Month: December 2023

a second look, attitude adjustments, backyard visitors, birds, coping, facing facts, Florida wildlife, nature, perseverance, photography, reality check

In the backyard…

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There are times that I look out the sliding glass doors and see nothing going on out back. No squirrels, no doves, nobody on the feeders. And then there are times, like this morning, when I look out to see an entire flock of redwing blackbirds in the air, and all trying to descend on the feeders at the same time. I was surprised, and delighted, to see them when they first showed up last year. They were welcome guests when they came a few at a time and stayed long enough for me to take a few pictures and then left, for a few hours at least. Taking pictures, after all, was the main reason I put up the feeders. Now they are eating us out of house and home. I’m not kidding, an entire woodpecker cylinder that I put up on Christmas Day was gone on Friday morning, requiring yet another trip to Wild Birds Unlimited. The clerk was sympathetic to my frustration with the blackbirds, and says she hears this from customers all the time. When I spotted an adorable feeder hanging up, the last one of course, she said that she hung one in her yard and the little birds use it but the bigger birds can’t seem to negotiate it. She already had me when she said that it was the last one, so of course I bought it. What I need to do now is buy stock in Wild Birds Unlimited.

We started buying woodpecker cylinders when we saw that we had woodpeckers visiting the feeders. It turned out that all the birds love those things, maybe it’s the easy access to the seeds. Here’s Mrs. Redbelly, waiting her turn.
Mr. Redbelly shoos everyone else away, at least for a few minutes.
I see far fewer cardinals since the blackbirds have come around. They used to be the birds I saw most often. I actually got tired of taking pictures of them. So I was happy to see this one.
And here is the new addition, which the tufted titmouse found pretty quickly.

The feature photo is a Carolina wren, a surprise to see on this chilly morning. As long as the little birds keep showing up I guess I’ll just have to tolerate the less polite varieties of birds also.

I noticed this hawk out on the snag in the distance. He must have spotted something for lunch because he didn’t stay long.
birds, Christmas on the brain, connections, Cranes, Florida wildlife, in the neighborhood, nature, perseverance, photography, Rise and shine, sunrise

Merry Christmas…

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The weather app said mostly cloudy and 56 degrees. But a peek out my back windows showed me a bit of pink in the sky so out I went.

This picture was only a few minutes after I got to the park, the color was intensifying quickly.
And in just another few minutes the color was fading, and it was light enough for me to see that the birds were visiting again.
As much as I would love to have the sandhill cranes nesting here I’m worried about all the people nearby. I know that me walking down along the lake caused the cranes to take notice. I only stopped for a second to take a picture and moved on.

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas this morning. These pictures are from Christmas Eve, when it was a nice morning. The weather app says 85% chance of rain on Christmas, so I’ll probably be snuggled up warm and cosy tomorrow morning. Hope all of you are enjoying the magic of Christmas too!

a second look, attention to detail, attitude adjustments, brainstorms, fantasy images, fun, Just do it, leap of faith, nature, perseverance, photography

Playing favorites…

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Yes, I really was playing favorites today, but it started with the new Apple Watches that Bernie and I bought each other for Christmas. I suggested that that would be a good gift for each other, but my ulterior motive was the health and safety features that are built into the new watches these days. Not for me of course, I conveniently forget just how old I am as I tra-la my way through my days, I just wanted a new toy. I found that I didn’t particularly like the watch faces available, except for Snoopy who was quite entertaining, but I couldn’t read the time on the screen without my cheaters on. But I saw that you can get your own photos to be your watch faces, but the problem with that turned out to be that it only uses the photos that you designated as ‘favorites’. That’s a feature I used when I first started taking pictures but I hadn’t used it in years, so I was disappointed in the pictures that were coming up on the watch. They were pretty bad, even though at the time I was tickled pink with them. So today I banished those photos out of favorites, but not out of the phone. And I had fun choosing newer pictures to designate as favorites, choosing them knowing that the time display would be in the lower right corner. I tried taking pictures of the watch with my phone, while it was on me, not one of my better ideas. But have no fear, your watch can take a screen shot. So today I played favorites, it was fun.

I’m probably the last person on earth to figure this stuff out, but that’s okay, at least I did it.

a second look, attitude adjustments, blessings, Christmas on the brain, connections, coping, family, finding my way, fun, growing old, healing, let it go, life, life goes on, making memories, nothing's easy, perseverance, photography, simple things

Remembering my mother…

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We made angel ornaments together, my mother and I. She came to visit at Thanksgiving and stayed until Christmas. It was my idea, but when I suggested it I was kidding. My daughter and family, which included her first great-grandchild, would also be visiting for both holidays that year, so it was going to be especially fun. When my mother called back a few days later and said that yes, she would come and stay, I had my doubts. Our relationship had never been an easy one and that was a lot of time to fill. But together we visited many Christmas venues, searching for the right homemade ornament to copy, always an angel, and when we found it we would buy one. Then while I was at work all day my mother would deconstruct the ornament and make a pattern for us to follow. We shopped for fabrics and trims, and laughed at the kitty who would sit on the table and watch us sewing with a frown on her face. It turned out to be the most enjoyable visit ever, which is why she did it several more years in a row. I’m grateful for these memories, so glad my mother and I found our way together.

An earring tree from Hobby Lobby, all decked out for Christmas with buttons as frames for pictures of her great-grandchildren, and a battery powered necklace with Christmas lights that would twinkle.

Eventually my mother had to go into a nursing home and my sister and I would try to think up a way to create a ‘tree’ for her room every Christmas. This was one of them, and after she died I took this one home with me. I had to buy a new string of lights for it this year. It brings back good memories as it sits, twinkling on my desk, all these years later.

'scene' along the way, Florida landmarks, friends, fun, moments, nature, perseverance, photography, sunset

Just in time…

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I thought we’d miss the sunset. Traffic was awful. We would barely make it to the restaurant to meet with friends on time, I thought. But our last stretch of road gave us this view.

Charming town, Dunedin. During daylight savings we came earlier and stopped at a waterside restaurant to enjoy the view and have a beer on the way to the meeting.
Two hardy souls watching the sunset on this chilly night.

Photoshop generative fill allowed me to remove the side mirror of the car from this last picture. It did such a good job that I decided to remove a trash can also. Nice evening.

'scene' along the way, a second look, attention to detail, attitude adjustments, birds, brainstorms, Florida wildlife, in the neighborhood, nature, perseverance, photography

Monday, Monday…

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It crossed my mind this morning, that with the cloudy weather we’ve had lately that maybe those clouds would light up for the sunrise. So off I went. But it turned out that I was a bit early, and also underdressed. My sweatshirt wasn’t quite warm enough, at 50-something degrees, and I had a half an hour to go.  And the color was fading even as I sat there so I headed home, vowing to take another picture from the backyard if it got pretty. It didn’t.

I was still hopeful, if freezing, at this point.
That nice star, the only one I could see, got me thinking that maybe we ought to come and sit on that bench at night and try to take some star trails pictures from there.
I could see that there were two big white birds down the end of the lake, but I didn’t walk down for this picture to see them really, I was wondering about the sand hill cranes that have been down there at night lately. No cranes were there, but the white birds that I assumed were egrets, which are everywhere, turned out to be wood storks. The second time I’ve seen them there but there was only one last time. 

So good morning from me to you. This was also an experiment to see if WordPress was behaving itself this morning. It was.