Winter Walk through the Ravine

After a snowfall last week I took a walk through the ravine a block from our house.  I found some beautiful things to take pictures of.  It just shows that you don't have to travel to distant places to get nice photographs.  A local place can be great too.  Just get out and take advantage of various weather conditions in the different seasons.

Christmas Ornaments

 


It seems there is an unlimited variety of Christmas ornaments.  It is fun to try to uniquely capture some of them and then do a little creative work in Photoshop.
 

The Big Hill

I hate to divulge my age, but I have to say that I haven't been sledding in over 40 some years.  I remember a park near our house where I grew up that we would go sledding as kids.  I also remember going to my Grandma's house in Portage, WI for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  There was a very steep hill from the hospital that all of us cousins would tote the toboggan up and take a ride down.  That was some trip!  And a bit dangerous as it was a city street we went down crossing several streets as we went.

Where we live now there is a park across the ravine with a nice hill.  The kids like to go sledding there especially when we have a bit of snow like this year.  The ravine is a nice place to take Sebastian for a walk.  In winter, not too many people take the trail through the woods and so I can let him loose.  He loves to run through the snow.  Last week, I took him down the hill to the ravine and we walked west to the end of the trail and out the ravine. We then headed around the block and walked on the other side of the ravine going east until we reached the park and the snow hill.  It was empty this day, no kids in sight.  On the top of the hill to the right was an orange plastic sled in pieces.  On the left side of the hill was a black sled.  Hmmm....I wondered what was wrong with it that it was left here.  It looked fine.  I looked down the hill and around and could not see anyone who  the sled could belong to.  An urge came over me and I got on the sled and with Sebastian in tow we went down the hill.  It was quite fun.  I decided it needed a second try and so I toted the sled up the hill and this time I let Sebastian loose and went down the hill with him running behind me.  I decided it was worth one more ride and so I went up again for a third ride down the hill.  Then it was time to finish our walk through this end of the ravine and head for home.  Another adventurous and memory jogging day.

The Last Peaches



Ever since I was a toddler I loved peaches.  It started when at the end of each summer my parents would purchase a bushel of Michigan peaches and can them.  They were so good!  I would ask my mom for "peachies."  The problem came when the home supply ran out in the middle of winter.  My parents went to the store and bought some canned peaches for me.  I refused to eat them.  They didn't taste like the good home canned ones.

As time went on, my dad started a garden and had success with many things.  I remember fresh strawberry shortcake and fresh raspberries and blackberries.  We even had a peach tree.  As a teenager I learned to can and to make homemade raspberry and blackraspberry jam.  Yum!

When I was in college, my parents built a house farther out of town on a few acres of land.  My dad had plenty of space for fruit trees.  He experimented with different kinds of apple and pear trees.  Some were good and some not so good.  And there were a couple of peach trees! 

When my dad became sick a few years ago, he couldn't care for the trees any longer.  The trees don't get sprayed in the spring and so the apples and pears are a bit wormy.  There is just one peach tree left.  This year it was loaded with peaches.  They are small, but they are still good.  I took them home and canned some of them and also made peach jam.  As I was doing so, it came back to me how my dad told me how to skin the peaches, how to make the syrup and the correct way to put them in the jars.  And I remembered how I asked my mom for "peachies." 

My parents are now both gone and we will soon be selling their house, so this will be the last of the peaches with many fond memories.

Remembering Mom

It has been a rough couple of weeks.  My mom became ill, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and in less than a week she passed on.  I am glad she did not suffer long.  She is also reunited in heaven with my dad who passed away last October.  We had been going through old pictures this summer.  I am sure glad my mom was interested in photography like I am.  We have a wealth of family pictures to look at and remember events of our lives.  Here is a collage I made to remember my mom.

Simple Kindness

We went for a bike ride on the Kenosha Bike Trail this afternoon and came across a Doggie Oasis that some people made in memory of their two dogs.  What an act of simple kindness.  We stopped so our dog Sebastian could take advantage of it.

Remembering Dad

With it being Father's Day tomorrow, I thought it would be a good idea to post some pictures I have been working on.  When I was little, stereo cameras were a big thing and my parents took a lot of pictures of us.  The only way we have to view them is with a handheld viewer.  They are cool to look at, but the bulbs in the viewer keep blowing out.  What I wanted to do was make digital copies of them to save them as the slide mounts are old and getting fragile.  However, being stereo slides, they will not fit into my slide scanner and sending them out would cost a fortune and I am not sure what shape or order they would be in when I got them back.  So the idea I came up with was to mount my camera with a macro lens attached on an old copy stand I had which would point straight down at any picture I wanted to take an image of.  I then put the slides on a little light box to illuminate them.  It took some time, but I got digital pictures of all the slides.  I could then fix them up in Photoshop Elements.  My brother got involved in helping on this part of it.  I think they turned out quite well and now I can share the pictures with the rest of the family for a keepsake.

Daily Surprises

On the way back to work this afternoon, I screeched to a halt when I saw these two little raccoons playing by the side of the road.  Where is your mother little ones?  Always keep your eyes open as you never know what surprise you will come across.

Close to Home

You don't have to go far to get some nice pictures.  I had fun this morning taking pictures of flowers in my own yard.

It's Not Nice to Fool a Nature Photographer

We were driving to church and my husband suddenly said, "Look, there is a coyote by the pond!" I looked and sure enough, there he was.  I grabbed my camera that I always have in my purse and got out of the car.  I took a quick shot and then carefully moved in closer.  What luck, he didn't move.  I took another shot and then moved closer.  He still didn't move, not a twitch.....hmmm!  So now I move a lot closer and still no movement.  Oh, man, he is a fake!  I should have known, we saw a fake fox my a house up the street from us near a pond.  This is apparently the new thing to keep geese away from people's properties that are near areas that geese like to habituate.  So beware if you see an unexpected fox or coyote.  It's not nice to fool a nature photographer!

Spring is Coming

The weather is still blustery around here, but spring is coming.  I know because I took our dog Sebastian out for a walk today and I heard the birds singing in the trees and there were robins hopping around the ground.  I just finished a book on my favorite bird pictures and this one of a robin was one of the pictures.  It won't be long before eggs are laid and they are hatching.  Can't wait to take baby bird pictures like this one I took a few years ago of a robin's nest.

Winter Days with Snapseed

Playing around with my Snapseed app.

  Sometimes the winter days just feel like this.

Snow Beautiful

Sometimes we look outside and see "bad" weather, but "bad" weather can lead to beautiful pictures.  Here are some pictures I took during our last big snowstorm.  It was wet and heavy and hung to the trees.

 

 

This one I experimented using flash while the snow was falling.  I call it "Snow Fairies."

 

The Green Chair

I saw an old faded green chair at the old church we were photographing in the previous blog.  I moved the chair into place and took a few shots.  At home I experimented with them.  Here are the results:
This is enhanced

 

                                                  This is grunge

 

And this is how I knew I wanted to do it when I saw the green chair.  Everything black and white with a bright green chair.

 

A New Year, New Experiences

I have generally done nature photography, but recently went on a trip to an old abandoned church in Indiana.  It was fun doing something different.  Here are a few images I took using HDR and then I turned them both into black and white.