Scavenger Hunt Sunday 2-26-12

Did you miss me last week? I decided to take a week off of the scavenger hunt. I just wasn't feeling inspired. Part of it was the weather, part of it was just a feeling of lack of creativity. I am back in full swing this week. I hope this continues the rest of the year!

It was my birthday yesterday, I wont tell you how old I am, old enough that is for sure. I had a great Birthday with 2 of my 3 children, my wonderful son-in-law Mike, daughters Jess and Courtney and the 2 cutest and sweetest Grandchildren in the world, Kileigh and Ethan. I celebrated my day on Friday as well with Kim and her family. What a great Birthday, thanks so much everyone. I love you all! Anyway, here are the prompts for this weeks Scavenger Hunt:

1. Crossed
2. A Glimpse
3. Handwritten
4. Bliss
5. Gray

CROSSED

Little Junco sitting right where the branches crossed.

A GLIMPSE

I caught a glimpse of this Hawk on the side of the road before he flew away.

HANDWRITTEN

Part of my Birthday card from Mike, Jess and Ethan

BLISS

Spending time in surroundings like this, to me, is Bliss!

GRAY

Enough said.

I Heart Macro 2-26-12

Hi everyone. I hope you are all doing well. This winter seems to be dragging on and on, even though it has been fairly mild. Its still winter! We got several inches of snow this past week, so at least it was pretty outside. I dont know about you, but if it is going to be freezing cold out there, I would rather have some pretty snow too look at instead of the dreary bare ground. On Friday, Kim and I along with daughter Jess and Grandbaby Ethan met at our local coffee shop for some breakfast/lunch, hot tea or beverage of choice and conversation. Kims 2 boys Ben and Sam came a little later in the day to join Kim and I on a nature walk. We learned it is much more difficult to walk in 6 or so inches of snow than it is on bare ground! We were all a little more tired than usual after this outing. Have a wonderful week! Thanks for dropping by! Now, on to the pictures....

I Love the light on this grass, simple but pretty.

 Ice

 Frozen droplets on a twig.

 See the trees reflected in the water droplet?

Leaves and berries

Like the bokeh in this one.

P52 Week 8 Cabin Fever

The topic for this weeks P52 challenge is "Cabin Fever". This has been a very mild winter for Wisconsin, so cabin fever hasn't been much of an issue this year. We have had very little snow and fairly mild temperatures so I havent been too cooped up. When I do get cabin fever, I like to go and spend some time out in nature. This is a shot at one of my favorite places to go. You just never know what you will see, from geese, to deer and even an occasional bald eagle! Its a little slice of heaven.

CABIN FEVER

I Heart Macro 2-19-12

What a week! We had beautiful weather this week for Wisconsin. We even had a couple of days in the 40;s and lots of sun. I had 3 whole days out in nature, and not much to show for it as far as macro shots go. Everything is pretty rough looking, gray and dried out. I did get to play with some roses I received on Valentines day, so at least I have a few macro shots to show you! I hope spring is here soon, I am running out of things to shoot. Have a wonderful week.

 I dont know what makes these patterns in wood, I am assuming a worm or beetle of some kind. Amazing!

 A spot of brightness in an otherwise gray world.

 Little toadstools that survived the winter.

Burrs with pretty lighting.

 Love the spots of bright green fungus

 Grass

Woodpecker hole

And last but not least, the Roses!

 Interesting the effect you get just laying a rose on a mirror.

P52 Week 7 "True Love"

I know, it is Valentines week and I should be posting a picture of a human "True Love". I already celebrated my human true loves on Tuesday, so I thought I would honor another non-human True Love. This is my boy Maddux. He is 7 1/2 years old and is a black Chinese Shar Pei. He is so special to me. He has never hurt my feelings, made me mad, talked back to me, ignored me or deserted me when I needed him. If you have never known the true love of a dog, you are really missing out on something special. Maddux knows when I need to laugh, knows when I need comfort or a shoulder to cry on. He is a great ear when I need to vent, he is adorable and so smart. When I ask him who he loves most in the whole world, I kid you not, he says "MAMA".

Scavenger Hunt Sunday 2-12-12

It is already almost Sunday and time for another fun-filled Scavenger Hunt! I am really having a good time with these weekly photo challenges I am participating in. This one especially, makes me think outside the box and use the creative side of my brain to match up pictures with the set weekly prompts of the scavenger hunt. This weeks weather didn't allow for much time outside with a camera, so I had to use 1 picture from my archives and take a few new ones to fit the hunt prompts. With no further delay, here are the items needed for the scavenger hunt!

