, it was 75 degrees and there were flowers blooming everywhere, my kind of place as I am very not fond of winter. This image is a Hibiscus that was blooming in the yard of someone I went to see and I thought it was lovely and also a lovely color.
Sunday, January 5, 2025
01/05/25
It's the first Steamy Sunday of 2025! I like to start off the year with my favorite tourist train, the Cumbres & Toltec which runs in Colorado and New Mexico. We have not been for a while now but I have hopes of getting there this summer. Today's image is one I hadn't shared from a Geology Train trip we took years back which was quite interesting and fun. We got to walk through this tunnel and then photograph the train emerging from it which made for some more unique images than you normally would get.
Saturday, January 4, 2025
01/04/25
I took a really quick trip to Florida over the Christmas break, like only about 48 hours in Florida and a lot of that was driving. I was by the eastern coast just south of Orlando so I had to go see the ocean. I had an enjoyable time walking up and down the beach for a couple of miles total I would guess and even walking in the surf a bit, the water was 67 degrees. This was my first view of the ocean, some rain was moving to the northwest pretty far out.
Friday, January 3, 2025
01/03/25
It's Friday, TGIF! Not as excited about Friday this week because it means the last day of my vacation essentially. 😐 Anyway, Friday's are all about bokeh on the Blog. Bokeh is the visual quality of the out of focus area of an image, usually by blurring the background. The term comes from the Japanese word "boke" meaning fuzzy. Bokeh can be a smooth blur but I am very fond of "bubbly" bokeh. I am starting off Friday's Are Bokehlicious! with one of my favorite flowers, Cosmos, which I was trying to be a bit artsy with 😁 , and some bubbly bokeh.
Thursday, January 2, 2025
01/02/25
Today's image is one I was excited to get but disappointed that I did not have my actual camera with me. For several days while we were walking we were treated to seeing an owl. The first couple of days we could just see it fly off but on 2 occasions it sat in a tree where I could try for a photo. I only had my phone with me and, actually, I am a bit impressed it did as well as this as I had to use the telephoto option. I am pretty sure this is a Barred Owl. Owls in general are pretty cool I think and rare to see so this was pretty exciting.
Wednesday, January 1, 2025
01/01/25
Happy New Year! It's a double digit day of course. It's Wildflower Wednesday here on the Blog and the first one of the new year. Starting off with a favorite in an image that reminds of some natural Fireworks. This is a white Echinacea that I have growing over by my large pond. Also known as Coneflowers, these can bloom all summer.