A new project

These photos were from about a week ago. I just haven't had much time to look through my 'stuff' with so much on my plate.

There was quite the racket outside on our Hickory Tree. I got out my long lens and figured out what all the noise was.

A young red headed woodpecker was clinging to the bark of the tree and 'crying' 'begging' and making a huge racket until the parent showed up to feed it from insects on the bark or from something it brought from the bird feeder 20 feet away.

Below is a young Grosbeak ????? Maybe???? I didn't catch it in the bird bath splashing around, but I did catch it in the pine tree shaking itself off.

This goldfinch was pilfering sunflower seeds. Actually, I planted them there so the goldfinches would come and eat them. They are fun to watch doing antics as they pick out seeds.

I imagine they may even reseed for me.

I had to remove the Oriole feeder a week ago. The oranges attracted bees. Not the nice kind of bees that I want near my porch. They are still around and I imagine they will be migrating very soon.

This was a lazy shot. I was watching out the window to see the bee activity when I thought I'd try a shot through the window and screen.

I like the 'soft' filter it gave to the blue bachelor button. It was like adding an Orton Glow to the photo without any post process.

So as I was going through my shots from over a week ago, I glanced up and saw our Grandbaby Rory on our Frameo. She was looking at a big beautiful purple flower.

20 years ago I made a little book for Ariel with drawings, colors, plants, and flowers. A very simple to read book.

At that time I just used a printer and then put the pages in a binder. It was a great project for me.

And boom.

What about one for Rory? Flowers, insects, and birds? Wouldn't that be fun?

I mean I could do it for myself too. I did little books for my other grandkids with the adventures of Morris who they interacted with quite a bit.

If nothing else, it would be a great project to put together as I am also doing one of hubby. 

I use Blurb as my project books for photos. There may be cheaper places to do it, but so far I've had really good luck with using Blurb.

I came, I saw, I Blewit

Starting in late August through October if we are not in a drought, it is prime time for mushrooms and a celebration of strange and colorful fungi.

Someone asked me what got me so interested in mushrooms. My simple answer was that I'd seen them and decided I'd like to photograph them.

I like being curious. When I'd find wildflowers, I'd photograph them and take them home to compare to an ID book. Mushrooms and slime molds became fun to find and fascinating to photo. It is like an alien world.

I took these with my cellphone as it seems to adjust to the light better than the camera. They are small. The one below was just emerging from the mix of dirt and sand below it. 

 

I also found what seems to be a hard plant to find. I've only found 6 in all the years I've been hiking. They are not generally seen right next to a trail. I just love their leaves and design. I've seen one in flower one time.

Rattlesnake Plantain:

I also brought along a couple of minifigs. They like to travel and hike with me of course. I found a perfect spot to place the Monkey King.

Last but not least.

I thought I found a Blewit Mushroom

Such a beautiful blue color! So different! I've found them once before in this general area and am always amazed by their color and beauty.

4 years ago in the same general area I found these. 

They are so startling. Another time I found remnants of them as someone else had walked along and kicked all of them to smithereens. 

I do wish people would just admire these beautiful mushrooms and leave them alone.

I looked into the Blewit mushroom and found that these really didn't quite fit the description. Perhaps they could be a fungi known as Indigo Inky.

So I may have blown the ID years ago, but that doesn't stop me for looking for these each year along this section of trail.

Finally.

Monday night was particularly stressful with my duties as a Caregiver. My 'patient' woke up at 1AM and I was able to get him back to bed around 3:30. I never got back to sleep. Around 4 I gave up trying to sleep and made a decision.

For my mental attitude [which would be rotten and evil without a good night's sleep], I ditched the plan of running errands. When Respite turned up, I left with my backpack and bug spray. I was going to take some serious quiet time.

Last year I hike 1,000 + miles at the Kickapoo Valley Reserve and other County Parks nearby. Imagine the change I've adjusted to. I haven't gone on a real hike since May 15th. Imagine my withdrawals from Hiking. It was as bad as I would imagine a withdrawal from a drug!

Our area has received a lot of rain. Monday, some areas received over 2 inches or more and the Kickapoo River was rising. Not much of a flood, but the river had seeped into quite a few hay fields and pastures.

I decided to take my feet to the Wintergreen Trail. It is interesting enough and short enough so I can casually hike and look around.

I always make a stop at the 'lookout' and peer down at the river below. It is easy access and only a few minutes from the Visitor Center. 

On nice weekends, this is a busy trail. I choose not to go during those times for obvious reasons.