1. Facial Feature
2. Shadow
3. Spicy
4. Gold
5. Fabric

Here are my photos!

FACIAL FEATURE

Grandson Ethans eye!

SHADOW

Snickerdoodle cookies and their shadows. 6 more weeks of Winter??

SPICY

Jalapeno peppers, yes the waiter at the restaurant looked at me a little strange when I snapped this shot.

GOLD

Came across this sweet Golden colored horse while out on a drive. Beautiful!

FABRIC

I hope this picture of my rug counts as fabric? It is made of wool after all!

                                                      

I Heart Macro 2-12-12

Its time for another episode of "I HEART MACRO".  It is getting to be slim pickings out there in nature! I am having a harder time finding anything worthwhile to snap. I keep telling everyone it is all my fault that we havent gotten much snow here in Wisconsin. One of my main goals with photography was to be able to take close up pictures of snowflakes with a macro lens. I got my macro lens in the fall anticipating a wonderful Wisconsin winter of snow snow snow. Man, was I wrong! I dont think we have had more that 2 snowfalls this winter, 1 of which was really little sleet balls instead of actual flakes! Well, what can you do? So, here are more pictures of fungus, leaves, moss etc like I have been posting for weeks now!

Golden pod of some kind.

Sticker Burrs

 This fungus almost looks like a flower against the snow.

Another fungus

 Moss with growth?

 I thought the green of the moss was striking against the white of the snow.

Pretty light through a pretty damaged leaf.

Your Sunday Best

The weather has been a bit rough for photography here in Wisconsin! Who would have thought that on a miserable day with temperatures in the single digits, blowing and drifting snow, it  would have turned out to be a great day to snap some nature pics? Not me that's for sure! Started the day at our local coffee shop with sister-in-law Kim, we had some Peppermint Mocha and a cream cheese brownie. It was a short get together because of a sick kid and school getting out, but I was still in the mood to go on a short photo shoot. I drove out to a rural park on the river and saw 100's of geese in a corn field with the heavy snow swirling around them. Just as I rolled my window down, a bunch of the geese took off, flying over the field. I luckily had my camera ready, here is the shot I took out of my window! My favorite shot of the week.

P52 Week 6 2-10-12

Well, first off I have to admit I skipped out on week 5. The subject for that weeks P52 was Shadow. I didnt have anything at all to use for this prompt. I went out to shoot something for it, and just wasnt happy with any of the shots I got, so I had to admit defeat and just not participate! Not so this week! The photo prompt was "Drink up". This I can do! Here is a photo of the Peppermint Mocha I had today when Kim and I went to the coffee shop. It was short but sweet, and I had a great time as always. I was only in the teens today, windy and blowing snow so we decided to skip out on our usual photo session and just get together for coffee, lunch and visiting!

DRINK UP!

Yummy!!

Your Sunday Best

Thought I would try a new photo challenge this week. This one is called "Your Sunday Best" where you post your favorite photo of the week. Not sure this one is my favorite, but I do think its pretty. We had some wild weather this week and all the trees and plants were covered in white. I went for a drive with Grandbaby Kileigh and we came upon this tree coated in white. It is pretty much a natural black and white.

I Heart Macro 2-5-12

Everything was covered in white! Not snow either. I know it is not a macro shot, but I wanted you to get the idea of what I was talking about.

Icy Berries 1

 Icy Berries 2

 Queen Anns Lace is beautiful even in the winter!

Wild Lavendar

Flower Remnants

 Snowy Grass

Frozen Droplets

What a week! We had some crazy weather this past week. Wednesday and Thursday here is Wisconsin, we had extremely heavy fog that also left heavy white slushy stuff on all the trees and plants. You will have to forgive my terminology, I don't know the exact weather term for this, so white slushy stuff is what it will be known as for now! All I know, is that it was beautiful! I went driving around Thursday and took some pictures to show you. I loved the fog/white combo, so pretty and fun to see. Then on Friday, Kim and I met for a couple hours, we then headed out to "The Spot" for some photo action. Saturday, we met again for coffee/breakfast/lunch and a nature walk/photo shoot with her boys. I Hope you have a wonderful week, thank you for stopping buy!