The trails were reported as muddy and buggy, so I didn't think I'd find anyone else along the way. I was right. I had the place to myself.
And one mosquito found me in a very wet area where the trail goes through weeds and flowers that where waist high.

The shot below is near the end of the trail which stops on the top of a bluff. There is no magical view of the river, but you can watch it and listen to it between the Pines and Hemlocks.

This may be one of my favorite places to stop and just sit for a while. 

I hiked the whole trail to the dead end quickly so I could see if I could find cool and interesting fungi. Then, I took my time returning to the car, walking slowly to peer at every mushroom, interesting tree, and view of the river.

This is another shot I take every single time I hike this trail. I look for this tree that seems to point the way. 

Of course, I did take the Minime and Charlie along as well as a couple other characters. 

Here we found tiny seedlings of pines growing on an obscure part of the bluff. This is off trail so hopefully no careless hiker will trample them.

[Don't look too closely at the minifigs face...how in the heck did a real Charlie hair get stuck on the minifig's face?]

The spot we found the seedlings is right next to the rocks that are evident in the photo.

I'm going to save the cool fungi and other photos not from my cellphone on another post. This morning I am running out of time between chores and our 'date' with Steve for an adventure. 

With all the rain we've had and areas of muddy water, the fishing won't be great so we may just do a drive and a lunch day. 

Rich looks forward to these weekly outings more than anything else right now. 

This Challenge....

Manual focusing with a Lensbaby lens. The following shots were taken with a Lensbaby Sweet 50. What the heck is that?

Well the lens itself is odd looking because you can change the place of focus. Choosing your aperture and place of focus is a challenge. Most lenses are static, they stay in place and you focus on what you want composing your photo with a fair amount of ease.

The Lensbaby Sweet 50 looks like this. You can swivel the lens about to change the spot of focus you wish to have. The one pictured is a Sweet 35. To the right of the shot you can see the apertures that can be picked for shooting.

The lens can be locked in place so your focus point is in the middle or slightly off center. The smaller the aperture, the smaller the point of focus.

Why on earth would anyone want to monkey with something like this? This is considered an 'art' lens. It allows the photographer to step out of their comfort zone. The lens can create unique affects inside the camera. Meaning, no after processing needed in most cases.

The shots can create dreamy bokeh with dreamy distortions...or produce unusual effects in camera.
 

I shot this crab spider on a white moss rose. The focus was moved by me to try and catch this little spider crawling around on the petals. Was it easy? Oh heck no!

It wouldn't have been easy with any lens at all. It took me several tries and a lot of patience to get this one shot. I shot it at f 2.5 which didn't give me a whole lot of focus room. But I liked the challenge.

Here is another example. A spent sunflower in black and white.

I went to a larger aperture and backed away from the flower to capture just the flower in focus. I could have done this one with any lens, but I wanted to practice with this one.

These are a few of the other shots I felt worth keeping after walking around with this odd contraption on my Olympus camera. 

I used focus peaking which works most of the time to see what exactly was in focus. Not every shot came out as expected. 

This is an alphalfa flower blooming in a hay field.

A beautiful blue Chicory flower.

Highbush Cranberries

Nasturtium, ready to open.

In this shot, I shifted the focus slightly to the right on this oak tree. I wanted to show how the focus shifts and the areas around are 'blurred'. 

I'm fairly sure that this beloved tree will disappear once the loggers get to it. 

Sunshine walking past some Vervain flowers in her pasture. [Yes, she still needs a hair cut and a few burrs pulled from her mane]

Fishy Fishy Fishy

Wednesday was Fish Fishy day. Steve introduced us to a friend of his who has a float on the Mississippi River. He picks people up at a designated place and then transports them to the float [think like a floating barge] on the river. So we had to drive across the Mississippi bridge to Iowa and back to Prairie duChien for fishing at the dock that is wheel chair accessible.

The guys couldn't think of a way to safely get Rich into a boat from a steep bank and then climb a ladder on to the float. That would have been the best thing for catching fish but we decided on going back to the handicapped dock near a marina to do our fishing.

Steve thought ahead as usual and brought a table umbrella to keep the hot sun off from Rich. It wasn't as hot and humid as most days have been this summer and the umbrella really helped quite a bit.

The two shots below are photos taken from the back seat while crossing the river.

 

The scenery wasn't that exceptional at the dock by the marina, but we had quite a few people stop by to chat with us.

I wandered around and took shots as I was mesmerized by the reflections of the clouds and trees in the water that showed up so differently in Infrared than in regular light.

I am THAT kid in grade school art class that drew trees with purple leaves and sometimes orange skies with a black sun. Of course that disturbed my art teacher who complained to my father. My father got very irritated with said teacher and told her that she shouldn't make all kids see the world through HER eyes.

He then asked if she knew that some children saw the world differently than adults did?

I'll never forget how proud I was of my dad then. I knew he had my back...always. He was an artist of some note himself and understood creative minds.

The three shots above are all favorites of mine. There is pure joy in seeing the world in other light spectrums.

The 'boys' caught enough for us to have a meal. Holy Cow! Steve cleaned them for us and what a wonderful meal we had Thursday night.

On the way home from fishing, I snapped more IR shots out the back seat window.

It was fun to do. While Steve drives and chats with Rich, I look out the window and enjoy being driven around. After all, I've been THE driver for 10 years now. 

The shot below is fascinating to me. If you leave Prairie duChien by one of the back roads, you drive by some interesting spots...

What stories does this wrecked houseboat have to tell? Steve asked if he should stop the car so I could get out and really shoot. [What a good friend!] 
I didn't need to...

And then we went past this large boat. Was it a boat house was it a a tug? I have no idea. However, it looked to be the perfect place to have a spook house. ...Errrr, spook boat!

We couldn't have asked for a nicer day. Sun, not too hot, clouds, a slight breeze, and good company.

And a happy Fisherman.

...and off we went....

Who needs sleep?

Sleeping is a thing we are supposed to do.

It reenergizes you for the next day. 

I am an cyclical sleeper.

This means I can sleep like a log for quite a few nights and then I am wide awake... or wake up and can't get back to sleep on other nights.

As a child I never had this problem. Maybe it is because my brain decides to be overactive and have its own clock. Or maybe it is my age.

Or maybe it is hubby in the other room waking up at all odd hours and sitting with the light on. I'll get up and check on him [I can see him from my bed in the living room].

1:30AM

"What's up?"

"I dunno. Can't sleep." 

I watch him for a bit and note the struggle he is having. We aren't talkers in the middle of the night. More like 'grunters'.  Sometimes his meds seem to make him wakeful at night. It is a killer for me on those nights I sleep like a child.

At 3 AM he asked to get dressed. I helped him. 

Lucky me! 

I remembered that the Perseid Meteor Showers were supposed to be peaking. I got hubby dressed and warmed him up a cup of coffee. Then I trotted outside and stood in the yard. I watched the NE sky and suddenly saw a 'falling star'. 

I went back in and made his coffee for him as well as my decafe. 

"Whatchya doin'?"

I held up a tripod and camera. Why pass up a sleepless night? May as well make good use of it.

The moon was very bright so the meteor shower wouldn't be as evident with the naked eye. 

Below is our place among the few pines we have and a star trail of 15 minutes. The horizontal streaks are more than likely satellites?

The bathroom night light showed up through the windows of the house. The ghostly smudge in the driveway [bottom right] is me walking out with a cup of decafe.

I pointed the camera to the NE a bit better and tried shooting over our shed.

On the left there is a streak that starts, stops, and then continues. I think I am pretty sure that was a meteor!

Cool beans.

I don't know if the other streaks were also meteors, but I can pretend they were.

By the time 5AM rolled around, it was getting to be foggy. I had run back and forth to the house to pour hubby his coffee and to make him his breakfast. The camera was on a timer and did its thing without me.

I took 5 15 minute LiveComp shots and decided on these two. 

The last shot was a quick one as the skies lightened. In this shot, there was an airplane flying over the house.

By 7, hubby was ready for his morning nap. I helped him to bed and adjusted his 02 hoses. Charlie and I piled into the car [in my PJ's!] and drove to my favorite spot to watch the sun come up.

The sun was already up and shining, however we had valley fog which is amazing to see too.

My first glimpse of the ridge didn't seem to promising...

but as I got higher on the ridge, it looked more and more scenic.

I parked at the cattle gates to a large pasture and stepped out with Charlie. I did a little happy dance and enjoyed the views.

The sun came up a bit higher...and the trees started to glow.

I really really ...really

do miss my morning walks and drives on the ridgetops the landscape always leaves me a bit breathless even after all of these years.

Ahhh, and finally, there IT was...

...and in black and white...

I couldn't decide which shot I liked best.

I do love this land that I call home. 

I promised myself I'd go back to bed and take a nap when I got home.

But.

There were chores to do, tanks to fill, lunch to make because today is Wednesday and that means Fishing/Adventure Day for hubby. He looks forward to it so much that I can't tell him I am too tired.

So here we go....!